I loaded the Mysticism panel.

On the other side of the sea, deep within a veil unknown to anyone.

The one in the Black Earth River basin is sleeping soundly in his inverted pyramid.

It was planning to make a comeback once it recovered from its injuries, but it was suddenly startled awake while it was sleeping soundly.

Inspiration sounded the loudest alarm since crossing the sea.

Something has grasped a corner of its true name and is handing it over to another person as cargo.

The ethereal energy of the Black Soil River expert exploded.

Its true name is its deepest root; to hold onto its complete true name is to hold onto its life.

It followed the reins back and found the Wild Hunt.

That guy with antlers on his head, leading a seemingly endless army.

Scandinavia's oldest hunter was carrying its real name, returning to the hunting grounds with a satisfied expression.

Ignoring its half-healed wound, it rushed out with all its might.

He had to snatch the real name back before the other person could take it back to the hunting grounds.

Once its true name is completely recorded in the hunting register and bound to the rituals of the Wild Hunt, the reins of its life are forever in someone else's hands.

It chased after the person returning from behind the curtain.

Deep behind the curtain, the two experts collided.

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

The rear guard of the Wild Hunt, consisting of several hundred riders and their horses, was trapped in the suddenly opened Shadow Abyss, whose mouth closed silently.

The hunter did not turn around; he flicked the reins, and the buglers in the rear raised their horns.

The sound of the horn fell into the shadow abyss, and the knight who had sunk down returned from the bottom of the shadow abyss to the sound of the horn.

The dead cannot drown; the abyss can drown the living, but it cannot drown things that have been dead for hundreds of years.

An angry ripple rose from the depths of darkness; it no longer swallowed, it shone.

Thousands of mirrors emerged from the ink, turning into a curtain that seemed to tilt the sky.

Each mirror bites a rider, biting into their skin and name.

The riders caught in the light immediately fell out of the queue, and large sections of the line behind them went dark.

Seeing that the other party was serious, the hunter finally turned around.

The troops that have been built up over so many years and nights are being wiped out one by one.

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

It took down its horn, which had only blew short notes all night, but this time it blew a full long note.

As the long note faded, all the mirrors trembled.

It rode into the mirrored curtain, its antlers shattering the first mirror that came into view.

In every shard of mirror, there stands one of them.

Every mirror is a hunting ground, where hundreds of hunters simultaneously raise their hands amidst hundreds of fragments, their ribs popping out one by one and bending into bows.

The bones have become a bow, but the bow is drawn without an arrow; what is shot out is the sound of hooves.

Arrows of hoofbeats poured forth from all directions into the darkness, even shooting out a volley of arrows from the shadow beneath its own feet.

The master of shadows is betrayed for the first time by both his own mirror and his own shadow.

It panicked for a moment, then pounced on the Hunter Master in real life, using its true form within the Myriad Mirrors, which was its specialty.

It shines, but the hunter's name cannot be reflected on the mirror.

The mirror reflected only a string of hoof prints, one after another densely covering the entire mirror.

This one has long since worn his name into his hoofprints, leaving only the sound of his hooves to forever haunt the world.

A mirror cannot reflect sound.

Enraged, the Black Soil River expert spread himself out like a book of dead souls.

This corner of the abyss turned upside down, becoming completely black from top to bottom.

The ground where the hunting party stood was also raised up, forming a vast expanse of blackness, within which the pupilless eye opened.

The hunter blew a second long note; the mounts in his party didn't know the way, nor did they need one.

Tens of thousands of riders rolled straight over the erected black wall, leaving no path beneath their hooves, turning the landscape into a vast wilderness.

The black wall was plowed in two, and in the chaos, a shadowy arm reached out to the saddle, its fingertips touching the horn rope.

The hunter, however, wrapped the reins around his arm and tightened them around his arm.

With a pull and a tug, the arm broke.

The hunter casually tossed the still-writhing black piece into the pack of dogs.

The sounds of dogs scrambling for food carried far into the depths.

The black mist drifted into the mouths of the dogs, and one by one, the countless tiny, pupil-less eyes within the mist closed.

It retreated, folding itself thin again.

The page that was folded this time was missing a corner again compared to when it arrived.

It watched helplessly as its hunter tucked its three syllables into his robes and led the pack away to the highest point.

The Black Earth River Master hung deep behind the curtain, his entire body trembling with ether.

It reached back along the reins, only to find nothing but emptiness.

The hand that handed over the goods seemed to have never existed.

It roared like a madman, the roar exploding behind the curtain, even causing the weak points of the local industrial belt that were darkening to tremble.

………………

Outside the narrow door inlaid with silver thread in the basement of Imperial Capital University.

Richard emerged from behind the curtain, leaning against the rock wall for a long while before finally suppressing the exhaustion that seemed to seep from his very bones.

The shadow returned behind the curtain, carefully storing away the antler tip with the reins wrapped around it and the half-set of runestones.

"Success." McFee put the engraving knife and sealing wax back into his bag one by one.

"Thanks to the two professors," Richard nodded.

Mortimer's wrinkled old face remained calm throughout.

"What did they replace it with?"

Mortimer picked up the corner and stared at the dim yellow light in the basement for a long time.

"A ticket to get on the train," he snorted.

"That old man has a good plan."

McFaye also came over for a look.

"It didn't give you a real superior artifact." The white-haired giant's tone was laced with suppressed anger.

"It gave you a horn that shed from your own mount."

"You're gone, you're dead, it's saved it trouble."

"If you don't go, it won't be harmed at all."

Mortimer put the horn down and sighed helplessly.

"You used a master's real name and all you got in return was this one horn."

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

Neither professor was satisfied, and they were both helpless.

Within its own rules, the hunter had made this deal a sure-fire way for him to profit.

You can't find any fault with it; every step is perfectly in line with the rules, a perfectly in line with the rules...

"Professor," Richard spoke first.

The two experts looked at him.

"My main goal has been achieved: my maternal grandfather's name has been crossed out of that book."

"With this matter settled, the rest..."

Richard tucked the antler tip, which was wrapped around the reins, into his pocket.

"They're all just extras."

Mortimer stared at him for two seconds.

"You little brat... fine, it's good that you can come to terms with it."

With everything in order and no one else in danger, the three of them walked up from the basement.

Those two experts are still on the other side of the door.

Richard bowed to both sides through the narrow doorway.

"Thank you both, seniors."

The vortex veered slightly in his direction, as if in response.

The ledger slowly rolled up and retreated along the passageway.

The two experts came over, but did nothing from beginning to end.

Next, we need to handle the aftermath of the ceremony.

McFee used traditional methods from the Moonhunter to suppress and smooth out any trace of Richard that might be traced back to him.

Mortimer used the traditional method of annotation in classical texts to erase any connection between Richard and that real name as a wrong annotation.

While concealing the marks, McFaye explained the pros and cons of the Wild Hunt to Richard.

"You can keep that horn, but I advise you not to go."

Why?

"The Wild Hunt is useful to hunters, and also to us scholars who travel the Hunting Month."

"Besides the spoils themselves, hunters can hone their killing instincts and take advantage of the momentum of that team."

"The Moon Hunters are inside; they can see up close how names are pursued, pronounced, and added to the register—that's our specialty."

"If you fall into either of these two categories, it might be worth taking the risk to participate a few times."

McFaye smoothed out the last mark and straightened up.

"But you are not."

"You're walking the path of mirrors and records." He looked at Richard.

"What you can get from participating in the Wild Hunt is completely disproportionate to the risks you take."

"It's easy to get on," McFee shook his head. "It's hard to come back alive from that group."

Richard looked down at the tip of the antler that was wrapped with the reins in his arms.

Another thought suddenly crossed his mind.

He himself does not go, but he has something that is silent, lightless, weightless, and nameless.

Let the shadow go?

Once the thought popped into Richard's head, he couldn't suppress it.

These days he has been taking on Demeter and Heracles's requests one by one.

He always insisted that the other party pay with etheric condensate when settling the bill.

The congealed material had piled up in clumps, and the shadow was diligently eating it every day.

The food he eats can't keep up with what he's accumulated; the condensate is something that dissipates, and the low concentration dissipates the fastest.

If left for a while, it will turn into something that you can't touch in the air.

The shadow eats all day long, but it still overflows.

That seemingly endless line of people... was a hunt.

Would having the shadow ride on that team and run all night allow it to consume more condensate?

Besides, he had originally planned to train Shadow to be a hunter.

Stone Armor, Moon Spikes, Shadow Armor... all of these he gave to Shadow were geared towards combat.

The shadow had been practicing behind the curtain for so long, and its solidity had visibly increased.

The Wild Hunt is a never-ending hunt. Let Shadow go in and experience the hunting techniques that have been refined over thousands of years. That should be a good fit for him.

Most importantly, if his shadow is scattered during the Wild Hunt, his loss is acceptable.

If the main body goes inside and is lost, then that means true death.

The shadow has dissipated, and he is severely weakened, but he can recover and start over.

Moreover, he possessed the Hermes mask.

We can send Shadow with the mask on. The mask's attributes of guiding and crossing borders might come in handy in a Wild Hunt team that crosses borders behind a veil.

Richard thought it was feasible more and more, so he decided to send his shadow instead of himself.

Thinking about it this way, the corner that the two professors thought was "too bad" suddenly didn't seem so bad anymore.

He looked up, preparing to sort out this thought a little more...

"Don't think about it."

Mortimer's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

The old professor held the empty teacup, and no one knew how he had figured out what Richard was up to again.

"That's basically the end of it." Mortimer slung his bag over his shoulder.

"Once you're done with your work, go home and get some rest."

"After all this trouble, your face looks worse than this old man's."

Richard touched his face.

"However," the old professor said, turning back as he walked to the entrance of the rock passage.

"In two days, it will be a day of mourning."

"You've gotten past Gerrard, but an even bigger disaster awaits you on the night of the Day of Mourning."

The old professor pulled his hat down a little.

"Get some rest these next couple of days, but don't relax too much."