Chapter 33: Tunnel

He suddenly leaned down and grabbed Axe’s shoulder. A volatile power rushed out of the lines again.

But he didn’t stop.

Instead, he bit down exactly on the mark.

Axe grunted in pain.

Nox flinched at his grunt.

Even when Axe hunted and became a mess of cuts and gore, he would never utter a sound. It must be painful enough to make him cry.

Moon’s mind went vacant for a moment.

He could not think or process why his mouth suddenly hurt, and why a canine tooth suddenly grew from his jaw.

Moon felt a stinging pain.

His fingers twitched and dug into Axe’s flesh.

He ignored Axe’s grunt.

He ignored the pain in his throat as the angry power tried to force him out.

He pressed hard.

He sent his divine consciousness inside the mark.

It roamed around and fought its way to a spiritual presence.

Then Moon sent his essence, covering the surface until the silver lines dimmed into black.

After what felt like eternity, he lifted his head. A drop of blood trickled from his lips down to his pale neck.

He looked more like a vampire than a witch.

Axe’s stiff body slowly loosened. He didn’t move for a moment.

He didn’t utter a complaint, but Moon knew he also felt the pain and the dangerous invasion of the Alpha’s rage.

He was just stubborn enough to bite his lip and endure.

For a brief moment, Moon felt a deep empathy.

He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Axe’s lips.

He licked away the blood from the cut inflicted by Axe himself.

Axe’s eyes snapped open.

His eyelashes flickered.

He lifted his hand, grabbed Moon’s neck, and deepened the kiss.

Nobody said anything.

And no one made fun of this utter shamelessness.

When they parted, Moon asked calmly, "If the Alpha can sense the mark for a moment, what place will he think of in this tunnel?"

Ugo spoke up this time. "The woods. This tunnel goes through the Mount Mroar alpine forest to the southern ring river. He will think we fled there."

"If he is smart enough, he may relate it to a tunnel, but a waste line like this will not be checked," Axe said.

"Why?" Moon asked.

"Because this tunnel leads to the den of vultures and hyenas, where all the unknown and traitors’ corpses are thrown away. So all year round, no one goes there. They will be eaten by those hyenas, or they may just die from the smell," Nox shrugged.

Moon felt his stomach churn with nausea again.

But he had to admit it was a good choice.

The raft didn’t move fast enough.

The current had thickened from runoff and blood, and the stench of old death grew stronger with each blind turn.

Moon’s body still trembled from the aftermath of sealing the mark, and his vision blurred. He slumped against Axe, every muscle aching and spent.

Ugo pushed the raft with a plank scavenged from a broken crate.

Nox crouched at the prow, his nose twitching and eyes darting, wary for both the living and the dead.

Axe still cradled Moon, his breathing shallow and irregular, but his hands remained steady even as his veins pulsed with the aftermath.

A low, animal groan vibrated ahead, echoing through the tunnel’s sludge and stone.

Moon braced against the raft’s side as Chika and Nox strained to keep it on course, the foul water rising with each turn they advanced.

The pungent reek of blood overpowered even the rot, which meant they were closing on the vulture pit.

He could sense Axe was awake but weak, grunting in silence.

Moon’s core ached. His elemental essence was very low to begin with. He had fire and water essence from Rio and Leo, but for the other three, he only possessed it because of their first mating night on the full moon when he had just arrived. After that, he had no chance to get close to those mates.

Mages have elemental cores. One is considered heaven grade, and two is also an exception. But three or four cores are only average. A five-core system is trash—just like Moon’s.

So whenever a child was born with five cores, the cruel world of cultivation and magic put them in the last place to be considered human.

He had been abandoned, and barely kept his spiritual power through hard training, cultivating it for 18 years until he faced the beast tide.

He had found a way to raise his fallen core by dual cultivation with these wolf mates. But still, they had only been together for that one night.

His core was still barren.

Without any spiritual source, he couldn’t continue his cultivation technique either.

So when he sent his core essence, it was tantamount to risking shattering them entirely.

Moon sat there, clutching the raft’s wood.

The water here was pitch black. The waste from all around the palace flowed through this water, making it unbearable.

Moon was increasingly getting uncomfortable. He kept awake by sheer will.

"Still two left!" he murmured.

"I need to block the two other marks."

Suddenly, he heard a twang and a thud, followed by Ugo’s voice.

"Chika?" Ugo called, his voice bouncing off the walls. "Still alive?"

A blade flashed in the dark.

Chika appeared, dragging something huge by the scruff. At first Moon thought it was a dead wolf, but then its jaws snapped at Chika’s calf.

Chika rammed his foot down, pinning the beast’s head, then slit its throat with a single pull.

Black blood fountained, mixing with the current as the corpse rolled off the raft into the sludge.

Chika hissed, breathing hard. "They’re coming."

Nox snorted, "How many?"

Chika wiped his blade on his pant leg. "Three, maybe four. I slowed one."

Chika pulled himself from the black. His arm was torn, leaking blood and something darker. He stumbled onto the raft, eyes wide and feral. ℴ

"What—" Nox started.

"Behind me," Chika said. His voice was low, ragged. "Don’t stop."