Lunation of Fate

Maxill was quite swift on his arrival to the north of Dianium.

The herb codex indicated that the northern thorny wolfbane was along the outskirts of the Dianium, just between their country’s jurisdiction and the uncharted frost beyond.

In that boundary, the terrain was filled with tall and cone-bearing trees, and the climate in that region was indeed bone chilling and thin aired.

But these were no match for the powerful bloodhunt.

Maxill was breezing through the cold winds like it wasn’t even cool season. He was still flapping his ominous pair of wings with elegance and effortlessness.

The sound of swaying branches was heard. Maxill perched on one of the lower branches and began to scour the ground with his supersonic senses.

As he turned human and was in a sitting position along the high branch, he closed his eyes and activated his sound wave detection to search for the herb.

The northern thorny wolfbane is one tricky plant to acquire, both in location and in physical attributes. But because of the codex’s description and guide, he knew he was the right candidate to look for the said herb-he sure knew his way around it.

One distinct feature of the northern thorny wolfbane is its broad heart-shaped leaves. It is also considered a runner and spreads along the ground, below other plants.

Just one misstep and it could spell danger to humans and other animals, while death to a wolf and to a werewolf.

His flight skill is all that was needed to prevent this from happening.

Maxill deduced that the said plant is either an absorber of sound. He would just have to wait for a certain sound wave to not bounce back at a certain amount of time.

The forest is thick with foliage from other plant species. Luckily, that herb was the only thorny ground vine within that region.

Along with his magic, he used these to his advantage without hurting himself to look out for a bunch.

He was full on focused on his searching that he wasn’t able to detect another being slowly approaching him from behind.

It was too late when he noticed the creature about to stab him directly toward his heart.

But with good fortune, Maxill was able to deflect the metal stake by a hair’s breadth. But with this defensive motion, he then lost his balance causing him to fall to the ground.

The ground was quite soft and muddy. The agile bloodhunt then realized that it wasn’t just an ordinary deep puddle on the ground he fell in.

‘Quicksand!’, he muttered to himself. Maxill’s never before seen facial expression began to manifest; it was the look and feel of fear-and of course he had immediately panicked afterwards.

He was flapping both his lower and upper limbs, trying to hoist himself up to reach for safe ground.

But to no avail.

Maxill was stuck on the hungry quicksand, slowly swallowing every inch of his body and devouring his sense of confidence and presence of mind.

“Serves you right, traitor.” A thin and taunting voice echoed within the pine forest.

Maxill stopped his clumsy paddling and waddling.

He suddenly noticed that familiar voice that was waiting for him to be eaten alive by the ground.

The handsome bloodhunt was quick to deduce that he was under the dark spell of that familiar speaker.

He tried to get out of that dark spell.

He thought of countering it with his powerful magic. It was a battle between two powerful minds and magics.

Maxill battled this quicksand illusion with some facts.

One, that there is no spring of water nearby causing a quicksand to occur. And two, that he knew he was more powerful than this filthy bloodeye toying with his perception.

Within seconds, Maxill broke out of the quicksand illusion. He simply stood up from the ground like he was standing on water.

And the quicksand vanished before his eyes.

“You bloodeye! Show yourself!” Maxill was now quite enraged at the trick he was played at by the thin-voiced bloodhunt seer.

“Ku ku ku, and why would I want to show myself to you, you filthy half-blood?”

“What do you want with me, Dreon? Can’t you see I’m busy with things?” was Maxill’s sarcastic reply. He knew what the bloodeye-what a vampire seer is called-wanted from him.

“Ahahaha! Don’t make me laugh, Maxill. You obviously know what we want for you.”

“No matter how many times you lot sell and imprison me in every way, I will manage to set myself free, one way or another.”

“Ku ku ku, who are you kidding half-blood? Your most recent imprisonment lasted for-”

Maxill threw a heavy punch to his face.

It was the smart bloodhunt’s tactic to get him talking. While the bloodeye was at it, Maxill used this opportunity to locate Dreon the Bloodeye.

Dreon was standing in one of a not so steep branch. When Maxill pummeled his face, he came hurling straight to the ground.

It had quite a strong impact that smoky dust flew off in all directions as Dreon hit the ground.

‘Too bad. It has no wolfbane where he landed.’ Maxill was smirking as he amused himself with this thought.

Dreon tried to stand up, but Maxill’s heavy blow micro-fractured his bones and hemorrhaged his innards. These were hard to regenerate into and heal.

The bloodeye coughed up blood in the process.

Maxill walked toward him. “Mess with me again, and it’ll be the death of you.”

“The prophecy’s right. You’ll be the death of us bloodhunts!”

“Then it will be reasonable. You’re meddling with my affairs!”

“We’re jut t-trying t-tto c-con-t-tain you…”

“Then stop it now! Of course I’ll protect myself. It’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy for all of you if you continue to bother my life. I don’t care about vampirekind anymore, so just let me be.”

Dreon couldn’t make a sound as he was slowly breathing hard because every inhale and exhale was hurting his lungs from his broken ribs.

But he still tried to warn Maxill. “S-s-some-b-bo-d-dy e-lse wwant y-y-you…”

Then Dreon breathed his last.

Maxill closed Dreon’s eyes. He never thought Dreon would be too weak to die from his blow.

He was also suddenly confused at the bloodeye’s last words.

Dreon’s appearance made Maxill’s mode to become irate and dark.

Because of this, he just went in pure rage, unmindful of the effects he would do in that forest just to get a northern thorny wolfbane.

He reached out his hand towards the forest and shaped his hand into a claw.

There suddenly came a violent wind. The foliage on the ground of the forest slowly disappeared, as if they were being ran by a glowing shadow and then disappearing as the shadow hit them.

Maxill transported the unnecessary plants into another dimension. Only the thorny wolfbane endemic in the north was left on the ground.

The powerful bloodhunt grabbed a bunch of the herb and put it in a sack.

Still irate, he then quickly shapeshifted into bat form and darted across the wind to make his way back to his, Juste’s, and Chastine’s rendezvous point.