Chapter 78 — The Rune Trigger and Amber's Slacking-Off Time

Those fellows up north were just scaring themselves, frightened out of their wits.

Amber mocked in her heart, utterly without self-awareness, those "northerners" who dared not come here out of awe for the Dark Mountains' fearsome name—completely forgetting that not long ago she herself had been one of them.

She lingered on the branch a while, let the cool breeze blow over her to her heart's content, then spread her arms and toppled backward off the tree, stiff as a board.

Halfway down, she entered shadow form. The power of shadow wrapped around her and in an instant carried her into that world which ran parallel to reality yet into which almost no one could step.

The wind, the insects, the birdsong in the woods instantly receded. Amber landed lightly on the ground, standing in a quiet, monotonous world.

The dense forest was gone. Here there were only clustered grotesque rocks and rugged mountain paths, a few dead tree trunks lying fallen across the slopes, their hideous branches pointing at the gloomy, overcast sky of the shadow realm like fangs and claws.

This black-and-white world was as unsettling as the legendary realm of the dead, yet to Amber it was a place that put her deeply at ease.

Standing here gave her a feeling of being home.

But the Amber of before could not come here often.

Despite her outstanding shadow talent, Amber had not been able to enter the shadow realm at will anytime and anywhere. She could only vaguely sense the "boundary" of that world and reach it more easily than an ordinary prowler, but crossing the boundary completely was very difficult—usually it required prolonged meditation, or the aid of certain magical items or potions.

But ever since leaving the Cecil Territory, the process seemed to have become much simpler.

She only had to concentrate to feel the boundary's presence, and only had to gather the power of shadow to pass through it with ease.

After a period of familiarity and adjustment, she could even dive into the shadow realm in fancy style like this...

She was no scholar devoted to the study of shadow power, nor any mage with a "keen supernatural sense," but Amber was no fool either. She vaguely guessed that the shadow realm's growing ease of entry was not because her own shadow affinity had made leaps and bounds of progress, but because the world itself was probably changing—some force was causing the wall between the shadow realm and the material world to loosen.

But so far, the loosening should be extremely slight—only she, this "freak," could sense the change.

If she were to treat the changes in the Shadow Realm as some great discovery and go report them to those lofty mage-scholars, the odds were ten to one they would take her for a madwoman and drive her off—or worse: her extraordinary shadow talent and her wretched combat ability would be seen as a treasure dropped from the heavens, and she likely would not even walk out of those mages' towers alive.

Amber roamed through the Shadow Realm, savoring the quiet and safety of this world, her little notions drifting through her mind.

So what did it matter to her if the world changed or not...

But maybe she could mention it to that fellow who had clawed his way up out of his coffin?

He seemed exactly the type to take an interest in these strange and curious things, and he certainly would not strap her down on an experiment table and cut her open...

Amber's mind spun with this thought and that, and before she knew it, she was smiling.