Chapter 572 : Water Dream

During the night in Moncarlo, a rare, thick white fog enveloped the entire main island. On the bustling streets of the night market, tourists who had been immersed in nocturnal merriment were suddenly surprised to find that the lively roads were swiftly flooded by the dense mist. Even the seasoned sailors on harbor duty found this anomaly unusual.

On the outskirts of Moncarlo’s urban area, a man known as “Withered Wing” flew swiftly through the mist-blanketed streets, soaring forward through the air. Clusters of dim, yellow-hued streetlights flashed past on either side of him. His expression was deeply grim as he stared at the sea of white ahead.

Withered Wing knew this unusual fog was no natural phenomenon—it was a manifestation of a powerful Beyonder ability. A being no weaker than Crimson-rank had cast their influence across the island. He didn’t know why such power was being used in this way, but the intense sense of unease urged him to quickly retrieve what was rightfully his and leave this place of trouble at once.

“This kind of wide-area sea fog... This is the ability of a Water Elementalist at the Crimson rank… Could it be the master of Moncarlo who’s taken action? But for what purpose?”

He muttered while flying, speculating on who could be behind this. Upon encountering a situation like this in Moncarlo, his first thought naturally turned to who could wield such might. Though he had no idea why the ability was being used, he guessed something major was unfolding on the island—and he’d best get out while he could.

Thus, Withered Wing surged ahead over the streets using a certain mystical power. But just then, he sensed a subtle disturbance in the air around him. Alarm rose in his heart. Almost instinctively, he halted mid-flight and swerved to the side—barely dodging a thick water arrow that shot out from the fog. It grazed the edge of his coat and smashed into the pavement below, creating a half-meter-wide crater in the solid road with a loud boom.

He was being targeted!

With this realization, Withered Wing’s vigilance shot to its peak. Every muscle in his body tensed into high alert. Waves of danger surged at him from all directions. He landed on the ground and began a high-speed evasive maneuver, weaving with ghost-like agility to avoid the torrent of high-pressure water arrows that came shooting from all around within the fog. In the midst of dark afterimages too fast for the naked eye to follow, the thick water bolts blasted holes in the street and punctured through walls, leaving craters all across the cold, mist-shrouded roadway.

Despite the destruction, not a single drop of blood stained the ground. Withered Wing’s speed and reflexes were so extreme that even the near-invisible barrage of water arrows failed to land a scratch. To dodge long-range attacks in such severely limited visibility was an almost impossible feat—let alone under such high density. This alone testified to his terrifying speed and reaction time.

While dodging the rain of water arrows, Withered Wing wasn’t content to just flee. Spotting an opportunity, he pulled out a sigil and activated it. As the sigil—imbued with the meanings of Shadow and Stone—burned in midair, a fierce whirlwind erupted along the shattered road. The spinning gale temporarily dispersed the fog around him and diverted the water arrows off course. For a moment, clarity returned to the space around him.

“Master of Moncarlo! I’m only here on official business. I’ve no intention of harming you or this city. If my presence displeases you, I will leave immediately. Please let me pass!”

Taking advantage of the brief window, Withered Wing shouted out. He didn’t understand why the master of Moncarlo had suddenly attacked and wanted to clarify the situation.

After his call, the water arrow barrage ceased for a moment. Then, a hoarse, elderly voice echoed from within the mist, direction indiscernible.

“Return what you stole… or die here…”

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

“What I stole? Master of Moncarlo… I came to purchase something properly, not to steal. There must be some misunderstanding between us.”

Withered Wing replied bluntly. Sensing something suspicious, he tried to defuse the situation and stop what he saw as a pointless fight—but that would prove extremely difficult.

“A misunderstanding? Fine… then stop resisting, and come with me to the Sovereign Sea Fortress. There, you will unconditionally submit to all of my inspections. Once we finish the checks, we’ll know whether a misunderstanding exists or not…”

The elusive voice of Edward rang out once again from within the fog. At this, Withered Wing’s face darkened abruptly. He spoke solemnly.

“Please propose a more reasonable condition, Master of Moncarlo. Your demand is absurd…”

Withered Wing’s reply was firm, for one Crimson-rank Beyonder to demand another to surrender and do nothing was impossible. No matter the situation, Withered Wing couldn’t accept Edward’s request to venture into his stronghold and hand over his life entirely—just to prove his innocence.

From Edward’s perspective, however, if Withered Wing refused a full inspection, then there was no reason to believe his words. Now that the Waters of Youth had been stolen in Moncarlo, suspicion naturally fell on the only two Crimson-rank figures still present. The one known as Swordscale had already fled and was out of reach, so Edward could only target Withered Wing. Especially given that the theft bore traces of dream-related abilities, he would never let a suspicious master of the Blackdream Hunting Pack go free.

“If you refuse to comply… then I’ll have to deal with you myself.”

Edward’s voice drifted out once more as his assault resumed. The fog, which had been scattered earlier, surged back toward Withered Wing—and with it came a denser, more violent rain of water arrows.

“Damn pirate dog…”

Cursing at Edward’s complete refusal to negotiate, Withered Wing resumed evasive action. Within the mist, he once again became a streaking shadow, dodging the countless incoming bolts. But this time, Edward changed tactics.

“You’re not getting away!”

In an instant, the water vapor in the fog surged in a single direction. The area where Withered Wing had been dodging became saturated. The mist rapidly condensed into liquid, and in the blink of an eye, Withered Wing found himself trapped inside a massive water sphere. Suspended in the liquid, he instantly lost the ability to move at high speed.

By turning the environment around Withered Wing into water, Edward had finally neutralized his opponent’s vexing high mobility—and at the same time trapped him within a watery prison. Taking this opportunity, Edward began condensing several water arrows once more, intending to pierce Withered Wing and render him completely incapacitated. However, Withered Wing struck back before that could happen.

“Moth… manifest through my flesh…”

Submerged in the water, Withered Wing muttered grimly, air bubbles constantly rising from his mouth. A strange halo of color shimmered around him, and a pair of semi-transparent moth Wing—etched with countless complex patterns and hues, fragile and tattered—grew from his back. At the same time, a translucent energy construct of the same texture as the wing formed around his body. This energy, like a spiritual armor, isolated him from the watery prison and allowed him to break free.

“Scatter—!”

Suddenly, the radiant, translucent armor surrounding Withered Wing expanded dramatically and began to transform. It morphed into dozens of thick, semi-transparent tendrils that lashed out wildly in every direction, shattering and severing the surrounding prison of water, causing it to completely collapse. If Dorothy had been present, she would have recognized that these tendrils were nearly identical to those of the pseudo-moth she had encountered back in Navaha.

With the pseudo-moth’s tendrils born from his spiritual armor, Withered Wing dismantled the watery cage. At that moment, Edward’s next volley of water arrows arrived. Withered Wing swung his tendrils and swatted them away. However, despite their power, the tendrils passed straight through physical objects like the ground and electric poles—proving they were not composed of physical matter.

The elements conjured or controlled by Elementalists differ significantly from those in nature. They are imbued with spirituality. This spirituality, granted by the Elementalist, is what makes the elements responsive to their commands. Likewise, this high spirituality is what allows an Elementalist’s fire, for example, to harm incorporeal beings like ghosts or dreamforms—unlike normal fire.

But power has reciprocity. If an Elementalist’s spiritual elements can affect non-corporeal entities, then those non-corporeal entities, in turn, can interfere with the Elementalist’s elements. Such is the case now: the pseudo-moth’s dream-material body, summoned and fused with Withered Wing, could interact with Edward’s conjured elements—and shatter them.

Having summoned the pseudo-moth’s form as armor, Withered Wing launched a merciless counterattack against Edward, who refused all negotiation. Countless translucent tendrils extended outward and swept wildly in all directions. Dozens of massive, 20 to 30-meter-long tendrils spun furiously like the blades of a fan, dispersing large swaths of fog. The mist, stripped of Edward’s control, quickly dissipated.

By now, Withered Wing had realized the truth: Edward had likely transformed his body into elemental water and dispersed it into mist, hiding himself within the thick fog. This allowed him to launch attacks from all directions while remaining impervious to most attacks. But such a strategy was useless against Withered Wing.

His pseudo-moth tendrils were of dream essence and acted directly upon the spiritual realm—rendering Edward’s elemental mist transformation ineffective. The massive tendrils continued to sweep through the fog; if even a tiny portion of Edward’s vapor-form was grazed, he would suffer mental damage. The wider he spread himself, the more likely he was to be hit.

“Urgh…!”

Finally, a muffled groan of pain echoed through the air. A portion of Edward’s true form had been struck, and he suffered intense psychic pain. He immediately adjusted his strategy and rapidly gathered his scattered mist-form body. In moments, a humanoid figure composed entirely of water materialized not far from Withered Wing, Edward’s face now visible upon it.

Seeing Edward solidify into a visible form, Withered Wing wasted no time. He lashed out with his tendrils at Edward’s water-body. In response, Edward formed a longsword of water in his hand. The blade rapidly grew to nearly ten meters in length, and with sweeping strikes, he began slashing the dreamlike tendrils. In a matter of seconds, seven or eight of Withered Wing’ tendrils were severed.

But they regrew immediately under the power of his spirituality and launched another wave of attacks. The battle reached a deadlock—offense and defense locked in stalemate.

Frowning, Withered Wing gathered his will and released a powerful wave of hypnotic energy. Anything caught in its spread would fall into a deep sleep, and the wave expanded rapidly in all directions, centered on him—impossible to guard against.

Within moments, all life within two to three kilometers of Withered Wing fell unconscious. Pedestrians who were just walking collapsed on the ground in deep slumber. Yet when the wave reached Edward, it only caused his body to briefly pause before he resumed moving and sliced down another tendril—leaving Withered Wing frowning deeply.

Edward had prepared extensively for this encounter with a member of the Blackdream Hunting Pack. Sleep is, by nature, a process in which the mind enters the dream realm. To guard against this, Edward had performed a mystical ritual beforehand, linking his spirit to another inner realm—to prevent it from being drawn into the dream realm.

He had tethered his spirit to a mystical item and sent that item into the water realm, turning it into a spiritual anchor. As a result, his spirit was now anchored in the water realm, and the dream realm could not draw him in. So long as his spirit remained outside the dream realm, he could not be forced asleep.

Having resisted the hypnosis, Edward severed another tendril and prepared to counterattack. He stared at Withered Wing, who was still clad in pseudo-moth armor, clearly preparing to launch an assault. Withered Wing readied his newly regenerated tendrils and circled them close, preparing to defend.

But then—with no warning—Withered Wing felt an intense, gut-wrenching pain explode in his chest. He clutched his sternum, eyes wide, and coughed up a mouthful of blood, staggering back.

“When… did this… how could it…”

Staring at the blood he had just coughed onto the ground, Withered Wing muttered in disbelief. He clearly sensed that his internal organs—lungs and chest—had just taken a serious blow. But he had no idea how.

On the other side, Edward saw this and allowed a pleased smile to curl at his lips. The trap he’d laid long before the battle had finally sprung.

It all began with one of Edward’s mystical items—a silver basin. Its power allowed Edward to disperse his own spirituality, highly diluted, across the entire island. Every bit of ambient water vapor in the air carried a trace of his essence—so faint it was indistinguishable from natural spiritual presence. Only those with extremely heightened Lantern or Chalice spiritual perception could detect the subtle change.

Elementalists control elements by embedding spirituality into them. Normally, such dilute spirituality, dispersed across a vast area, would become inert. Even Edward, a Crimson-rank Water Elementalist, would be unable to command it again. But in Moncarlo, his home turf, he had special setups that allowed him to maintain a weak link to those vapors.

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The link was too weak to let him control them again, but he could use them for perception. Most importantly, if someone unknowingly breathed in this spiritually-laced vapor, it would bypass their mystical defenses and enter their body—allowing Edward to sense them from the inside, identify their rank and abilities, and track them anywhere on the island.

Withered Wing, as a Crimson-rank Shadow Beyonder, was extremely difficult to trace externally. But once the spiritually-infused vapors entered his body, it was a different story.

Through long exposure while traveling and fighting, Withered Wing had unknowingly inhaled far too much of Moncarlo’s air. By now, Edward’s diluted spirituality had accumulated in his body to a density Edward could finally act upon. And act he did—manipulating the water vapor inside Withered Wing’s body to assault his organs directly.

Withered Wing had never even noticed.

He had assumed only the visible fog contained Edward’s spirituality and had used his tendrils to disperse it. He never imagined it was in the very air he was breathing—and that it had already become his greatest vulnerability.