Chapter 309: The Sword of Darkness

"The Perfect Fractal lens should have recorded the battle between me and the Bell Ringers, right?"

Wang Yu turned to ask Avia a question as the Chariot's power returned from the void and flowed back into his body.

"Yes," she nodded. "Everything's been recorded—including the dark realm that space led to. Since it was encased in the Chariot's power, the Perfect Fractal lens wasn't affected by whatever force erases existence."

Avia was currently sorting through the data captured by the spell—scenes of that black domain, glimpses of the returning god, and the Bell Ringers of the Lightless Order.

"I've never heard of that name before," she added, frowning. "But based on what they said, it sounds like the cult must have existed back when the God of Eternal Night still walked the world. If that's true, then it's likely a secret society long buried in the shadows of history."

She sifted through her memories, searching for even the faintest connection to the "Lightless Order," but found nothing.

"Same here," said Sieg. "I've never heard of such an organization, at least not from my time on the continent."

And if both these two scholars were unfamiliar with the name, Wang Yu stood no chance of knowing it himself.

As for the Lady of the Night, her memories only extended back to the time when she still lingered in Selwyn's folklore. Strictly speaking, she hadn't even lived as long as Sieg.

"We should inform Emmon and the others. It's likely the cult will strike again. Though I wrecked two of those Bell Ringers while controlling Emmon's body, I'm not sure I actually killed them," Wang Yu muttered, shaking his head.

Trouble followed him wherever he went. Sieg had the Church of Dragonkind to deal with, and now the Lady of the Night had this Lightless Order that seemed hell-bent on wiping out all her followers. Fortunately, they were in Skyborne City now—one of the few places where only the most exceptional could cause trouble.

"Lady Darkness," Wang Yu asked, turning to the goddess, "what about the divine power that awakened within you? Is it still growing?"

The incident with the Lightless Order and Emmon's possession was momentarily over, at least for the time being. That said, they still had to check on the Lady of the Night's condition. If that deific force was still spreading, they might have to enact the contingency plan they'd discussed earlier.

"That power is gone," she said, her voice calm. "It's no longer growing within the Tree of the Night. But it left something behind—something I recognize. I've felt it before from my Nightblade followers."

She projected an image of the Tree of the Night before them. The pure blackness that once clung to its branches had vanished. The starlight twinkled as it always had, resplendent and unhindered.

But around the tree, new things had appeared. Black birds circled the great tree, orbiting the starlit boughs in slow, spiraling loops.

"Marks of Heaven's Gloom?"

Wang Yu recognized those black marks that had once been etched into the followers of the Nightblades and which were apparently linked to the God of Eternal Night. They had appeared once more. Could those marks and the mental corruption they had "erased" fled into the Lady of the Night?

"Most likely," she answered. "This energy no longer belongs to anyone, but I can command them. And they... resonate well with me."

She raised a hand, fingers curling in a beckoning motion. The circling birds dove toward the tree. They gathered, perched, and clung to the bark, before slipping one by one through a small rift in space and flowing into her grasp.

A sword took shape in her hand. Long and pitch-black, it looked like a standard military longsword—but it reflected no light. It cast no shadow. It was as though she held not a weapon, but the void in the shape of a blade.

"A blade of darkness?"

He had seen many uncanny things in this world, and this sword felt much the same.

"What does it do?" he asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Can I have something you don't need?" The Lady of the Night tilted her head and stretched out a hand.

Avia snapped her fingers and pulled out a fist-sized lump of half-melted slag from a Gate of Phases, then handed it over.

The goddess tossed the slag into the air. Then, wielding the Sword of Darkness with all the grace of someone completely untrained, she swung it upward in an awkward arc.

The slag fell through the sword's edge and vanished into the void-like material. It disappeared entirely, as if it hadn't been there in the first place.

"It's a power like that which awakened within me," she explained. "It reduces things to a state of 'non-existence.'"

As she spoke, the sword in her hand shrank and became a short dagger.

Wang Yu raised an eyebrow. Enveloping his right hand in the Chariot's power, he reached toward the space where the slag had vanished—and closed his fingers around something invisible.

He had grabbed hold of a chunk of slag that didn't exist. It was a strange sensation. He couldn't see, hear, or feel it. The implication of the sword's power was terrifying. Someone she hit might just vanish from reality altogether.

"Well... that's about all for now," Wang Yu said. "We'll gather what intel we can here in Skyborne City—maybe dig up something on the Lightless Order. In the meantime, you focus on the plan we discussed."

He turned to the Lady of the Night, his expression serious.

"Are you really prepared to protect the identity of ‘Darkness', even if it means you have to lose all your power?"

"Mm."

The Lady of the Night gave a small, resolute nod.

"Good. That's just like you. If anything changes, contact us immediately."

Wang Yu smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

That was all Wang Yu and the others could do with regards to what had happened to the Lady of the Night. They would continue to observe her and attempt to gather more information, but that was it.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

They also used the Prayer Network to contact Elliot and the others to confirm that the devotees of the Church of Nightfall had made it out of the phantom town of Myssos safely. The fog that had risen up from the Endless Sea had vanished without a trace after Wang Yu defeated the two Bell Ringers soundly in battle.

Meanwhile, there was a ruckus in Aleisterre and the various human kingdoms as the Heaven's Gloom markers suddenly stopped functioning. It looked as though Aleisterre wasn't the only one who had taken advantage of the relics of the God of Eternal Night.

Under the cooperation of the army and the Nightblades, the resulting ruckus was quickly quashed. Most of the Nightblades had already switched to the Prayer Network, so the issue with the Heaven's Gloom markers hadn't been debilitating.

After contacting the current leader of the Nightblades, Charles, Wang Yu received a grumbled promise that a compiled dossier on the prison in the Abyssal Depths and the Heaven's Gloom markers would be delivered to them soon.

And with those immediate matters settled, Wang Yu and the others resumed their work in Skyborne City. No matter the circumstances, none of them could afford to slack off. They had to grow stronger to take on the challenges awaiting them in the future.

Several weeks later, Wang Yu, Sieg, and Avia walked through the streets of Skyborne City as they made their way toward the towering spire that stood at the very heart of the city.

"You'd think that for spellcasters, upgrading your citizenship status wouldn't require a combat trial," Wang Yu remarked, shrugging. "Feels like a bit of a contradiction, doesn't it?"

He was referring to one of Skyborne City's more baffling rules regarding status advancement.

Avia and Sieg were about to undergo an identity advancement assessment. Skyborne City operated on a five-tier civic ranking system: Citizen → Scholar → Mentor → Professor → Sage.

The promotion from Citizen to Scholar only required passing a test of ability at the Tower of the Scholar. Beyond that, further advancement demanded genuine scholarly achievement: research of sufficient caliber to be accepted into the city's Grand Archive and evaluated by the Central Assembly.

There was technically another rank above Sage, but it was restricted solely to the true rulers of Skyborne City: the councilmembers of the Central Assembly.

Icarus's research on hypermagic, according to his estimates, would be significant enough that even peripheral contributors like Wang Yu could be directly elevated to the Mentor tier.

But their goal today was more modest. Sieg and Avia were aiming for the rank of Scholar, which would grant them access to the city's public archives housed within the central tower.

Even if it was "public" information, Skyborne City had accumulated so much knowledge over the years that what was publicly accessible was already a treasure trove for Avia and Sieg.

"The trial by combat probably dates back to when the city was founded," Avia offered. "Back then, during that age of war and upheaval, Skyborne City was built as the ultimate weapon of war before it ever became a sanctuary of knowledge," Avia guessed. The Scholar trial involved both a written examination and a simulated battle.

They continued to chat as they walked toward the base of the central tower of Skyborne City, which was over 400 meters tall. To Wang Yu, it resembled a massive skyscraper from a metropolitan skyline.

The central tower was divided into three main aspects: the Tower of the Scholar, the Tower of Machinery, and the Tower of Perpetuity, each representing one of the city's core pillars. Today, they were headed to the Tower of the Scholar, where all advancement exams were held.

The tower bustled with traffic. Countless scholars and aspirants came and went. After verifying their identities and confirming their reservations, Avia and Sieg proceeded to their examination.

Wang Yu, meanwhile, found himself a seat in the first-floor lounge of the tower, a waiting area designed for the examinees' companions. He had no doubt that Avia and Sieg would pass with ease.

Browsing the bookshelves that walled off the lounge walls, he found mostly assorted essays, commentaries, and light monographs. He pulled out a volume whose title caught his eye—one of those odd, bloated titles that tried to cram everything in.

"The Greatest Alchemist, Merlin; The Greatest Wizard, Roland; The Greatest Magician, Sulla; The Greatest Chef: Geiger... Now that's a long title," Wang Yu muttered aloud, trying to make sense of the author's intentions. "What is this, a name-drop gimmick to sell a bunch of nonsense under the guise of greatness?"

He was especially baffled by the inclusion of a chef alongside legends of magic. What kind of deranged author would group people with such wildly different specialties together?

Still, he couldn't deny that the absurd title had piqued his curiosity. Surely this book wouldn't be some kind of scandalous tell-all about Roland's romantic escapades, right?

Just as he opened to the first page—before even reading a single line—Wang Yu sensed something behind him with his ever-active Chariot.

He turned his head. On the bookshelf, nestled among the tomes, sat a decorative flowerpot. From its ceramic shell, a seam had opened like a mouth to reveal an intricate mechanical core. A small, camera-like device peeked out from within. It was watching him.

"What you starin' at?" Wang Yu asked flatly.