Chapter Eighty-Five: Missing the Best Time

When Linley and the Queen finished evacuating the people, an hour had already passed.

“Brother Wang really can fight!” Linley gazed at the sky, where light and shadow clashed. Lin Wen was still locked in battle with the Twin Moons Wheel, but he was clearly exhausted; his speed had slowed significantly, while the Twin Moons Wheel’s assault showed no sign of abating.

“We should go help him,” the Queen suggested. But Linley shook his head. “You go ahead. I still have something to do.”

He sent the Moon Wheel back into the sky to assist Lin Wen, then flew alone toward the palace.

“Linley, what are you planning?” the earring asked.

“The Twin Moons Wheel and the old man are acting strangely,” Linley replied, leaping over rooftops as if no one else existed, speeding toward the palace. “They seem anxious.”

The earring fell silent in thought. Bard’s behavior wasn’t obvious, but thinking carefully, both he and the Twin Moons Wheel did seem a bit desperate.

Last night, after Linley finished his fight with the prince, Bard immediately appeared, as if he’d been watching all along. He could have delayed Linley and the Queen more effectively, but instead chose to reveal himself. Stranger still, Bard hadn’t ceased fighting from last night until now, such a long stretch.

“He wants to resolve this quickly,” the earring analyzed. “Why the rush?”

“I think I know…” Linley reached the palace gates. The palace was enveloped by a large white barrier. From above, he could see scattered fighting still raging inside.

He landed, drawing others’ attention.

“Little Prince!”

“Boss!”

Hera led a group of night elves over. “Bard’s subordinates are causing trouble again!”

Linley entered the palace, observing as he went. Bard’s use of the Twin Moons Wheel to devour souls naturally compelled some night elves to feign loyalty for self-preservation.

Where there is loyalty, though, there is resistance. Judging from what Linley saw, those resisting outnumbered the loyalists. The Queen’s faction seemed to be cooperating with the black-clad elves as well.

“The Queen isn’t with you?” Hera asked, curious. They had all heard of the Queen’s alliance with Linley.

“She’s gone back to the sky to help,” Linley replied, scanning the palace with a slight frown. “I can’t find it… Never mind. Hera, help me look for something. It should be somewhere in this palace.”

Hera was puzzled—why search for something at a time like this? “What is it?”

“The Soul Gem of the former lord of Gran City,” Linley answered. “That’s the monster’s weakness. I think it must be here.”

He hadn’t sensed the Soul Gem near Bard or the Twin Moons Wheel, which meant it had to be somewhere in the palace. But the palace was full of treasures, their auras intertwined, making it difficult to pinpoint the gem’s location quickly.

“Soul Gem? Is it the one that flew in two nights ago?” Hera knew what Linley meant; she too had felt the presence of that powerful soul.

But she shook her head. “It wouldn’t stay in the palace. The Twin Moons Wheel surely consumed it.”

Linley disagreed. He had a strong intuition that the gem was still in the palace, precisely because of Bard and the Twin Moons Wheel’s anxious behavior—they were eager for the Twin Moons Wheel to be restored, likely because they had learned how terrifying that monster was.

“No matter what, dig three feet if you must. Find it and launch it into the sky…”

Linley explained his plan to Hera, who, though still confused, cooperated actively and ordered the night elves to begin searching.

Seeing them start, Linley returned to the sky to rejoin the battle.

For the chief astrologer, finding an object was a simple task. Hera soon discovered the whereabouts of the Soul Gem—it had indeed not been consumed by the Twin Moons Wheel. However, Bard had arranged the strictest guard for it. Hera summoned the prince and the general, and after half an hour of fierce fighting, they finally obtained the Soul Gem.

“Who would have thought even the great wizard sided with Bard?” The prince drew his sword from a corpse. His left hand was severed, but his brow did not furrow; instead, he focused intently on the box Hera had opened.

As soon as the box’s lid was cracked, a blood-red glow illuminated the ravaged hall. The night elves, tending their wounds, turned their eyes to it and clearly saw a red gemstone rise from the box.

“Don’t let it escape!” Hera shouted. The night elf magicians encircling the hall immediately unleashed their prepared spells. Purple bands of light shot from the floor, binding the gem and preventing it from flying away.

“Lord of Gran, it has been a long time,” the prince stepped forward. Within the gem, the soul of an elderly night elf appeared, spectral and indistinct. “Ire, is that you?”

The prince gazed at the old man. “I need an explanation about the monster.”

Linley had asked them to send the gem into the sky, but before executing the plan, the prince wanted to know the truth behind the monster.

“Monster?” The old man was puzzled at first, but quickly understood. “You mean that blood clan…”

“Blood clan?” The prince’s eyes narrowed. “Wasn’t the blood clan extinct?”

The blood clan—high-ranking demons from ancient times who invaded the planet. By drinking the blood of other creatures, they became immortal and lived for ages. These demons possessed tremendous vitality, even capable of resurrection. Yet they could not reproduce, only create new members by bestowing their own essence. In ancient times, some primitive elves were transformed into blood clan.

“I found a surviving blood clan member,” the old elf began his tale. In his youth, the lord of Gran City had, by chance, captured a surviving blood clan member. Desperate to escape the Twin Moons Wheel’s control, he conceived an idea: to transform the entire night elf race into a being akin to the blood clan.

“The blood of the blood clan is infectious. I discovered that night elves harbored resentment—a force that could merge with this blood.”

That resentment was the night elves’ hatred for the Twin Moons Wheel.

The Twin Moons Wheel had devoured the souls of the night elves, but was itself haunted by the hatred of the dead. The old elf, a soul scholar, spent years studying this resentment and decided to combine it with blood clan blood, creating a new kind of being.

“I was the first of this kind. In my plan, centuries of resentment would grant me the power to resurrect. I would become a god capable of destroying the Twin Moons Wheel, and I could turn living night elves into my companions. We could become a new race. But…”

The old elf sounded regretful. “My lifespan was not enough.”

His research lasted three hundred years. Foreseeing his own imminent death, he discovered two major unresolved problems. He focused on the greatest challenge, neglecting the other, which ultimately led to his failure.

“What I overlooked was the possibility of losing control over my body.”

He recounted that before dying, he destroyed the soul of the blood clan member and fused the night elves’ resentment, the refined blood clan essence, and his own body, creating an entirely new vessel.

But that vessel proved too powerful, even slipping beyond his soul’s control.

“If only I had spent ten years solving that problem…” The old elf’s voice was filled with remorse. “I started preparing thirty years early. The research into losing control wouldn’t have taken ten years, but I thought I could be even more handsome, so I missed my best opportunity.”

“Wait.” The prince was puzzled. “What challenge were you working on in those last thirty years?”

“Ire, listen. After becoming blood clan, I would be reborn as any form I desired,” the old elf replied. “I spent thirty years designing, my aesthetic sense kept improving. Not to boast, but you look nowhere near as handsome in my eyes…”

The prince resolved, at once and without delay, to blast this damned gem into the heavens!