Chapter 1059 Guided by Destiny <TOC> Chapter 1061 The Panaces Succubus
Translator: SumTLMan
“Last time I sensed an ephemeral aura of the Source Fire here, I don’t know whether it was an illusion or reality, Master Greaves. Shall we delve deeper?”
Greaves was momentarily uncertain, yet he nodded his agreement. During their last visit, he hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary. Yet, as they revisited the Hunting Museum, he experienced a sense of something inexplicable. It was as if his own flame was pulsating more vigorously than ever before, as if it was faintly anticipating something.
Carrying this peculiar sensation, Greaves and Tantin ventured into the Hunting Museum.
Crossing the icy duochromatic checkerboard floor, the candlelight was dim and pallid. Greaves even sensed a chilling draught that felt like an eerie wisp of wind, making his own flame flicker like a dying ember on the brink of extinction.
Tantin furrowed his brows, the atmosphere of the Hunting Museum was so desolate and cold, it seemed completely unfitting as a birthplace for the Source Fire.
Though it was Tantin who had proposed to venture here, he now found himself questioning: Could the Source Fire truly exist here?
Ironically, Greaves, who had initially been adamant that there was no trace of the Source Fire here, now found his round eyes squinting into upside-down triangles due to his furrowed brows. He kept muttering under his aura, “Something is odd about this place.”
He had a sense, a foreboding intuition, that this place may indeed hold the Source Fire that Olucia sought.
Yet as a descendant of the Fire Rune lineage, Greaves was baffled that he couldn’t sense the Source Fire’s aura at all. It was as though his intuition was nothing more than a jest.
“Is anyone there?” Tantin’s voice echoed through the hollow hall. Aside from his own voice reverberating back, there was no response.
“Let’s proceed further inside,” Greaves suggested, his ear cocked to the side as if he was faintly hearing whispers emanating from within.
As they delved deeper, the droning hum amplified in resonance, similar to an assembly of voices whispering fervently in their ears. It was similar to a maddening outcry, like despair-dripped murmurs, and seemingly venomous curses intertwined.
Gripped by a shiver, Greaves suddenly found himself on the precipice of hesitation, averse to proceeding any further.
“My lord, what seems to be the matter?” Tantin looked inquisitively towards him, after all, it was Greaves who had suggested this forward expedition, so why the sudden halt?
“Do you not hear it?” Greaves quivered uncontrollably, like a sieve in the wind, his stuttering flame fell to the ground, sizzling before it extinguished into a puff of smoke, “Those voices, can you honestly not hear them?”
“What voices?” Tantin replied with a solemn countenance, “My lord, I don’t hear any voices, if you believe something is wrong, perhaps we should consider retreating?”
Shaking his head, Greaves opted for silence and continued forward, albeit with much smaller, more cautious strides.
Had Angel been present, he likely would have remarked on the unexpected sight of this impish boy demonstrating fear.
Seeing his young master show no signs of retreat, Tantin hesitated momentarily before resolutely following.
All along the way, Greaves was assailed by these desolate, despairing, and maddened whispers, each step forward taken in the anticipation of a horrifying nightmare materializing before him with a grotesque grin. However, much to their surprise, even as they reached the inner courtyard’s exhibition hall, everything remained eerily calm.
Stationed at the entrance to the exhibition hall, Tantin inquired, “Master Greaves, are you holding up alright?”
Fixating on the darkness within the exhibition hall, Greaves sensed that the root of those lingering whispers, floating around his ears, was indeed emanating from within.
“We’re going in,” Greaves stated, ignoring the worry reflected in Tantin’s eyes as he boldly ventured into the exhibition hall.
The specimens displayed in the Hunting Museum, naturally, could not frighten the Young Fire Demon.
As Steward Tantin was surveying the museum for any anomalies, Greaves found himself drawn to a painting, his tail erect on the ground. With all his might, he pushed his body upwards until he was eye level with the blaze depicted in the painting.
As Greaves studied the flame, he found himself overcome by a peculiar sense of familiarity.
Once Tantin had determined that there was no danger within the museum, he joined Greaves. When he stood by Greaves, he was taken aback to discover a layer of mist veiling Greaves’s eyes, fixated unwaveringly on the painting on the wall.
Tantin failed to perceive anything remarkable about the painting.
Upon closer scrutiny, the painting appeared utterly ordinary, except for the exceedingly realistic flames set against a dark backdrop.
“Young Master, there’s a door nearby. Shall we explore it?” Tantin suggested.
However, Greaves, still absorbed by the painting, pointed to the fire: “The whispers… they’re coming from within the flames…”
There was a mournful tone to his words, as though the flames were entombing some unique sentiment.
Tantin stared at the flames, still hearing no sound, nor perceiving any anomaly. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out with his ebon hand, still faintly glowing with residual embers, and touched the flame in the painting.
Szzz——
White smoke billowed up, and Tantin quickly retracted his finger.
As a Servant of Fire, Tantin had, to his shock, experienced a burning sensation when his finger made contact with the painting?! A Fire Demon scorched by fire—if any demon heard this, it would most certainly provoke a bout of laughter.
Yet, against all odds, this was indeed the reality.
In the midst of Tantin’s confusion, Greaves suddenly exclaimed, “The image has changed!”
Raising his gaze, Tantin saw that the fire stretching across the heart of the darkness in the picture had suddenly started to multiply. In a fleeting moment, the central fire had entirely overwhelmed the darkness. Previously, darkness dominated nearly eighty percent of the image, but now, it seemed the flames were threatening its dominion.
“Why has the fire in the picture suddenly multiplied?”
As Tantin pondered this mystery, Greaves’ voice, filled with exhilaration, cut through, “I can sense it — the essence of Source Fire, it’s within this painting!”
Greaves’ declaration left Tantin stunned. Could it be that the Source Fire they had been ceaselessly searching for was actually inside this painting?
While Tantin was wrestling with the baffling nature of the painting, the image underwent another transformation. At the painting’s epicenter, precisely where the blaze was the most vigorous, a ripple had suddenly materialized.
With the emergence of the ripple, the flame on Greaves seemed to have resonated with a certain frequency, and streams of images began to flood into Greaves’ mind.
These images were all of flames, or more specifically, the flames under the nocturnal sky in the picture. Yet, they weren’t simply ordinary flames. Among the fire, there were different entities being incinerated — a native gasping for breath after having just given birth, a half-demon with canine legs, a tamed Kurland Beast from the native tribes, a tree spirit from the Abyss, and creatures that were drawn in by the fire…
Each of these beings was being scorched by the flames, their horrific screams and sorrowful melodies filling the air.
Suddenly, Greaves understood — the whispers he had been hearing all this time were perhaps the final echoes of these creatures burnt alive by the fire.
At this moment, when Greaves gazed upon the painting on the wall, his perception had shifted from its mere essence of darkness and fire.
It concealed more than met the eye, messages hidden within, lost amidst the shroud of the night and consumed by the incandescent blaze.
Ripples continued to expand across the canvas, like the gentle stir of a stone cast upon a tranquil lake, causing rings of wavelets to fan out. As these ripples spread throughout the entire artwork, a tall figure slowly materialized from the heart of the flame depicted in the center of the canvas.
Upon witnessing this figure, Tantin promptly pulled Greaves behind him, his face mirroring his heightened vigilance towards the figure before them——
A half-demon who appeared so casually from the painting.
His hair ablaze like wild flames, his face marred by grotesquely twisted rune markings, yet his expression retained an unnerving calm.
Despite being a mere half-demon, Tantin inexplicably felt a sense of dread. As a full-blooded demon, he was shaken by the fear induced by this mixed breed? The incredulity of it all was hard to digest.
While Tantin was on guard, the half-demon opposite them seemed to finally fix his gaze upon them.
“I thought it would be she who’d come,” the half-demon, with drooping eyebrows, murmured in an almost whisper, “Turns out it’s just a couple of pawns.”
Tantin queried, “By your words, you were expecting us? Who are you?”
In response to Tantin’s inquiry, the Young Fire Demon, Greaves, suddenly appeared from the other side. His eyes wide open, he stared intently at the half-demon opposite him. After a considerable while, he said, “The aura of the Source Fire lingers on him, but… it seems to not yet be fully awakened.”
Greaves’ declaration left Tantin rooted in disbelief. The Source Fire had taken birth within a half-demon, a circumstance unprecedented in historical records.
“How could this be?” Tantin mumbled under his breath, “Why would the Source Fire appear within a half-demon?”
The Young Fire Demon on the other side, however, was not entangled in the difference between half-bloods and pure-bloods. Rather, it was preoccupied with completing its mission as promptly as possible, initiating a conversation with the half-demon who had emerged from the painting, “I am called Greaves. I am here on behalf of Lady Olucia to seek the Source Fire.”
Gazing downward from his elevated position, the half-demon coldly observed the orb of fire hovering mid-air and said, “I am the master of this domain, Night.”
…
As the Young Fire Demon met with Night, Angel was engrossed in his mental space, constructing the model of the Gateway.
Finally, a new rune was successfully integrated into the model, prompting a sigh of relief from Angel.
Simultaneously, the sound of the wind chimes from the yard started to echo.
Stretching lazily, Angel took a glance at Toby’s status in his bracelet. He also used his mental abilities to sense the Softworm Nest, ensuring that the Dreamweaver Ants and Softworms were still maintaining a balanced rivalry. Only then did he descend from the loft.
As he stepped downstairs, he saw Canaan in the yard, covering a large pile of demonic remnants with a water membrane.
On seeing Angel descend, Canaan turned her head, voicing her confusion, “Shopkeeper, I have done as you instructed and purchased these demon remnants, but… what use are they? They are not even tasty.”
With a smile playing on his lips, Angel retorted, “They might be useless to you, but for me, they are of great importance.”
In the past, Angel was pondering over the idea of capitalizing on his remaining days here to amass more demon gold and procure an assortment of unique materials from the Abyss.
He had inquired Canaan about her access to channels for acquiring special materials, to which Canaan had responded negatively, leading Angel to rely on Lord Night for his procurement needs.
However, what he hadn’t anticipated was that while he was attending to a new batch of guests that morning, a Blood Eyed Naga from the Dark Depths Ocean Whirlpool didn’t pay her bill with demon gold. Instead, she tendered the carcass of a water demon beast as her debt settlement.
At that time, Canaan had appeared quite disdainful, muttering under her breath that the carcass would be impossible to sell.
Yet, when Angel saw it, he didn’t hesitate to nod in agreement to the transaction.
Because Angel noticed that this largely hollowed-out carcass of a water beast was, astonishingly, from a wizard-level creature!
Although the most useful materials had been taken by the Blood Eyes Naga, the remaining bones, blood, and membranes were still intact.
For the tough-skinned demons, these were negligible, unable to fetch any significant price if sold.
However, for a wizard, these materials held substantial value!
Chapter 1059 Guided by Destiny <TOC> Chapter 1061 The Panaces Succubus