Chapter 1492 — "Erroneous Copy"
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
If the various anomalies that arose when Amber came into contact with information related to the Lady of Night were because she was a mortal, because she had been tainted by the Lady of Night's divinity, then the fact that she now showed no reaction at all to the Staff of Shadow might more likely mean that the "distance" between her and the Lady of Night had been narrowed once again—narrowed so far that some critical threshold had been crossed. Just as two substances that were originally mutually exclusive might suddenly lose their mutual exclusivity: either they had completely severed their connection, or... they were gradually merging.
He suddenly looked up, fixed his eyes on the Staff of Shadow in Amber's hand, and held out his own: "Give it to me a moment."
"What for?" Amber was startled, her expression instantly tensing. "I'm not being petty, but this thing is connected to the Lady of Night, and I haven't finished confirming its state yet. If you go touching it carelessly, it might be dangerous..."
"Enough, give it here," Gao Yang glanced at her. "What danger could your knockoff trinkets possibly pose? That pile of sand of yours is still being studied by a whole crowd of people in the Theocracy Council's laboratory. And you know me—'divine pollution' in this world has no effect on me. I've even looked upon the true form of the Dragon God Enya several times."
"Well... all right," Amber had nothing to say to that. Seeing Gao Yang's resolve, she could only slowly hand over the staff, while not forgetting a few more reminders: "Handle it carefully, don't break it on me—I was planning to test whether it works for cracking walnuts later..."
At those words, Gao Yang's mouth twitched on the spot, and he took the staff from the hands of this disgrace to all creation without hesitation.
A touch of faint warmth came through his fingertips. The short rod was actually a little heavier than he had imagined—utterly unlike the weightless light-and-shadow rift or the feather-light Shadow Dust. And its material did not resemble any substance he knew. He could not say whether it was metal, wood, or crystal. Holding it, the only sensation he got was... "this object exists."
A solid, indisputable tactile quality seemed to deliberately assert itself, conveying that "sensation" to him—and that bothered him greatly.
But apart from that strange feeling, he sensed nothing else from the staff, nor did any knowledge or memory not his own arrive in his mind.
"Do you sense anything?" Amber stared fixedly at Gao Yang as he hefted the "epic-grade cudgel" she had just acquired, watching his face turn stern as he sank into silent contemplation with his eyes closed. After quite a while she could not help but speak up: "Or else..."
"I'll keep this with me for a few days," Gao Yang said as soon as she had spoken, in a tone that brooked no refusal. "I want to study it properly—provided, of course, that it can maintain its existence away from you, like the Shadow Dust."
Amber opened her mouth. She seemed a little hesitant about the request, but what surprised Gao Yang greatly was that after less than a few seconds of hesitation, she nodded: "Fine, you can have it for now. Don't worry, this thing won't vanish the moment it leaves my side—as long as I don't actively 'recall' it, it will persist stably. I don't know how I'm certain of that either; I just am."
Gao Yang nodded, then could not help asking out of curiosity: "Why did you agree so suddenly? I'd have thought that, knowing you, you'd refuse at least three or four times and only cave when I was about to slap you into the wall..."
"I'm not stupid," Amber rolled her eyes at once. "How many years have I been at your side? When you're serious, when you genuinely mean well for me, when you're just joking—you think I can't tell?"