Dongfang Ping 2

The wooden bowls felt a little cold in her hands. Each had been carved very thin, with perfectly round rims. She picked up a shard of ice crystal and realized they had been hollowed out with a mage's ice blade, then polished with remarkable care.

"Excellent!" Elufiel did not stint on her praise for the mage.

After the three of them finished a simple dinner, Eugene chose to go upstairs to rest, leaving the space to the elf and the mage.

Elufiel sat curled up on the windowsill, telling Odovish jokes about the mages of Azeroth.

She told the mage about strange potions, Polymorph, and the magical bread made by mages...

"Do you like bread? No, I don't mean eating it. I mean playing with bread. Back where I came from, mages had a magical dining table that could make bread automatically—"

Bang— The sound of a stone striking the window interrupted Elufiel. A pair of yellow points of light flashed past outside, startling her into casting Angelic Feather and darting behind Odovish.

"What was that?"

Chapter 20: Dongfang Ping 2

"What was that?" Elufiel's voice was slightly distorted. She was not afraid of facing ghosts or monsters, but she needed time to prepare herself first. When unknown things suddenly appeared like this, she instinctively felt fear. Fear of the unknown.

"I think we have a friend paying us a visit." Odovish turned and patted the elf's stiff back reassuringly. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have been a somewhat abrupt gesture. Neither the elf nor the mage was particularly open with their emotions. Yet on this silent night, in a house that looked like a textbook haunted mansion from the outside, the startled elf did not notice what the mage had done at all. All her attention was fixed on the window—

A pair of lights appeared there, brighter and larger than before. Looking closely, a vertical line stood in the center of each point, narrow at both ends and slightly rounded in the middle, like the pupil of some creature's eye. Yet it possessed none of the liveliness an eye should have. It was stiff, lifeless, like a dead thing.

After withdrawing his hand, the mage's fingers curled slightly. His fingertips seemed to retain a heat he could not shake off. He admitted that he had deliberately patted the elf's shoulder. Elufiel looked so delicate and harmless, though she wielded things that most divine casters in Kanado could never master in their lifetimes, and though she was inwardly so powerful and composed. But the instant he saw the elf startled, the mage still felt the urge to protect her.

What a strange feeling, Odovish thought.

The knocking sounded again outside the window. This time, it was no longer stones, but a huge palm, hairless and resembling a bear's paw covered in scales.

"I'm going outside. Do you want to come with me?" Odovish asked the elf.

Elufiel recovered from the fright quickly. Once she had regained herself, the elf became fearless and intensely curious again.

"What was that? It didn't look alive."

"See for yourself, and you'll know what it is." Odovish led Elufiel out of the house. After watching the two leave, Eugene stared at the points of light that had already vanished from the window for a while. It was an Earth Bear puppet. Odovish had called it "a friend paying a visit." The hidden forces of this Spell Saint—or rather, the strength of the council—were even greater than he had imagined. For Arcane practitioners scattered throughout the Badlands across the continent, that was good news.

The forest looked dark and eerie beneath the night sky. The "friend" that had knocked on the window had vanished without a trace. Odovish raised a hand and gave a gentle push toward the woods. The tall trees, stripped of their leaves, silently parted to form a deep, shadowy path.

"It's a bit far," Odovish said. "We're going to the edge of the forest. There's a beautiful marsh there, surrounded by pink irises that bloom all year round."

Elufiel tilted her head to look at him. "How did you get there before?"

"Usually, I used Blink to travel."

"Perfect." Elufiel smiled. "Let's see who reaches the destination first."

Odovish nodded. "Don't take to the sky. The road on land will open for you."

So she could not fly. Elufiel silently glanced at the various drakes in her mount list and sighed helplessly. This time, she summoned a Spectral Tiger. The enormous translucent beast was entirely deep blue, with stone armor covering parts of its head and limbs. A saddle rested upon its elegantly contoured back, while two long fangs protruded from its upper jaw, gleaming with chilling menace.

The elf reached out and stroked the Spectral Tiger's head. The fierce-looking giant rubbed against her palm like a house cat.

Elufiel took hold of the reins, kicked off with both legs, and easily swung herself onto the Spectral Tiger's back. After adjusting her position, she counted down to the mage. "Three, two, one."

Then she shot forward in an instant.

A step behind, the mage watched the elf's retreating figure. A smile touched his lips—faint, but so real upon that face which so rarely showed expression.

The space around him began to distort. The next moment, the mage appeared at least a hundred meters away. Elufiel was only a few steps behind him, the Spectral Tiger stretching out its limbs and running without pause. In the blink of an eye, it overtook the mage again.

The two alternated between taking the lead, one step faster and then one step slower. Until Elufiel caught an unusual scent.

It was faint and somewhat pungent, yet strangely alluring.

Bloodthistle.

Elufiel stared fixedly at the familiar plants. They had green stalks and blood-red blossoms, with large petals blooming in clusters along the roadside. By the faint light radiating from the Spectral Tiger, Elufiel could see them clearly even in the moonless darkness.