Chapter 412: Far on the Horizon, Close at Hand

This sudden development made the Vampire feel as if he were going mad, or perhaps dreaming!

‘Could it be that I never actually escaped Ron’s pursuit? Is everything I’m seeing just a dream before my final demise?!’

‘That would explain why the ruins suddenly appeared before me, but how does that explain this Moon Elf staring at me like I’m garbage?!’

“You ignorant creature,” the Moon Elf said scathingly. “You could have obtained everything you now possess through diligent research, yet you insisted on taking shortcuts.”

“It’s one thing not to be able to do it yourself, but you can’t even understand it when you see it?”

The Moon Elf strode into the ruins. The Vampire Count, still reeling, heard only a sharp command:

“Get in here!”

“Hey, Jilannis, have you still not figured out the direction and patterns of this fungal growth?”

Far on the other side of the dense forest woven from the Fungal Mat, Delaford, hands clasped behind his head, glanced nonchalantly at the Moon Elf leading the way. “Nature is telling me we should just go straight down this path and follow the Vampire’s trail. What you’re doing is just a waste of time.”

“Don’t talk nonsense if you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Silvia chided. “Something’s very wrong with this forest completely overrun by the Red Mould. The Night Howling Hounds’ tracking isn’t working.”

Victoria, who was standing behind Jilannis to guard against sudden attacks from any surrounding Thorny Beasts, turned at the words. “How can that be? They may have human faces, but they have the noses of true hounds!”

“Besides, didn’t they take a bite out of the Count? How could they lose his trail?”

“Because this so-called dense forest you see before you doesn’t actually exist in this world—someone used spatial techniques to graft it onto this location.”

The Elf Grand Mage stood up. Her hand, which had just touched the Red Mould, secreted a layer of strongly acidic slime. Any Red Mould that instinctively tried to infect her was instantly corroded by the Strong Acid, turning into blackened, charcoal-like clumps.

“The coordinates here are in a constant state of flux, always recalibrating in relation to the current plane. The Night Howling Hounds can travel between the Ethereal Plane and the material world, but they don’t understand the principles involved. They could never explain to us where the Vampire is.”

“Exactly,” Silvia agreed with a nod. The Night Howling Hounds could find the Vampire on their own, but they couldn’t speak, nor could they convey his precise location to her.

“Leave it to you,” Ron said with sincere admiration. “I’ve been observing our surroundings this whole time, but I didn’t perceive anything amiss. Yet you were able to uncover the truth of it.”

“If you continue on your path, you will one day achieve far more than I, Lord,” the Moon Elf said with a humble smile. “The only reason I could sense the spatial distortions is that I had an unfair advantage—it’s a technique that someone I once knew was exceptionally good at.”

“Your first mentor?” Aive asked, noticing Jilannis once again touch the Silence at her waist.

“The very same,” Jilannis nodded. “And… I must apologize to all of you. I concealed something that happened when I went off on my own: my search for clues was, in fact, successful.”

Ron nodded, gesturing for her to continue. Jilannis hadn’t brought the matter up since her return, and Ron and the others had been too busy fighting monsters to press her for details. Her willingness to speak now was for the best. “Please, tell us.”

Ron could guess these events were related to Jilannis’s former mentor, but given the immense time that had passed, he assumed it was probably one of the Chief Grand Mage’s junior apprentices causing trouble. After all, after so many centuries, even an Elf would likely have passed on.

“I followed the trail left by the Fungal Mat and found…” Jilannis licked her somewhat dry lips. “I found my mentor.”

“What?!” Before the others could even register their shock, Anastina leaped to her feet. “Gods! Your mentor?! He’s still alive?!”

Elves are rather unconcerned with matters of lifespan, so even at such a blunt question, Jilannis merely nodded calmly. “I was also surprised, but I did see him. In the flesh. No doubt about it.”

“Wait, ‘he’?” the Elf Great Swordsman repeated, mulling over the word. “Shouldn’t your mentor be Jilannis? After all, you were taken to the Hailan Empire’s research institute…”

“No,” Jilannis said, exasperated. “I mean my *first* mentor. That was a long, long time ago. I lost contact with him before the Hailan Empire was even founded.”

“Wow, that is a long time ago. The old man was smart to disappear,” Anastina muttered. “If he’d been captured and forced to work for the Hailan Empire, he definitely wouldn’t have survived this long…”

Jilannis ignored the former resistance warrior’s wisecracks and continued explaining to Ron, “He used spatial grafting techniques to create a ‘sanctuary’ for himself here, a place to live out his final years. He remained in that state until the Red Mould began to mutate and expand.”

“You mean he wasn’t involved in any of the events here?” Aive asked. She held no ill will toward an Elf who had vanished before the Hailan Empire’s founding. “But how did you find him by studying the Red Mould?”

“Because a few months ago, he couldn’t resist intervening. He saved a group of Tiger Man and altered them so they would no longer fear the Red Mould’s infection,” Jilannis said, seeing the dawning comprehension on everyone’s faces. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t in good shape himself, and his hiding place isn’t exactly a land of plenty. He couldn’t support that many Tiger Man, so he drove them all away with cruel words.”

“Those Tiger Man failed to maintain their sanity. During his experiments, my mentor also altered the growth process and developmental direction of the surrounding Red Mould to remain hidden. That’s how I managed to follow the trail to him.”

“But something still isn’t right, is it?” Ron asked, looking at the surrounding Red Mould, which gave off the unnerving illusion of closing in on them. “You found similar traces here as well. If these marks are, as you say, entirely your mentor’s handiwork, then his work shouldn’t have reached all the way out here.”

“Exactly, Lord,” Jilannis sighed softly. “That is what I cannot understand.”

“If you can’t figure it out, then go confront the man face-to-face!” Sera couldn’t take it anymore. “Just take us to your mentor’s place and ask him directly! If he won’t tell the truth, we’ll just burn his little retirement sanctuary to the ground and turn it into a mass grave!”

“You…” Jilannis started to say, but she instantly realized arguing with a barbarian was a pointless endeavor. Instead, she simply raised her hands. An illusory map materialized between them, showing the location of the ruins where the Red Mould first took root. “There’s no need for such trouble. He is too old to withstand that kind of ordeal. We’ll find the answers ourselves.”

“I’ve already analyzed the model for his magic—I hope this won’t be too difficult.”

It was broad daylight, the sky clear and bright, when Ron and the others suddenly found their vision plunged into darkness. It wasn’t that the world had changed color, but that as Jilannis began her Casting, an entire ruin—one that nurtured Red Mould, Spore People, and Thorny Beasts—was yanked from beyond the visible horizon and appeared, impossibly, right before their very eyes!