Castle

The silver moon hung hazily in the sky, and the night was deep. The vast, desolate wilderness lay utterly silent, with no one in sight. The only sound was the flutter of wings high above, as a Vampire Girl with bat wings sprouting from her back streaked across the sky. Moonlight spilled over Vivian, diffusing into a blurry mass of light and shadow that completely concealed the Vampire's aura. Since she wasn't sure whether this haunted castle would attract a real Demon Hunter, Vivian stayed highly vigilant, using the power of moonlight to mask her presence the entire way.

Hao Ren was dangling in the sky, held by the armpits as Vivian flew, and he felt extremely agitated. "Actually, when you first said you wanted to carry me while flying, I refused. You couldn't just say you wanted me to fly and expect me to fly. At the very least, you should've let me get used to it. I didn't want to wait until you hung me up and then..."

Vivian's voice came from above. "Speak human."

"...Give me some psychological preparation, sis! You carried me this high before I even agreed. An ordinary person's heart can't take this, okay?"

"But you're handling it just fine, aren't you?" Vivian glanced down at Hao Ren. She had dragged him into the sky before he could react, and now she didn't feel apologetic in the slightest. "You should count yourself lucky. What ordinary person gets this honor? Do you think we Bloodkin enjoy carrying people through the air? They're heavy and troublesome."

Hao Ren gave a silent, wry laugh. Being carried through the sky by a girl was a little embarrassing, but there was no one else around to see him, so he decided to treat it as a novel experience. He had been tense when Vivian first hauled him into the air, afraid that this unreliable Vampire might run out of strength and let go halfway. He had no idea whether the physical enhancements Raven 12345 had given him could withstand the fall. But now it seemed that Vivian, being something other than human, was quite capable. She couldn't match Lily in sheer strength, but carrying an adult dozens of kilometers was still easy for her.

Hao Ren looked down at the ground below. They were flying very high, but with the help of the moonlight, he could still see what was happening beneath them. Across the wilderness, covered in loose stones and yellow earth, a small silver-white figure was following directly below him. It was Lily, running after them. To keep up with Vivian's flying speed, Lily had transformed into her Werewolf form and was running on all fours the entire time. The silver-white parts were her tail and long hair.

Amazingly, the Werewolf girl was still asleep. She had followed them all the way here with her eyes closed. Even Vivian was astonished by the idiot's ability to follow. The girl had managed to track a Vampire flying through the sky using nothing but her sense of smell while asleep. This proved that Lily, who looked like a complete airhead on the surface, actually possessed an astonishing "hunting" talent. She simply didn't want to improve herself. Otherwise, with tracking skills like that, she would probably be one of the top hunters among the Werewolves.

The three of them reached Yuefu'erde Castle dozens of kilometers away using this wondrous method of travel. Apart from avoiding the main roads and sticking to the wilderness, Vivian had also sent one of her bat clones to follow far behind Angus's car, so she could keep track of the group's movements. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. The people in the car failed to notice that a Werewolf and a Vampire were traveling nearby in such a conspicuous group, and even that boastful Mr. Nangong showed no reaction. He hadn't even bothered to look out the window.

"That's Yuefu'erde Castle." After flying through the night for an unknown length of time, Vivian's voice suddenly came from above and to the side. Hao Ren looked up and saw a field of rubble on a rise ahead. The castle had collapsed so completely that its original shape was impossible to make out, but the scale of the stone heap still showed how magnificent it must once have been. "Let's land here."

Vivian brought Hao Ren safely down to the ground. He immediately hopped up and down a couple of times to loosen his stiff limbs after dangling the whole way. It was still summer, but hanging in the high-altitude wind for more than an hour wasn't comfortable. Hao Ren felt that if he stayed up there much longer, he would have frozen solid. Just as he rubbed his sore arm and prepared to head for the castle, a silver-white shadow suddenly shot past him like a gust of wind, sending countless bits of grass and dust flying.

Hao Ren and Vivian stared blankly as the white shadow raced several hundred meters away in the blink of an eye, then slammed straight into a huge rock in the distance...

With a thunderous boom, the sturdy boulder, several meters tall, shattered as if it had been hit by artillery. Amid the destruction came Lily's muffled cry of pain. Hao Ren hurried over at full speed, and through the slowly dispersing dust and stone fragments, he saw the Werewolf girl rolling around on the ground while rubbing her head. Well, Lily had finally woken up completely, though not naturally after sleeping until she was rested.

Vivian was dumbfounded. "That head of hers... It could work as a pneumatic hammer at a quarry! Werewolves really do have nothing but muscles in their heads..."

Lily got up from the ground in an extremely sorry state. Of the pair of pointed ears that were usually full of energy, only one was standing upright now; the other drooped listlessly against her head. She must have hit it hard. The Werewolf girl was covered in dirt and bits of grass, and stone fragments poured from her hair whenever she shook her head. Still, she seemed to be in good spirits. After randomly wiping her face a couple of times, she grabbed Hao Ren's arm and swung it back and forth. "Landlord, Landlord, see? I kept up! That winged one kept bragging about how fast she could fly, but she wasn't much faster than me!"

Vivian tossed her hair. "Of course not. I was carrying someone. Next time, you carry the Landlord while I fly, and we'll see who's faster."

"Stop fooling around. We have serious business to handle." Hao Ren pressed both hands down, quieting the two superwomen. He then saw some lights faintly moving toward them from beneath a small hill in the distance. He quickly pulled Lily and Vivian away. "Let's get out of here first. The noise from Lily's headbutt was too loud. I think it attracted people."

Taking advantage of the night, the three of them quickly left the already chaotic "landing site" and circled around to another small hill nearby. This spot was closer to the castle ruins and offered a better view of the area around them.

Yuefu'erde Castle sat on a rise, but unlike other ancient castles, it wasn't built in particularly dangerous terrain. That was probably because the land here was flat, and even the lord back then couldn't find a more suitable place from which to hold the high ground. The castle itself had completely collapsed, just as Hao Ren had seen from the air. Only huge stretches of rubble remained on the rise, barely recognizable as the ruins of a massive stone structure, with not the slightest trace of the castle's original appearance. The cold gray-white stones formed a roughly rectangular ruin that looked utterly lifeless.

Near the rise, they could see a small cluster of lights. By the moonlight and lamplight, they could make out several tents and a few large vehicles, with shadowy figures moving among the lights. They were presumably paranormal enthusiasts drawn here by the castle's haunting.

There weren't as many people as Hao Ren had imagined—only around a dozen. Apparently, the number of fanatics willing to camp in the wilderness at midnight just to hunt for ghosts was limited. This eased Hao Ren's mind considerably. He had thought the place would be packed with people.

Clearly, this guy had confused a ghost-hunting convention with a temple fair.

"Nangong and the others have arrived." Vivian raised a hand and pointed. Hao Ren saw a pair of headlights approaching from the distance. In the darkness, he recognized the off-road vehicle belonging to the innkeeper, Angus. Nangong was sitting in the back seat, still wearing that unbearably arrogant expert expression.

"Wait a second." Hao Ren suddenly sensed that something was off. He rubbed his eyes hard and stared into the darkness on the other side of the wilderness. "Vivian, how's your vision at night?"

"Pretty good." Vivian nodded. "I'm nocturnal, after all."

"Can you see three dead trees in that direction? There are also... no, two large rocks beneath one of them."

"Yeah, I can see them quite clearly." Vivian answered casually, then suddenly realized what he had said. "Wait, you can see them too?!"

Hao Ren narrowed his eyes. He noticed a detail he hadn't paid attention to during the journey. Although the night was deep and the only light came from a single dim moon, everything in his field of vision was as clear as it would have been in daylight. The three dead trees were at least two or three kilometers away by his estimate, yet he could make out nearly every branch on them.

"Could this be... Raven 12345's payment finally coming through?" Hao Ren suddenly remembered what Raven 12345 had told him before he left. "Under suitable conditions, the various effects of the physical enhancements will gradually unlock. Is this what she meant?"

Hao Ren's spirits lifted. After being cheated for so long, he had finally run into something good.