Chapter 28: Ragnarök

The agonising pain exploded in the body, releasing astonishing energy and heat. Something inside his chest was writhing and crawling, struggling to break through the shackles of blood and flesh.

Ge Xiu hit the back of his head with strong force on the stone wall behind him, his whole body stiffened and trembled, the familiar smell of rust and blood filled his mouth behind his clenched teeth.

The bloody moonlight silently fell on the cold white rocks, with smoke-like reddish mist.

Elinor was awakened by the huge shaking.

He reflexively jumped away from the source of the vibration, lowered his forelimbs in an attacking posture, he bared his white fangs, his vertical pupils were fierce.

However, in the next second, the sight in front of him instantly took away all his attention.

The straightened body of the young man shuddered in the darkness, his thin five fingers plunged deep into mud between the crevices, his thin skeleton trembled like a dying butterfly.

Every trace of blood flowed away from his skin, and in the dim light of cave, it presented a marble-like white and unsullied texture.

There was a faint smell of blood floating in the air.

Faint red lines slowly emerged on the skin white like the first snow. The extravagant rose red deepened into scarlet at the speed visible to the naked eye, and gradually becomes clear like smooth and mellow lines, winding on the skin like mercury. The ancient and strange totem stretched it’s teeth and claws when exposed to the air, undulating slightly with tremors of his body, it seemed like in the next second it would be able to break free from the shackles of the skin, and transform into a demonic flower branch growing out of skin and bones.

What a cruel and breathtaking picture was this.

Elinor stared at him intently, his pupils slightly widened.

Although his godhead was seized, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t smell the evil and taboo magic emanating from the totem. The surging immense power was imprisoned under the scarlet lines, exuding a strange and seductive fragrance in the dark.

It was like a whisper.

He could feel the body fluid secreted under his tongue, a dark red colour appeared in his cold golden pupils, and the body tortured by hunger screamed in his ears – tear the skin, gnaw the flesh and blood, lick the bones.

Elinor took a step forward slowly as if bewitched.

The next second, the fiery pain at the joint between his back and the leg drew back his attention.

He was stunned, turned his head and looked at his back with difficulty. The purple-black curse aura had disappeared seven or eight points, and the turned outwards flesh still showed a hideous pink colour, but the blood that flowed out was healthy and bright red.

Elinor suddenly realized his body felt really light.

He was now clear-headed, and the dizziness that had tormented him for a few days was almost completely gone at this moment. Even the burning pain behind his back no longer looked like torture, but more like stimulant to his nerves.

However, the decayed and fishy smell of a curse could still be faintly smelled in the air, entwining his keen senses like a gangrene, as if it had never left.

Elinor moved his nose and turned his head to look in the direction of the smell-

The youth’s convulsing and trembling fingers were tightly gripping on the protruding rock, and there was a lifeless blue-gray colour from the fingertips to the wrist.

Elinor’s golden pupil shrank suddenly.

He hesitated, leaned close to the boy, lowered his head and sniffed his fingers.

The tip of the wet nose swept across the back of the other’s cold and trembling hand.

That’s right. The other party didn’t know what method to use and actually absorbed the curse that was enough to imprison him and decay his flesh – what crazy, ignorant, and stupid behaviour.

Elinor squatted down beside him, cold golden pupils scrutinizing the teenager experiencing tormenting pain front of him, his fluffy gray tail wrapped around his front paws.

The unmoving body looked like a wolf-shaped sculpture under the light and shadow, staring deep into the darkness.

From his point of view, the entire cave could be seen in a panoramic view.

This cave was once empty, but now it is slightly crowded due to the daily addition of accessories.

Soft animal skins folded into simple nests, two shiny and clean skulls, a few beautiful pebbles with a smooth surface, and a bunch of dark green weeds awkwardly bind together.

There were a few grayish blue fruits in the skull, their surface was rough and dull, and it exuded only a little faint dark element. It was harder to find such existence at the bottom of the abyss than to climb to the sky.

And then there was the other half of the cave, but it was almost the same as when he first saw it.

It was cold, empty, almost uninhabited, and there was no trace of residence, as if the person who lived here did not have a slightest desire for anything. Only the silent bloody moonlight shone in from the entrance of the cave, painting a sharp arc on the ground.

Elinor retracted his gaze.

He was silent for a while, then turned around and returned to the rough and humble nest, lay down and curled up, closed his eyes, his chin rested on his front paws, and his big furry tail covered the tip of his nose.

The scent that made him hungry and feel craving for was still floating in the air, but Eleanor closed his eyes coldly, not even moving the tip of his tail.

After all, although it doesn’t smell like it, maybe this human being was a dark creature that looked like a human?

Who knows what would happen after eating him.

He lifted one eyelid, and his unrestrained gaze grazed across the pale skin of the young man that the red totem coiled around. The narrow and vertical pupils were like a thin black slit.

——Maybe it’s a form of bewitchment.

Elinor closed his eyes again.

·

The process of suffering every night was always long and torturous. Whenever Ge Xiu thought that he could bear it, the next time the pain would strike in another way to prove how wrong he was.

But day after day, he still worked out a higher tolerance for pain.

At this time of every night, although he still couldn’t get rid of the pain’s influence on him, at least he wasn’t so defenceless when faced with danger.

Ge Xiu was aware of the little wolf’s awakening and approaching.

The hands that he hid in the distance have already accumulated power in the darkness. Once the opponent attacked, the blade condensed with dark elements would quickly cut into its neck.

Of course, Ge Xiu would not really kill it.

How could he destroy the beloved toy that he finally found?

But he didn’t mind causing some pain. After all, the book also said that carrot and a stick* approach was the first principle of training an animal.

Ge Xiu felt its approach. An cold wet touch gently brushed pas the back of his hand, like a feather, disappearing swiftly. After a few seconds later, Ge Xiu, whose thinking was dulled by the pain, realized that he smelled his hand.

Immediately afterwards, the other party retreated.

The soft paw pads stepped on the rock without sound, but after a few seconds, he heard a slight sound of fur rubbing not far away, and then the whole cave fell into dead silence again.

Ge Xiu felt extremely puzzled and confused.

Wasn’t it the best time to attack now?

The dark element condensed on his fingertips melted into the air like a mist.

He lifted his heavy eyelids by a small gap with difficulty, and in his sight deformed and shaking because of the pain, deep in the dark cave, the little wolf’s soft gray body was curled up into a small ball, and the wings on his back were folded together. When he listened carefully, he could even hear a slight sound of breathing.

Strangely, Ge Xiu felt a long-lost calm.

The red light cast by the blood moon gradually deviated from the angle just now, the wave-like continuous pain finally weakened, and finally slowly disappeared from his limbs and torso, the blood-coloured lines gradually became lighter and lighter, and then dived back deep into his skin. In the end, only a little painful aftertaste remained in his nerves, reminding of what had just happened.

This pain at this point would soon be nothing.

Ge Xiu moved his stiff limbs, and his bones made a dull sound of friction. He stood up and cautiously approached the little wolf in the corner of the cave.

The little wolf did not open his eyes, still kept a motionless posture, his even breathing moved the up and down the fur on the tip of the tail not far away, his back slowly undulating with the rhythm of breathing. The bloody wound on his back had begun to scab, and even Ge Xiu admired its powerful recovery ability.

Ge Xiu squatted on the ground, resting his chin on his knees, and stared thoughtfully at the little creature in front of him.

After a long time, he tentatively stretched out his hand and gently inclined towards the head of the little wolf.

The soft, warm fur covered the round and small skull, and the hair on the pointed ears rubbed against his palm. It felt kind of itchy.

The ear trembled slightly.

Ge Xiu curved up his lips and smiled, and stretched out his sinful hand to the ear again, but before he had time to get close, the perfectly round golden pupil suddenly opened and stared at him coldly. The hand stopped in mid-air, as if warned silently.

He knew how to withdraw when needed.

Ge Xiu smiled and put his hand back, moving naturally without a trace of stagnation.

The little wolf stared at him coldly for a few seconds, then closed his eyes again, as if barely tolerating the other’s existence.

Since that day, the relationship between a wolf and a person has become strangely harmonious.

Although Elinor still didn’t eat anything, when Ge Xiu returned, he no longer immediately assumed a hostile posture of defense and attack. Except for a few wounds that still had remanent curses, his back was recovering at an extremely fast speed. The bloody scabs have begun to fall off, gradually revealing new pink skin, and the scars on the wings were gradually fading, and finally only a few shallow white marks were left.

Although it seemed like he could live well even without eating, Ge Xiu still didn’t give up the possibility of finding suitable food.

Now, he has been leaving the cave for longer and longer, and the scope of his search has become larger and larger, and there were even more temporary shelters outside. From returning every day before the blood moon rose to the peak, he now only returned once in two days and the longest time he went out even reached a week.

Along with the expansion of the area he searched through, the things he brought back were more peculiar and abundant each time. From the ancient skulls shaped like a crescent moon to scarlet stalagmites looking like coagulated drops of blood, countless small and odd things quickly filled the space in the cave, taking it visibly with a clear and impossible to ignore sense of existence, completely opposite of how the cave was once cold and uninhabited.

Elinor opened his eyes.

A pair of beast pupils, as beautiful as melted gold, gleamed with a strange light in the depths of the cave. His eyes had long been accustomed to the normal state of lack of light at the bottom of the abyss, even the cave tightly sealed by the dark element seemed as bright as daylight to him.

The cave was empty.

He was very sensitive to temperature changes. Whether it was the ground that human have stepped on with bare feet, the walls he rested his back on, or even the stones rubbed with the palms, the temperature of human flesh and blood would be left on them, and emit a warm breath, full of vitality that cannot be ignored, for a short period of time. But at this moment, the stone wall and the ground were cold, with a kind of stillness that signalled lack of life. Regardless of whether the body of any creature has ever been on it, all the traces and tracks that they may have left be were diluted and dispersed in the air, as if it has never changed since ancient times.

Elinor’s eyes moved slightly, and his dark and unfathomable eyes fell on a bunch of plants placed next to his den.

He has seen many flowers. The fresh and beautiful flowers of various colours were moisturised by the rich light elements into vigorous and warm colours. The emerald green flower stems were carefully cut with a special knife and inserted into the water blessed by the chief priest. The flower shapes and size were designed to fit into the most suitable and pleasant beautiful scenery, in the chanting of hymns, it was placed by the priest in the corner of the altar as an embellishment, and together with other sacrifices, it was dedicated to the high gods with a pious heart. Day after day, year after year.

In comparison, this bunch of plants were simple and crude to the point of being an eyesore.

It had narrow and slender leaves, the stems and leaves were mixed with two small half-scorched flowers, the thick root system underneath has not been trimmed, and the messy root hairs were also filled with dirt and gravel pulled from the gaps in the rock wall. The way of binding was as ugly and rough as ever, and the technique was still as childish as a kid’s, without the slightest sense of beauty. The stems and leaves were dark brown – almost black like all the plants that were struggling to survive in the abyss, but the two small flowers were unusually pale, and within a few minutes of being brought back to the cave, they were eroded by the dark elements into blotched fragments.

Pale petals the size of only a fingernail were thin and pitiful, darkening and graying at a speed visible to the naked eye, the edges of the petals were rolled up and corroded by the elements and dark gray spots spread rapidly.

The human being was still panicked at first, trying to use the dark elements to control and slow down its withering speed, but as the dark elements accumulated, it only intensified this process. In just a few breaths, the plants fell onto his palm and withered.

The young man lowered his eyes, held the fragments of the flower in his palm, and was silent for a few seconds.

Immediately afterwards, he raised his head and smiled at Elinor, his expression almost the same as before:

“I thought it would last longer.”

And now, the bunch of weeds that have lost their flowers had dried up due to lack of moisture. The malaise turned into a brittle appearance with no trace of life, as if it could turn into dust with a light touch.

Elinor stared fixedly at the withered plant, then lowered his head and sniffed lightly.

The remaining human temperature on it had also long disappeared.

He calculated roughly—the human being had left the cave for eight days and had not returned.

Elinor’s golden vertical pupils flashed with a faint cold light in the dark, like some kind of ice-cold expensive gem.

He closed his eyes again indifferently, tilted his head, put his fluffy chin on his paws, and let the bunch of withered grass leave his sight.

The cave was dark and cold, swallowing almost all the sounds, seemingly stretching passage of time into infinity.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

Elinor suddenly opened his eyes again. This time, he sat up, the fluffy tail did not loop back to cover the tip of the claw as usual. Instead, it flicked irritably behind him. There was a rustling noise in the cave.

He stood up and walked silently and swiftly to the opening of the cave.

The barriers made out of dark elements have become thinner and shallower with the passage of time, showing a translucent fluid state. Through the thin element barrier, he could see the dark rock cliffs illuminated by the gradually dimming bloody moonlight. There was not even a grass in sight, and there was no sign of life activity.

Elinor sat in the opening of the cave, staring unpredictably at the gradually weakening barrier in front of him. The golden vertical pupils carried primitive wildness and cruelty, and there was almost no emotional fluctuation, only his big tail was flicking behind, and it became gradually more restless and irritable, showing his uneasy mood.

Human’s eyes flashed in his mind.

They were dark and big, and they easily reflected people’s image. The clean and round lines converge into a slightly pointed arc at the corner of the eye, which was very sharp, but his pupils were very bright, as if a fire always burned inside. The dark pupils were surrounded by light-coloured irises, which made him appear focused and curious no matter what he was looking at, as if the pupils contained the only thing he cared the most about in the whole world.

Elinor couldn’t tell why he remembered so clearly, perhaps because when the teenager was in the cave, most of the time except for enduring the torturous pain, he spent most of his time watching him enthusiastically. Even if he closed his eyes, he seemed to be able to feel the sight of the other party, without hostility, not full of calculations and evaluations, but pure enthusiasm. He would also talk to Elinor. Even if the other party didn’t show any ability to understand what he said, he would still talk on his own, more like a kind of self-entertainment than an attempt to communicate.

He would complain about the wolf fur almost everywhere in the cave, sighing because he hasn’t eaten anything again, and more often he would tease him with a smile, apparently he was very happy to see him lose his calm.

He seemed obsessed with throwing a leg bone.

A strange, naive, arrogant, self-centered human being.

Or maybe it was a dark creature that is good at deceiving people’s hearts, and liked to create a false image of itself in order to weaken its prey’s vigilance.

But in any case, eight days was too long.

Elinor raised his paws, and the coldly shining claws slashed across the already weak wall in front of him, making the sound of a fabric getting torn, and just like a soap bubble that had swelled to the limit, it burst in the next second.

The entrance of the cave is unobstructed.

He licked his paw burned by the dark element, and then stepped into the darkness.

*carrot and a stick, 糖和鞭子 literally sugar and a whip. Means the same thing though, some punishment with some rewards training.

Bamboo has something to say:

Elinor before: I will devour his skin and bones

Elinor now: What if he’s a dark creature. He doesn’t look nor smell like it but I shouldn’t eat him. Just in case. Wait, where did he go? Ah I need to check out on him, just in case