Marsh struggled to control the horses.

The horses used by wizards were different from ordinary ones—during breeding, their resistance to pollution was deliberately enhanced.

But even such horses couldn’t last long under the corrosion of wraiths and pollution.

Marsh himself was becoming increasingly uncomfortable amidst the laughter; even the mushroom atop his head was beginning to wilt.

He could only try his best to speed up, not even caring if he trampled over the faces emerging from the ground.

Saul sat inside the carriage, and Little Algae had already crawled across the entire inner wall of the cabin.

He listened as the laughter around him grew louder, only to be flung behind by the carriage.

Saul leaned out of the window and saw that the road ahead no longer held any sinkholes, while the road behind was littered with echoes of laughter.

Once the laughter was left far behind, both the tense Little Algae and Marsh gradually returned to normal.

Not long after, a massive crevice appeared on the mountainside ahead to their right—like someone had taken an axe and split the mountain straight down into the earth.

The rift plunged deep into the mountain, its interior shrouded in darkness, its shape indiscernible. Yet as the carriage passed by, Saul could feel waves of intense mental energy emanating from within.

There must be a large number of wraiths tangled up inside—and clearly not on the same level as the ones they’d encountered earlier on the road.

[Morden: Master, do not go in.]

Saul gave a slight nod and instructed Marsh to pass by quickly.

But as they moved past the rift, Saul still looked inward.

This time, he didn’t recklessly use his meditation technique, but instead observed the area around the rift with his naked eyes.

He pulled out some paper and began noting down what he observed.

There were clearly a great number of wraiths inside that rift, but they were all cowering in the deepest part.

He had no idea what was restraining them.

The carriage soon left the rift behind.

Along the way, Saul passed several other clearly abnormal locations. But with Morden’s guidance, they always managed to avoid the most dangerous places.

“We’re almost at the exit of the Borderland,” Saul said as he stepped out of the carriage, standing beside Marsh on the driver’s platform.

Marsh had been tense the entire ride. Now, even trying to open his mouth produced no sound—he could only nod heavily in response.

[Agu: The Borderland is a place without unified order. The rules for survival here are complicated. In this place, even a true wizard could face mortal danger, while certain special ordinary people might live on just fine.]

[Morden: In short, Master, once you enter the Borderland, no matter what you see—don’t rush to approach. It’s best to observe first, understand the patterns, and only then act.]

“Observe, and then identify the patterns, huh?” Saul took their advice to heart.

Suddenly, the mountains flanking the canyon vanished, as if they had been sliced clean through like blocks of tofu.

Saul’s carriage had finally exited Hanging Hands Valley and entered a new world.

“This is…” Saul had been standing atop the carriage as a precaution against danger. But what he saw caught him off guard—it was a wide, open grassland.

Lush green grass. A gentle breeze.

Sunlight, once blocked by the canyon walls of Hanging Hands Valley, now poured down unrestrained.

“So this is the Borderland?” Saul couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

He squinted to examine the nearby area. The grass and plants swayed lightly—nothing unusual there.

But when he gazed into the distance, he noticed a blur where the grassland met the blue sky.

He carefully extended his mental form, spreading it slowly across the ground. But the feedback revealed nothing abnormal.

“The nearby area seems fine, but the farther regions… not so much. I can’t yet tell where the boundary lies between normal and abnormal.”

“Milord?” Marsh, finally free from the strangeness of Hanging Hands Valley, felt somewhat relieved at the sight of such beauty. He turned to Saul, uncertain where to go next.

“You wait here. Don’t wander off. If anything strange happens, retreat back into the valley.”

“Huh?” Marsh clearly thought the valley was scarier than this place. But he obeyed. Despite his lingering fear, he nodded. “Understood, Milord.”

Saul jumped down from the carriage and, after some thought, retrieved a magical artifact from his storage—one he had never used before.

The Eye of Banishment.

It was something Kongsha had given him before she died. She had told him that if Gorsa ever tried to harm his soul, he should swallow the The Eye of Banishment. Though he would still die, at least he wouldn’t suffer after death.

At first, Saul had thought the diary’s reason for urging him to accept Kongsha’s invitation was just to obtain this The Eye of Banishment. But later, during the Wizard Tower rebellion, he never ended up using it.

It was only then that he realized—the diary’s true goal in sending him to Elven Valley was likely to reveal the true nature of this planet to him, and to grant him the final gift of the half-elves, allowing him to ascend as a true wizard.

If he hadn’t achieved First Rank True Wizard status, he likely wouldn’t have survived long enough during the rebellion for Mentor Gorsa to suppress the pollution.

But through later research, Saul discovered that the Eye of Banishment wasn’t specifically designed to corrupt the soul. In fact, it had many uses.

It could reveal the true flow of power—unclouded by illusion or interference.

After disembarking, Saul lightly scored his left palm with the fingertip of his right hand, creating a shallow cut. A few strands of gray-glimmering blood trickled out.

He pressed the Eye of Banishment against the wound. The seemingly unremarkable—just unusually hard—eye quickly merged with the cut.

The bleeding stopped instantly. The eye rotated once in Saul’s palm, and when the black pupil turned outward again, Saul felt as though he had lost all sensation in his palm.

It was like someone had hollowed it out.

Yet when he tried moving his fingers, they responded with perfect flexibility—no restriction at all.

He raised his hand toward the distance and slowly extended his mental energy along his arm, connecting it bit by bit with the Eye of Banishment.

Suddenly, Saul’s vision gave a light shudder—an entirely new, third perspective emerged. When the black eye rotated of its own accord, he could even see himself from this unfamiliar viewpoint.

And he wasn’t alone.

Through the The Eye of Banishment’s vision, Saul saw himself surrounded by a ring of multicolored auras.

Even under the sunlight, those halos shone in stark, contrasting hues. They continuously shifted—like the air rippling above a blazing flame.

Through the view from his left hand, Saul could clearly see these auras clinging close to him, occasionally shifting positions, moving near and then pulling back.

He didn’t yet know what they were, but he could feel them watching him.

Saul narrowed his eyes, reining in his curiosity. He didn’t turn to look directly.

He flipped through the diary in his mind to the page where he first obtained the Eye of Banishment.

The final line of that day’s entry read:

[Do not make eye contact with them.]

“The cost of using the Eye of Banishment… is seeing things I normally can’t. Even though I can see them through the Eye of Banishment, I must not look at them directly.”

As he used the The Eye of Banishment for longer, Saul’s own vision began to faintly pick up colors not of this world.

“The Eye of Banishment observes the world—and also me. If those auras drift into my direct line of sight, I must be careful not to meet their gaze.”

Saul kept these insights in mind, warning himself what to be cautious of. Then he opened his left hand and stepped forward onto the grassland.

Through the Eye of Banishment’s vision, he saw that roughly five hundred meters away, a village had suddenly appeared.

Near the village, the green grass abruptly shifted to brown soil. The boundary between the two looked like mismatched puzzle pieces—connected, yet unnaturally so.

(End of Chapter)

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