Chapter 1297: Chapter 1297
"Can you send me back now? I'm in a hurry."
Before the statue in the subterranean space, Jenkins spoke with urgency. He couldn't forget the explosions and the inferno raging through the city.
"Certainly. I am at your service."
As the statue finished speaking, red sparks showered at Jenkins's side, tearing a violent rift in the fabric of space.
"This will return you to your original location," the statue explained, "but are you certain you wish to leave? To ensure the safety of this ancestral land, each elf may visit only once. If you depart now, I do not believe you will ever be able to return."
Jenkins hesitated. He did, in fact, have many questions to ask.
"Besides," the statue continued, "did you not come here for the gift left behind by your ancestors?"
the statue asked again.
He had already raised a foot to step through the portal, but he froze mid-stride. The word "gift" had caught his attention. At the same moment, Jenkins remembered Saramanda's note—the final ingredient for the potion had not yet been consumed.
"The ancient elves prepared a gift here for their descendants. Any young elf who comes here may receive a new staff, but they must provide the materials themselves... When you approached earlier, I saw you were carrying three wood hearts, so I assumed you were already aware of all this."
Jenkins opened his mouth, then gave a firm nod.
"Very well, then," Jenkins conceded. "But will making the staff be quick? I truly am in a hurry. And if you are unwilling to discuss the secrets of the end of the epoch, could you at least tell me something of the elves' past? And... do you recognize this? The Doomsday Document?"
... Chocolate watched the moon.
The night in Ruen was far from peaceful. At a manor on the city's outskirts, Chocolate perched on the railing of a second-floor terrace, letting the night breeze ruffle its whiskers. The distant inferno danced in its eyes. After watching for a moment, the cat grew bored and glanced up at the sky. Alexia was hovering there, facing off against a swarm of dark shadows.
The shadows had flown out of Ruen only a short while ago. Chocolate recognized them. To the ignorant, they might look like malevolent spirits, but they were actually weapons forged by ancient dwarves. It seemed someone had unleashed something truly dreadful upon the city.
The cat stretched out a paw to scratch its face, then turned to look inside the manor. The grand crystal chandelier in the living room had crashed to the floor, scattering fragments of glass and crystal everywhere.
The gas lamps still burned, casting light on the wreckage within the living room. Dolores shielded her younger sister, standing beside Julia as they both faced the dark figure before them.
This shadow was slightly weaker, so Alexia had left it for Dolores to handle. Chocolate had been ushered out when the fighting began, so it had picked a vantage point where it could watch both battles unfold, ready to intervene if needed. After all, the cat worried that if anything happened to any of the women, Jenkins would weep like a child who'd lost his favorite toy.
An icy-blue light flared in the living room. An ice chess piece, tossed to the far side of the room, morphed into an archer. It rolled across the floor, rising to its feet and drawing its bow in one fluid motion. The shadow deflected the first ice arrow, but as it turned, Dolores and Julia acted. Lifting their skirts with their left hands, they swept their right hands forward. Overlapping fans of frigid air blasted the creature, enveloping its body. With a series of sharp cracks, the shadow froze solid, becoming an ice sculpture. A second arrow shot out, punching a clean hole through its frozen heart.
With a sharp bang, the ice sculpture shattered, exploding outwards. Dolores spun around and pulled her sister into a protective embrace. When the swirling black mist finally dissipated, the shadow was gone. Julia scanned the living room, confirming that it had truly been defeated.
Dolores sent Julia with Angelina Stuart to round up the servants from around the manor. She then cautiously approached the terrace outside the living room, where she saw the cat's elegant silhouette perched on the railing, seemingly admiring the moon.
She hid beside the shattered terrace doors and joined Chocolate in looking up at the sky. Countless shadows were plummeting downwards like a swarm of insects asphyxiated by incense, only to burst into black mist before they could reach the ground.
A weary-looking Alexia descended from the sky, landing on the terrace. She noticed the cat staring at her but pretended not to see it. She then led Dolores and Julia downstairs to regroup, and together with the manor's servants, they all retreated into the basement shelter.
They left the servants in the shelter, under the joint supervision of Angelina Stuart and the manor's old butler. Then, the three women and the cat boarded a mine cart in a secret tunnel beneath the estate and set off toward the city.
The secret passage was ancient, part of the manor long before Dolores had purchased it. The tracks and mine cart, however, were her additions—a contingency for precisely this kind of situation.
The tunnel emerged in the basement of a discreet property in downtown Ruen. The apartment was registered to a reliable and wealthy merchant, making it a secure safe house.
The trio emerged from the tunnel into the basement and made their way up to the second floor of the apartment. From the window, they could see Ruen ablaze, with swarms of dark shadows hovering over the city.
"Teacher, what exactly are these?" Latest content publıshed on N0v3l.Fiɾe.net
"I don't know," Alexia admitted, "but they don't seem like any natural species. They feel more like weapons, designed for the sole purpose of slaughter... Ordinary people can't see them, which is what makes this so dangerous right now."
Their return to Ruen wasn't a reckless attempt to solve the crisis, but a calculated risk to protect their assets within the city. The fires were of little concern, as most of Ruen's buildings remained encased in ice. The real treasure was the people—especially the talented individuals recruited from across the kingdom to help run the city. Their loss would be irreplaceable.
Something felt wrong. As they moved along the riot-torn streets, they could clearly perceive armed men everywhere, fighting desperately against the "unseen" figures in the sky.
There were police, the Ruen city guard, and members of the church clergy among the defenders. But there was an equal number, if not more, of private armed forces. The sound of the gunfire alone told them it was military-grade weaponry. As expected, these were the men who answered to Dolores's brothers and sisters.
"So, everyone has joined the fray."
Dolores couldn't help but scoff as they hurried through the streets. Her amusement faded, however, when they neared her own club and she saw that the forces she had secretly positioned in the city were also engaged, defending the surrounding neighborhood.
The air was a cacophony of gunfire and explosions, so widespread that not even Alexia could quickly calculate its origin. The three of them, along with Chocolate, entered the club. After a brief meeting with the manager to learn of the casualties, Dolores wasted no time in addressing her followers, declaring the severity of the crisis. Her people immediately sprang into action, gathering nearby residents and erecting temporary defensive barricades.