Her aura was suppressed to the extreme, like a speck of dust, a wisp of wind, or floating particles flashing by in the sunlight.

Even the most sensitive Abyss Hound could not catch a scent of her presence in the air.

She walked through the swarm of monsters; a deformed long arm swept past her side, its fingertips less than a finger's width from her shoulder, yet it touched nothing.

Her body was translucent, like a reflection of light refracted in water.

But her eyes were moving; she was looking, recording the types, numbers, and directions of the monsters, the expansion speed of the black mist, and the degree of ground erosion.

Every detail was etched into her mind, as precise as a military map.

This was the basic skill of a Shadow Scout, and the entire reason she had survived until today.

...

The scene shifted again.

Sylvia lay prone on a ridge, her form almost merging with the rock.

A massive dark portal hovered over the land.

A frame made of spliced bones, writhing black material, and inside the gate was a bottomless violet-black vortex.

Monsters poured out of the gate incessantly, thousands upon thousands, merging into a black river.

And in the very center of that river stood a figure.

Sylvia's breathing stopped; the figure was about three meters tall, humanoid, but without any human features.

Its skin did not reflect light; it was an absolute black, like a gouged-out piece of space.

Its head had no facial features, only a vertical crack extending from forehead to chin, with a dark red light glowing from within.

It just stood there, hands hanging at its sides, motionless.

But what Sylvia felt from it made her Umbral Form almost dissipate.

Was that the power of a god? No... it couldn't compare to divine power, but it was infinitely close.

She had once read a term in the ancient texts of Elderland: Apostle. A divine messenger of the gods, not a god itself, but only one step away.

As expected.

Sylvia uttered those words in her heart, as calm as if confirming an answer she had long known.

The source of the Black Tide was an existence comparable to a god.

She began to retreat slowly, inch by inch, like a water droplet sliding off a leaf.

She only needed to retreat another hundred meters, and she could safely turn around and bring this news back to Elderland.

The Queen was waiting, the Royal Capital was waiting, the entire continent was waiting.

She stopped.

It wasn't that she didn't want to move, but that the Apostle had moved.

That vertical crack turned toward her; it had no eyes, but Sylvia knew it was looking at her.

The feeling of being watched was like a red-hot knife stabbing into the deepest part of her Umbral Form.

All her disguises and all her techniques for concealing her aura were like paper before that gaze.

Then the Apostle vanished—not moving, not teleporting, but completely disappearing from her perception, like a drop of water merging into the ocean.

In the next second, it appeared in front of Sylvia.

The three-meter-tall black body blocked all light—no, it wasn't just blocking it, it was sucking the light away. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Everything within her field of vision darkened, as if the entire world's brightness had been twisted off.

That vertical crack was less than two steps from her face, with dark red light surging within it like lava.

She could even feel the temperature on it; it wasn't hot, it was cold, a deathly silence of cold.

It didn't do anything; it just stood there.

But Sylvia knew she didn't have another second left; she didn't even have time for fear.

A thought.

A single thought would be enough.

...

Sealing Forbidden Curse—officially named "Shadow Core: Final Seal," one of the highest secrets of the Shadow Council.

This magic circle had been engraved on her heart when she was fourteen years old.

It wasn't drawn on the skin or embedded in equipment, but directly carved into the muscular wall of her heart, connected to her life essence.

Every blood vessel was a line of the array, and every heartbeat was the array's energy storage.

Activating it required no incantations, no gestures, and no external medium.

It only required a thought—more accurately, a clear will to end.

This was not a simple self-destruction technique.

An ordinary self-destruction releases all remaining energy, with power equivalent to the full-strength blow of a high-level mage.

But the Sealing Forbidden Curse takes the engraver's vitality, soul energy, Shadow Affinity, and all the power the array itself has accumulated over decades, completing decompression, fusion, and ignition in the span of a single thought.

Explosion radius: Five miles.

Explosive power: Theoretically, it can heavily injure an unprepared Apostle-level being.

And there was one most critical constraint for its activation: no hesitation was allowed.

Fear, hesitation, the instinct for survival, the instinctive resistance to one's own dissipation—if even a trace existed, the array would judge the willpower condition as unmet and refuse to activate.

This was why, although seventeen Shadow Assassins in history had been engraved with this array, only two had successfully activated it.

The other fifteen, at that moment between life and death, before the ultimate fear of "I am about to cease to exist," hesitated for just a split second.

That split second was enough to miss the activation window, after which they were killed by the enemy, dying in vain.

Purple light exploded from her chest, like a supernova being born at the position of her heart.

Umbral energy was completely released in an instant, without any reservation or hesitation.

The light swallowed her body, swallowed the Apostle's body, and swallowed the entire black ridge.

The flames of the explosion bloomed like a purple flower in the center of the Black Tide. Within five miles, everything turned to ash.

And in the deepest part of that flower, Sylvia's body was dissipating.

Starting from her toes, to her waist, her chest, her shoulders, she turned bit by bit into purple specks of light, drifting in the flames like fireflies.

A faint smile played ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) on the corners of her mouth. It wasn't relief or satisfaction, but a kind of weight being lifted.

She had completed her mission—not the mission to bring information back to the Royal Capital, as that mission had already failed.

But she had completed a more important mission: not to die in vain. With the purple light of this explosion, she told Elderland thousands of miles away of the enemy's position and threat; the Queen would understand.

She closed her eyes, and in the final instant before her consciousness completely vanished, she saw the gold badge fall from her melting leather armor, tumbling for a moment in the purple flames.

The dagger and moon on the front of the badge were already unrecognizable.

But on the back were a few words, carved by the Queen's own hand.

The strokes were burned by the high temperature into a blurred mark, like a scar, like an oath,

【Where shadows reach, there lies the King's Sword】.

The flames swallowed everything.

...

The scene dissipated, and the hall returned to silence.

Silver-white magical light spilled down from the dome, shining on everyone's faces, revealing no particular emotion.

Lin Feng tucked the Memory Fragment into his robe, turned around, and faced the crowd.

"This is all the intelligence Sylvia traded her life for. There is an Apostle behind the Black Tide, the source is a portal, and behind that portal is an even larger world where beings even stronger than an Apostle might exist."

The hall remained silent for a long time.

Su Yurou gripped her bone healing staff tightly, and the emerald green runes on the staff lit up again: "Lord, no matter who the opponent is, we will stand behind you."

Zhao Hu and Tie Dun nodded simultaneously, saying nothing more.

Jiang Yelan stepped out from the shadows; she didn't speak, but simply stood by Lin Feng's side.

Lin Feng looked up at the magical lights on the dome, silently calculating in his mind.

Was that Apostle in Sylvia's memory a clone or the original body? What was its level—Level 49, or above Level 50?

(Lots of information tomorrow, building the Great Wall the day after)