On the tenth day after the Avatar's defeat, the international Hunter community formally acknowledged what Voss's description had named.
The Global Hunter Association's emergency session produced a joint statement: an entity operating in Veramore, with a Void-type classification and a confirmed combat output exceeding all current S-rank benchmarks, had engaged and eliminated a Seventh Layer Avatar-class entity in a documented operational capacity. The entity was known by the operational designation "Shadow Sovereign." Its strategic alignment was assessed as "beneficial to human infrastructure." No action was recommended.
The domestic Hunter community's response was less diplomatic.
Within forty-eight hours of the statement, eight A-rank and two S-rank Hunters had made contact with the Association requesting information on the Shadow Sovereign's identity and affiliation. Three of them were genuinely motivated by the desire to offer assistance. Liu Yun could assess intent through Void Sight at reasonable range, and the soul-substance of someone asking from genuine purpose had a different quality than that of someone driven by competitive anxiety.
The other seven belonged to the second category.
Voss, to his credit, maintained the information embargo. Whether from genuine commitment to the agreement they had struck or from political calculation about the value of being the only one with access to the asset, the Director's office confirmed only the designation and the "beneficial alignment" assessment.
Liu Yun used the ten days.
He ran the Register through intensive coordination drills with the elevated objective of preparing not just for Avatar-scale engagements, but for the Seventh Layer's specific environmental conditions that Mira had described. A mana environment hostile to non-void entities. A physical space with different gravitational and temporal properties than the mortal world. Six specific guardian entities whose individual power was S-rank equivalent and whose combined deployment formed the primary defense mechanism of Bael's court.
Mira had given him the names and classifications of all six guardians. Three were Underworld demons of the primordial classification. Two were corrupted divine entities, gods that Bael had defeated over millennia and twisted into servants. The sixth was something that defied classification, a being Mira had described as a dimensional anchor, created specifically to prevent Void-type intrusion into the Seventh Layer. Its function was to detect and disrupt Portal and transit attempts.
"I need to reach the Seventh Layer without triggering the transit detection," Liu Yun told Herald.
The Deity Fragment's masked face considered this from the floor-shadow. "The first Sovereign reached the Seventh Layer through the Third Layer descent," it said. "Not through a direct Portal. The relay technique you developed is the equivalent approach. Descend through the layers using shadow anchors. Stay below the detection threshold until you reach the Sixth Layer boundary. Then push through in a single sharp transit that the system reads as a Gate fracture rather than a deliberate entry."
"Disguise the descent as a natural phenomenon."
"Yes. The detection anchor searches for controlled transit. A hard, fast push at the boundary will register as fracture noise, not intent."
He spent two days designing the precise sequence of the descent.
On the eleventh day, Liu Yun, once an E-rank Hunter with null mana output, described in the Association's first evaluation as possessing minimal combat potential, sat in the Ash Ridge forest and composed two messages.
The first was to Director Voss:"Proceeding to Seventh Layer engagement. Timeline: I will be unreachable for up to 72 hours. If contact is lost beyond 96 hours, release my identity publicly and proceed with whatever protocols you have prepared. The shadow army will remain deployed in Veramore for city defense in my absence. Do not engage them."
The second was to Jin and Sera:"I'm going in. I'll come back. Keep each other company."
He sent both messages. Then he looked at the relay chain of shadows he had pre-positioned through the Underworld layers, a long line of his strongest units, each one a node stretching from the mortal world to the Fifth Layer, ready to catch him if the descent failed.
Nyx stood beside him. The First General, four thousand years old, the supreme shadow of the original army, loyal as the first morning.
"Ready?" Liu Yun asked.
Nyx inclined its head.
He opened the Void Portal.