Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"Let's try our best first," Selene shook her head at me, as if sighing at having such an unreliable angel. She retreated to the side and used water element magic to slowly heal Gavin's injuries.

After healing all these ten-plus people one by one over the course of a few hours, I finally breathed a sigh of relief and sat down heavily on a chair.

I took a few breaks in between. The situation was actually much better than I had imagined. I didn't even feel particularly tired anywhere up to now.

Mainly because I had repeated the same magic over a dozen times, it felt as tiring as copying the same essay dozens of times.

"Don't bring any more people. Leave the rest to the church support," I quickly stopped Sister Hila when I saw her about to come over to speak to me. The other patients' families thanked me and took their loved ones home one by one. I was afraid she would send another dozen people over to me.

"No, it's late now. I wanted to ask if Miss Angel needs dinner prepared?"

Dinner? Is it that late already?

Although the treatment here was not bad, and I was actually quite hungry, I wanted to return as soon as possible now, afraid that Nicola would worry...

Ha, as if she would worry! I suddenly felt I was too naive. If she was worried, she wouldn't have disappeared yesterday.

"What about you?"

I looked back at Selene, asking her opinion.

"Eat! Why wouldn't I eat! I'm starving," She stood up the moment she heard food mentioned and walked towards the inner chamber.

"Do you have a place where I can rest? I want to take a nap, wake me up when dinner is ready."

Hey! Weren't we supposed to go back after healing everyone? I stretched my hand out towards her disappearing back...

Oh well, it wouldn't delay us too much time anyway. I had Sister Hila hurriedly prepare dinner. We could return immediately after eating.

While dinner was being prepared, I went outside alone for some fresh air.

There were still not many people on the streets at this time, but I clearly felt that the concentration of dark elements in the air had actually started to increase.

What was going on? Could it be because night had fallen? But that shouldn't happen.

I immediately returned to the church and pulled Selene straight out of bed from an inner room.

"What are you doing! Can't even let me rest a while!"

Having just fallen asleep not long ago, she was still a little unhappy, thinking that I was rushing her to move on.

"It's not that. Something's happened." I grabbed her hand and brought her outside the house. By now, the concentration of dark elements in the air had risen a few more levels, and it seemed to still be continuously increasing.

"What is going on!" Selene's expression changed. She had also felt it.

"Can you feel it? The aura is coming from all directions."

I spread my wings and flew into the air above the town. Looking down from above, although I couldn't see clearly into the dark forest surroundings, I didn't sense any movement, unlike beasts being around.

Still feeling uneasy, I specifically flew around the vicinity in a circle, but still no abnormalities.

"It's really so strange," I relayed what I saw in the sky to Selene after landing. She was increasingly puzzled about the source of those inexplicable dark elements.

"The situation is beyond what I alone can handle now. We should hurry back to report to the Archbishop and get reinforcements,"

She had lost her appetite now, urging me to prepare to head back immediately.

"More people here will soon collapse. We have to race against time."

After bidding Sister Hila and Pastor Simon farewell, Selene had me tie her up again just like when we arrived, flying southwards towards the royal capital.

...

It was a clouded, moonless night. Fly high up, other than some faint mountain contours, everything on the ground was pitch-black, unable to see clearly.

"What exactly happened?" Soon after taking off, Selene and I kept discussing the origin of those inexplicable dark elements in the sky, but to no avail.

"Even if someone did this deliberately, where would they find such an enormous amount of dark elements, and their goal is just to pollute an obscure little town?"

"Anyway after I complete this mission it won't concern me anymore. And I should have helped a lot this time right, can't you church show some gesture of thanks, like rewarding some gold coins or something..." Although I was also very puzzled, I didn't want to think too much about this bizarre affair. I just hoped to return as soon as possible now, so I kept looking ahead exerting my full strength flying.

"Alright, alright, I'll try to apply to see if I can get you some," Selene's voice came from below. Because she was tied to me, I couldn't see her expression, but she sounded quite impatient, probably because I had brought it up several times already.

After all, gold coins were very valuable goods, with one gold coin equivalent to a full 10,000 silver coins.

"Looks like it's going to rain," She looked at the surroundings starting to turn grey, and suddenly warned. I'm not sure if she deliberately changed the topic. But only then did I notice we had flown into a very low layer of dark clouds.

"If it rains, your wings will get wet. Better fly higher,"

"Okay." I agreed and immediately flapped my wings to ascend. Within a few breaths I rushed above the clouds. In that instant, everything before my eyes turned bright. The soft moonlight spilled onto me. I felt the whole world suddenly become tranquil.

"So beautiful..."

Selene gazed at the bright moon overhead and sighed emotionally.

Below, you could even faintly see our rapidly passing shadows on the surface of the clouds.

We both fell silent, as if intoxicated by the beautiful night scene.

"How much longer? We must be close right?"

I yawned as we flew. My spirits were evidently much lower at night after all. I reckoned we had flown for an hour. We should arrive soon. So I started lowering altitude.

The clouds remained just as thick with no sign of dispersing. You could still vaguely see lightning flashes within. It did make me somewhat uneasy, afraid of getting struck by accident.

Fortunately our speed was fast. We passed through soon.

Below the clouds, luckily it was not raining, only pitch black below since the moonlight was blocked, and I couldn't see anything on the ground at all, without any lights either.

"Don't you feel something is off?"

Selene suddenly sensed something amiss and spoke to me.

"After flying so far, the level of dark pollution around hasn't decreased. It might have even increased slightly."

"Could the dark pollution have spread so quickly?"

Her words made me take notice immediately too. I looked carefully all around us.

"Strange, how did we fly past it?"

I realized I couldn't see anything in front, but a large fiery area had appeared behind us instead.

"That's not Norvale right."

Selene looked back and saw it too, but she immediately knew it was completely different from the city she lived in.

"Those light sources are clearly flames. The royal capital had already switched to magic lamps who knows how many years ago."

"But it looks like a town..."

I naturally could tell too. Borrowing those light sources you could still see the silhouette of quite a few buildings, though all very short, without any extremely tall structures like in the royal city.

This puzzled me greatly, because I remembered not passing any towns or villages on the way here earlier.

"Did you fly in the wrong direction?"

Selene doubtfully asked me, probably thinking that I gave off an unreliable first impression.

"Shouldn't have ah."

I remembered deliberately taking out a compass to confirm direction before departure. After the first mission when I realized it was not easy to discern direction in the sky, Nicola and I each carried one, so it was basically impossible for me to get lost.

Yet the facts seemed to tell me I had deviated from course.

"So what now?"

We could only stop midair. I looked helplessly back and forth, should we keep flying south or go to that city and ask around?

"It's all your fault! You must have flown the wrong way. Delaying the time to report back to the royal capital, it's entirely your fault!"

Unable to figure it out, she directly pinned the blame on me. Although I felt very wronged, in this situation I really couldn't justify myself clearly. And if I had truly messed up, no matter how far south we flew we would never reach the royal capital.

"Why not let's go over and ask first, see where this place is then we can determine our location." I finally steeled my resolve and brought her towards the city to land. "We can also notify the people in the city to be vigilant of the dark element pollution."

"If I had known I would never have agreed to let you escort me. You can't even travel properly!"

On the way there Selene kept nagging nonstop. The tiny bit of image I had painstakingly regained previously with my purification skill had thoroughly and completely collapsed again in her mind.

Yet upon gradually nearing our destination, when the city's outline became clear under the firelight, we both felt even more uneasy.

"Eh, does Astralrealm Kingdom have cities that look like this?"

"The more I look the more it seems like a primitive village surrounded by wooden fences..."

Although it could be considered sufficiently big, at least half the size of the royal capital. But those buildings in the city no matter how you looked at them resembled thatched cottages, with many roofs even decorated by two huge ox-horn shaped objects.

What's more horrifying was that many poles erected on the city walls had a row of round white objects hanging on them, that upon closer look appeared to be...skulls?

"Stop!"

Selene suddenly shouted loudly. I felt her body actually start to tremble slightly.

"This is a beast...beastman habitat."

"Beastmen?"

I heard Selene's intermittent words and immediately ceased advancing, turning to frantically fly upwards instead.

But unfortunately we had already approached too close by the time we realized. Coupled with Selene's earlier scream, we quickly alerted the people below in the city, oh no, it should be said, the beastmen.

I only heard the loud blare of a horn behind me. I looked back and saw the city wall crowded with activity. Then several mammoth insect-like magical beasts with wings like bees and dragonflies buzzed out from midair to chase after us.

"What exactly is happening?"

I was utterly confused about the situation, only able to desperately fly forward. But those monsters behind persisted tenaciously in hot pursuit, with no way to shake them off.

"Aren't we in Astralrealm Kingdom? How did we fly into a beastman city? Your kingdom even domesticates beastmen?"

"What domesticated beastmen!"

Selene spat angrily. Even in such critical life-threatening circumstances she still did not forget to retort.