I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

Dean Yin said calmly, "The lowest level of the raiders for the Echo of Disaster is a third-level Night Traveler."

"I know you are very special. What is recorded in the Obelisk archives may not be your complete picture of Night Blade."

"But the gap between the third level and the first level is real. Sometimes the difference in pure strength alone can solve all problems."

Its voice became unusually cold and indifferent: "In high-level strategic battles, first-level transcendents are just a burden."

"I know myself well, Dean Yin."

Last said, "If this Resonance of the Disaster is a purely decisive battle to test lethality, then I won't be a help in the Resonance of the Disaster, but will only be a burden."

"However, the reverberations of the disaster that appeared in the Red Frost Territory this time were not like that."

His eyes moved slightly, and he looked out the dormitory window, in the direction of the starry obelisk.

"Send scouts in first to gather intelligence on the reverberations of the disaster."

"Then, based on the intelligence, we'll hold a strategy meeting, formulate a battle strategy, and conquer the Reverence of the Calamity in one fell swoop. This is the normal process for clearing the Reverence of the Calamity."

"But this time, even the reconnaissance phase of the reverberation is difficult."

Luster said softly, "I observed the obelisk for five days. During these five days, the names of seventeen people were erased from the obelisk's rankings, becoming just one of the vast stars in the night sky."

"And without exception, these people all have Night Blades that specialize in self-protection and detection, serving as scouts within the raiders."

He looked at Dean Yin and said, "Even if the academy has temporarily suppressed the matter of the reverberations of the calamity for the sake of confidentiality, so many Night Travelers have died in such a short period of time. Each of them has their own relatives and friends. It's impossible to hide this from everyone."

"Someone used the prophetic Night Blade to gain insight into the cause of their deaths. The clues they obtained were all the same words—"

"Time and space are in disarray."

Last looked at Dean Yin calmly and said, "Besides Hiltina, you are the only one in this world who knows about my past in Deep Blue Harbor."

"If we talk about pure destructive power, I can't compare with Hiltina—"

"But if it involves the chaos of time and space, I think no one in Starry University is more suitable than me to explore this remnant of the disaster."

"Those guys at the news agency actually even dug up something like the predicted outcome."

Listening to Rast's words, Dean Yin couldn't help but wag his tail in anger.

"Little Tina knows better than I do about your adaptability to chaotic time and space, but since she hasn't taken the initiative to look for you, it means she doesn't want to drag you into this mess."

It looked at Luster, its blood-red eyes revealing annoyance. "Little Tina entrusted you to me, asking me to take care of you and help you adapt to Starry University and life in this era."

"But now you're forcing me to lead you into this hell. When you return to Star University, God knows how little Tina will blame me."

"If you want Hiltina to blame you, we have to get out of the night world alive first, right?"

Rast's gaze was distant. He was clearly looking out the window, but it seemed as if his gaze was focused on an extremely distant place.

"Honestly, I hate the feeling of being in debt to others."

"However, before I could repay Hiltina's 1,600 gold coins, I already owed her more than one favor..."

"If I don't find a way to repay it as soon as possible, I won't be able to sleep peacefully at night."

He spoke softly, as if mumbling to himself, "Please give me a quick answer, Dean Yin. If you refuse, I'll have to find a way to get to Chishuang Territory on my own."

"Given Rodri's personality, if I put a gun to his head, he'd probably drive for me..."

A very rare look of confusion appeared in Dean Yin's beastly eyes.

It felt a mixture of sadness and joy.

The good news is that it seems that I was not wrong about Last.

The sad thing is that this guy seems to be even more restless than Hiltina, and it is simply a fantasy to expect him to stay in the academy honestly.

It seems that my plan to find a long-term and stable meal ticket is going to fall through again.

Chapter 52 Do I have the honor to walk with you again?

Red Frost Territory, a suburb dozens of miles away from the nearest city.

On the surface, it is a deserted, pale sandy land.

But in fact, there is an invisible barrier that quietly covers this area.

Ordinary travelers or caravans coming nearby would just think of this place as an ordinary desert and change direction due to their subconscious.

Only those who wear the school badge can ignore the interference of the barrier and enter the barrier, the airtight frontier stronghold built by the Ashes Academy.

……

"The evacuation order has been issued through the Granville government, but Olfen, thirty kilometers away, is a medium-sized city with a population of nearly one million. A complete evacuation will take at least three weeks."

"The problem now is that we've made absolutely no progress in exploring the Reverberations of the Calamity. In other words, we don't even know what the Twilight Disaster will be after the countdown ends."

"If it's a large-scale disaster like a plague or earthquake, then simply evacuating the city of Orfen will be useless. Perhaps we'll need to evacuate the entire Scarlet Frost Territory and the surrounding provinces."

"That's simply unrealistic. Let's not even talk about evacuating the entire Scarlet Frost Territory. There's the noble interests involved, and the wrangling that would entail... Even ignoring those, evacuating the entire province would take at least a month. By then, the Dusk Disaster might have already arrived."

Inside the Night World stronghold, there is a large conference room.

Various noisy arguments arose one after another.

"Evacuating potentially affected areas is ultimately just a backup plan..."

"No matter what, the moment the Dusk Disaster descended upon the world, it spelled our failure, the failure of Starry University."

The clear voice echoed across the conference table.

The noisy discussions suddenly stopped.

These members of the strategy team who had reached the third level and most of them were ranked in the top 100 of the Obelisk, all looked towards the head seat at the conference table, in the direction of the source of the voice.

There was awe and fear in their eyes.

But more often than not, it is a silent alienation...

Even hate.

Hiltina ignored the glaring gazes directed at her and spoke calmly.

"As long as there is still a slight possibility——"

"Our primary goal is to conquer the remnants of the calamity and annihilate the old calamity in the night world."

She turned sideways and looked at the participant in charge of intelligence.

"Have you checked the list on the obelisk?"

"Um……"

The girl wearing the star-studded school emblem spoke in a deep voice, "Including Senior Luo Ya, who is ranked 27th in the Obelisk and possesses the Night Blade 'Shadow Jump'..."

"This group of reconnaissance teams..."

"They have all been sacrificed, becoming part of the stars on the obelisk."

As soon as she finished speaking, the atmosphere in the entire conference room suddenly became more depressing.

Although based on past experience, after this reconnaissance team entered the aftermath of the disaster, and no one returned from the night world after forty-eight hours, I had some suspicions...

But when this bad news was actually confirmed and the last hope was shattered, it was still a little hard to accept.

As seniors at Star University and members of the Raiders Group, they had experienced sacrifice before.

The exploration of the night world, the strategy battle in the reverberations of disaster... all of this is bound to be accompanied by death. As the strategy team of Star University, the best in the Obelisk rankings, they have long adapted to such an environment.

However, this is the first time that there have been such heavy casualties.

There were seventeen people in total, all of them were members of the Night Blade reconnaissance team who specialized in hiding and escaping. No one was spared—

Total destruction.

If only that were the case, it would be fine.

The most crucial thing is that after paying such a tragic sacrifice, there has been no progress in the collection of intelligence on the strategy of conquering the Echoes of the Disaster.

They don't even know in which time period the lost history in the Remnant of the Disaster falls, or what they will face after entering the Remnant of the Disaster.

And this is only the pioneering stage of gathering intelligence...

Even after paying a heavy price and finally completing the intelligence gathering...how many more people will need to be sacrificed to truly complete the strategy?

The sheer number of casualties is not scary.

The most terrifying thing is that people can't see any hope.

In the suffocating silence, after a brief pause, Hiltina pursed her lips and spoke.

Her voice was soft, like a whisper, yet firm and resolute: "Even so, we can't give up on the strategy."

"Once the Dusk Disaster breaks through the Night World and descends upon the present world, it will affect the entire Scarlet Frost Territory, and even half of the Granville Nation, with its tens of millions of people..."

"Hiltina! I hate you!"

A shrill wail broke the dead silence in the conference room.

She was a short-haired girl with red eyes. The veins on her hands were bulging as she gripped the corner of the conference table tightly.

"If you hadn't known that the danger of this remnant of the disaster was far greater than before, yet still insisted on attacking it, Roya wouldn't have died!"

"If it weren't for the "time-space distortion" that Eloa's Shadow Leap Night Blade encountered in this calamity echo, there's no way he could have entered the Night World ten or a hundred times without any problems!"

"Even if you, a lunatic with a bad fate, die, Luo Ya will never die!"

"In the final analysis, what good does it mean even if we give up this night world and the Scarlet Frost Territory? This isn't our homeland; it's the domain of the great nobles of the capital! Let them deal with the Dusk Disaster and the disaster victims themselves. Even if tens of millions of people die, what does it have to do with us?"

She stared at Hiltina, who was presiding over the meeting, with undisguised hatred. "But now you know so many people have been sacrificed, yet you still insist on continuing the attack."

"I know that, on the surface, you've broken with your father and your family background. But deep down, you still stand on the side of the nobility and the imperial emperor..."

The short-haired girl was forcibly pulled away by the students around her before she could finish her words.

But even so, the eyes of those around the conference table looking at Hiltina were slightly more distant.

Everyone present knew the identity of the female student just now.

She is Luo Ya's lover. They are about to graduate in half a year. They have even set a wedding date and started preparing for the wedding.

But now, with a bright star appearing in the night sky along with the obelisk, everything has turned into a dream.

In that suffocating atmosphere, Hiltina closed her eyes slightly.

After a long moment, she finally opened her beautiful light brown eyes again and said, "I'm sorry about what happened to Luo Ya."

"The danger and casualty rate of this reverberation are indeed beyond the ordinary. According to the academy regulations, members of the raiding team are allowed to decide whether to withdraw."

"I guarantee, as one of the Twelve Seats of the Round Table and with the Ingulite name, that no one will be harassed by the academy, or punished by having their benefits reduced or their obelisk ranking lowered, for withdrawing from this strategy."

Hiltina's clear voice was devoid of emotion. "However, the attack on the Scarlet Frost Territory's Echo of Disaster will continue."

"Considering that reconnaissance is meaningless under the current circumstances, the only viable solution is to abandon reconnaissance and strategy meetings and directly enter the Night World operation with the goal of completing the strategy."

She stood up from the head seat in the conference room.

The red and white knight's uniform looked particularly dazzling in the dim light of the conference room.

"This time, the Remnant of Disaster is restricted to those at the third level. As the highest-ranked person among the third-level obelisks in the academy, I will be the first to enter the Remnant of Disaster alone."

"If I can escape successfully, then I will continue to hold a strategy meeting and formulate a strategy based on the intelligence I have collected."

"If I can't return, then the next member of the Round Table sent by the academy will take over and continue to lead the offensive."

After leaving her final words, Hiltina ignored the countless complicated gazes and walked straight out of the meeting room.

In the meeting room, some people subconsciously wanted to speak.

However, in that silent and depressing atmosphere, they finally just opened their mouths silently, and the words of retention were ultimately left unsaid.

……

Hiltina walked in the stronghold of the night world.

The long chestnut hair flowed down, fluttering in the wind, and the scabbard of the rapier was faintly visible between the rising and falling hem of the knight's skirt.

The complicated gazes behind him, whether of awe, fear, alienation, disgust and hatred, all disappeared, returning to pure nothingness.

Until those walls of reinforced concrete no longer existed, leaving only a long steel passage.

Hiltina knew that the end of this steel passage was the entrance to the Red Frost Territory's night world.

It was also the starting point of the remnant of the disaster that claimed the lives of seventeen people.