078 Darkness From The Past

"Lord Erebus." A dozen men were waiting at the end of the road.

It was the edge of the Blood Moon Forest.

Now Erebus understood what Uranus meant by "you will know when you are there." --

Her people were the living sign.

"How long had she been in there?" Erebus jumped off his car, and immediately, he felt a foul intention from the forest.

A monstrous magic forest that did not welcome magic.

Depending on the looks of Uranus's men, this foul intention was only targeting him.

"Four hours and twenty seven minutes." Answered a young man reading his watch.

"How do you propose to find her?" Asked Erebus, fixing his attention on him, "She is a witch."

Apparently that young man was the leader of this team.

And this new piece of information had disturbed several of them.

It was not good news.

"Well, in that case. The forest would go at her actively. We should just head to the center of The Tree." The young wolf said, "Four hours is not short, to a young witch..."

He didn't finish.

"I know." Erebus nodded with a calm voice. They couldn't tell any feelings behind his tone.

Paused for a second, Erebus continued: "Divide your team into three-member units, and take different directions to the center."

"Yes, Lord Erebus." The young man bowed and done with his task in swift manner.

"What's your name?" Erebus asked him.

"Bernard, Lord Erebus." Replied the young wolf. You could almost see the bright future he held with the self-restraint he had in his manner.

"Bernard, you and the one that's left follow me." Erebus nodded, admiring this fine warrior.

"Yes, Lord Erebus." Bernard bowed.

They left as the last unit, but Erebus didn't seem to be in a hurry. They were walking instead of taking their wolf form.

"Do we have directions?" Erebus asked, turning to look at the edge of the woods. You could still see the faint light behind them in a short distance.

"We don't need directions. The forest warns intruders by turning the its blue grass into red when you try to approach the center. So just follow the red grass and you will find--"

"Watch out!" Erebus suddenly yelled, and the two young wolves turned to look, only to fell on the ground unconsciously --

Erebus knocked them out.

"Thanks, guys. You should be safe sleeping here for a bit." Erebus murmured before he disappeared into the dark shadow of the woods...

"My Princess, what business do you have here?" Uranus asked with a polite smile.

She knew Allura was the one who took her future away from her, but she hadn't been hating her because she had been too busy hating herself for hurting Persus.

"You know why I'm here." Allura squinted her eyes with a foxy smile.

"Erebus is not here." Uranus shook her head, "You crossed the line this time."

"Ohh, I know he's here. I'm not here for him." Allura waved her hand in the air carelessly, "I'm here for the wisdom of the past."

"!" Uranus started at her in disbelief, "How...I mean, why--"

"Don't even bother to lie to me!" Allura suddenly rose her voice, "I'm sick of people manipulating me!"

"Manipulating YOU?!" Uranus repeated her words with anger, "And you deciding other's life was what? Blessing?!"

"O, M, G!" Allura said in a dramatic way, "Aren't you over that yet already? It's ancient story!"

"You bi--" Uranus rose her hand and wind blades dashed towards Allura's face!

"Wow, impressive." Allura waved her hand again, not too different from when she waved it just a moment ago, yet the blades all disappeared right there in the middle of the air, "And if I report up that the warden of the prison escaped and used magic out of the punishment tower, would that be manipulation as well?"

Her taunting tone was NOT helping.

Knowing she was not a match, yet Uranus never felt anger like this before, not even when she was assigned to this horrible job. All she wanted at that moment was to ripe Allura into pieces with her fangs but--

"Still want a fight? Interesting." Allura rose her arms up in the air, and instantly blinding golden light came out of them, "Let's play. I haven't had much fun like this for a while."

"Well let's talk about being a model citizen! How about I report up that you sent an innocent little witch into the death forest?!" Uranus yelled at her, but dodging the light from Allura's hands with great swiftness nonetheless.

"Wow, now that's quite a slander! When and where did you see me putting her in that horrible, horrible forest?" Allura laughed out loud as she cut through a bouch of wind blades.

The golden light in her hand was like liquid medal. It was so hot that everything touches it melts -- evaporate instantly.

Uranus stopped attacking and fell to defending only, which led Allura to another laugh. Allura whipped the light in her hand like a cat toy, watching Uranus jumping around, diving and dodging like a scared cat.

"That's it?" Allura stuck Uranus in a cage of light, "I thought the Warden would be more of a fight. What a pit--"

Uranus suddenly jumped up towards the light and Allura froze in shock, only to find that Uranus wasn't hurt by her light!

"How--?!" Before Allura could finish her sentence, Uranus's fist landed on her face and made her fell backwards flying.

Uranus jumped on her, like a real cat capturing her pray, with her hands on both Allura's arms and one knee on Allura's stomach so she couldn't move: "I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

Allura burst into laughter: "Impressive! How did you do it?"

She was NOT nervous about the fact that she was now in the lower hand.

"You see too little of the power of wind." Uranus squinted her eyes, "You see nothing."

"I got it." Allura smirked, "You reflected my light. Smart. I'll give you that."

"I don't need you to 'give' me anything!" Years of anger suddenly burst. Uranus didn't know she felt so angry towards this woman who took her future from her.

"Yes, you do." Allura didn't even flinch at Uranus's outburst. "And you would beg me for it."

"Really?" Uranus, "Let's see who begs first!"

With her words, Uranus twisted Allura's arm upwards to her head, and Allura's face turned white as the bone in her shoulder made a loud crack sound.

"How dare you treat your princess like this!" Allura yelled with pain in her voice.

"I'm deeply sorry, your highness. Such a crime deserves only the worst punishment, exile to the prison. Oh wait, I'm already trapped there." Uranus looked at Allura with cold sarcasm.

"Did you know that Persus is in jail right now?" Allura yelled before Uranus could do anything more, and burst into laughter as she saw her words stopped Uranus's movement like ice water on fire.

"What happened?!" Uranus asked before she could stop herself. She should NOT be listening to this manipulating woman but she couldn't help caring about him.

"Ohhh, wrong, wrong, wrong, girl." Allure replaced the blood on her lips with a vicious smile, "What you should be asking is, who put him there?"