I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

On the list of "Girls Most Wanted to Date" published by the Star Daily, Ishtar didn't even have a rank.

But then, she saw the young man in front of her who was originally in a daze turned slightly and looked at her.

The windows next to the aisle were open, and the morning light slanted into the corridor.

Rast stood in the thin sunlight, and the outline of his face was not hard and angular, but rather quite soft.

After hearing Ishtar's rebuke, an apologetic expression appeared on his face.

"I'm sorry to cause trouble to Miss Ishtar."

"My parents certainly didn't teach me that, though."

Bathed in the sunshine, Rast smiled faintly: "They passed away before I could even remember anything."

"I was orphaned at a young age and grew up in a remote border town. The interpersonal relationships there were very simple. After all, everyone was just an uneducated country person."

"So, I'm not really familiar with the aristocratic etiquette Miss Ishtar mentioned... I'm truly sorry if I offended you."

Ishtar stared blankly at the young man in front of her who was smiling apologetically.

What did I just say...

Her face turned pale in an instant, and she was overwhelmed by guilt.

Chapter 40 How to Make Her Toss and Turn in Guilt

"Yes, sorry."

Ishtar's face turned pale. "I didn't know your family situation before, and I didn't mean to say that..."

"It's okay, Miss Ishtar, you don't have to apologize. After all, I was the one who offended you without knowing etiquette, and I know you didn't mean it."

Luster bowed deeply, an apologetic smile still on his face.

His smile was bathed in the slanting sunlight, as light as clear water, yet it reflected infinite brilliance.

"As for my parents' past, it's been so long, and I no longer care about it."

"I……"

Ishtar hesitated, but then heard Luster speak again: "And as Miss Ishtar said, I have been following you all this time. I had no choice."

"I have no relatives here. The only people I know are Hiltina and Miss Ishtar."

"If I don't follow you, I'll have no idea where to go or what to do."

"Of course, if Miss Ishtar doesn't want me to follow her, then you can just hand me over to the guards here, or tell me where Hiltina is."

After listening to Rast's words, Ishtar's complexion not only did not improve, but became even paler, and the guilt and remorse in her heart became stronger.

But she still noticed the message contained in Rast's words.

"You said you have no relatives here, not even a single person you know?"

"Yeah." Rust nodded and looked up at the sky outside the window. "My hometown and the place where I used to live are all very far away from here. This is a strange new world to me."

Ishtar was silent. She recalled the irrelevant remarks made by Rast during the psychological interrogation.

At Hiltina's request, all the information about Last and "Night's Echo: Deep Blue Harbor" was included in the confidential files. In the entire Star University, only Hiltina and Dean Yin knew the full picture.

Even as a psychometrician, Ishtar only knew that the person she was about to conduct a risk assessment on was a new student who might be attending Star University, a new night traveler, and she knew no other details.

Therefore, when Ishtar first heard those irrelevant things from Rast, such as "he couldn't remember his age" and "his name was told to him by someone in his dream", she thought that Rast was simply resisting the interrogation and talking nonsense.

After all, as a psychometrician, she has seen too many mentally ill patients talking nonsense, and each of them speaks in a serious and logical manner. It is easy to be fooled by them if you are not careful. The best way is to not believe a word they say.

But now that I think about it, how could someone who possesses such clear fragments of memory, who pursues the light even in the darkness, and who can withstand the test of the Eye of Prying Eyes, speak nonsense without thinking?

Although Ishtar still didn't think that Rast had really lived for hundreds of years as he said, after all, Rast looked no different in age from a freshman at Star University.

But the rest of what he said—that he was all alone, had no relatives in Granville, and that his memory was so flawed that he had forgotten even his real name...maybe it was all true.

And the so-called feeling that he had lived for hundreds of years might be the sequelae of Last's memory loss.

Ishtar spoke softly, "Although I heard you mention it when I asked you earlier...but do you actually know Vice President Hiltina?"

"Vice president?"

"Well, as one of the twelve members of the Round Table, Hiltina will, as per convention, hold a position in the Star Student Union. She is the Vice President of the Student Union."

Ishtar thought for a moment and said, "Theoretically, she should be at the Lionheart Academy Student Union headquarters right now, but that's just a theory."

"As the 'Ghost of Conquerors,' Vice President Hiltina's whereabouts are notoriously erratic."

"People say that if you want to find her, you're more likely to run into her in the Reverberations of History in the Night World than on the campus of Starry University."

"Ghost of Raiders?"

Luster noticed the word.

"Well, the night world is extremely dangerous. If you're not careful, you could die."

"That's why almost all Starry University's night travelers choose to delay until their cooldown period reaches its limit... Only after they have perfected their abilities, consumable items and equipment, and gathered intelligence will they choose to enter the night world."

Knowing that Rast seemed to know nothing about Star University and even the whole world, Ishtar took the initiative to explain.

"But Hiltina is different. Her progress in conquering the Night World has always exceeded targets."

"In fact, she often emerges from the echoing sound of one night world and immediately rushes to the entrance of the next night world... It's as if she has some unimaginable obsession with conquering night worlds."

"However, it is precisely because of this persistence that Vice President Hiltina became the youngest third-rank official in the history of Star University, and the youngest member of the 'Twelve Seats of the Round Table.'"

Ishtar sighed softly, "Perhaps it won't be long before she breaks the university's record for being the youngest person to reach the fourth level."

"Since the Night World Reverberations are so dangerous, why does Hiltina still do this?" asked Last.

Hearing this, he couldn't help but recall what Hiltina had said to him in the last moment before she jumped into the sea at Deep Blue Harbor.

"Every traveler who has abandoned the glamorous and dazzling identity of the outside world and walks in the night world where laws and morals do not exist, accompanied by the echoes of history, madness and pollution..."

"They are all complete outliers, paranoids and lunatics in the eyes of others."

……

"I don't know, and no one at Star University really knows."

Ishtar shook her head.

"I heard that the real reason why Vice President Hiltina became the 'Strategy Ghost' even made it onto the Star Daily's list of 'Top Ten Unsolved Mysteries on Campus.'"

"However, some people speculate that it has something to do with her past."

"It is said that Vice President Hiltina's hometown was destroyed by a twilight disaster, and her mother also died in that disaster."

"Twilight Disaster?" Rast continued to ask questions.

"Huh? You don't even know this?"

Ishtar was a little surprised. "Since you were able to inherit extraordinary knowledge and step onto the Long Stage of Sequence to become a Night Traveler, then this should be the most basic common sense."

"Where I used to live was technologically backward, and information access was very limited," Luster said softly. "Not only were there no cars, cell phones, internet, air conditioning, refrigerators...but our only connection to the outside world was the monthly visits of couriers and traveling merchants."

"It was an accident that led me to step onto the Long Steps of Sequence, becoming a Transcendent and a Night Traveler. No one ever taught me the so-called 'common sense'."

Hearing this, Ishtar's eyes suddenly softened, even showing a bit of pity.

Chapter 41: Canaan of Hiltina

"So that's what it is-"

"It's truly not easy for you to come out of the mountains and reach the capital from such a remote place through self-study."

After listening to Luster's explanation, Ishtar's voice became more sympathetic.

As the only daughter of the Julian family, she has lived in Pros, the royal capital of the Granville Empire and the "City of Summer Flowers" since childhood.

The "City of Summer Flowers" is the most prosperous city in the entire Granville Empire...air conditioning, cars, smartphones, power networks, etc. are just the most basic daily necessities for her.

She simply couldn't imagine what kind of life Rast was leading in such a remote place.

However, only those who come from such simple places can avoid being contaminated by the corrupt atmosphere of the aristocracy in big cities and possess a pure heart that even the "Eye of Prying Eyes" cannot penetrate.

Ishtar sighed in her heart, and then began to explain to Rast.

"The Twilight Scourge is a disaster that occurs sporadically around the world, without warning or reason, as if it descended from nowhere."

"Furthermore, the types of dusk disasters vary. There are tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, plagues, beast disasters... They seem to have nothing to do with each other."

"But this is only for ordinary people..."

Ishtar's words darkened slightly, and her eyes lost their previous gentleness and became more serious.

"According to the laws of the Granville Empire, disclosing information about the Dusk Disaster to uninformed individuals will result in liability for the leak of secrets."

"However, since you are a Night Traveler and have already passed the school's preliminary review, you will probably be able to complete the registration as a new student at Starry University soon. It doesn't constitute a violation of confidentiality regulations for me to say this now."

Ishtar paused, then spoke again: "In fact, after verification by Star University—"

"The birth of the Dusk Disaster is directly related to the night world."

"Similar to the sudden appearance of the 'Twilight Disaster,' entrances to the Night World will also appear at irregular intervals across the continent."

"The different entrances to the night world, and the echoes of the night within them, each correspond to a lost history before the 'Pale Age', unrecorded in modern history books."

"Since you're already a Night Traveler, you should have also entered the Echoes of History..."

Ishtar glanced at Lust and asked, "Have you noticed that the historical backgrounds of every Night World reverberation actually share similarities?"

"Commonality?"

Although he had actually only experienced the Echoes of the Night at "Deep Blue Harbor", relying on the memories of Blue Star in his previous life, Last quickly found the answer.

"You're saying that the historical background of each episode of Resonance of the Night... involves some kind of great crisis, conflict, or disaster?"

This is a logical inference.

In the design document for the "Shadows of the Past" DLC of "Snow Moon Emblem", the night world is a place for players to play dungeons together online and increase the length of the game.

Since it is a dungeon, there naturally needs to be a goal to pass the level, or the final BOSS to be defeated by the players.

To put it another way, if the echoes of the night world that the night traveler enters have a historical background of prosperity and peace, where people live and work in peace and contentment—

The world at that night would not become the forbidden land with a very high mortality rate as described by Hiltina, where only lunatics and paranoids would enter, but would be a new world full of gold, milk and honey.

"Yes."

Ishtar nodded.

"According to the latest conclusions reached by the 'Ruins Institute' within Starry University, which specializes in collecting and analyzing night world intelligence—"

"When a night world entrance opens, night travelers enter this reverberation of the night and begin to investigate and explore this lost history, repeatedly passing through the reverberation..."

"This entrance, and the power of this historical reverberation, will gradually weaken... until the historical reverberation is completely explored, and the passage to the night world in this world will disappear, which means we have completely conquered a night world."

"And if the Night Traveler doesn't explore this night world enough, even after a certain time limit, their exploration progress still doesn't meet the requirements for the strategy."

"Then, this night world passage will evolve into the 'Echoes of Disaster'."

When she said this, a trace of palpitations flashed across Ishtar's eyes.

"The appearance of the 'Resonance of Disaster' marks the beginning of the countdown."

"Compared to the normal Reverberations of History, the difficulty of clearing Reverberations of Disaster will increase significantly. Of course, correspondingly, some normal restrictions will also be lifted."

"And what if, when the countdown reaches zero, 'Echoes of the Disaster' remains unconquered?"

Luster had already guessed what Ishtar was about to say.

"In the night world, the disaster that befell that lost history—"

“It will, truly become a reality.”

"That's what's called the 'Twilight Disaster.'"

……

Outside the psychological measurement room, the long corridor has come to an end.

Ishtar pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, and the bright sunshine immediately came into their eyes.

This seems to be a suburban area, surrounded by many temporary camps and fortifications built with steel bars. People wearing the school badges with stars can be seen coming and going everywhere.

It should be morning now.