Chapter 94: Chaos in the Palace

Moon stiffened at once.

"Plant fairy?" His heart started to beat faster.

What fairy? Where did this fairy come from? Fuck, he just had a blissful night, and his husband had already gone to a rendezvous.

Looking at Moon’s aggrieved face, Axe burst out laughing again, his broad chest shaking as he slammed his palm onto the wooden tabletop, nearly rattling the ceramic bowls.

"Look at your face, baby!" Axe cackled, his gray eyes dancing with pure amusement.

"A plant fairy? You actually believed that? I was just joking around to see those little ears of yours turn red!"

Moon’s face darkened instantly.

He slammed his chopstick down. "Axe. Do you want to die?"

"Whoa, slow down, darling!" Axe raised his hands in mock surrender, though the broad grin never left his face.

"I am telling the truth now. No fairies. Ugo went out to the mountain. I don’t know what it was. But he may have been searching for some beast or plants, who knows. He has that weird knack for roaming in the woods."

Hearing this, the weight in Moon’s chest loosened slightly, but his annoyance remained.

He glared at Axe, then looked down at his own lap.

He thought about what he had discovered last night, and his face became somber.

He needed to ask someone.

But who could he ask? The Moon Goddess was out of her mind. Though Moon suspected she was also a cultivator or related to one, he was not sure if she could guide him.

Then he thought about Lupine.

Though playful, he seemed to be a proper immortal with a vast wealth of knowledge.

Yet he found it hard to talk about since it was related to dual cultivation.

Moon’s ears tinged with red again.

"Don’t play jokes like that again," Moon muttered, taking another bowl of porridge to mask his lingering embarrassment.

"Fine, fine," Axe chuckled, scooping up a large spoonful of fish stew and putting it inside Moon’s bowl.

"But you really shouldn’t worry about Ugo. That guy is too stubborn to die."

Nox didn’t come back inside, but the sound of his angry scrubbing outside had finally stopped, replaced by the quiet clatter of his stone bowl against the well ledge.

Once they finished their breakfast, Moon stood up and adjusted his cloak.

Moon turned to Marina and asked her to go into the room and wait for her mother and nanny.

Marina went out obediently.

She had another plan.

She had seen many squirrels peeking and planned to chase them around. Though she would never mention it to Moon.

Moon looked at Axe and then gestured toward the kitchen doorway where Nox was just walking back in, his eyes still carefully avoiding Moon’s face.

"Alright, time is up," Moon stated, his tone serious.

"Let’s go inside the Lupine Palace. Master Lupine has already given me the manuals, and Nox needs to start practicing the basic line movements for the arrays. I will send you two first."

He turned to Nox, "Nox, it needs to be done. Our protection is depending on this. We can’t always leave our yard unguarded."

Nox grunted. In their pack, they had just hired many werewolves and used a witch’s array, too.

But here they had nothing, and a small courtyard owner would never have thought of guarding their yard.

Axe whistled softly, "Let me see what that statue—Ah! No, that elder master has in his possession."

Nox’s gaze darted around, and he mumbled, "What about you?"

"I will wait for Ugo and Oshan," Moon replied.

Hearing Ugo’s name, Nox stiffened slightly and nodded, "Oh! Well, well. Then just let us in." He rubbed his neck and dusted away an imaginary bug.

Moon looked at this strange fellow and sighed in exasperation. He was really trying to warm up the room.

Moon drew a deep breath, focusing his divine sense toward his Lupine Palace.

In a span of a millisecond, the two figures vanished from the room.

Moon turned to clean up the place.

Before Moon finished the work, the door of the courtyard gate creaked open.

Oshan Dew stepped through the door. His face was weathered and covered in a thin layer of morning frost, but his eyes were sharp and alert.

Regardless, it was clear he was also upset with something.

Moon did not ask where he went or why he was like an old monarch who lost his territory to a little guinea pig.

As he came out to talk, he saw another person coming in.

Behind Oshan followed an older woman dressed in a clean, sturdy wool tunic. Her hair was pulled back into a neat bun, and she carried a small cloth bundle in her arms.

She looked like a typical, dependable pack nanny from the lower city districts.

"She is the person Maggi sent," Oshan said without any greetings, nodding toward Moon as he closed the gate behind them.

The older woman stepped forward, bowing respectfully to Moon.

"Master Moon. You can rest assured. I will look after the young lady and keep the home safe."

"Thank you..." He hesitated as to what to call her.

"Amelia." The woman said, smiling.

"Ah! Amelia, just call me Astra. Then we will be in your care. We have a lot of work outside, so we may not be at home all the time."

"I know, Maggi told me."

Moon caught how she called Margarita.

It seemed they were close and trusted.

He turned to Oshan and his eyes gave Oshan a signal about the Lupine Palace. "I have work outside; you keep an eye on the home. Or do you have work?"

Oshan slumped on the stone stool in the yard and waved his hand. "No, no. Go wherever you want; all I want is to sleep."

"You can’t sleep. You have to keep an eye on Marina."

"It’s fine, Astra. I can take care of her alone." Amelia smiled again.

"Yes, yes, she is enough, trust me," Oshan vowed.

Moon knew that since Oshan was saying this, this woman might be capable.

So he didn’t worry anymore.

Marina ran over to the nanny, her face bright as she started showing the woman around.

Seeing that everything was settled and safe, Moon finally walked back into the central bedroom.

He closed the wooden door tightly and locked it from the inside using a small, temporary locking seal.

Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, Moon closed his eyes.

He remembered what Warlord Lupine and the Moon Goddess had blurted out last night during their argument.

"You can go outside only to the places you have conquered... Two gates unlocked... This treasure vault and the Stardust Cinder Lily pond..."

Moon’s heart started thumping against his ribs again.

The realization that this spatial palace wasn’t just a simple storage vault or a training sanctuary was rewriting everything he knew.

If there were five entrances, and two were already open, did that mean he could bypass the mortal realm’s geographic restrictions entirely?

Could he truly step into the deeper, lost areas of the world through the palace walls?

He didn’t hesitate any longer.

He drew a sharp breath, pulled his consciousness inward, and triggered his divine sense.

The world around him blurred, the walls of the cabin melting away into the massive, dark ironstone plates of the Lupine Palace.

The thick, metallic scent of the Pool of Gengjin Spirit Marrow instantly flooded his nose.

Further down the grand hall, near the massive Nightshade Gold statue, Warlord Lupine was already floating in the air, his ghostly black robes billowing as he yelled at Axe and Nox.

"Trash! Hold your posture straight! If your elemental Qi cannot even align with your bloodline, how are you going to forge a proper weapon bond?" Lupine roared, his red pupils flaring with intense irritation.

Axe was currently drenched in sweat, his broad chest heaving as he tried to swing a heavy iron sword against a puppet.

Nox was sitting further away on a stone platform, a dark jade plate resting on his knees as his fingers traced glowing silver lines in the air, his forehead beaded with sweat from the sheer mental strain.

"But we don’t have your Qi!" Axe shouted as he swung his blade in the air.

"Don’t have it? Trash! Mongrel! Loser! If you don’t have one, you grow one."

Suddenly, a chaotic scuffling noise broke through Lupine’s roaring.

From behind the piled-up velvet cushions, Leo came tumbling out, roaring at Rio, who was biting on his tail.

Leo, his tiny red fur bristling with unhinged energy, snapped Rio out of his tail.

In one high leap, he landed right onto Axe’s ankle, sinking his sharp teeth into the leather boot.

Axe stumbled with a curse, losing his grip on the sword.

At the same time, Rio bolted toward Nox’s stone platform, his paws scattering the dark array plates into a loud clatter.

"Get off me, you little brat!" Axe yelled, flailing his leg to shake the red pup off.

"He is older, Axe!" Nox shouted from the other side. "Damn it, little shits!"

He leaped up in irritation as Rio snapped at his fingers, destroying the silver lines he had just traced in the air.

Moon looked at the mess and looked at Lupine.

His master was waving his hands in a great frenzy, like he was more eager to wreck his palace than Leo and Rio. His brows twitched hard.

"What are you guys even doing?" he spoke up.