Chapter 27: Fire and Frost

As the words fell, the grand executioner lit the torch, the witches spread a thin layer of magic flint, and the hangman with a sleeve-cut tunic came forward.

The orange and blue fire danced in the eyes of the hangman as he slowly tilted the torch.

It came down before Moon’s eyes, leaving a trail of green fire beneath the blue hue.

The wood instantly caught fire with a deafening whoosh.

As the fire rose, so did the crowd’s deafening roar. Countless eyes focused on a single burning fire, as if waiting for a miracle to happen.

Even they themselves didn’t know if they were expecting to see flesh melting inside or wanting to see a witch suddenly grow wings to soar into the sky.

There was curiosity.

There was malice.

And there was hatred for the betrayal and their self-made treason.

Moon gritted his teeth as the smoke rose and stung his eyes.

The fire crawled onto his feet at an agonizingly slow pace.

The witch’s eyes smiled with malice. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Moon knew, just by seeing the blazing outer fire ring, that it was the witch’s handiwork to burn him slowly while keeping him in contact with the flames.

A slow smile played on his lips as he started to run his Qi and gather it in his acupoints. The numb pain from the spikes started to sting as it slowly removed the body seal he had put on himself to avoid the pricking pain.

He forced his mind into the formation.

Lines within the lines, with the sigils of the unknown under the platform, slowly came into his view. Woven deep into the planks, they pulsed with the Grand Witch’s power.

He closed his eyes to channel his Qi, preparing to forcefully break the constraints of the silver spikes and summon his illusion technique.

But the moment his internal energy rose, a horrifying sensation crept into his meridians.

His spiritual Qi could flow naturally, but his physical limbs refused to budge.

His body was locked down.

Moon snapped his eyes open, his burning gaze landing on the Grand Witch standing on the edge of the platform.

She was smiling—a slow, malicious, knowing smirk.

There was a secondary, hidden array carved right into the stone beneath the firewood.

’Damn it! What witchcraft is this?’

As the flames reached his toes, he felt the burn from the heat. The smell of burnt flesh hit his nose. Pain pricked his legs as the flames climbed through his trousers.

Without hesitation, he forced his newly awakened cultivation to explode inside his meridians, burning half of his Qi to forcefully break the array. Warm blood gushed from the corner of his lips.

Crack!

The magical lines snapped.

Moon gathered his remaining Qi to hurl an attack, making as much damage as possible so he could flee as far as possible.

His meridians started to burn.

’Just a bit, Goddess. Just a bit of time,’ he thought.

Crack!

The gibbet’s wood caught in the fire.

Moon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing his last desperate attempt to break free.

His eyes stung.

A tear dropped from his eyes and burned in the flame. He really underestimated this world’s power. But it was too late to regret.

As he opened his eyes, suddenly two spheres caught his divine eyes.

A blazing sun ignited with a fire that could rival the inferno he was in.

A cold silver moon shrouded with snowflakes in the sky.

His heart throbbed.

He forgot to even breathe.

The blazing sun and frosty moon soon enlarged in his eyes in a flash of two fiery and frosty wolves, running toward him like a falling meteor and stars.

They hurled toward the city square, leaving a long trail of fire and ice spikes, along with the increasing howls and screaming of countless wolves gathered further away.

The witch suddenly straightened up.

She turned around to follow Moon’s frozen gaze and instantly became stiff with utter shock.

Before she could even utter a word, before the Alpha even sensed the anomaly, a big behemoth of a red, fiery-furred wolf shadowed the city square.

His dark shadow loomed over the city square for just a fraction of a second, pressing down an immense pressure to make every wolf present kneel.

Before the crowd could even register what it was, their vision burned with fire. And the crimson, fiery wolf crashed on the gibbet.

Another hand shot out from the long fur and grabbed Moon along with the broken gibbet, mid-leap towards the city wall.

And before the Alpha on the platform could recover from his shock, another gigantic, white, frosty beast leaped over the council hall, darkening the platform for another breathtaking moment before countless ice spikes shot from his body, hurling to all sides and freezing the entire platform in a deadly silence.

His leap toward the city wall not only froze the path, but the two men on his back left a trail of wolfsbane poison pills.

The Alpha’s jaw clenched hard on the high platform.

He felt trepidation in his heart at an ominous presence.

A guttural, heart-piercing roar tore through the ice.

"H-A-L-T!"

His roar reverberated through the Vaelis Blood Pack.

His eyes narrowed.

His fur bristled out as he shifted into his wolf form, leaping toward the Skerrow Brake forest where the two wolves had vanished.

As soon as the ice shield melted, the guards all leaped onto the wall and chased behind the wolves with their still trembling hearts and vacant eyes.

"Kill them!"

The Alpha’s roar pierced their senses.

A barrage of arrows shot at the backs of the wolves, hitting the back of Axe sitting on the frost wolf, missing the wolf’s hind leg for a fraction.

Behind them, a howling scream spread through the city as the wolfsbane poison blasted one after another, leaving half of the guards and the crowd immobile.

The witch flashed past them, her halberd continuously trying to arrange an array, but it was too late to catch the fugitives.

. . . . .

Moon sat as stiff as a wooden doll on the furry beast—Leo.

When the violent black claw crashed into the gibbet, his entire body was falling back into the fire.

Just a second.

Or maybe not even a breath more.

And he would have been melted into meat paste.

But he felt himself yanked along with the pillar as a hand grabbed his back and tore the wood out of his body.

His flesh and bones jerked from the sheer pain of being ripped apart. But he did not even have time to feel the pain.

The fiery fur of the beast covered his body entirely as a strong embrace held him in place tightly as he heard a murmur.

"Hold on, Moony. Hold on for a moment. Don’t die yet."

"Nox!"

Moon cried out, clutching the red and black-streaked fur. His eyes stung again, not from the smoke, not from the fire, and certainly not from the pain.

His blood was gushing out rapidly from the holes in his hands and shoulders. He tried to circulate his Qi to stop the bleeding, but his very bones and Qi were shivering.

He could not even tell if the fur on the wolf was red or if it was red from his blood.

He heard another choked sound from behind as Ugo caught an arrow that was about to pass them and hit Nox.

His hold tightened on the frosty wolf’s neck.

"Rio, faster," he murmured in the wolf’s ear.

Moon looked over his back.

Axe was already severely injured from the arrows as he was covering up for Ugo, sitting in front of him on Rio’s back. Ugo’s hand was constantly leaving a trail of poison pills, making a barrage of obstructions.

Far away from them, only a black dot was darting even faster toward them.

The Alpha would catch them in no time if they didn’t escape to another place immediately.

As they passed another rugged thicket, Moon spread his divine sense forward. There was no path ahead—just a deep cliff.

A black and bottomless abyss.

His stomach dropped.

Did they want to commit suicide together?

As if to answer him, a deep, rumbling sound vibrated in his consciousness.

"Trust me." He heard Leo’s voice.

Moon looked at the red wolf’s mane. "Leo..."

"I will make sure you go to hell faster."

As soon as Leo’s voice fell, the Alpha darted onto them.

Time seemed to slow down on Mount Mroar.

The leaves forgot to rustle.

And the two wolves leaped directly into the bottomless abyss.