Chapter 430: A close call of the first kind

Alice looked nervously out of the helicopter’s window as she remembered what happened in the last few hours.

Right after they languished that corpse dragon, the dungeon was considered conquered, they were thrown back to the arena where Tolin activated that talisman and everything returned to normal immediately except for the Von Weise Archipelago now having an extra ominous-looking island.

After that, as they took some time to rest and be debriefed about what happened, many reports came pouring in about what happened in the outside world during this period.

“Who could have guessed that all these events would happen in just a couple of weeks!” Theodore sighed as he flipped through the elder’s briefing report.

After getting the news of someone finding Victor floating in the sea, he hurriedly left the island together with Alice to go check on him. Ann who seemed a little worried, sent the head butler Olaf with them to officially take Victor’s statement about what happened after he was sucked into that ‘Dungeon’.

“Indeed master…” Olaf who was sitting opposite him said. “Thankfully, the emergency family council was able to keep things controlled while the island was involved in a dungeon… I even had to get discharged early and work despite my injury…”

“You don’t need to show off how pivotal your role in the family was… we all know!” Theodore interrupted, making Alice raise one eyebrow, her father clearly didn't like Olaf.

“Ah… I am sorry if I offended you, Master Theodore, in any way… I was not bragging at all, saving the family was my duty, and the effort of it goes to all of the surviving elders and the other butlers and staff who did their jobs perfectly too!” Olaf quickly clarified. “ If not for their timely response, the family would now be in a mess like what is happening in Rosen City,” he said, professionally changing the subject.

“True… Any news about them?” Theodore asked with a frown, flipping the report in search for the relevant information.

“Just that the entire Von Rosen family base and all the area around was engulfed in an Unranked dungeon,” Olaf said. “Apparently, almost all of the elders were there for some kind of a grand ceremony, so with them all missing at the moment, the family was left headless…”

“This shows how wise our family’s strategy of leaving some elders stationed around the continent just in case…” Theodore nodded. “Any news on who is behind this?”

“We suspect that it was the same person who did it on our main island… According to Mistress Ann, it was the Poison lord!” Olaf clarified. “That guy stole our entire secret vault, so I suspect he is after something all of the families had…” he added. Throwing baseless accusations.

“Indeed…” Theodore sighed. “At least there is some good news coming out of all this mess… With the tournament being delayed and such, we will have some time to prepare!”

“What? The tournament was delayed?” Alice, who never heard about that, asked.

“Yes… With two of the high council members getting attacked, they had to,” Theodore said. “It just came in before we took off, but it will be delayed for another month or so…” he sighed.

“Oh…” Alice nodded.

“With this, we can reassess our participating team!” Theodore said, looking out of the window at the expansive sea outside.

…

Meril was sitting nervously in the living room, biting her fingernails and eyeing the elven horse when, suddenly she heard the manor’s door open.

She quickly hurried out of the living room to meet Macil who had just returned. Other than her, he was the only one who had the key to unlock the mansion’s magical array... Victor seemed to have entered somehow without triggering it, but that was not important at the moment.

“Young master!” She quickly bowed as soon as she entered the hall.

“Meril! You may raise…” he said. “My luck is super great!” he chuckled happily as he hurried and patted her head, as he always did when he returned home.

“What happened?” she asked with a smile as she quickly helped him take off his coat.

“My stupid sisters… They turned out to be really hiding an artifact from the lord! The bitches really did have a secret SSS-ranked artifact, and they hid it from his lordship, the Sun Lord!” he said. “How dare they!” he spat angrily.

“Oh…  So what will happen to their highnesses?” Meril asked. Once those royal bitches were gone she would no longer need to worry about Macil and would be able to go with Victor in a clear conscious.

“They were taken to the pits!” Macil sighed.

“WHAT? Can a noble sun elve be taken there?” she asked in shock. The worst that could ever happen to a sun elf was getting banished.

“Ah… I don't know… But it was the lord’s direct command!” Macil said. “This matter must have something to do with disturbing his grand will... He might also be blaming them for all the damage, they were the ones who brought the demon here after all!”

“How do you know this…” Meril didn’t continue as someone entered the hall. It was an elven general dressed in a gaudy shining elven gold armor. He was accompanied by four knights in golden armor that covered their entire bodies, including their faces. They only had dangerously looking eyes visible from within their golden-winged helmets.

“Ah, General Zendo, you are here!” Macil exclaimed in an excited voice as Meril bowed politely as a maid should.

“Prince Macil… Where is that shape-shifting human?” Zendo asked, as Meril shivered, frowned, and then without raising her head secretly scowled at Macil.

What the fuck did her young master do now?

He smiled at her.

“This way please…” Macil quickly began guiding the way. “Meril, you follow us too. General Zendo is a very trustworthy man who works directly for the lord!”

“Aha…”

“Yes… You are little Meril, right? The one who upgraded her bloodline…” Zendo said, inspecting her with his eyes that had a strange glitter in them.

“Yes, she is the one!” Macil smiled. “It's all thanks to the pill Victor gave me! He is a really great guy…”

“Fabulous…. “ Zendo said, turning to Meril again and not even sparing Macil a glance. “When Prince Macil told me about your poor brother who risked his life to come see you then got his head hurt due to that demon, I had to come and see him by myself….” he said with a smug smile as they entered the living room where the Elven horse was sitting like a king, enjoying some hay after he finished his carrots.

“Thank you for your compassion, my lord…” Meril said, as she followed from behind with a frown.

What the hell was going on here?

How could her young master tell Victor? From the way he was acting, it was like this general whom she had never seen before was closer to him than his own mother!

Victor’s plan that he told her was to simply tell Macil that she would take the elven horse and try to find her mother who might know something about turning him back. This was a very good excuse. She only had to say that after upgrading her bloodline she gained the ability to feel out their direction!

But who would have guessed that the plan was ruined before it even started?

“As you see, General, he is acting completely like an elven horse…” Macil said.

“Oh… It is so perfect… Yet there are signs for those with good eyes… His dragon bloodline can’t be hidden!” Zendo said as he slowly began to pat the elven horse… from his head, he moved his hand until it reached its back. “Interesting… What kind of artifact is this?” he pondered.

“Artifact?” Macil frowned. So did Meril. What artifact? What dragon bloodline? It was a fucking Elven horse!

“Yes… The shape-shifting seems to be the effect of some kind of artifact in his stomach, it seemed to be damaged though…” Zendo said. “I think I will need to take him with me to the palace to ‘cure him’… “

“Can it be done?” Macil asked in surprise.

“Yes…”

“That would be fantastic…” Macil said with a smile.

“And about you little Meril…” Zendo turend to her, “I think that it would be much better if you…”

BOOOOOOOM!

An explosion suddenly rocked the city and shook the entire manor.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…

All kinds of sirens began to ring like last time. A demon was attacking!

Everyone quickly looked in the explosion’s direction, where, out of a nearby grand window they could see a grand, smoke cloud appear right above where the center of the city should be.

“What the…” Before Zendo could say a thing, the Elven horse moved, it only jerked once, then as if it was a shooting star it launched toward the wall, not hitting it, but passing right through it.

“FUCK! WATCH THEM!” Zendo yelled, flicking his hand before he sprung after it.

Meril, who wanted to run to the window and take a look, found herself frozen in place, and so was Macil, both of them had eternal golden chains appear around them locking them in place.

“Young master…”

“Don’t worry… It must be to protect us!” Macil said with a fanatic look that she finally noticed.

Wait… Could it be that Zendo was the…. An absurd thought suddenly appeared in Meril’s mind. Just thinking about it, sent a shiver through her spine.

“Young master…” Before she could say a thing, the room shone with light.

From its center,  Zendo appeared again with the corpse of the elven horse which he threw on the ground.

“Absolutely pathetic…” he said as he grabbed a black box from midair and opened it. “Get in!” he told his men.

They frowned for a split second, then nodded and jumped in without asking questions. It was as if the box was an empty hole, which disappeared within.

Closing the box, Zendo looked at Meril and Macil frowning. He took two pills and threw them at the couple.

“Eat those!” he said. “QUICK!”

Macil quickly complied with a stupid smile.

Meril who looked at Zendo in shock nodded too and quickly took it. Just now the one who spoke to her was not Zendo, but Victor who was in a hurry.

…

Seeing both Meril and Macil collapse into a coma thanks to the sleeping pill, Victor quickly activated a restriction-breaking talisman.

The golden chains broke, allowing him to grab both of them and throw them inside the cauldron before using his newly cooled-down Space Fracture skill, to open a hole in space and jump in with a panicked expression

The entire process from his appearance here until he vanished, took no more than 73 seconds.

10 Seconds later, the real Zendo appeared with a burnt smoking corpse of the real elven horse.

It took him 3 seconds to inspect his surroundings with a shocked expression. Just to make sure he reentered the correct room.

“Damn it! Space fracture!… COME HERE!” he yelled, pushing his hand into the spot where the space fracture closed moments earlier.

It opened again, barely.

Zendo pushed harder, extending his hand inside, enlarging the fracture while fighting against the space forces that were pushing it too close.

Then…

“AH… BASTARD! You think you are smart by hiding in the gorge? You think I can’t go there if I need to?” he yelled, ignoring the black death smoke coming from the space fracture that clearly led to somewhere in the gorge.

The moment it touched its skin, he began to weather, but moments later, as if some kind of strange energy activated within him, his skin began to reconstruct again, with what looked like embers of fire crawling on his skin.

“I swear I will…” he began to yell as the space fracture began to expand larger and larger.

Then again…

“KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA….”

He screamed in pain like a sissy would before pulling back his arm. The space fracture collapsed at once but he didn’t care as he used his sword to immediately cut off his hand.

It was all weathered up and in its center, a silver needle was inserted.

The moment the hand fell to the ground, it turned into a green goo that began to melt the floor.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!” the lord asked angrily as he looked in a certain direction toward the gorge. “BASTARD! “COME!” he demanded.

No one replied….

“Shit!” he cursed, grabbing the elven horse's burnt corpse and turning to leave…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The entire mansion exploded before he could do that… The explosion was so big, that its mushroom cloud could be seen miles away from the City, reaching the gorge where Victor at the moment collapsed onto the ground on its floor. Emira who sat beside him was looking at the now collapsed space fracture absentmindedly.

“That was a close call… Damn, Sun lord…” he spat as he looked at one of his hands, it was completely burnt to the crisp. The aftermath of him sticking that needle into the Sun lord’s hand. That guy was actively shooting flames from his hand as he tried to catch him, this forced him to use his hand to deflect the fire from Emira and push that guy back! “We better leave this place…” he said, throwing a couple of healing pills in his mouth as grabbed Emira and began to travel north.

Emira lay motionless in his embrace as she watched his hand heal at a visible rate. Still, she seemed to be frowning as if she was trying to remember a very disturbing nightmare but couldn’t really grasp it.

Victor, who noticed her expression ever since she noticed Zendo through the fracture, sighed… As he expected, this girl, being at the gorge, might have something to do with the Sun lord.

According to the elf girls, she was a white moon elf,  belonging to the noblest of the moon elves. According to them, her tribe’s land was behind the gorge and after the demons struck, all white moon elves turned into wanderers without a home. They also told him that the last sighting of any of them was about 10 years ago, especially after many slavers began considering them ‘Rare Commodities’.

Hearing all of these, Victor was very curious about her story, but it was a little early to try to forcibly make her remember. It was far better to slowly let her heal.

Now, he must focus on escaping Zendo. He was sure that neither the needle nor the explosion were enough to Kill that guy!

Those things were just meant to delay him and distort all spatial fluctuations to stop him from reopening the space fracture again… And maybe hurt him a little as a revenge.

That guy would definitely start a massive search campaign for them as soon as he recovers, so Victor planned to move as far as possible by then. Although that guy might be able to enter the gorge, it was clear that he couldn’t stay here for long and personally search for them!

Victor also needed to make a detour and retrieve his fishing rod, the one he connected to the donkey, and place it near the edge of the gorge after tying it to a boulder yesterday.

He was hiding in the city earlier, and the moment he felt someone investigate the storage ring he put in the donkey’s stomach, he quickly realized that his worst-case scenario was happening. He quickly activated the exploding talismans under the boulder, allowing it to plunge downward with the fishing rod, dragging the poor donkey with it.

Rest in peace Donkey…

He also needed to refill his stock of demons in place of the ones he released in the Sun Capital to divert the guard’s attention and allow him to freely use his powers.

Victor sighed… It was a good thing he promised himself to be careful having more than one backup plan just in case.

Now, all he needed to do was to stay hidden, traveling only at night, heading toward the west, the direction where his Great Aunt and stepmother were in… The human empire of Ishmar!