Chapter 36: Finding Ugo

"I—I didn’t mean that." Axe looked down at the grass, not arguing like he always did.

Moon felt these brothers were behaving weirdly.

Maybe it was a side effect of the poison.

He started to walk toward the sapphire-blue lake. He needed some time to figure out the exit, as well as time to recover.

His pace was slow, and his feet were dragging from all these hassles. Moon felt like his feet might as well start to rot and reopen the burns that had just healed.

"Want me to carry you?" Nox suddenly came behind him.

Moon looked at him over his shoulder like he was seeing a ghost.

"What are you saying? Did the poison make you dumb?"

He saw Axe was carrying the pups.

They had left Chika there.

"You—you are tired, aren’t you? You have been using your witchcraft since morning," Nox said softly.

Moon walked silently.

He indeed was tired, but as a man, he didn’t want to bend and ask for a hand to carry him. He had that much pride to uphold.

Suddenly, he was lifted up.

Nox didn’t ask anymore.

He picked him up and whispered, "Just say so if you are tired. We are married, anyway."

"Fuck! Who is married to you?" Moon yelled at him, though his butt found a comfortable place to settle in Nox’s arms.

They walked for a while longer to reach the lake.

Moon had been sending messages in his mind to the Goddess. "Can I go out and search for Ugo?"

Before the Moon Goddess could answer, Axe’s voice came first. "If we can go out, I can enter the black sea and search."

Moon was interested in how confidently Axe was talking.

"How? Won’t you be corroded by the black, dead energy?"

"Yes, we will, but we have to find him. As long as we live, we can find a way."

"You brothers are very loyal. Really, you have a deep bond, unlike me, an outsider," Moon scoffed.

Nox sighed and kissed his forehead. "Moony, be good. Don’t hold grudges. We wouldn’t have left you in the black hole alone if we could."

"I didn’t ask for your kindness, though!" Moon replied, then went back to the previous subject. "So? No one can live in the Black Sea. How will you search?"

Axe hesitated, then said, "Ugo has a blessing from the old tree ancestor. He has an extreme healing power. As long as he can swim and isn’t hit by any sharp, spiked rocks, he can still be alive."

"Oh?" Moon’s eyes fluttered.

No wonder the Moon Goddess was bent on rescuing these five. Looks like they had their own trump card.

"Um... yes. Wolves have natural healing power. You may know that, since you are a witch. But they need to awaken their spirit. Though we don’t have our awakenings yet, Ugo’s healing power was there from his birth. It’s a pity he can’t heal others."

"And you? What do you have?" Moon asked Axe as he hugged Nox’s shoulder and lifted his head to look at Axe’s eyes from behind.

"I don’t have a healing ability yet," he shrugged.

"So how do you plan to search for Ugo?"

Axe didn’t reply.

His downward gaze made him look like a retired old man from Moon’s angle.

Nox answered for Axe. "Even if we get corroded, we must go search. We promised Mother to look after each other. And...."

"And?" Moon pressed, getting irritated by their half-assed sentences.

"And we have a spiritual connection with each other. We were born from the same womb at the same time."

"What?" Moon sprang up in shock.

He had always thought these brothers were just close and maybe had a one- or two-year age gap. But he never thought they were all born at the same time.

Now that he thought about it, he did hear they were going through their awakening ceremony at eighteen, together. He just had never paid attention.

"How could that be?" he asked in surprise.

"Why can’t it be? My mother is a blessed she-wolf!" Nox said.

Moon felt something was wrong in this world. Then it clicked in his mind.

Right! She-wolf!

"Did she give birth to five pups at once?" Moon asked hesitantly.

"Of course she did," Nox said proudly.

"But not all brothers in the same litter have this connection. But we do. We have been able to feel each other since birth. And my mom always hid it from others."

"Then why are you telling me?" Moon asked.

They were talking when they reached the lake. Nox put him down and shrugged.

"You are our mate. You can feel us too, can’t you?"

Moon was silent for a moment.

He didn’t know how to answer. Did he feel them?

He had his doubts.

But he indeed felt unusual feelings that didn’t belong to him.

Like now, he still felt suffocated.

Suffocated!

Yes, right?

He felt suffocated because Ugo was still under the sea?

He suddenly jolted. They should hurry.

"Do you feel suffocated?"

"We don’t," Axe and Nox said at the same time. They looked at each other and mumbled, "We can just feel that he is alive. And so we still can find a way to search."

"Shit! We need to hurry." Nox became agitated. He paced back and forth on the lake’s edge.

"If we knew how to get out, we would have gone out long ago."

Just as they were panicking, Moon felt his chest tightening.

He groaned in pain.

And suddenly, the tightness was gone. All the suffocation and feelings vanished.

Moon’s fingers clenched tight!

’No way! Ugo didn’t die, did he?’ he asked in his mind.

[No,]

Suddenly, the Moon Goddess’s voice rang.

[But he will soon.]

"Damn it!" Moon cursed.

’CAN I GO OUT?’

[...]

’You sure know when to stop answering!’ Moon grumbled as he turned toward the lake.

He walked around the lake, trying to sense the spiritual fluctuations around the area.

His divine sense spread through the valley, but the moment it reached the lake, it was blocked by something.

He frowned.

"Something is wrong with the lake."

Axe came closer. "The lake?"

"Yes."

Moon crouched beside the water and dipped his fingers into it.

The water was cold, but there was something strange beneath it. He could feel a very faint spiritual energy moving under the lake, almost like a current.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. He was surprised.

’How come this lake has spiritual fluctuations?’

[Didn’t you say it’s like a fairyland?]

’So, it’s a broken land from another dimension?’

[... System: Insufficient energy.]

’Come on, I know you are not a system.’

[Even the Goddess can’t break the rules of fate.]

Moon took some water in his hand. And drank it. It was refreshing. Though the energy was limited, it was still there.

Feeling around, he gradually found there was a thin spiritual energy in the air too, and it was coming from deep down.

Moon stood up and made up his mind.

"Axe, Nox... you stay here. I will find a way to get out and search for Ugo," he said.

"No way!" they cut him off instantly. "We can’t let you go alone in the Black Sea."

"Oh? You think you can protect me? You guys are just a burden," he retorted.

"We are not. Don’t be cocky, Moon. You have no idea how volatile the Black Sea is. It’s corroded with death energy."

"Yet I was the one keeping you safe in that sea gorge." Moon scoffed.

"What if your energy depletes? I know you don’t have any remaining, or else you would not be strolling here," Axe grumbled.

Moon was silent for a moment. He indeed had no more energy. He could only make the boundary before because of Ugo’s spirit stone.

"What can you do? We can’t go together and run around with these two pups," he at last softened.

Axe thought for a moment. His gaze landed on Nox.

"I will stay here to take care of these two dogs. You take Nox with you. If you find the exit, send me the news." Saying this, he rummaged through his satchel and tossed a stone to Moon.

"What is it?"

"A communication device, but its power is limited, and there is a risk that the Alpha will know. So send messages from inside this realm before leaving, not outside."

Moon took the stone and tucked it in his cloak pocket.

His face was grim with the realization that they had a means to communicate all along, yet had never given him any before.

Axe sighed, put the pups down on the ground, and stood in front of Moon.

He cupped Moon’s face with both hands.

"Don’t overthink. If we really talked or contacted you, you would not have lasted this long. You would have been killed in your cell the day they captured you. Moon, we really had no choice. It was for both of our sakes."

Moon pushed his hands away. And walked away; he didn’t answer or look back.

Nox gave Axe a reassuring nod and then followed Moon.

After walking a little further, Moon took out a pouch and threw it to Nox.

"Give it to Axe, and tell him not to die before we come back."

Nox took the pouch filled with many potions and miscellaneous items.

He did not go back, but just threw it high to Axe.

And then followed Moon to the side where the lake was getting wider and wider.