Chapter 396: Should I Join the Wild Hunt Too?

Across the sea, in an unknown depth far behind the veil.

The entity from the Black Soil River Basin was in a deep slumber within its inverted pyramid.

It had planned to bide its time and heal before making a comeback. It had been sleeping soundly, only to be violently jolted awake.

Its Inspiration sounded the highest alarm since it had crossed the sea.

Something had seized a fragment of its true name and was handing it over like cargo to another.

The ether across the Black Earth River Master's entire body erupted.

Its true name was its deepest root; to grasp its complete true name was to grasp its very life.

It traced that invisible tether back to the source and touched the Wild Hunt.

That figure crowned with antlers, leading a procession that stretched beyond sight.

The oldest lord of the hunt in Scandinavia was holding its true name, returning to the hunting grounds completely satisfied.

Abandoning its half-healed injuries, it desperately charged out.

It had to snatch its true name back before that entity brought it into the hunting grounds.

Once its true name was fully recorded in the Hunting Register and bound to the ritual of the Wild Hunt, the reins of its life would forever rest in another's hands.

It gave chase from behind the veil, following the direction of the lord's return.

Deep behind the veil, the two Virtuosos clashed.

The entity from the Black Soil River surged up from below.

Hundreds of riders at the rear of the Wild Hunt sank into a suddenly gaping shadow abyss, steeds and all. The chasm clamped shut without a sound.

The lord of the hunt did not look back. With a flick of the reins, a horn player in the rear guard raised his instrument.

The blast of the horn fell into the shadow abyss, and the sunken knights marched right back up from the depths, stepping on the sound itself.

The dead do not drown. The shadow abyss could submerge the living, but it could not drown things that had been dead for centuries.

Ripples of fury washed through the lightless depths. It stopped trying to swallow them; instead, it reflected them.

Thousands of mirrors flipped out from the ink, forming a screen that tilted against the sky.

Every mirror bit into a rider, piercing beneath their skin and into their names.

The illuminated riders were instantly snuffed out from the formation. Whole swaths of the rear guard went dark.

Seeing its opponent turn serious, the lord of the hunt finally turned around.

The soldiers it had gathered night after night over the years were being snuffed out, piece by piece.

It felt a pang of heartache, so intense that frost condensed on its antlers.

It unhooked its horn. Tonight it had only played short notes, but this time, it blew a single, sustained blast.

As the long note washed over, ten thousand mirrors trembled in unison.

It spurred its mount into the mirror screen, shattering the first oncoming glass with its antlers.

Inside every shard of glass stood its reflection.

The myriad mirrors became its hunting grounds. A thousand lords of the hunt raised their hands simultaneously across a thousand shards. Ribs popped out from under their arms one by one, bending into bows.

The bones formed bows. They drew the strings without arrows; what they fired was the sound of hooves.

Volleys of hoofbeats poured into the lightless expanse from all directions. Even the shadow beneath the Black Earth River Master's own feet erupted with arrows.

For the first time, the Virtuoso of shadows was betrayed by both its own mirrors and shadows.

It panicked for a moment, then lunged toward the true lord of the hunt. Identifying a true body amidst ten thousand mirrors was its greatest specialty.

It reflected, yet the mirror surfaces could not capture the lord of the hunt's name.

The mirrors only reflected a string of hoofprints, one after another, densely covering the entire surface.

This entity had long since ground its name beneath its hooves, leaving only the sound of hoofbeats to eternally hunt the world.

Mirrors cannot reflect sound.

Humiliated and enraged, the Black Earth River Master unfurled itself into a book of departed souls.

This corner of the Deep Realm flipped over, transforming both above and below into a pitch-black void.

The very ground the hunting procession trampled upon reared up, forming an all-encompassing wall of blackness where a pupil-less eye snapped open.

The lord of the hunt blew a second sustained note. The mounts in its procession did not recognize roads, nor did they need them.

Tens of thousands of riders trampled straight over the towering black wall. There were no roads beneath their hooves; everything beneath their hooves was the wild.

The black wall was plowed in two. Amidst the chaos, a shadow arm reached the side of the saddle, its fingertips brushing the horn's lanyard.

But the lord of the hunt swung the reins backhand, snaring the arm.

With a yank and a tear, the arm snapped off.

The lord of the hunt casually tossed that writhing segment of blackness into the pack of hounds.

The sound of the dogs fighting over the scrap echoed far across the Deep Realm.

The black mist dissipated into the dogs' maws, and the countless tiny, pupil-less eyes within the mist closed one by one.

It retreated, folding itself thin once again.

This time, the resulting page was missing another corner compared to when it had arrived.

It could only watch helplessly as the lord of the hunt tucked its three syllables into its coat and led the procession away toward the highest reaches.

The Black Earth River Master hung suspended deep behind the veil, its entire ether trembling.

It traced the invisible tether back, only to find nothingness at the end.

The hand that had delivered the cargo was as though it had never existed.

It let out a crazed roar that exploded behind the veil. Even the dimming weak points in the homeland's industrial zones shuddered in response.

...

Outside the narrow, silver-inlaid door deep beneath Imperial Capital University.

Richard surfaced from behind the veil. He leaned against the raw rock wall for a long while before finally suppressing the exhaustion seeping from his very bones.

His shadow had returned behind the veil, and the antler tip tangled in reins and the Half-Set of Rune Stones had been safely put away.

"It worked." MacFie packed his engraving knife and sealing wax back into his leather bag one by one.

"Thanks to you two professors," Richard nodded.

Mortimer's wrinkled old face remained sullen.

"What kind of trade was that?"

Mortimer pinched the antler between his fingers and held it up to the dim basement light for a long time.

"A ticket for the ride," he scoffed.

"That old thing certainly knows how to scheme."

MacFie also leaned in for a look.

"It didn't give you a true high-tier supernatural item." Suppressed anger laced the white-haired giant's tone.

"It just gave you a shed antler from its own mount."

"If you go and die, it saves itself trouble.

If you don't go, it hasn't lost a single hair."

Mortimer put the antler down and let out a helpless sigh.

"You traded a Virtuoso's true name just to get this antler back."

"A loss," the old professor concluded. "A massive loss."

Neither professor was satisfied, yet they were both powerless to change it.

Within its own rules, the lord of the hunt had turned this transaction into a guaranteed profit for itself.

You couldn't pick any flaws in its logic; every step adhered to the rules—a perfectly compliant load of...

"Professors," Richard spoke up first instead.

The two Major Adepts looked at him.

"My main goal has already been achieved. My grandfather's name has been crossed off that register."

"As long as that is done, everything else..."

Richard tucked the antler tip, still tangled with reins, into his coat.

"...is just a bonus."

Mortimer stared at him for two seconds.

"You brat... Fine, as long as you've made peace with it."

With everything accounted for and everyone unharmed, the three men headed up from the basement.

Those two Virtuosos were still on the other side of the door.

Richard faced the narrow door and gave a bow to each side.

"Thank you, Seniors."

The vortex tilted slightly in his direction in acknowledgment.

The ledger slowly rolled itself up and retreated down the passage.

The two Virtuosos had rushed over, yet done absolutely nothing from start to finish.

Next, they had to handle the aftermath of the ritual.

Using Moon Hunting Tradition techniques, MacFie meticulously suppressed and smoothed away every single trace on Richard that could potentially be tracked back to him.

Using the Classical Records Tradition's annotation-deletion art, Mortimer struck out every thread of connection between Richard and that true name, erasing it as if it were an erroneous margin note.

While masking the traces, MacFie explained the pros and cons of the Wild Hunt to Richard.

"You can keep that antler, but I advise against going."

"Why?"

"The Wild Hunt is useful for Hunters, as well as Scholars like us who follow Moon-Hunting."

"Aside from the spoils themselves, Hunters can hone their killing intent in there and borrow the momentum of that procession.

Moon-Hunting Scholars inside can closely observe how names are chased, invoked, and collected into the register. That is our stock-in-trade."

"If you were either of those types, braving the risk to participate a few times might be worth it."

MacFie smoothed out the final trace and straightened his back.

"But you aren't."

"Your path is Mirror and recording." He looked at Richard.

"The little you could scavenge from joining the Wild Hunt is completely disproportionate to the risk you'd face."

"Riding with them is easy." MacFie shook his head. "Making it back alive from that procession is the hard part."

Richard looked down at the antler tip tangled with reins in his coat.

Another thought suddenly crossed his mind.

He wouldn't go himself, but he possessed something soundless, lightless, weightless, and nameless.

What if he sent his shadow?

The moment the idea surfaced, Richard couldn't suppress it.

Over the past few days, he had taken on Demeter's and Heracles' commissions one by one.

For every settlement, he had demanded they pay in Ether Condensate.

The condensates had piled up piece by piece, and his shadow had been working hard to devour them every day.

Yet its eating couldn't keep up with his stockpiling. Condensates were liable to dissipate, with the low-concentration ones dispersing the fastest.

Left alone for a while, they would melt into untouchable nothingness in the air.

Even with the shadow eating around the clock, there was still an overall surplus.

That endless procession... was a hunt.

If he let the shadow ride along with that procession for a night, would that allow it to burn through more of the condensates?

Besides, he had originally intended to cultivate his shadow into a Hunter anyway.

Stone Armor, Moon Nail, Shadow Armor... everything he had given his shadow was geared toward combat.

The shadow had trained behind the veil for so long that its solidity had increased visibly to the naked eye.

The Wild Hunt was an unending hunt. Letting his shadow test the waters there and witness a pursuit steeped in millennia of history should be perfectly in line with its specialty.

Most crucially, if his shadow were dispersed in the Wild Hunt, the loss was something he could accept.

If his true body went in and perished, he would truly be dead.

If his shadow dispersed, his vitality would take a heavy hit, but he could recover and try again.

Moreover, he had the Mask of Hermes.

He could have his shadow wear the mask. The mask's dual attributes of Ferrying and boundary crossing might prove incredibly useful within a veil-traversing procession like the Wild Hunt.

The more Richard thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. He wouldn't go; he would send his shadow.

Looking at it that way, this antler the two professors disdained as a "massive loss" suddenly didn't seem like such a bad deal.

He raised his head, just about to follow this line of thought a little further...

"Stop thinking about it."

Mortimer's voice yanked him out of his swirling thoughts.

The old professor was cradling an empty teacup, and heaven only knew how he had guessed Richard was scheming again.

"This matter is essentially concluded here." Mortimer slung his leather bag over his shoulder.

"You're done with your business, so go back and rest early."

"After tossing about for so long, your face looks worse than this old man's."

Richard touched his own face.

"However," the old professor paused at the entrance to the raw rock passage and looked back.

"In a couple of days, it will be the Day of Mourning."

"You've passed Gerard's trial, but an even greater disaster awaits on the night of the Day of Mourning."

The old professor pulled his hat down slightly.

"Get some good rest these next two days, but don't let your guard down entirely."