Direct contact with Shadow Dust.
Amber was not doing this on a mere whim. Though she was usually mischievous and restless, her instinct for cowardice surpassed everyone else's. Cherish life, stay away from danger—that had been her survival principle for many years. Without a certain degree of confidence, she would never casually touch something of unknown origin.
Others had already come into contact with this Shadow Dust. Whether it was Modir himself, who had initially brought it out, or Victoria and Maggie, who had later collected and transported the samples, they had all touched the sand and shown no abnormalities afterward. The facts proved that although these things might be related to a god, they were not harmful to ordinary people like other divine relics. Touching them should not be a problem.
These thoughts flashed through Amber's mind, and her fingers had already touched the grayish-white grains of sand—something so tiny that it produced almost no sensation against her skin.
Amber blinked and looked at her fingertips. A tiny grain of sand clung to her skin, its grayish-white edge trembling like mist as it spread across her fingertip.
"Really no reaction..." she muttered to herself, casually shaking off the sand and lazily leaning backward—yet the expected feeling of the chair back never came. She suddenly lost her balance, her whole body toppling backward as the chair beneath her vanished without warning. Everything before her twisted and shook. It all happened so quickly that she did not even have time to cry out before she felt herself land solidly on a stretch of sand.
"Mother of mercy..." Amber's cry finally came a beat late, her brief scream carrying far across the endless, empty desert.
A dry breeze blew in from afar, and beneath her was the gritty texture of sand and