736 Thanks to "Lord of Darkness" for the Light-Eating Bomb

The news that Orchid had passed the Silver Trial wasn't made public right away.

That was Little Ashina's suggestion.

When Little Ashina had passed the Black Iron Trial and triggered the server-wide announcement, she'd had a similar experience. It might have been some kind of game mechanic: the first player to break through each tier had to log off for several hours while their psionic projection's posture was reset, but later players who advanced didn't have to go through that phase.

It was like raising the server's level cap in a game. You needed a progress bar to fill before you could have that sense of ceremony.

But the other players still couldn't return to Shadow Valley. The random quest "Darkness's Poison" that Lord Murphy had issued earlier had entered its second phase.

The new quest required players to search the ruins of the Blackflame Pass position for special elite monsters called "Darkness's Chosen." They had to hunt down and kill all the dark rats in the positions that had already been cleansed, before the tainted psionic energy spread any further.

From the quest description, this was obviously related to the evil god, the Lord of Darkness. The players had all seen the Lord of Darkness unleash his power at the position, so they weren't about to take this lightly.

Orchid was quickly sent to the rear, where she waited to wake up in a small village called New Mejewa.

The process wasn't long, only about four hours.

She made a real occasion of logging off, cooking herself a lavish meal to celebrate, then taking a nice, relaxing bath and putting on a face mask before logging back in. Her timing was spot-on: exactly four hours had passed.

The moment she opened her eyes, a message that had been prepared