Chapter 595

Chapter 595: Unexpected Reunion

Shirley stared, dumbfounded, at what was happening before her eyes. It was like facing a twisted nightmare. For a moment she did not know how to react at all.

Celine slowly reached her right hand toward her. Shirley walked over on instinct, as if she meant to grab Celine’s fingers. But before she could touch Celine, the elf’s arm was completely covered in rough bark-like material. In the last second, all Shirley touched was a hard, coarse branch. Then the “branch” began to grow quickly, stretching upward, taller and taller toward the sky…

Celine’s face disappeared inside the tangle of branches that burst into full growth. In the last instant before the transformation was complete, she opened her eyes a little wider. It was as if she suddenly understood something. She looked at Shirley, as if she wanted to tell her something. Then her expression froze at that moment and completely melted into the tree.

Now she had become a small tree with long, slender branches.

Shirley stared blankly at this unbelievable sight. She replayed the whole process of Celine changing into a tree in her mind and thought of that last look Celine had given her. For a long time, she simply stood there without moving.

What had happened? Why had it turned out like this?

How could an elf turn into a tree?

A faint wind suddenly blew nearby. There was malice hidden in the sound of the wind as it drew closer. Shirley finally woke from her shock. She snapped her head up and looked toward the source of that malice. In the dim forest, she saw a dark red glow and a haze like smoky shadows appear faintly, then fade away again.

Dog sensed the hateful aura at once—the aura of Abyssal demons.

“Annihilators! They were hiding in the shadows of those remnants of the Sun just now!”

Hearing Dog’s low growl, Shirley finally understood what had happened.

It was the Annihilators who had drawn those remnants of the Sun here. Maybe they were working together, or maybe it was only using them. They had wanted to use the hands of the remnants of the Sun to get rid of her and Celine. But things had gone beyond their plans. When one remnant of the Sun tried to corrupt her mind, the captain’s flame was stirred, turned back on them, and wiped out all the attackers.

Before this, the strong presence of the remnants of the Sun had covered the auras of the Annihilators. Now that the cultists knew they had been exposed, they made the quick choice to run.

Shirley looked toward the dark part of the forest. She took a step, then hesitated. Her eyes swept across the clearing. The remnants of the Sun that had died in the spirit flame were all curled and twisted into ash. The ashes slowly faded into the air. Faint ghostly green flames still burned between some of the ash piles, but they were shrinking and going out.

The captain’s flame was fading—that was not a power she could control.

Shirley knew very well that the “victory” just now had little to do with her. And she had no idea if that flame would appear again the next time she faced danger. Maybe… the mark the captain left on her could only work once.

If she chased the cultists blindly and then found in a real fight that she could not beat them, they would be in real trouble.

But her hesitation lasted only a second or two. Before the drifting smoke and mist moved out of Dog’s sensing range, she bit her lip, spat to the side, and ran toward the deeper darkness.

She ran past the small tree that Celine had become. The thin twigs at the tip of the tree brushed Shirley’s shoulder. Branches and leaves swayed and rustled softly.

After running through the forest for who knew how long, Shirley and Dog finally slowed down.

“Their scent has scattered up ahead, and it’s fading fast,” Dog said as it lifted its ugly big head and turned it left and right in the air. The blood-red glow in its eye sockets flickered. “There must be demons among them that are good at hiding their tracks. Maybe a Death-Omen Bird… tsk, what a bother.”

“We lost them?” Shirley muttered, unwilling to give up. “I thought we’d finally catch one or two this time…”

Dog shook its head and did not say more. It only tried again to tell which way the fading trail truly led.

Just then, the sound of footsteps from somewhere in the forest cut off what it was doing with Shirley.

Shirley tensed at once. She raised her chain, bent forward, and looked toward the sound. But the figure that stepped out from behind the trees and bushes was not the cultist she had expected.

An elven maiden in light hunting clothes, carrying a strange long-handled battle-axe, walked out of the woods.

Shirley’s taut stance went stiff. She stared in shock at the elven maiden coming out of the trees, at her familiar face. Even though she already knew she was inside a strange dream, a sense of absurd unease rose quietly in her heart. Then she heard the elven maiden speak to her in surprise:

“You didn’t receive the evacuation order? Why are you still moving outside the Wall of Silence?!”

Shirley opened her mouth. A flood of words rushed up in her chest, but when she tried to speak, she could not form even one. She looked oddly at the “Celine” standing before her again. Her first instinct was to greet her, but she quickly realized this Celine did not know her at all—this was no longer the Celine who had taken her toward the Wall of Silence before.

While she was still frozen, a second set of footsteps sounded behind the elven maiden. Shirley looked that way in surprise. A familiar figure in a black dress, hugging an enormous stuffed rabbit doll in her arms, stepped into view.

“Miss Lucretia?”

“Shirley?” Lucretia walked out of the forest. Seeing the familiar figure at the fork in the path, the “sea witch” showed surprise as well and said: “I really didn’t expect this…”

This unexpected meeting left both of them a bit stunned. Shirley grabbed Dog and looked Lucretia up and down, then glanced at the elven maiden standing beside her. After a moment, Shirley cautiously stepped back half a pace and said: “Just to be safe—”

Lucretia spoke right away: “Identity check.”

Shirley answered quickly: “Where was Alice’s head yesterday at noon?”

“In the pot,” Lucretia replied without a pause. Then she asked at once: “What is my father’s biggest hobby right now?”

“Fishing, walking the dog, and feeding pigeons—you pass.”

“Yes, you pass,” Lucretia said. She clearly relaxed a little. She lowered the conductor’s baton she had been gripping and set the stuffed rabbit doll down on the ground. “This dream is very strange. A bit more caution never hurts.”

Shirley nodded along. Just then, the elven maiden Celine finally spoke: “You know each other?”

“Yes, friend,” Lucretia answered lightly.

Shirley could not help giving the elf beside her another complicated look. Then she turned to Lucretia and asked quickly: “Did you see any sign of those Annihilators on your way here?”

“Annihilators?” Lucretia frowned. “I didn’t see any—did you run into them?”

“Not just Annihilators, I also ran into a bunch of trash from the Sun,” Shirley said with some regret. “Too bad those Annihilators ran off in the end…”

She then quickly told Lucretia what had happened to her just now, including how she had almost been corrupted by a remnant of the Sun and how the captain’s flame had appeared and saved her.

But she did not mention the Celine who had been with her, nor that unbelievable scene of Celine turning into a small tree.

Another elven maiden named Celine was standing right next to them, listening curiously to her and Lucretia’s conversation.

Until she understood what was going on with all these “Celines,” she had to avoid causing any unknown changes in them as much as she could.

“Dog and I chased them all the way here. We were almost on them, but they still got away,” Shirley said, shaking her head with regret after she finished her story. “There was a Death-Omen Bird among them. That’s a kind of demon that’s good at hiding its aura and confusing senses. Dog isn’t good at dealing with that thing.”

Lucretia lifted her head. She looked thoughtfully at the forest around them, which looked almost the same no matter which way you turned. After a moment of thinking, she suddenly said: “They shouldn’t have gotten far… You just said they bolted right after they saw the spirit flame kill those remnants of the Sun?”

“That’s right,” Shirley said with a nod. “They ran fast and didn’t care about their ‘allies’ at all.”

“So they were terrified by my father’s flame. They must have been full of fear when they ran, right?”

“…I guess so,” Shirley answered, not too sure and a little confused. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Lucretia did not answer her. Instead, she lowered her head and looked at the stuffed rabbit doll sitting on the ground in a daze. She said: “Rabby, I know you’re listening.”

The stuffed rabbit doll swayed slowly from side to side and gave a tiny, complaining sound: “Rabby doesn’t like cultists. Their minds stink, and there are really gross things in there…”

Lucretia said nothing. She simply raised the conductor’s baton in her hand.

The stuffed rabbit doll stood up at once. It patted the dirt off its body and muttered as it worked: “All right, all right, Rabby knows, Rabby will go look for them… You have to remember to bring Rabby back!”

“Go… while their fear still hasn’t faded.”

“Okay,” the stuffed rabbit doll answered. Then, right in front of Shirley, it exploded with a bang. A cloud of white smoke poured out of it, drawn in rough lines like a hand-drawn picture. The smoke rose and spread, instantly covering its silly yet creepy figure. As the smoke thinned and drifted away, the stuffed rabbit doll vanished from Shirley’s sight along with it.