Chapter 39: That Black Shadow

Chapter 39: That Black Shadow

The instant she saw that black shadow, Bernadette had no time to feel fear. By instinct, she clenched her right hand and condensed a spear of ancient design.

From its tip to its haft, the spear was stained with blotches and specks of dark crimson blood. It emitted an intense aura of destruction, as though it could wound even a true god.

“The Spear of Longinus!”

This spear had once appeared in an ancient age impossible to trace, stained by the blood of some great existence. Now, through Mystical Re-enactment, it descended inside the Black Emperor’s mausoleum.

However, Bernadette’s forward thrust produced no effect, because the spearhead was pointing behind her.

She had clearly intended to attack the black shadow before her, yet the Spear of Longinus strangely stabbed backward.

In this region, front and back, left and right, up and down seemed to have fallen into chaos—or had suffered distortion.

Above the gray fog, inside the palace, Klein sensed the black shadow the moment it appeared before Bernadette. Without hesitation, he raised the Staff of the Stars in his hand.

At that moment, he did not wait as he had before, observing how the Queen of Mysteries would respond before deciding whether to provide protection. The danger presented by that black shadow gave him, an angel of the Seer pathway, a clear premonition.

More importantly, after Bernadette entered the Black Emperor’s mausoleum, she had repeatedly sensed the existence of the black shadow, yet Klein, even with the true vision provided by Sefirah Castle, had failed to find the slightest clue.

That undoubtedly meant horror and danger.

As the gemstones embedded at the top of the black cane lit up one after another, melodious chimes suddenly echoed through the region where Bernadette and the black shadow were located.

Dong!

The bell chime from infinitely far away carried an indescribable sense of emptiness. It made the inside of the Black Emperor’s mausoleum visibly stagnate and solidify. Bernadette’s figure seemed frozen, stiffened there, unable to make any movement.

However, the black shadow did not fall into the vortex of time. It seemed to exist in another world where the fundamental rules were completely different, swimming forward like a shadow between two contradictory rivers of fate—one surging and one nearly still.

Because of this, it only appeared to slow down. It did not truly suffer the effects of the illusory bell chime.

This was the first time Klein had encountered such a situation after gaining the ability to simulate powers in this domain.

Although the Beyonder effect he simulated through the Staff of the Stars certainly differed considerably from the original, no matter what, it still reflected a measure of authority. It should not have been so easily ignored.

Still, the slowing of the black shadow’s movements gave him a chance to continue with a second attempt.

This time, he activated the Staff of the Stars’ own ability, intending to transfer the Queen of Mysteries out of the Black Emperor’s mausoleum so she could first summarize the experience, then decide whether to enter again.

As the gemstones in the cane’s head flickered, Bernadette’s body, which had nearly come into contact with the black shadow, vanished from where it was.

In the next second, she appeared dozens of meters away, near the high platform inside the mausoleum.

The Staff of the Stars’ transfer had been interfered with. The intended destination had been distorted. Everything seemed abnormally chaotic.

Bernadette was highly experienced. She did not fall into fear or panic because she remained inside the Black Emperor’s mausoleum. She made an immediate decision, raising her left hand and pressing the Sage’s Forehead Ornament toward the center of her forehead while tracing her finger across the Pale Death mask.

The mask that flickered with a metallic sheen abruptly softened and swiftly wriggled, as though it intended to form a face that did not belong to Bernadette.

That face had gentle features and obvious Southern Continent traits, yet it gave an extremely bizarre and terrifying impression, making every observer believe that once its outline grew sufficiently clear, it would come alive from an ancient age, from the eternal darkness where the dead slept.

At that point, Bernadette’s body, spirituality, and consciousness would all belong to that face.

As the face emerged, the stone walls and floor tiles inside the Black Emperor’s mausoleum began weathering. Their speed was so fast it was as though they had endured thousands, even tens of thousands, of years of erosion in one or two short seconds.

They quickly turned mottled, fragments constantly falling from them or being lifted into dust by the wind. Between the cracks, slender, pale-white down grew out.

In the blink of an eye, that down enlarged into white feathers, their surfaces seemingly soaked with pale yellow grease.

The black figure’s aura also decayed bit by bit, as if it were striding rapidly toward the end called death.

Its color clearly faded. Its movements grew increasingly sluggish.

Within the range of the pale mask, even the concept of “death” itself would weather and vanish.

Yet that labeled “death” was not the end. When the stone walls and floor tiles inside the mausoleum had weathered to a certain degree, and when the black figure had declined to a certain stage, new stones began forming, and an ethereal aura swiftly grew.

During this process, the black figure extended its right hand forward.

That palm, seemingly composed purely of shadow, crossed a distance of dozens of meters and instantly grabbed Bernadette’s neck!

It was not accomplished by lengthening its arm. Rather, in that instant, the concept of distance had been thrown into chaos. Forty-five meters became forty-five centimeters.

The dark hand did not exert much force. It only made Bernadette feel a chill.

Within that chill, she discovered that she could no longer use the two Grade 0 Sealed Artifacts, the Sage’s Forehead Ornament and Pale Death.

Normally, as long as she poured spirituality into them and gave the corresponding thought, the Sealed Artifacts on her body would respond correctly and produce different effects. But now, that default process and rule had been interfered with and twisted. No matter how Bernadette turned her thoughts, she could not make the Sealed Artifacts react in the slightest.

It was as though she were speaking to empty air.

Above the gray fog, after Klein’s attempt to transfer the Queen of Mysteries failed to truly succeed, he did not waste any time. He immediately outlined a series of complex symbolic signs and magical marks in his mind.

What he intended to simulate was the Mysticologist’s Spatial Concealment. He planned to separate the place where Bernadette was located from the Black Emperor’s mausoleum and conceal it, thereby helping the Queen of Mysteries escape her current predicament.

In fact, simulating the fairy-tale magic “The Source of Peach Blossoms” might have been more appropriate at this time. But considering that Bernadette had once been a Mysticologist herself, Klein felt Spatial Concealment was still the better choice. Otherwise, it might reveal a little of The Fool’s secrets.

As for where he had learned Spatial Concealment, it naturally came from Miss Magician Fors, who had just advanced.

Earlier, in the name of The World Gehrman Sparrow, Klein had rented Leymano’s Travels and specifically instructed Miss Magician to record the corresponding abilities in advance.

Then he released them over and over, recorded them over and over, and summoned complete Leymano’s Travels from the historical fog over and over. It did not take him long to grasp the knowledge and technique, allowing him to simulate spells such as Spatial Concealment.

As several gemstones on the Staff of the Stars lit up, the region where Bernadette was located became a little deeper, as if covered by a curtain woven from shadows.

That curtain twisted, concealing the space and isolating the black shadow and its hand outside.

This allowed Bernadette’s neck to regain freedom.

In the next second, the dark palm that had been forcibly separated reached forward again and touched the boundary of the hidden space.

In that instant, a transparent whirlpool-like “door” appeared within the seemingly abnormality-free void. Or rather, the “door” that had already existed took the initiative to travel over from its hidden position and open in front of the dark palm.

All hidden spaces inevitably had a “door,” but the door’s location depended on the creator’s thoughts.

The shadow-condensed palm swiftly passed through the opened “door” and entered the concealed space. Once again, it grabbed Bernadette’s neck, interfering with the connection between the Queen of Mysteries and her Sealed Artifacts and distorting the corresponding order.

At the same time, the black figure raised its head and looked toward the top of the mausoleum.

It seemed to be looking through layers upon layers of spacetime and fog, examining Sefirah Castle and Klein within it.

Klein’s eyelids instinctively twitched.

He sensed that the black shadow had a certain understanding of this place and felt that the other party was distorting something.

Without realizing it, Klein’s expression became extraordinarily grave. On the Staff of the Stars in his hand, gemstones of different kinds lit up at the same time.

He intended to try “stealing” the other party’s corresponding Beyonder power. Only then would he have a chance to restrain the black shadow.

And to increase the probability of successfully “stealing” the target ability, Klein turned over his left palm and lightly tapped the edge of the mottled long table.

Yet his theft still failed. He gained nothing at all.

That was because his target had already broken free of the lock-on.

The black shadow was clearly still in place, yet it had already escaped the lock-on!

Klein’s gaze immediately froze. Then he saw the black shadow flash, enter the concealed space, and close the distance between itself and Bernadette.

This… It distorted my true vision, making what I saw the state of one or even two seconds ago… As this thought flashed through Klein’s mind, he formed a preliminary judgment about his earlier failure and decided to summon Will Auceptin’s historical void image to “restart” what had happened in this region.

At that moment, Bernadette, unable to use her Sealed Artifacts, allowed piece after piece of white, illusory swan feathers to grow out from her back.

This was the fairy-tale magic “The Ugly Duckling.” It allowed Bernadette to reveal an incomplete mythical creature form while maintaining clarity—twice a day, fifteen seconds each time.

Just then, her thoughts stirred restlessly once more. They boiled, quickly accelerating toward chaos.

This caused her Ugly Duckling magic to be interrupted before it could take effect.

Almost simultaneously, she saw the black shadow press itself against her body and seep inside like viscous, highly corrosive liquid.

Bernadette’s gaze deepened. Suddenly, she sensed something. Seizing the final instant while her thoughts remained clear, she slightly opened her mouth and, in a clear and precise accent, uttered a Chinese word:

“Hometown…”

The black shadow’s corrosion abruptly stopped. Its upper body slowly rose and looked toward Bernadette.