The valley is relatively sheltered from the wind, but the concentration of abyssal magic is so high it's suffocating.

Mark felt like a drowning man, constantly having to circulate his holy light magic to resist the erosion. If he wasn't careful, his mind would be torn apart by the omnipresent whispers of madness.

Enzo roared, slamming his lava hammer into the ground, the scorching heat rising up in a small, relatively clean area.

Anna silently channeled natural magic, attempting to purify the surrounding air, but the effect was minimal.

Monica, meanwhile, was enveloped in shadow magic, struggling to resist the erosion of the abyss's magic.

Eileen ignored their difficult adjustment.

She walked to the center of the valley and took a deep breath.

With a flick of her wrist, the mithril box that once contained Raymond and Harrington's Star Moon Black Gold reappeared.

The box was opened, and eighty-eight strange metals, completely black and with star and moon marks flowing on their surface, lay quietly inside.

She carefully took it out, her gaze almost devout.

"Mark, give me your Star Moon Black Gold." She ordered without turning her head, her voice carrying an unquestionable decisiveness. "Keep an eye on the surroundings and don't let anything disturb me."

In the days that followed, Eileen completely immersed herself in her own world.

Unlike Alfonso, she did not seek a breakthrough in life-or-death battles; the path of the Star Moon Mage was entirely different.

The legendary barrier of the Star Moon Mage needs to be broken down little by little, using the vast power of the stars and moon as a hammer and a precise magic array as an anvil.

Eileen began a massive and complex undertaking.

She first used Mark's star-moon black gold, which was significantly larger, as the core node, and then used powder mixed with mithril powder and moonstone to outline a huge star-moon magic circle on the ground that was so intricate it was dazzling.

Each line contains the pure magic of space and stars, shimmering with a faint silver-gray luster.

In the center of the magic array, eighty-eight black gold star-moon symbols floated up, slowly rotating and echoing each other, like eighty-eight miniature stars, exuding an ancient and mysterious aura.

Mark and the others felt their souls being drawn into the flowing star trails with just one more glance.

Around the core magic circle, Ellen began to embed various powerful magical beast crystals.

The lowest grade of these magic crystals is seventh rank. They are all rare items that she collected from all over the Holy Dragon Continent and specially prepared for this trip.

There's a rhomboid core from the Frost Giant Lizard King, imbued with the ultimate power of ice; a crimson crystal formed from the raging flames of the Lava Earth Dragon; and a deep blue crystal core from the Thunder Bird King of Storm Canyon, crackling with blinding arcs of electricity...

Each magic crystal is placed on a node of the magic circle, providing a unified and diverse magical support for the entire ritual.

Monica was secretly shocked. The wealth represented by these magic crystals was something even a top-ranking country on the continent like the Kingdom of Karl couldn't possibly produce!

But this is only the foundation of the ceremony.

Ellen's true ambition goes far beyond simply building a legendary figure like Harrington, who can be easily defeated, by simply accumulating magical power.

She sat cross-legged at the core of the magic circle, her hands constantly forming mysterious hand seals.

As she moved, the suspended star and moon shone brightly with black and gold light. Countless extremely fine, almost invisible threads of starlight shot out from the black and gold, strangely piercing through the rock walls of the valley and disappearing into the void, as if connecting to an unknowable trajectory in the dark.

“She’s activating the ‘Star Orbit’ of those who once possessed the Star Moon Black Gold…” Monica whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

She recalled what Alfonso had said when he exposed Raymond's crimes.

Anyone who has touched the Star Moon Black Gold has their image imprinted in the river of time.

What Ellen is doing now is to forcibly capture and borrow the power imprints of these former "sub-coin" holders scattered throughout the continent through the mother coin, gather starlight, and form an invisible star network that covers this place.

This requires unimaginable mental control and a profound understanding of the laws of the stars and moon.

However, Ellen's gaze pierced through the star network and fell upon the valley, upon the terrifying rift that resembled a gaping maw of an abyss!

Mark's team had vaguely guessed her intentions when Elaine began setting up the magic circle and choosing a location near the Demon Realm Rift, and now they were even clearer about them.

Ailian not only wants to borrow the starlight of the powerful on the continent, but also wants to actively project the brilliance of the stars and moon into that chaotic abyss, just as the Goddess of the Stars and Moon did back then!

She wants to capture the star trails of the abyssal demons, and even... peer into the traces left by those chaotic and evil abyssal demon gods in the river of time and space that ordinary humans cannot access!

How insane and audacious this is!

The will of the abyss is synonymous with chaos and devouring. Actively probing starlight into it is like dropping the purest water into a boiling oil pan, which will inevitably bring about the most violent backlash!

“No wonder they chose this place…” Anna murmured, her face turning pale.

Only at such close proximity to the abyss rift could the power of the stars and moon barely penetrate the thick barrier of demonic energy.

But it also means that they are all exposed on the front lines, bearing double the pressure and the constant threat of attacks from abyssal monsters.

“So, for the past two weeks,” Ellen’s voice rang out again, carrying a weariness of having completed the initial setup, but her eyes were sharp as knives as she swept over Mark and the other three, “the magic circle is complete, but maintaining it, guiding the starlight, especially… the attempt to cast the starlight into the abyss, requires my full attention and cannot tolerate the slightest disturbance.”

She stood up, and for the first time, looked at Mark's team with a pleading gaze, her tone more solemn than ever before:

"My back is in your hands. Clear out any living thing that dares to approach this valley. Whether it's a demonic monster attracted by the power of the stars and moon, or... anything else. Hold out for half a month, until I succeed!"

After saying that, Ellen said no more and sat back down cross-legged at the core of the magic circle.

She placed her hands lightly on the floating black gold star and moon, her eyes closed, exuding a tranquility and profundity that seemed out of place in the surrounding raging demonic realm.

The light of the Star Moon Black Gold Mother Coin stabilized and flowed slowly, with countless starlight threads appearing and disappearing in the void.

One part is stably connected to the "star trails" of the distant continent, while the other part, like cautious tentacles, begins to tentatively explore the depths of that dark rift that brings endless destruction...

Inside the valley, only the faint hum of the Star Moon Magic Array and the even more violent and noisy winds of the Demon Realm outside the valley remained.

Mark gripped the cross on his chest, Enzo's lava patterns burned fiercely, Anna's bowstring tightened quietly, Monica's warning array brightened to its maximum, and Little M on his shoulder retracted its wings of light, its seven-colored light contained within, vigilantly watching every entrance to the valley.