Agatha withdrew her hand instantly and looked at her fingertips in doubt.

However, the nun who was closest to them had already seen this strange scene. She opened her eyes wide in surprise and said, "Gatekeeper, your hand just now..."

Agatha frowned, not knowing what was going on for a moment. At this moment, a guardian warrior next to her came forward, carefully raised his combat staff, and knocked on the solid stone wall that looked no different from the surrounding ones.

The cane hit the stone wall, making a crisp sound, but nothing happened on the wall.

The guard turned around and nodded slightly to Agatha, then mustered up his courage, stepped forward and touched the stone wall directly with his palm.

Nothing happened, the wall remained a wall.

"It's just a wall," the guardian frowned, "but just now..."

Agatha said nothing, but walked forward silently and touched the wall with her fingers again.

The next second, she watched her fingers sink into it again!

There was no resistance at all, and she even felt that she was just touching a curtain made of phantoms.

"It seems that only you can pass through it," the accompanying priest looked at the scene in astonishment, turned his head and said in disbelief, "But... why is it like this? Why is there such a wall deep in the boiling gold mine? No one has ever reported it before..."

Listening to the priest's exclamation, Agatha said nothing, but continued to stare at her fingers that were inserted into the stone wall - at an angle that only she noticed, she finally saw the tiny changes when her fingertips touched the stone wall.

Her fingers and the stone wall seemed to melt at the same time at that location. Although they only melted a little, they blended together like heated butter. The color and texture... looked like black mud.

That's how she "passed through" the seemingly solid stone wall.

After an unknown amount of time, she finally broke the silence with a soft voice: "I don't know why this happened, but obviously...what happens next is something only I can do."

"Gatekeeper?" The accompanying pastor was startled and reacted quickly, "You want to go in alone?! Wait, this is too unsafe. There is something wrong with this wall. If you rush in now, you might..."

"Our city is being swallowed by the thick fog. The twisted existence in the fog is merciless. The power behind it will not wait for us to investigate the truth before taking action." Agatha just shook her head slowly, her voice as calm and steady as usual. "The team led by Governor Winston finally arrived here, but his body is not here. Now it seems that these guards who died in the battle were more likely to hold out to the end just to delay time in the mine tunnel... If I guess correctly, they were trying to buy time for the Governor to pass through this wall."

The priest didn't know how to respond for a moment. After a few seconds of silence, he just spoke instinctively: "But it's too dangerous for you to be alone. This matter should at least be reported to the cathedral..."

"There's no time, there's really no time," Agatha turned around and shook her head slowly but firmly. As she spoke, she once again felt the chill that surrounded her entire body and penetrated her bones. She could almost clearly feel that her blood was gradually stopping flowing, and the substances that made up this body were losing their activity bit by bit. Although this discomfort only lasted for a short time, it still made her tone more resolute. "I must find out the secret of this mine. This may be the only thing I can do in the last little time left..."

She suddenly stopped, forcibly restraining her thoughts and words, trying her best to calm her expression, and looked at her subordinates in front of her seriously.

"I will pass through this wall. You should know the power of the gatekeeper. Don't worry about me. You have your own things to do. After I pass, you will immediately return to the previous traffic intersection. Then the first and second teams will continue to go to the excavation area as planned and investigate the true status of the boiling gold mine. Teams three and four will return to the surface and report what happened here to the cathedral, and then..."

She paused for a few seconds, as if her thoughts were interrupted, and then waved her hand: "That's it. The rest is up to Bishop Ivan's orders."

The guards, priests, and nuns could not help but look at each other in bewilderment. It was the first time they saw the gatekeeper behave in this way, and they were inevitably a little panicked. However, under Agatha's extremely serious gaze, and with the professional qualities that had become almost instinctive due to years of training, obeying orders became their subconscious reaction.

"Yes, I received the order," the priest who led the team nodded solemnly and drew a triangular emblem representing Bartok on his chest, but then he couldn't help but ask, "When do you need us to pick you up?"

"…No need to respond—but don't worry, I will come back. No matter what happens, I will definitely come back."

The pastor withdrew, and no one heard the subtle change in her tone when she said the word "I".

Agatha exhaled softly and took a step towards the dark wall.

Before she touched it, she spoke softly for the last time, as if whispering to someone, or as if speaking to herself -

"Actually... I really like this world..."

She took a step forward without hesitation, and her body sank into the "stone wall" without any hindrance, just like a phantom merging into another phantom.

Faint ripples suddenly appeared on the surface of the stone wall, but before others could see them clearly, the ripples disappeared completely.

Dark, cold, helpless, unable to tell up from down, left from right, and then all her senses seemed to disappear in an instant, and then returned to her in an extremely slow and strange way - this was how Agatha felt after she stepped over the wall.

After an unknown amount of time, she finally opened her "eyes" in the darkness, only to find that she could not see anything around her.

Everywhere you look, there is only endless chaos. Faint dark masses are slowly wriggling in the even darker background, like some kind of sticky and disgusting fluid, or like a slowly crawling, indescribable giant beast.

Why is it so dark? Didn't I bring a lantern with me when I came here?

Such a question couldn't help but arise in Agatha's mind, and almost as she was thinking about it, a ray of light really appeared in front of her eyes.

The dim light illuminated her surroundings, and she saw that she was floating in an endless black fog. Countless shadowy things were wriggling and flowing around her, but no sound was made.

Agatha watched the scene quietly, then lowered her head.

The body came into view, first the torso, then the hands and feet, and the combat staff that had accompanied him for many years.

"Ah...you're here too..."

Agatha whispered to herself, slowly lifting the cane in her hand, looking at the familiar pattern on it, as well as her own name that she had carefully engraved on it when she first received the cane as a guardian.

"Are you a shadow like me?" she asked softly to the cane.

The cane certainly didn't respond to her voice, but something else suddenly made a sound in the darkness.

"Bang!"

It was a gunshot.

Agatha frowned instantly, but before she looked in the direction of the sound, a slightly nervous voice had already reached her ears: "Who's there?!"

In the darkness, Agatha turned her head, and almost at the same time, she saw a sudden flash of light in the direction where the voice came from.

A small piece of solid ground appeared there, illuminated by an antique brass lantern. Something that looked like a tree stump could be seen on the open ground. A middle-aged man in a dark blue coat was leaning against the stump, looking like a motionless statue.

When Agatha looked over, the "statue" suddenly moved. He raised his head suddenly and looked in Agatha's direction with surprise and nervousness: "Who's there?!"

Agatha subconsciously felt a sense of disobedience, but quickly put it behind her. She walked towards the open space illuminated by the lantern and saw the face of the middle-aged man clearly.

Not surprisingly, it was the governor of Frost City, Mr. Winston.

"You seem to have been here for a long time, Mr. Archon," Agatha said calmly, "and now there are only two of us here."

"Gatekeeper... Madam Agatha?" Winston raised his head slowly. He moved and spoke slowly like a worn-out clockwork puppet. But as time went by, his speech and demeanor gradually became more agile and smooth. "You are here too... Wait, why are you here?"

"I passed through a wall, a wall deep in the boiling gold mine," Agatha said calmly. She knew that there was no need to hide or detour now. "The guards you brought with you were wiped out in the mine, Mr. Archon - do you remember them?"

"Guards... Oh, the guards I brought with me," Winston frowned, as if he had just remembered it, and then there was a hint of sadness in his tone, "They are all great people. They tried their best to allow me to activate the key left by the Queen, but I..."

Agatha's expression changed slightly in an instant: "The key left by the Queen?"