Chapter 263: The Bright Moon
Two more days passed. Ace finally reached a populated area—a dilapidated demon hunter camp.
Under the scan of the 1-Ring Spell “Perception Spell,” only three people in the entire camp emitted a faint white light. The others were dim and lackluster. As long as they didn’t possess concealing authorities, it meant there were only three ordinary God’s Chosen in the camp.
Ace cautiously sent a clone to investigate. After confirming there were no issues, he quietly controlled a few demon hunters and figured out the basic situation.
‘So this is the edge of the Saria Forest in the northern part of the Milne City-State. I wasn’t transported too far away. I just didn’t expect that the Fire Stealer Alliance not only hasn’t disappeared but has also pulled off something big.’
Dressed in a Milne-style demon hunter outfit, Ace quietly left the dilapidated camp after obtaining the information.
In Milne, the actions of the Punishers organization were almost public. Here, any mortal attempting to touch the taboo of the supernatural would be reaped by the Punishers’ scythes.
Since the defeat of the Fire Stealer Alliance, there had been almost no mortal organizations daring to research supernatural power within Milne’s borders. That was until more than twenty years ago, when a group of horse riders wandered here from somewhere unknown, calling themselves Knights and becoming quite active for a time.
Later, the Punishers discovered their hideout and wiped them all out.
Even the former mathematical holy land, the Pida Academy, was forcibly closed. A wave of persecuting and judging scholars once rose in the five northern states of Saria. The atmosphere of the entire north was far from what was described in Nicholas’s diary.
Ace walked in a small town named Forest Boundary Town. The guard posts here were not very strict. Demon hunters coming and going often stayed here, so Ace easily disguised himself into a team of demon hunters and mixed in effortlessly.
On the town hall’s notice board, the ink was still fresh.
It described the characteristics of the Blasphemers in detail, warning the people.
“Rigid steel bodies, thunderous roars, souls sold to Demons, stealing the authorities granted by Gods to Divine Descendants through blasphemy. Tsk tsk.”
Ace looked at the description and sighed softly. The path of the Fire Stealer Alliance was vastly different from that of the Wizards.
While the High Tower Wizards followed a path of freedom where a hundred flowers bloomed, the Fire Stealer Alliance seemed to have completely adopted the ways of the Pre-Epoch Civilization, following the path of steam machinery.
The reason the Fire Stealer Alliance was publicly wanted was that they had done something huge.
They gathered several machines with Hero-level combat power and ambushed the Crown Prince of the Milne City-State, a strong supporter of the Punishers organization, Uranas Milne.
Their preparation was extremely thorough. Uranas died on the spot. The Fire Stealer Alliance left their flame mark and wrote a passage—
“The scythe has not drained the blood of the Fire Stealers. We have returned. The war has only just begun!”
At this time, the northern city-states had just fallen into a stalemated bloody battle with the Lava Demons in the south. Being stabbed in the back by the Fire Stealers, they were furious.
After multiple confrontations and strict searches, they roughly confirmed that the Fire Stealer Alliance council was hiding somewhere in the Saria Forest.
They just hadn’t expected that a confusing encounter with Ace would make them think there was an ambush, causing them to retreat in panic.
‘At this time of year, not just Milne, but probably all cities in the northern city-states will be heavily guarded. I hope the Magic Council branches in each city-state don’t run into accidents.
‘Since there are Heroes with perception authorities, they might discover the underground Wizard organizations.’
Ace left Forest Boundary Town with some worry. Not far from Milne City, he set up a magic signal transmitter. As long as a Wizard Apprentice holding a Magic Book came within range of the signal within a month, they would receive Ace’s danger warning.
After doing all this, Ace returned to the Saria Forest. There were numerous Monsters and Magical Plants here, along with many natural phenomena carrying magical power. In Ace’s eyes, this was a land of natural wealth.
As for the Fire Stealers and Punishers, as long as he remained cautious, he believed that with the Spirit of the Book’s shielding ability, he could lay low here for a lifetime.
The Saria Forest at night was exceptionally quiet. The silver bright moon hung high in the sky. Legend had it that the Titan God, the Goddess of the Moon Artemis, was the moon itself, dominating the night sky.
Such a night was like water to a fish for Ace. He transformed into a shadow and shuttled quickly through the forest, controlling the flock of Shadow Ravens to perform Shadow Raven Blink from time to time, familiarizing himself with spatial coordinate positioning and short-distance spatial jumps.
A tiger-like Monster was sleeping soundly when it suddenly felt a chill down its spine. It jumped up instantly, and a shadow emerged.
The ground around it suddenly sank, then hardened, turning into a sturdy hollow stone ball that imprisoned it inside.
The tiger Monster roared furiously, spewing explosive flames from its mouth, intending to shatter the hollow stone ball. Unexpectedly, Runes flashed on the stone ball, and a bone-chilling cold and biting wind struck, instantly extinguishing the flames spewed by the tiger.
A few seconds later, the entire interior of the stone ball turned into a large ice coffin. The tiger Monster was frozen inside, slowly losing its vitality.
After skinning and deboning the tiger Monster, Ace inscribed the fixed Runes of Gourmet Magic, added extremely fragrant emerald lotus leaves, and roasted the tiger inside the hollow stone ball with fire.
“This magical ‘Beggar’s Tiger’ tastes okay, but it’s a bit chewy. Holy crap, it even has a natural stifled spiciness.”
Ace clicked his tongue while gnawing on the tiger meat. This tiger possessed fire-attribute power; the meat was not only chewy but also packed a serious spicy punch.
The spiciness exploded in his mouth and stomach, transforming into bits of vitality that nourished his body, giving Ace a mix of pain and pleasure.
Just then, a few wolf howls attracted Ace’s attention.
He wolfed down the remaining meat, feeling the vigorous vitality filling his body, and transformed into a shadow moving towards the direction of the howls.
Tonight was a full moon. According to legend, the power of the bright moon would reach its peak on this day.
The shadow Ace had transformed into moved to a hill, where he saw an unbelievably beautiful scene.
Over thirty snow-white wolves, each as tall as a human, stood on the side of the hill facing the full moon, howling piously at the bright moon.
Yes, pious howling, or rather solemn and dignified howling. It wasn’t unconscious, but rhythmic, ritualistic, and mysterious!
Ace, in shadow form, stared blankly at everything before him. An incredible thing happened—the bright silver light of the full moon seemed moved by the howling of these white wolves and actually gathered slowly around them from the night sky.
Ace exited the shadow state and activated the Perception Spell.
In his perception field, he clearly saw the scattered silver moonlight around being gathered by the wolf pack. This silver light was imbued and condensed with Mana, transforming into a unique silver Mana orb, as bright and pure as moonlight.
The wolves gently swallowed the silver light orbs. Under Ace’s insight, the silver light bloomed slowly inside their bodies, actually significantly enhancing their body and soul strength.
In a flash, Ace recalled a travelogue from the Pre-Epoch Civilization he had once read.
“This kind of wolf-like monster has snow-white fur… They gather every full moon… With their howling, they actually draw upon some mysterious power of the moon… I call them Moon Worshiping Wolves…”
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