Chapter 83: The all-devouring wolf

Kara hesitated and at that moment, a surge of ice mana enveloped Edward’s body, turning solid in a mere instant.

Seeing ice spikes extending from the ice shell that just formed around Edward, Kara jumped backward, but to her dismay, more ice spikes were coming toward her from all directions.

With nowhere to dodge, she cast an earth shell and covered her entire body, blocking all the spikes heading her way.

Minx, seeing that her attack landed, rushed toward Edward and removed the ice shell she had formed around him.

“Edward fine?”

Edward nodded and didn’t answer as he lifted himself up. Seeing the earth shell pierced by ice spikes not that far, he rubbed Minx’s head and said: “Thank you, Minx. You can cancel your spell now.”

Once Minx canceled her spell, the earth shell also broke apart, and a Kara covered in wounds fell to her knees. Blood was flowing out of almost every inch of her body.

She moved to grab hold of the bow that has fallen next to her, only for her to stop when a new series of ice spikes formed all around her.

Smiling wryly, she lifted her head only to notice Edward’s pained look directed at her. Knowing she had lost, she closed her eyes and fell forward.

Edward walked up to her and knelt down before holding her in her arms. The moment he looked at her face, he was surprised to notice that her ears seemed to have changed, becoming elven ears.

He had a lot of questions, but he needed to check her condition first.

“Fenrir, how is she?”

[Passed out from blood loss. She has something on her body that appears to be slowly healing her, so I imagine she would be fine.]

“Minx, cover her wounds in ice.”

Minx seemed reluctant, but still agreed to Edward’s command. Soon, all her wounds got covered in ice and Edward could only monitor her condition as he waited for her to wake up.

Half an hour later, Kara’s eyelids slowly trembled, and she opened her eyes. She looked confused at first, but once she remembered what happened to her, she quickly scanned the room, looking for her bow.

Spotting Edward looking at her with her white bow to his side, she sighed and asked: “Why didn’t you kill me?”

Edward shrugged and said: “Why would I? I’m more curious about why you tried to kill me. You said you have no choice.” He wasn’t as angry as he was curious. In his opinion, his relationship with her was quite good, and she helped him quite a lot.

Kara gently touched her ears, looked at the egg that was covered in fire, and then back at Edward. She put on a self-mocking smile and said: “I guess most of my artifacts are broken. I wonder how blind could I have been. It’s been right in front of my eyes, but I never spotted it. Haa…”

“What has been?”, asked Edward while frowning.

“It shall be then, when the trees will unshed their leaves, that hunger will return to the roots.”

“The elves shall relinquish their faith and the dragons shall birth its steed.”

“It will hide between the humans, but consume them all the same.”

“As it has never known fullness and on all of them it’ll feed.”

“On all of me, it’ll feed.”

Edward’s frown grew even deeper, not understanding what she was talking about, but then Kara asked him.

“Have you ever seen winter?”

“Of course I…” Edward felt it was a ridiculous question when he realized he has indeed never seen winter ever since coming to this world and stopped.

“Of course, you haven’t. The entire continent was without winter for over 40 years.”

“I don’t understand.” Said Edward, not understanding where she was getting at.

Kara looked towards the ceiling of the room and started recounting a story.

“37 years ago, in the middle of a harsh winter, all the snow went away in an instant, the trees all regrew their leaves and all nature came back to life at the same time.”

“Everyone took it as a blessing from the mother tree and the prophecy I told you just now was heard in every single person’s ears right after.”

“Scared, the three major races of elves, dragons, and humans turned against each other. The relations between elves and dragons were not that bad, but no one wanted to live near humans anymore.”

“We, the elves, since we were no match in numbers or strength to the other races, retreated into the far north-west of the continent, on an empty island, with only a few of our people remaining behind.”

“The dragons retreated from the human lands as well and made their kingdom in the north-east corner of the continent.”

“The prophecy delivered by the mother tree made all the trust between our races fall apart.”

“We didn’t know what this hunger that will consume us all was, but since the mother tree never spoke to us again since then, it terrified us all the same. More so, us, elves, since the mother tree was our spiritual God.”

“The elves never interacted with the humans again. Afraid of this hunger hidden between them and the dragons stopped giving birth altogether, making a rule of killing all their newly laid eggs. The humans, with their ability to forget and move on, were the only ones who eventually stopped carrying anymore.”

“You know, ever since I’ve been born, I always wanted to leave our kingdom and explore the world. To meet my uncle, one of the few elves that never left the human world. On my 15th birthday, my protector, who’s always been by my side, took mercy on me and offered to help me sneak out. We spent the next five years planning things and gathering as many artifacts as we could.”

“On my 20th birthday, I took my protector, Finlas, and we both sneaked out of the kingdom, eventually arriving in the City of Ashes. Having been treated like a princess and not the little girl I was, I fell in love almost immediately with the normalcy of the human world. My uncle took me in and I found I even had a cousin. Barely anyone knew who I was and people would not bow before me everywhere I went. It was… refreshing.”

Once her story reached this point, she looked at Edward and tears started rolling down her cheeks as she continued with a sad smile: “After living for over 20 years in the City of Ashes, not long after Ingvar decided we should increase our level, you joined our party.”

“I’ve never been in love before, you know? I heard father talk about it, I heard uncle talk about it… but I never understood what it was before. Do you know how my heart would pound like crazy every time I saw you? How I would sit on top of our tree and just wait for you to return? Just so I can hear your voice. To see your face again…”

You are reading story Curse of the Mad Wolf at novel35.com

“My father taught me that, as the next leader of the elven race, I should never reveal my true feelings. ‘A leader must always feel with their head, not their heart.’, was what he would always tell me whenever I would act out about anything, and it slowly became who I was. But what was I supposed to do when my heart would scream so loud that it will push away every thought?”

“Every time you came, I would send Ingvar to come open the door and hide nearby, listening to you two, looking for a chance to come in and speak to you as well.”

“When I saw the way you cared for Violet and everything you would do for her, I couldn’t take it anymore and followed you here, wishing to find a chance to tell you how I feel and maybe, somehow, convince you to make some room in your heart for me as well.”

“Now tell me, Edward, what should I do when the one I love so much turned out to be the one who will bring death to the world and also to my God?”

“Should I choose to leave everyone behind for a chance you would accept me?”

“Should I watch by your side as you kill and consume everyone else?”

“Could I?”

“Tell me, Edward, how can I continue living? How do I stop loving you?”

Edward expected none of that, but hearing the pain, confusion, and despair in her voice, he knew she was not lying. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could tell her. The prophecy could speak of no one other than Fenrir.

[That fucking tree.] Fenrir’s words broke the somberness of the room, and both Kara’s and Edward’s eyes turned toward the mark on his arm.

“You knew about this, Fenrir?” asked Edward.

[How could I? When I escaped earth together with your soul, I consumed the link she had with her roots so that Vidar wouldn’t find us here, but I never expected that bitch to peer into my future the moment I ate Earth’s space.]

Remembering the fragments of Hel’s dimension, the bite mark on Edward’s hand flared up once again as she asked in a somber tone.

[Elf when did the dungeons appear in this world?]

Kara was stunned when the voice she always heard next to Edward addressed her, but she still answered.

“Not long after the prophecy.”

*Boom*

A shock wave of pure chaos energy escaped Edward’s arm, pushing Minx away from him and causing cracks to appear on the floor under him as Fenrir spoke in a voice filled with unconstrained fury.

[Where there’s a soul, there’s a will. What a great fucking mother tree. Wait for me, Yggdrasil. Wait and see as I slowly eat away at your roots all the way to your core. There will be no rest for me until you pay for what you’ve done.]

Kara was sitting there, frozen in place by the powerful presence of a God, but Edward was gashing his teeth in anger while trying to resist Fenrir’s attempt of taking over. He could feel it, the pain and uncontrollable rage that was flowing through his soul link with Fenrir.

It took over ten minutes until the earthquakes stopped and Fenrir’s mark calmed down.

Edward fell forward, supporting his body with his hands while panting for breath while Kara had already passed out completely some time ago.

After catching his breath, Edward asked: “What happened, Fenrir?”

[That whore. That fake benevolent bitch. She was the one who sacrificed Hel’s world and who knows how many others to look into my future. How can one look into the destiny of a god so easily, without offering something of equal value in return? That’s what the dungeons are, fragments. Fragments of sacrificed world cores that had fallen into this one. When I think I felt bad baring my fangs at that whore. Argh!]

Edward let out a sigh and lay on the ground, staring at the ceiling of the cave. He understood Fenrir’s rage, but he also understood that the world tree was probably afraid of her as well. She made that decision out of fear and for a moment, he even asked himself if he was on the right side.

While he was having doubts about everything, he remembered her prophecy and what that did to Flastrdra and all the other dragon children who never got to live. The fact that she sacrificed who knew how many worlds in her fear made his doubts slowly disappear and his goal clear once more.

His path was long set, and there was no going back. Barely anything changed.

“Don’t worry Fenrir, what is another god on our list? You might have been the one in the wrong first, but that doesn’t condemn what she did. Didn’t we just casually chat with one not that…”

As he remembered that strange god’s words, a small smile appeared on his lips as he mumbled: “He must have known from the start what Yggdrasil has done.”

[That outsider god too. If we ever meet again…]

Hearing the anger in her voice, Edward actually broke into a fit of laughter.

[What are you laughing about?] asked Fenrir, obviously irritated by his laughter.

“Fenrir, do you want to take on all the gods out there? Did you forget I’m just a level 10 water mage that barely manages to not get himself killed any other day?”

Fenrir remained silent as Edward fell into another fit of laughter. Once he calmed down again, his expression turned serious as he asked: “Fenrir, since all the words are connected to Yggdrasil, what would happen if you devour her?”

[I don’t know. What I know is that all the souls in these worlds are born from her roots and return to her roots once they die, only to be reborn again. They receive new life through her roots and branches.]

“Doesn’t that mean that, even if the world doesn’t break apart, there would be no new souls born?”

[Not necessarily. The presence of that outside god showed us something. Since there’s life outside Yggdrasil, there must be another way souls get created.]

“I wish I could have met that god now and not then…” said Edward with a sigh as he summoned the chaos core he had received from him.

“Did you find out anything else about this thing?”

[Not much. While made of chaos energy, there is something else inside, something that makes even me reluctant to devour it. For the moment, we can only keep it safe until we find out exactly what it is.]

Nodding, Edward put it back inside his soul and stood up to look at the unconscious Kara.

“What am I supposed to do with her?”

You can find story with these keywords: Curse of the Mad Wolf, Read Curse of the Mad Wolf, Curse of the Mad Wolf novel, Curse of the Mad Wolf book, Curse of the Mad Wolf story, Curse of the Mad Wolf full, Curse of the Mad Wolf Latest Chapter