Dunlan's high boots fell on the spiral staircase, leaving a hollow echo in the solitary fortress so silent it seemed to devour sound.
This time, before he even reached that familiar door, the surroundings began to twist and melt.
That dreamlike starry blackness gradually swallowed him, and when he came to his senses he found himself back in the academy lecture hall that seemed frozen forever in the sunset afterglow.
On the stone podium, that blurred silhouette still stood like a statue, as if it were an inseparable part of the classroom itself.
Dunlan froze for a moment, quickly collected himself, bowed deeply, and said with reverence, "Student Dunlan reports, greetings teacher."
Seeing that the blurred figure gave no response, not even a ripple, Dunlan forced himself and continued his report:
"Teacher, the situation has changed. Those goblins suddenly seem to have been imbued with intelligence. Not only did they seize fragments of the Ice Elemental Plane, they also used planar rifts to push their frontlines into the northern part of the Dark Realm."
"The Fald Frontline is too close to our Evernight Domain, and there is almost no barrier between them. To temporarily stabilize those green-skinned bastards, I... I had to agree to their extortion, promising to pay a sum of Gold Coins in exchange for a temporary truce..."
At this point Dunlan paused, inwardly anxious, expecting his teacher to rebuke him for weakness.
After a long while, just as Dunlan felt the pressure building, a calm voice sounded in his mind:
"You did very well."
Dunlan felt relief, but the voice immediately added:
"But, not good enough."
Dunlan's heart shot up again. He hurriedly bowed and asked, "May I ask, teacher, where does my deficiency lie? I beg your guidance."
Although the face of the figure remained indistinct, Dunlan could feel a gaze upon him, quietly pressing on his inner self.
After some time, Salacha's voice sounded again.
"Dunlan, remember, I do not care about those clinging vampire clans, nor about this so-called Evernight Domain, nor even the fate of the entire Dark Realm."
His tone was flat, as if stating something entirely unrelated to himself.
"You, Dunlan, are the most special among the thousands of apprentices I personally selected from the Mage Tower."
"My will is always with you." That sentence carried a strange echo, as if it were being branded directly onto Dunlan's soul.
"So do whatever you want to do, without excessive concern."
Dunlan's body stilled. Although many questions remained in his mind, he dared not ask. He bowed and said:
"Yes, teacher, I understand."
As soon as the words fell, he felt his consciousness grow hazier, as if being drowned by a tide, about to be carried back to the shore of waking reality.
Staring at that increasingly indistinct back, an impulse rose in him and he blurted out.
"Teacher, did the fissures in the mountains all come into being because of you?"
The silhouette trembled slightly and extended a palm.
He seemed to see a hand made of pure shadow slowly reach toward him, the darkness in its palm rapidly expanding like nightfall, covering all his sight...
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself still standing on the cold spiral steps of the solitary fortress, frozen in the posture of climbing upward.
The starry blackness, the sunset classroom, the conversation with his teacher... it all seemed to have happened in an instant, like a brief, vivid dream.
Although Salacha had said nothing explicit, Dunlan was now certain of the answer.
Many of the planar fissures that repeatedly appeared in the mountains were likely connected to his teacher.
And the Dark Realm's planar rifts were probably placed by him intentionally.
Of course he could not deduce what exactly his teacher intended with just his intellect.
He could only privately confirm his earlier suspicion: his teacher might be, like Gurmor, drawing power from chaos to achieve his own ends.
Dunlan indulged in these wandering thoughts and was about to return the way he came when he noticed something heavy in his palm: an alchemical atlas had appeared, its cover tanned with some dark dragonhide and its edges inlaid with mithril engraved with intricate runes.
As if guided by an invisible force, the atlas floated up, its pages flipping without wind, rustling.
A soft magical glow flowed across the yellowed pages, finally settling on one page, then dimming to reveal a drawing of a mysterious castle.
Below the worn hand-drawn map, the atlas's owner had labeled a transliterated, general-purpose term in an ancient elven script:
"Dong Tian"
A small line of annotation beside it roughly read "mobile secret realm," "a mysterious place that constitutes its own world."
...
Ice Elemental Plane.
In the castle's shadow, resin torches swung violently in the endless cold wind, their shifting light faintly illuminating the simple wooden palisade half-buried in deep snow and a few lonely watchtowers.
A patrol of Bugbears, wearing thick pelts and far bulkier than ordinary goblins, marched by cursing, torches held aloft.
The dancing flames slowly lit parts of the broad encampment.
Ragged slaves worked passively with crude tools, digging black holes deep into the frozen ground under the strikes of the Goblin Overseer's Leather Whip.
If anyone dared to carry a torch into those sulfurous, putrid-smelling caverns and could stomach the nausea, they would see a scene capable of haunting any sane mind—
Deep inside the caves lay countless Filthy Descendants, slumbering and covered in greasy black feathers!
They curled together like black maggots;
the faint rising and falling of their black wings in the dim light made one's scalp tingle.
The blizzard howled without cease. Hammerbone impatiently shook his head, flicking snow from his helmet, enduring the strange stench. Alongside the ogre mage Grumg, he stood like two silent sentinels guarding a crude altar of black stone.
But his gaze kept slipping to the center of the altar, to the figure casually seated on a rock—Filthy Demon Ea.
In front of him, a human slave shivering from the cold knelt down, trembling with excitement.
"Is it... is it true? Great Ea, will you really... give me my freedom?" The slave's voice quivered from cold and agitation.
Ea let out a hoarse laugh, his words laced with irresistible temptation.
"Of course, insignificant worm. You are nothing but a lowly slave. What is there about you worth my concern?"
"Soul?" The slave stammered, lifting his head. His legs were clearly badly frostbitten, purple and numb, perhaps already dead to feeling, yet he seemed unaware.
Ea propped his cheek lazily on his arm, his twisted goat-like horns faintly glowing with a lava-red light.
"Everything has a price, does it not?"
"If you want the freedom you dream of, you must first give something to show your loyalty and sincerity."
"I'll give it! I'll give it! I will offer my soul to you! Just free me!" The slave's face was consumed by morbid zeal;
he shouted until his voice tore.
Freedom seemed within reach.
"Very well, you made a wise choice."
Ea rose slowly, extending a hand that seemed formed of shadow and molten rock, and lightly pressed it on the slave's crown.
In an instant, a blurred spirit was drawn out, and as it left the body its features twisted into a grotesque, terrifying visage.
Finally Ea inhaled it into his nose.
He took a long, satisfied breath, wearing a look of rapture on his face as if savoring the world's finest delicacy.
After a while he opened his eyes, ignored the slave, and strode away from the altar.
Hammerbone and Grumg exchanged a glance and lumbered after him.
"M-Master, did I... did I gain my freedom?" the slave stammered.
He froze, about to stumble after them, when a cracking sound came and he fell to the snow.
Confused, he looked back and saw his legs, already frozen to death, left intact where they had been.
Yet he seemed unable to perceive this. He turned and kept crawling forward as if running, crying with delight, "I'm free! I'm free!"
Hammerbone glanced back involuntarily, watching the slave's movements slow until he finally ceased and lost all signs of life.
His heart thudded uncontrollably as he looked toward Ea's retreating figure, filled with dread.
These demons were terrifying with their ability to seduce and toy with souls.
If he could choose... he would rather return to the decadent life of being harassed by Slimes, at least keeping his life and sanity.
Hammerbone regretted their decision;
perhaps they should not have introduced demons more dreadful than goblins in the name of "power" and "victory."
Ea seemed to sense the shift in his mood and asked without turning, "You seem afraid?"
Hammerbone felt his heart pound up into his throat, swallowing nonexistent saliva with difficulty.
"I-I am merely overwhelmed by your power."
Ea's voice was hoarse: "A fair trade."
"He pledged his soul to me in exchange for freedom, did he not?"
"He was just unlucky and could not truly enjoy that freedom, so I reluctantly accepted the soul."
Hammerbone nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes, you're right."
Of course;
wrong or not, it had to be right.
The ogre mage Grumg, by contrast, appeared calm and composed;
he showed no discomfort at the scene, a cold smile creasing his ugly face.
Leaning on his staff, he stepped forward and respectfully asked Ea, "Great Ea, now that we have collected 'sincere offerings' from those cowardly vampires, shall we withdraw from the Fald Frontline as agreed?"
Ea walked to a wooden chest opened in the camp center and scooped up a handful of cold Gold Coins, letting them clink from his fingers.
He said meaningfully, "Since our 'generous' allies paid protection fees so promptly, let them off for now."
"After all, that is a fat sheep that keeps growing wool. It's a pity to butcher it all at once."
As he spoke, a chorus of hissing rose from the depths of the camp caves;
countless Filthy Descendants beat their wings and surged forth like a black tide from the many burrows.
They swarmed so densely the snow was dyed pitch-black.
Ea regarded this plague army with satisfaction, pointed to the southeast, and issued a new order:
"Grumg!"
"You will personally lead the plague army and the Goblin Army to the G ore fissure in the southeast immediately."
"Our friends have been waiting there a long time."
Grumg slapped his greasy, plump belly, producing a dull sound and a triumphant, grotesque laugh:
"Ha ha, I've long heard that in Gore there are some hard, crunchy stone people—must taste good."
"Fear not, Great Ea. Within a day, I, Grumg, will drag all those mischievous stones hiding in the shadows to you, and fill your goblet with their delicious souls."
...
Fluorescent Forest.
In this world shrouded in darkness, black was not the only color.
Glowing moss rooted like a natural carpet, bioluminescent mushrooms clustered by the roots, and scattered quartz fragments twinkled faintly in the dark... decorating the gloom like a dream, like a starry sky.
Occasionally swift shadows darted along the border between light and dark, and stone-descended figures slipped out from certain patches of shadow.
At this moment, Nilly and several other clan elders led dozens of young Stone Descendants to the forest's edge.
Yano, with a Slime perched on his shoulder, was among them.
Since he successfully passed the Shadow Trial, his status among the young Stone Descendants had noticeably risen, becoming an object of admiration and following.
"Move faster, Auntie will take you to see the world," Nilly swaggered at the front of the group, calling back to the youngsters.
Among the youths, the trio of Leon, Elara, and Max were naturally present.
They were curious. Their usually lazy aunt had enthusiastically summoned them to a normally rarely trodden border area.
"Auntie, is there another shadow creature?" Elara asked with curiosity.
"Of course not. Auntie is taking you to meet our allies and to visit the fortress they built."
"Fortress?"
Elara and the surrounding young Stone Descendants exchanged puzzled looks, their confusion deepening.
When they had taken the trial a few days ago, they had nearly scoured the Fluorescent Forest inside and out and had seen no fortress.
Had Auntie lost her mind?
Elara muttered in her head and couldn't help leaning closer to ask in a small concerned voice, "Auntie, did you miss your nap today? Do you want to rest first?"
"Go on, go on, don't interrupt." Nilly tapped Elara lightly on the head without patience.
"It's just ahead;
you'll see it soon."
As the glowing moss on the ground gradually thinned, they came to the end of the dark path.
What puzzled the young ones was that the boundary today seemed especially black;
even the knight statues standing guard there were hard to make out, just a patch of darkness.
"Strange..."
Before they could say more, something in the darkness seemed to sense their arrival. Lamps that radiated daylight one by one lit up, fully illuminating the way ahead.
They then realized that the dark patch was not empty at all but a wall—a fortress!
"Am I hallucinating?" Elara rubbed her eyes hard and shook her head to dispel the vision.
But the fortress remained firmly standing.
The expressions of the other young Stone Descendants were even more spectacular: some gaped, some pinched themselves hard, some repeatedly looked at Nilly and the smiling elders for confirmation.
What surprised them further was that the guards patrolling the battlements were not human at all but round, rolling Slimes.
Gods help them—when had this Slime fortress appeared?