Chapter 28: The Abyss

The forest stayed still for a moment.

Only the harsh screeching sounds of the Alpha’s iron-clad nails scratched the cliff edge, leaving a long, deep scrape trail.

He loomed over the cliff edge, looking down into the abyss.

Nothing.

None of the wolves’ signs could be seen, only the thick fog waving between the darkness.

"Sneaking rats!" he grated.

. . . .

When the black paws left the edge and soared in the air, Moon Astra’s head spun in a vague delusion that he had gone back to the time when he was in the heavenly Sequoia realm, running for his life and jumping into the lake.

His body coiled up in Nox’s warm bosom.

And in a blink, he fell forward. Suddenly, the warm fur receded under him, leaving a void sensation.

With a dull thud, his head slammed on a damp floor.

Moon scrambled under Nox’s heavy body, but he did not feel the deathly pain he had expected.

Nox crawled backward, quickly shifting to the side.

As Moon’s vision cleared in the fog, a small, dark cave entrance came into his view. He looked back. As far as he could see was all gray fog looming over ancient treetops. Far above, he could vaguely see the sky. That was only because of his cultivator’s sharp vision.

His divine sense stretched around.

Only a deep abyss.

All around them, all he could see were some unknown treetops, high cliff stones, jagged slopes, and boulders peeking out from the cliff.

They were on such a boulder, an overhanging ledge on the cliff where a small cave mouth stood like a dark mouth. But the vast cliffs didn’t even recognize such a tiny hole. It was almost invisible.

Moon just took a look and turned to check on the others.

His vision was getting blurry from excessive blood loss.

He scrambled to where the little red and white figures lay motionless on the floor.

His hands trembled nonstop as he stretched to touch them, as if as soon as he touched them, they would melt on the black floor.

He heard Ugo’s urgent call, "Nox, move! Don’t fucking just sit there looking."

Nox scrambled onto his knees, his hands trembling as he yanked open the leather satchel slung across his back. He didn’t even look at the two tiny, whining pups in the mud.

He was rummaging through the satchel. His shuddering fingers weren’t making it easy for him to grab what he was looking for.

"I—I am looking, fuck, where it is..." He gave up searching and just piled all the things on the floor. The tiny vials and bottles they stole from the witch and some more with the mark of the royal healer clanked on the floor, rolling on it until they hit jagged debris.

"Ugo, hold him down! He is still bleeding out!" Nox hissed as he threw a bottle to Axe.

Moon’s wrists and shoulders were numb from the pain; he could only crawl with his burnt legs to the two small wolves, the red and the white. There was not a tiny bit of the majesty they had shown just a moment ago.

Before Moon could even reach them, Ugo’s heavy hands clamped onto his shoulders, pressing him against the cold stone floor. His hand quickly pulled out the remaining spike and wood splinter from the gibbet.

Behind them, Axe slumped against the cave wall with a dull groan, three thick arrows still embedded in the heavy armor on his back, yet dark blood was pooling around his waist. He quickly stripped the armor to check his wounds.

Nox stuffed some elixir into Leo and Rio’s wolf mouths and turned to Moon.

He pulled the cork of a large vial and started to spread it all over Moon’s shoulders.

"Don’t move; it will stop the bleeding and cool down the burn."

Moon’s gaze darted toward the two little wolves lying there cold and motionless.

They had shrunk back to pup size as soon as their legs landed on this stone slope. And then there was no movement.

He had countless questions to ask, but none of them found their way out.

He gulped down his unspoken words, looking at the brothers moving and doing things in a hurry. He grabbed a vial himself. "Let me. You go check on Rio and Leo. They have fainted."

Axe threw the arrows away after removing them and stood up. He looked up the cliff, his brows furrowing in a knit.

"Not now, Moon. Lock our mark first. The Alpha will find us soon. He can trace the mark."

Moon looked bewildered. "What?"

The three brothers’ faces stiffened as they looked at his eyes. "Don’t tell me you don’t know how to block the mark," Axe almost rumbled.

"Moon! The array! The transport array! You are a witch, aren’t you? Bring any of it out, anything, so we can escape!" Ugo’s voice vibrated with raw urgency.

Moon’s mind went completely blank for a split second.

He stared at Ugo’s tense, sweating face, then flicked his gaze toward Nox, who was frantically spraying a white, burning medicine powder over Moon’s wounds.

The powder bit into his open flesh like a hundred ants pricking, making Moon’s jaw clench so hard it cracked.

"You are a witch, aren’t you?" Ugo asked again.

Moon looked at the expectant and tense faces of them and suddenly felt guilty.

"I never said I am a witch." His words came down as if an execution on the three.

They looked at each other. And then turned to Moon.

"Don’t fool around now, Moon. Not now. The Alpha will be here at any cost. He can track us even if we are buried in this abyss." Nox’s voice trembled as he stopped spreading the medicine.

Ugo came a step closer. "Even if you are not a witch, you must have a way to block the mark and escape, right? You can even summon the phantom wolf. Didn’t you prepare an escape plan?"

Moon looked at them—three tense, stiff, and expectant faces.

And for the first time, he realized that they were all just some young wolves who had just turned eighteen.

They might have taken the risk to flee from the Alpha’s grasp, but they had also heavily staked their route on his witchcraft.

He didn’t know if he should be happy for them to have so much faith in his power or feel burdened.

But his teenage heart was fueled with sudden pride at becoming someone useful and belonging.

He swallowed the blood pooling in his mouth, forcing a cold smile to play on his lips. "Who said I can’t do it? I can block the mark temporarily."

Moon raised his hand, tracing lines on the cave mouth, and cast the illusion spell that he had prepared to escape. It blocked the cave from view to confuse the chasers as solid rock.

As soon as the formation sealed, they heard a roar from the cliff edge.

The Alpha must have lost his mark. It was only because this cliff was a dead cliff where never, ever any wolves came down, so they got some time to breathe while the guards found their way down.

Nobody would ever have guessed that these defectives could break out of their limits and risk their way to find this overstep on this deadly cliff.

"We can’t stay here, Moon," Axe said as he wrapped his wound in gauze.

Ugo picked up the listless wolf pups and held them securely.

Nox almost bound Moon’s two legs together to hurriedly paste the burn medicine and bandage him.

All three gathered around him, staring intently.

"Let’s go," Nox said.

They did not ask if Moon could do it, because they believed he could.

"Where to?" Moon asked as he started to gather his remaining Qi—that he didn’t burn on the platform yet—on the tip of his fingers and draw the formation on the stone wall.

"How far can you go?" Axe asked.

"About one hundred leagues."

"Go to the Last Hole. Vadira’s base."

Moon’s hand trembled; he looked at Axe with utter shock.

"Trust me."

"To go to hell faster?" Moon asked back.

But his hand didn’t stop.

Just as a rustling sound came down from the upper cliff, the cave gleamed with a blue glow.

And all of them vanished like nothing was there.

Only the blood stains could still prove there were really some desperate, defective wolves.