Chapter Ninety-Four: The Uncontrollable Trial of the Mission

It was already the fourth day.

Guo Lang stood once more before the mirrored surface, tense and waiting for that beam of light to appear. In this boundless darkness, four days had been enough for him to develop a shadow’s instinct: every day, at the appointed hour, he would be here, waiting.

Over these past days, he had finally understood what being a shadow meant. It was exactly what the word implied. He had truly become a shadow. Whenever the host awakened, that pitch-black space would fill with light, and he would involuntarily begin to imitate every movement the host made. No matter the action, he could copy it with perfect exactness.

And when the host fell asleep, the light in the mirrored world would once again be swallowed by endless blackness as the host’s consciousness sank into slumber. At that point, Guo Lang’s movements would return to his own control.

At first, Guo Lang had hated it whenever the host was awake. Everything then was uncontrollable. He was like a marionette, swaying in step with another’s dance. But the longer it went on, the less he wanted the host to sleep.

Because he truly could not endure this bottomless dark. Not a single thread of light. Nothing at all. The world was black, and only black. Though the other side of the mirror did not belong to him, though he could not feel the warmth of the sun or the fragrance of grass and flowers, even just watching it... even if it was only imitation, only pretend enjoyment, it was still the only pastime he had in a day. Or rather, it was the only thing that gave his existence any meaning.

Only then did Guo Lang finally understand the endless malice his own shadow had once held toward him. If it had been born a shadow, then the thing it must have hated most was surely the so-called host.

The mirror brightened again, and Guo Lang’s eyes brightened with it. That ray of light had become everything he hoped for.

Last night, she had slept in a tree in the border forest of Gray Vale, her body secured with vine-fiber bindings. Traps had been set all around the giant tree, and beside her, a faintly glowing strange snake had been keeping watch.

Her name was Odasia, a junior of the younger generation in the Windwalker family. In this era, the Windwalker family was still only a noble house distinguished by military merit, not yet the royal house of the elves. But the rangers of the Windwalker line were already immensely renowned throughout the higher planes.

She followed the ranger path of the Windwalker family, taking the beastmaster branch. In Guo Lang’s memories from his previous life, the players of the Federation called this kind of profession a beastmaster hunter, and it was one of the most popular classes among the night elves.

Among agility-based classes, it was well rounded: strong overall, quick to respond to complex situations, capable of long-range sniping, not weak in close combat, and able to make up for shortcomings in magic or melee through a contracted beast. It was a very balanced class indeed.

Only two races could become beastmaster hunters: the night elves and the beastfolk. But there were differences between them. The beastfolk nurtured the demigod Frostmoon Silverfang, whose direct descendants were pure-blooded offspring. After passing their trials, beastmaster hunters of the royal class could obtain a frostwolf with no low degree of blood purity.

The night elves were different. Their beastmaster hunters relied on the race’s superb spatial leap techniques to travel into other dimensions and make contact with the ancestral demigods of those planes. Only after gaining recognition and receiving a mark could they obtain a pure-blood descendant from that space. During this process, one could choose a companion according to personal preference or invitation, and the other side could likewise decide, based on your own qualities, whether you were worthy of taking one of its offspring. It was a mutual choice.

Each had its advantages and drawbacks. The beastfolk’s hunters were more stable, because the excellence of the frostwolf had already been proven: stable bloodline, formidable combat strength, and high trainability. The night elves had more options, but also many unstable variables. You might hit the jackpot... or you might end up with something utterly mediocre, or even something dangerous.

Odasia’s contracted beast was a strange serpent with the blood of a Titan star python. Its lineage was excellent, but its growth period was too long, which left its current combat strength limited. Since a beastmaster hunter’s power depended largely on the contracted beast, this was why, even at silver rank, she was still only a scout captain and had not even made it to battalion officer.

Her task these past few days had been to observe the Void entrance near Gray Vale Forest, collect data, and gather intelligence. It was a fairly dangerous assignment, one that could easily get her killed by an enemy assassin. And yet she had still chosen to take it, because it would earn her more military merit, allowing her to exchange that merit for more resources and hasten the maturation of her companion, letting her grow stronger more quickly. As a member of the Windwalker family, she was ambitious enough.

Today marked her fourth day at the Gray Vale front. According to the patrol map issued above, she still had not found any Void cavern, nor had she discovered any signs that the Void had established a corruption point in this stretch of forest.

The elves were sheltered by nature, and in many places there were natural hearts and planted Trees of Life. Gray Vale was a region rich in resources and full of potential. Within an area of less than ten thousand square kilometers, it could nurture a high-grade Tree of Life, making it a strategically vital location. And judging from the patterns by which the priests predicted the enemy’s invasion routes, the next target was very likely one of four places: Gray Vale, Silver Forest, Noxia Woodlands, or Moonlit Glade. Among them, Gray Vale, sitting on the front line, had a rather high chance of becoming a pollution point.

But she had already been here for four days. She had carefully inspected many places and found no trace of corruption. There was no smell of decay in the air either; it remained sweet and fresh. This made her a little discouraged. If this campaign yielded no merit at all, she would likely be left farther and farther behind by her peers in such a massive war.

As her shadow, Guo Lang could not understand this mindset at all.

Damn it, if nothing happened, wasn’t that a good thing? If something really did happen, the chance that you’d be able to return safely and report the clues you’d found was less than one percent. If a scout of that pitiful level could still be let slip away, that could only mean the Void’s trackers were hopelessly incompetent. Anyway, all Guo Lang was praying for was that she would make it through these seven days peacefully so he could get through the mission period.

To be honest, Guo Lang was extremely uneasy now. He did not know what would happen if the mission failed. The system prompt said he would simply possess another person and become a shadow again, then wait another week. But honestly, he had had enough of this life. He thought of himself as someone with a great deal of endurance, but not one more day of this, not even one more day, did he want to bear. Especially at night, when he had to face that endless blackness alone... that feeling was truly awful.

To live in darkness, and to see light only through another’s eyes—like watching someone else show off and enjoy themselves through a movie or a novel. And the key point was that what he now longed for was merely the most ordinary right to survive.

Sunlight, solid ground, and free air. Wasn’t that the most basic treatment any living being deserved?

What mattered most was that with this godforsaken mission, he could do nothing at all. He had discovered that he could only imitate the other person like a puppet, unable to give even the slightest warning. Life or death, success or failure, none of it had anything to do with him. What meaning could such a mission possibly have? Was it all a matter of luck?

Guo Lang was somewhat speechless.

When one’s fate was placed entirely in another person’s hands, he was feeling, for the first time, just how powerless he truly was. For the first time, he felt that he had once possessed far too much. Even in his previous life, what he had owned had indeed been far too much.

If he were given another chance, another chance...