Chapter 38: Ugo’s POV

Ugo’s POV

It was painful.

Extremely painful.

Painful to the point of breaking the bones and regenerating them entirely.

In his 18 years, Ugo had never felt anything like this.

The dark, thick water was slowly gnawing at his flesh. Invading his skin. Making his mind a chaos.

As the water current slammed him down, his lungs started to burn. He felt the suffocating pressure was pressing him harder and harder.

And then his world turned black, and he lost all consciousness.

When the first ray of light flickered in his eyelashes, Ugo blinked.

Once,

Twice.

Then he felt his light, very light body, and wondered if he still had a body or if he had already turned into a spirit.

He didn’t move for a long time. Looking at the clear sky, and slowly rising, he suddenly felt life in a spirit form was not bad.

But fate had some enmity with him.

Suddenly, a splash of dirty water fell on his wide-open eyes. He closed his eyes and lifted his hand to cover his face.

Then he found out he didn’t have any hands...

’Where is my hand?’ he thought.

Blinking to remove the water drop, he became aware of his surroundings.

A fence.

Many fences.

Surrounding him was a big, fenced farmland...

And a range of green budding plants...

But.....

’Why am I shorter than a bud?’ He thought.

Then, a round-eyed little boy crouched down and looked at him. Though it was clearly a little boy, Ugo felt like the boy was many, many times taller than him.

"Mummy, why is this bud is not growing?" the boy shrilled.

"He will, baby. Don’t break it." A beautiful woman wearing a long, flowing gown approached.

Against the morning, gentle air, the gown’s silk ribbons were flowing.

Ugo looked at her face and suddenly missed Moon.

When Moon first came to them, he was just like her—a fairy-like face, jade skin, and he also gave out an otherworldly aura.

The woman came near and gently took the water bowl from the boy.

"Don’t throw dirty water on this bud, Mooney. He will grow up as fine as the other Moonlight Sacred Vines. You don’t want him to wither, do you?"

"No way, he is just not growing..."

The sounds gradually faded, and Ugo felt an urge to run after the boy and closely look at his face again.

His ecstasy was boiling, and his entire consciousness was suddenly awake. But no matter how much he wanted to, he could not move.

The little one and big one’s silhouettes slowly faded into the distance.

And then the world spun in front of him.

And he felt like he was burning up. There was hot air everywhere.

He snapped his eyes open only to see he was in the middle of a firestorm.

Wait, no...

Not a firestorm. But more like an inferno created by a Fire Rabid Wolf clan.

But then again, when he wanted to run, he could not.

He looked around at the burned, charcoal-black fence and plants, the same as the previous vision.

Only this time, he could see far away, as he was currently wrapped around a big tree. He knew he had turned into a full-grown Moonlight Sacred Vine, the one the mother and son were talking about.

Just when he was trying to control his other branches and look around for the little boy, he heard a sob.

The sob was coming from a corner.

Ugo looked down.

A thin, pale young boy around 12 years old was sitting under his vines.

Or more precisely, sitting on the tree bark he was wrapping around.

He was sobbing in fear and burning pain.

His skin was red and blistered.

All around, people were fighting a fire wolf, who was spreading fire from his mouth like the fire itself was his slave.

Ugo was envious; how come he had never seen a wolf this powerful before?

"Sob, sob," the boy sniffed, curling into a bundle.

"Mom, don’t sleep, Mom." His voice sounded very pitiful against all the howling fire and shouting spells.

Ugo didn’t understand their attire, or why all of these people could cast spells while a wolf could spit fire to entirely burn down such a large palace.

But he understood clearly that this boy was none other than Moon himself.

Little and pitiful.

He was sobbing for his Mom, but there was no sign of the woman.

Suddenly, unknowingly, his vines started to move.

Three emerald-green vines slowly flowed down, cradling the boy up.

The boy looked up at him with shock and surprise, but didn’t resist.

The fire was now rising higher and higher, and so were the burns everywhere.

The smell of burning flesh was jarring.

Ugo wrapped up the boy in a cocoon and hid him in the deepest canopy of the big tree.

He whispered, "Mooney?"

The young boy only looked at his leaves and sobbed.

As the fire burned all the herbs in the field and came toward the tree, Moon sniffed and whispered, "You will be burned."

Ugo saw the wolf leap up high and suddenly transform into a man.

His fiery gaze swept over the area.

"You will pay for Niran’s death," his harsh voice heavy with grievance.

His Daoist robe tattered in the air with the fire’s flames.

And then he left.

But the fire he left kept burning, burning until it reached Ugo’s core and started to burn his leaves.

Inside the vine cocoon, the young boy was getting increasingly weak.

Ugo felt a palpitating dread.

He was thinking about how he could move the boy out of here; he wanted to keep him alive at any cost.

But before he could think of anything, a sudden sword light cut his branch, and the cocoon fell toward the ground.

Ugo’s heart sank.

He wanted to scream, but nothing came out.

He wanted to grow more vines to grab the cocoon falling into the fire.

But before he could, his vision spun once more.

Everything turned dark.

Pitch-black dark.

He could not see or feel anything else.

His vines faded, his body faded, and his consciousness was also wavering between living and death.

And so, suddenly, a pain shot through his spine.

A sharp rock pierced through his flesh as he fell into the deep, black Sea Gorge.