079 Blood Moon Forest

The forest immersed in dark red glow. Erebus could feel his magic flowing out of his body not many steps into the woods.

The edge of the forest JUST disappeared out of his sight, and he was already feeling feeble. He tried to follow the now too obvious to miss small blue flower on the ground--

He didn't notice them when he just entered the forest. They became very conspicuous only a moment ago, and that was when Erebus suddenly realized he was covered in the dark red glow that seemed to be beaming out of the thin air.

Who was doing this?! This was obviously magic, either a spell, or a magic field left by some witch or wizard.

Erebus leaned towards the latter.

He couldn't feel anyone's presence near him. He would know if this was some witches casting a spell on him.

But who left the magic field here? And for what?

From what it looked now, the magic was only ill to witches, but they are not shapeshifters. So it means, if the spell caster wanted to prevent the witches from coming into the woods, they could have cast a spell that forbidden anyone with magic in them to get in in the first place.

But the spell allows witches to get in. And not just get in, they could get into the woods with no warning! Erebus realized he didn't even notice when the red glow appeared.

It felt almost like a trap, a tarp especially for witches!

At his thought, Erebus almost wanted to turn back and try to see if witches could get out of the forest once they are in.

But it was not the right time for experiments. The important thing right now, was to find Kitty.

The boys told him to follow the flowers, but why?

Erebus stopped for a moment, holding a tree by his side to support his body. He didn't realize he was breathing so heavily. He couldn't remember the last time he was this exhausted.

He tried to focus his eyes on the blue flowers on the ground, and that was when he realized he was sweating crazy as he wiped his face with his arm.

The blue flowers were growing denser as he went deeper into the woods. Where did they lead to? Who could the enemies be? Witches? Wolves? Royal wolves who have magic???

He couldn't decide. His head was not thinking straight with all the pressure on his body as well as the draining of his magic.

Maybe there were cannibals in the forest even! And they only eat witches!

Erebus gave a faint laugh at his wondering mind. What was happening to him? Why was he having this kind of crazy thoughts but was also able to enjoy a laugh at that? This was dangerous situation, and he should be on alert!

This was so not him... and that was when he realized something was wrong!

Erebus turned into his wolf form and the pressure was lifted in an instant. The red glow was nowhere to be found, and he felt his strength again. The feeble and dizzy feeling was so horrible, especially to him, who was not used to being weak.

He paced up and started running around in the forest, more and more anxious every second--

How much pain Kitty would be in now?!

She has been in the forest for hours, and she couldn't turn into any other form! She was a witch through and through.

The Blood Moon Forest itself was deadly to witches!

The blue flowers were nearly invisible now to his eyes, not only because the red glow which was highlighting them was gone, but also because he was now surrounded by thick grey blue fog that nearly covered whole forest.

Now he finally understood why Uranus said the sense of smell would help him--

The blue flowers, while small and disappeared into the blue fog, gave a special, strong aroma that was unmissable to any canine animal -- meaning, a werewolf.

It was highly likely that whoever left this magic field was a royal themselves. They had to be a shapeshifter who had magic power!

Without the pressure of the magic field, Erebus soon covered a large area in the forest. He even ran into some of the wolves who Uranus sent in to help him, but he didn't reveal himself because his magic power is unknown to almost everyone, and it was not the time for him to let out that secret.

The wolves followed the flowers to the center of the forest soon enough, but they couldn't find anything. Some of them turned into human form but it was obviously not helping.

They couldn't find any trace of Kitty, or even any human actually. She must be there! Why couldn't them even find a trace?

"I found something!" A sudden yelp came out from one of the young wolves, and Erebus ran towards them instantly.

It was not Kitty. Erebus knew that the moment he picked up the scent, but he followed them anyways--

Maybe they all ended up at the same place.

The scent was close. It took the few wolves not a few minutes to find the owner, and that was when Erebus hoped that they didn't all ended up at the same place--

It was a little girl, not over 10 years old, lying on the cold ground of the forest, dead.

"Took her out of here." The young leader said to one of the wolves, and one of them picked up the girl and put her tiny body on the other's back before that wolf turned and ran towards the edge of the forest.

This was Uranus's city after all.  At least they could get the girl back to her family so they could bury her right.

Erebus didn't come out to them. He backed into shadows and started running around like crazy, trying to pick any scent he could.

He won't allow the same thing to happen to Kitty! No! He JUST found her! How could he lose her now?! After only spending so little time together with her?

But why couldn't them picking any other scent??? He HAD covered most of the forest by now! At least the center part...

Erebus stopped at a tree and turned back to his human form. The grey blue fog was instantly replaced by the red glow, as if he was in two different worlds when he was in different forms.

He called Uranus about the girl they just found, but no one was answering.

That girl looked like she died only recently. Erebus had a feeling that she might just be one of the children that had been missing recently -- the official story why he was here. He still had to look into that case even though that was just a cover up.

With our wolf's sense of smell, he cannot track well in the red world, but he found that the pressure here is less than last time when he was in his human form.

The blue flowers were now everywhere, but they are still pointing to one direction, which is not the physical center of the forest.

The flowers actually had its own center!

Erebus followed that direction, realizing the pressure on his body was getting less as he went into that direction, as if the forest wanted him to go into that direction.

If that was true, then it meant Kitty also felt this relief of pressure, which meant Kitty were very likely to be here--

His heart fell.

There was a single shoe left, on the ground right in front of him.