Dissolving into the starry night sky, Barn moved across the heavens as a streak of hyper-condensed, shimmering spatial mana.
Below him, the sprawling, luminous grid of the Capital shrank into a faint amber blur, swiftly swallowed by the vast, jagged silhouette of the Southern Borderlands.
Landing with silent, weightless precision atop a razor-sharp cliff jutting high over the Abyssal Mountain Range, Barn stood in absolute stillness.
The freezing mountain gales whipped violently against his dark clothing, yet the fabric remained eerily motionless, wrapped in his impenetrable, invisible aura.
Channeling a precise thread of subtle mana into his shadow-black coat, he watched as the enchanted fabric smoothly shifted form, lengthening, broadening, and flowing downward into a heavy, floor-length cloak that enveloped his broad frame completely.
’Good…
it actually feels much cooler like this.
Like a proper mysterious figure,’ Barn thought to himself, secretly satisfied that he had finally found a practical reason to test the garment’s dynamic shape-shifting capabilities.
Closing his dark eyes, Barn extended his extra-sensory perception into the vast, ancient wilderness below.
Supported by his innate [Divine Knowledge] and [All-Know] abilities, his dense, colossal mana pool flooded outward like an invisible, infinite tide.
It seeped deep into the craggy earth, slicing effortlessly through solid bedrock, subterranean magma rivers, and ancient ley lines for hundreds of miles in every direction.
His heightened senses mapped out the hidden, underground veins of the borderlands with terrifying, absolute clarity.
His transcendent consciousness seamlessly processed, categorized, and filtered the overwhelming torrent of environmental information without a single trace of mental fatigue.
Deep beneath the jagged, snow-capped peaks, his mind locked onto seven massive, violently pulsating concentrations of unnatural, volatile mana.
Unmapped Ancient Dungeons.
Barn’s eyes snapped open, a cold, razor-sharp analytical gleam reflecting the pale moonlight above.
Through his intuitive reading of the world’s fundamental magic matrices, he could read the dungeons’ internal activation timelines like open pages in a ledger.
The Holy Church’s secret seal arrays were already pinned around the primary dungeon cores, steadily channeling ambient dark mana to force an artificial, premature breach.
’Seven active dungeons concentrated right here in this mountain corridor…
though if I scan the adjacent mountain ranges, I could probably find seven more, considering this isn’t the only ancient ruin site in Asteria,’ Barn calculated mentally.
‘The furthest core is fluctuating violently—it will rupture in three days.
The remaining six will reach critical overload within a week. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
They plan a staggered, calculated collapse to drown the southern borders in an endless, bloody wave.’
It was a meticulous, ruthless setup designed to bleed House Nightbane’s vanguard white before the Church unleashed their grand “Hero” to sweep up the remnants and claim divine authority.
Barn’s lips curled into a faint, dangerous smirk.
He didn’t just intend to dismantle those cores; he intended to use the high-density mana fields compressed within those ancient subterranean structures to forge brand-new skills, refine his [Chaos Body], and push his personal power far beyond its current baseline.
Sweeping his sensory net through several adjacent border territories before returning, Barn located six additional dormant dungeons.
However, those particular cores remained entirely untouched, with no trace of human intervention or Church tamperings nearby.
’At least the immediate crisis is contained to a single sector, as the active ones are all clustered together,’ he thought, turning back toward the Capital as his form vanished once more into spatial motion.
The following morning, the first golden rays of dawn painted the grand courtyards of the Artecus Estate in crisp, clear light.
Barn stood near the estate’s private carriage grounds, dressed once again in his tailored, shadow-black suit.
Standing beside him were Rosalina and Nyxara, both clad in refined, custom-enchanted traveling gear—form-fitting, highly resilient armor layered beneath casual noble garments, specifically designed for peak physical mobility and high-tier spellcasting.
Duke Valerius Nightbane had granted Nyxara full, unreserved authorization to accompany Barn into the borderlands.
The Shadow Sovereign understood that keeping his daughter cooped up within the political cage of the Capital would only hinder her growth—and after witnessing the divine moon resonance awakening within her core, he trusted Barn’s guidance far more than the defensive stone walls of his own fortress.
Rosalina adjusted her travel cloak, her brown eyes burning with a quiet, sharp resolve.
“The High Council has been thoroughly subdued, Barn.
The estate’s internal guards, private vaults, and regional supply lines are fully secured under my direct authority.”
”You destroyed your own Higher Council that supported you?” Barn asked dryly, glancing at her with an amused, knowing smirk.
Rosalina let out a sharp snarl, her eyes narrowing in disdain.
I didn’t kill them—I simply showed them their proper place beneath my heel.”
Nyxara stepped closer, her long, raven-black hair shifting softly in the morning breeze.
Her slender right hand glowed faintly with the integrated divine aura Barn had ignited within her at the Gala.
“Father’s vanguard has already quietly begun shifting their march toward the secondary mountain choke points.
No one in the Royal Citadel or the High Council suspects we are departing for the border dungeons.”
Barn looked at the two noblewomen—the High Mage commanding House Artecus’s immense wealth, and the unchained villainess carrying a dormant divine core.
”Good,” Barn said, his low, steady voice grounding their burning anticipation.
“Before we reach the first dungeon, I will be suppressing my active power profile.”
Rosalina blinked, taken aback by his words.
“Suppressing it?
Why?”
”If I walk into those subterranean chambers radiating Supreme-rank aura, the dungeon cores will collapse instantly from the external pressure, or the Church’s covert observers will panic and trigger the breach prematurely,” Barn explained calmly, his dark eyes entirely unbothered.
“More importantly, relying purely on raw, unyielding pressure breeds stagnation.
By restricting my output to match the environment, every combat encounter will yield pure, dense experience—allowing me to extract new skills and refine my magic from the ground up.”
With a subtle shift of his intent, Barn activated his [Resonance] and [Energy Transformation] traits.
The thin, world-tier pressure surrounding his vessel pulled inward, sealing itself deep within his spiritual matrix.
To any outside observer or magical detection array, he now appeared as nothing more than a talented, composed High-tier combatant.
”Let’s move,” Barn commanded smoothly, stepping toward the waiting carriage that would take them to the edge of the wild frontier.
“The Church spent years setting this stage.
It would be a pity not to tear it down piece by piece.”