NOVEL NEXT Chapter 589: Found you
Damon blinked. "Just a deal?"
"Master…" Xira smiled. "No one refuses the Umbra's Hand. Not kings. Not clans. Not beasts. If they set their eyes on something, they take it. Suppose someone says no, that person dies. Entire civilizations have vanished over a single disagreement."
Damon stared at her, silent.
"Do you know what exactly that artifact was?"
Xira shook her head. "I am sorry, Master. I only know the rumors. I do not have any concrete information on the artifact itself. All I know is… ever since then, the Umbra's hand had always hunted the elves. The elves have been hiding, holed up somewhere in the Great Western Desert, protected only by the remnants of their old mana wells and what was left of their high-born's strength."
Damon listened intently. The Blood Gate pulsed behind them, crimson energy swirling like a hungry vortex. He thought he was going to face Erelion and probably some trap the elf had set up for him, but the chances were he was going to face the entire elven clan instead.
It did not matter. The plan was still the same. Poison the shit out of everything and bring Lirae back home. Dismissing the three, Damon signaled green eyes and Kaelthorn to follow him. "Let's go." The three of them then stepped into the Blood Gate portal.
The crimson vortex swallowed them whole, and when they stepped out on the other side, the hot desert winds greeted them. The elven slave girl immediately winced, not liking the place. Damon looked around, and there was only sand everywhere.
Lirae had mentioned a cave to him earlier, but there was no cave in sight.
Damon narrowed his eyes, letting the wind whip past his face as the overwhelming monotony of the desert stretched endlessly around them. No cave. No shade. No mana signatures. Just blistering heat and dunes rolling like waves frozen in time.
"Strange. The coordinates were precise. There should be something here." Damon then smiled and crouched down to touch the desert sands. "Of course. Erelion wouldn't leave an entrance lying out in the open."
He extended his senses outward, brushing the desert with his Primordial Senses. Almost immediately, he caught something beneath the ground a few miles from where they were standing. A high-level concealment array was hiding something.
"There you are," Damon smirked. He commanded the sands to shift and the ground to quake. The next second, a massive cavern mouth appeared.
Damon stood, dusting sand off his hands. "Well. Found the cave." Before he could take another step, the elf himself unexpectedly jumped up from the ground, the sand closing back in after him.
"Stop right there, bloodsucker. You are not welcome here. You have no business being here. The threads of fate that joined us ended back there in the royal palace. You should not have come here." Erelion's face was cold and ruthless, and he definitely meant what he said.
Power surged in his arms as a warning. A sword appeared in his hands. A sword that had a slight golden tinge to it. No doubt a weapon of at least Epic-grade. Clearly, meant to intimidate the opponent.
Damon only smiled. "Everything is fine, but you have my fiancé. See, I cannot leave without her. What kind of man would I be if I allowed my wife to suffer even more than she already has? I am late as it is."
Erelion's eyes turned murderous. His grip tightened on the sword as unmistakable killing intent erupted from him. "Your fiancée?" The elf hissed, voice trembling with barely restrained fury. "You dare call her that in front of me? You dare suggest she belongs with you?"
"She chose me." Damon shrugged. "We already kissed on it."
Those simple words were enough to make Erelion's aura explode. The dunes quaked. The wind screamed. The golden sword hummed with killing intent powerful enough to shatter lesser men.
Erelion pointed the blade at his chest. "You corrupted her. Twisted her judgment. Filled her with your cursed energy. Lirae is not in her right mind. I will save her, even if it is from herself!"
"I guess talking to you is not going to help. Let's do this." Blood tendrils erupted from Damon, hundreds and hundreds of them, all shooting towards Erelion at the same time.
The elf's eyes widened in shock for a moment. There was even fear, but his sword aura only burned stronger as he decisively charged forward, preparing to face everything.
"I will never let you have my Lirae… not in this lifetime… not in the next one…" Shockingly, several moons appeared in the sky, and for a moment, the entire desert turned white. The sun dimmed.
And seven pale moons slowly rotated into existence, circling Erelion like a crown of dying stars. Each one glowed brightly, empowering the elf more and more.
Erelion's face twisted in anguish and fury, his body shaking violently as the moons spiraled around him. His voice came out as a broken roar.
"I WILL NOT LOSE HER AGAIN!"
Light surged from his sword, a cold, ghostly silver with streaks of white.
Erelion raised his sword high. A rift of pure moonlight tore through the sky, ready to descend like divine punishment. However, before the attack could reach Damon, the brilliant, dazzling light was no longer pure and white.
Instead, darkness corrupted the moonlight. Venomous miasma surrounded the area, and blood tendrils tore through the descending beam like a pack of crimson wolves ripping apart a helpless lamb.
The radiant white moonlight that had moments ago threatened to erase Damon from existence twisted mid-fall, its purity curdling into something sickly and black. A corrosive haze swallowed the divine glow, turning it viscous and wrong.
Erelion froze mid-swing. His eyes went wide. He was horrified and shocked to the core.
"No… no! That's impossible! That is high-born lunar magic! You cannot!"
The venom swirling around the moons thickened into a choking miasma, crawling down Erelion's spell like a living plague. The desert winds screamed as the lunar rift buckled, the seven moons flickering erratically as if gasping for breath.