The Moon Thief

When Heinald stepped onto the portal, he found himself floating in space for a few seconds. He saw nothing but cold darkness around him.

At that moment, he was caught by a gravitational force and began to scatter. As he was constantly circling due to the gravitational force, at the same time the space around him began to bend.

Heinald was sucked into a vortex of space and suddenly found himself staring at the tall, green grass.

He immediately stood up and began to look around. Behind it were huge rocks, about 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. Between these rocks, long grasses had grown. The sun on this plane also looked similar to that on the Ainsar World, only the surroundings were a little brighter.

"Where the hell is the portal!?" Anxiety began to rise in Heinald's heart. He quickly walked around but could not see any portals.

If there was a portal, that portal would have an entrance and an exit, but he did not see a portal exit!

"I can feel the Spatial Energy around but cannot see the portal…" Heinald frowned. He never thought that he would face such a situation.

He began to examine all the surrounding rocks one by one. He soon figured out the trick in this area. Actually, the portal was there, only taking on the appearance of huge rocks.

Heinald's heart was relieved by his discovery. For a few minutes he was beginning to think he was stuck on this plane. This would undoubtedly be very depressing for him.

"Could those creatures have accidentally traveled to the Ainsar World from here?" Heinald had a thoughtful expression as he stared at the rocks.

He immediately dismissed this question by shaking his head.

After all, this portal had to be activated with Spatial Energy, those creatures couldn't have done that.

There had to be another reason behind this!

As Heinald began to move away from the rocks, he realized that he was in a great plain.

For several hours on the great plain he run without stopping. He was seeing a high hill ahead, he would climb to the top of it and observe the surroundings at the summit.

While he was running at full speed across that great plain, strange creatures suddenly appeared in front of him.

"These…" Heinald's eyes widened.

These creatures were the type of creature he had killed in the Poplar Wind Forest!

Embers and Narox appeared in Heinald's hands.

He dashed towards the creatures and performed five consecutive slash moves. These moves were so fast that the creatures couldn't even realize when their arms and legs were severed.

"Oh? This incoming creature looks different from any creature I've seen before." Heinald squinted at the creature running ahead.

This creature, unlike the others, had two legs and its arms were so long that it was crawling on the ground. Other than that, its body structure and head structure were the same as the others.

Heinald began observing its body. Like the others, he had a lot of bone, but less musculature. He didn't know yet how strong its bones were.

The creature quickly swung its right arm as it approached him. His long arm had moved so fast that the sound of wind echoed around.

At that moment, its nails were beginning to fly towards Heinald.

He immediately swung his sword and his sword collided with the nails that came at him.

*Clang!* A fierce steel crash resounded.

Heinald was dragged back five meters from the impact of the crash without fell to the ground. Some soil had accumulated on the back of his feet as a result of being dragged.

"If this attack had directly hit the body of a Level 1 Ainsar, it could have killed him!" Heinald muttered slowly as he measured the strength of the attack.

He strength in his feet and dashed forward. He quickly swung the Narox in midair, aiming to cut off the creature's head. However, the creature put its arm in front of the sword and prevented the sword from reaching its head.

The creature's arm is completely severed.

Heinald immediately swung the Embers in his right hand and decapitated the creature. Its head flew several meters up and rolled over after he fell to the ground.

The creature's entire body trembled violently for a few seconds, then stopped moving completely.

"This creature species seems to be subdividing in itself…" Heinald muttered as he examined the creature's body.

After Heinald had killed all the creatures he encountered, he continued moving on the wide plain. After hours of running, he was now close to the top of the hill.

"Hm? They are...Dwarves?" Ahead, Heinald saw short creatures trying to flee at full speed. Although their appearance was completely human-like, their skin color was green and they had rather ugly and wrinkled faces.

There was a huge spider chasing them.

He felt waves of energy emanating from this spider as he approached them.

This spider was actually a Magical Beast!

The energy emanating from it was not as strong as a Level 2 Ainsar, but he had energy waves of peak-phase Level 1 Ainsar.

Lightning Spear!

Heinald raised his right hand, and lightning bolts formed on it. Then they all came together and took the shape of a spear. Lightning Spear rushed out and crashed directly into the giant spider's body.

*BOOM!* When the Lightning Spear exploded, the giant spider's entire body was hit by violent lightning streaks.

A small and shallow crater formed at its location. Its various body parts had been severed by the impact of the explosion, and its entire body was burned by lightning.

When Heinald turned towards the dwarves, he saw them staring at him in amazement. He realized that these looks showed more respect than surprise.

"Sage!" The three dwarves, resembling the appearance of a human, bowed.

Heinald's eyes widened in surprise. These dwarves had just used the Ainsar Language.

"Can you understand me?" Heinald asked immediately.

"Yes, Sage!" One of the dwarves spoke excitedly.

"H-How…" Heinald didn't know what to say. How could these dwarves know the Ainsar Language?

"Why do you call me 'Sage'?" Heinald asked.

The dwarves looked at each other in surprise at this question, then one of them stepped forward and said, "Because you are a Sage..."

Heinald didn't understand what was going on, so he frowned for a while, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Sage! Please visit our tribe and bless us!" One of the dwarves approached him and knelt before him.

"I've only just come to this plane… Contrary to what you think, I am not a 'Leader'." Heinald said confusedly.

The energy waves emanating from these dwarves were roughly equivalent to the energy waves of a newly breakthrough Level 1 Ainsar.

"How come!? You are a Sage, we have drawings of Sage in our tribe." One of the dwarves spoke quickly, others agreed.

"Drawings?" Heinald scratched his chin lightly and said, "Take me to your tribe!"

"Yes, Sage!" One of the dwarves bowed quickly.

"A Sage accepted our invitation! Now our tribe will be at peace!" Another dwarf jumped excitedly.

The dwarves began to show him the way to their tribe. Their tribes were at the back of the hill. So they climbed the hill first.

As they reached the top, Heinald looked in all directions and tried to locate distant places. There were only two places he could see: the marsh behind the hill and the wide plain.

When he came down from the hill with the dwarves, they entered the borders of the swamp. As they made their way through the swamp, they encountered a few more dwarves, and when the dwarves saw him, they immediately knelt down and began to worship him.

"Where are we going?" Heinald asked while observing the swamp.

"To our Chief." One of the dwarves answered.

Another dwarf jumped in excitement and said, "Today we will hold a great feast and celebration in honor of your arrival!"

After walking for hours, he and the dwarves came to a tree several hundred meters high that had been completely hollowed out.

Many dwarves had appeared with their arrival, and when they saw Heinald, they all had expressions of surprise and then joy on their faces.

"Do these dwarves see me as some kind of god?" Heinald asked himself.

A dwarf with a strange hat on his head emerged from the big tree. This dwarf had a rather ugly face just like the other dwarves, but unlike them, he had big eyes. Moreover, he had much more muscle in his body than the others.

However, his biggest difference from the others was that he had waves of energy almost equal to Heinald, indicating that he had the strength of a Level 2 Ainsar.

"Sage!" The dwarf with the strange hat quickly approached him and fell at his feet. At that, all the dwarves gathered around knelt at the same time.

About half a minute passed.

No dwarfs were moving…As if they were waiting for an order from him.

"Get up!" Heinald didn't know what to do.

All the dwarves stood at his command, all staring at him in admiration.

Heinald looked at the dwarves who had brought him into the swamp and said, "Bring me the Sage drawings!"

The dwarves immediately rushed into the big tree and came back a few minutes later with a large animal skin in their hands.

A picture was drawn on this animal skin.

"This is…" Heinald stared at the painting in surprise. This was a drawing of a man in a robes, holding a staff in his hand.

"Who is he?" Heinald asked.

"A drawing of a Sage who was here thousands of years ago." The dwarf with the strange hat, counted as the chief of the dwarves, replied.

Heinald understood all this in that moment. Drawing of a man thousands of years ago, these dwarves treating him like a god and speaking the Ainsar Language. Putting all these pieces together, he realized that the Ancient Ansars once ruled on this plane.

"When was the last time you saw a Sage?" Heinald asked.

"Thousands of years ago...We can't give an exact time unfortunately. According to the Ulltemols, the Sages left this realm a long time ago." The dwarf chief answered.

"Ulltemols?" Heinald's eyebrows rose.

"Do not you know?" The Dwarf Chief asked in surprise.

"I just got here." Heinald decided to continue this game.

"They are the heirs of the Sages! They were blessed many years ago. Therefore they have the greatest prosperity and power." There was a hint of jealousy in the Dwarf Chief's voice.

"Do you have a map?" Heinald asked after a moment of silence.

The dwarves brought him a map drawn on some kind of animal skin.

The place where the dwarves lived was the Swamp of Eblas. To the north of this swamp was the wide plain where the portal was located. On the western side of the plain there was a place called Bleak Hollow.

To the south of Swampof Eblas was the Kingdom of Arnakham, to the west was the Infernal Abyss. To the north of the Infernal Abyss was the Black Scorpion Desert.

From his understanding, this plane was a fairly small plane. According to this map, there were only six regions in total.

When he started talking to the dwarves about these six regions, he started to learn some very interesting information.

Bleak Hallow was a nightmare for these dwarves. According to what they tell, various creatures and beasts from this place have been attacking them for hundreds of years.

In the Arnakham Kingdom, south of the Swamp of Eblas, lived the race they called the Ulltemols. But they wouldn't let anything pass through their borders, so they didn't know much about them.

They didn't know anything about the Black Scorpion Desert and the Infernal Abyss. According to the Dwarf Chief, most sources of knowledge from ancient times had been destroyed by various attacks on their swamps.

The poor dwarves had dealt with various attacks from the Bleak Hallow region over the years and had lost so much. So they were always waiting for a Sage to bless them.

Heinald spent a few days in that swamp and learned a lot about the dwarves. For example, he noticed that their cultivation paths were also similar to the Ainsars. Strengthening Spirit and Body was their foundation as well. Unfortunately, they had no knowledge other than that.

They didn't have the slightest idea about potions or magical objects. They didn't have a schematic of the spells they could use, so they could only cast nothing but a small fireball.

It was the same even for the tribal chief who had the energy waves of a Level 2 Ainsar. This was because Magic Energies could not be converted into Fire Energy in the required order.

The dwarves witnessed many years ago that an Ulltemol destroyed hundreds of creatures by himself. They asked him to share the source of this knowledge, but they did not receive a single word from him.

They told him that Ulltemol had created a whirlwind with a single gesture.

"Ulltemols must have taken over the remants of the Ancient Ainsars…" Heinald couldn't help but think about the place called Arnakham.

As Heinald was lost in thought, there was a roar that made the entire swamp tremble.

"We are under atack!" The dwarves started running around in panic.

"They seem outnumbered…" Heinald listened carefully to the roars.

"They're coming from the northwest!" One of the dwarves shouted.

"Sage please bless us!" The chief of the tribe fell at his feet.

"Don't worry, I'll help you." Heinald rushed to the northwest with the dwarves to see the situation.

"Among them are the kind of creature hiding in the Poplar Wind Forest!" When Heinald reached the northwestern part of the swamp, he saw a large number of Magical Beasts and the creatures he had seen before charging towards them.

"There are too many of them! Sage please save us!" One of the dwarves beside Heinald cried out in fear.

"All of you get away from me!" Heinald looked at the dwarves and ordered.

The dwarves quickly moved away from him.

Heinald raised both hands up. Red flames appeared on his hands. These flames had such an intense heat power that everything in the immediate vicinity caught fire as soon as they appeared. These flames gathered together and began to take the shape of a ball.

The dwarves watched this scene with both admiration and fear.

The fireball on his hand started flying towards the oncoming monsters as he waved his arms. As the fireball flew, it left traces of red flames and an incredible heat wave. As the fireball flew, the flowers and plants around the swamp caught fire, and the water began to boil and evaporate.

*BAM!* There was a massive explosion as the fireball landed on the approaching horde of monsters. Everything within about 200 meters was instantly scorched, the fires rising to the sky forming a mushroom shape.

"So hot!" Even the dwarves, who were quite far from the blast area, had been hit by the radiating heat wave and began to feel a burning sensation in their skin.

"This is the power of a Sage!" The Chief of the Dwarves was staring at the blast area with bright eyes. He was trembling with both fear and excitement.

A lava pit formed on the ground where the fireball had landed, and all the creatures inside it melted instantly. All the beasts and creatures in the blast's area of ​​effect were also turned to ashes. When the waves of fire and flames disappeared, only the charred corpses of creatures and beasts and the black smoke rising into the sky remained.