Chapter 13: Day’s on Last Hole

It was already dawn when Moon broke free from his trench.

The orange hue of the rising sun couldn’t reach his hand in this gutter den.

The Skerrow Brake forest’s dense pines had always stood from the eastern side of Mount Mraor to the west like an ancient fortress wall.

Seldom, some shred of light might lose its track and pass by the Last Hole, but it would soon flee to another place.

Moon’s eyes fluttered for a moment before a slight smile played across his lips. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he stood up, looking at the hand-drawn, complex lines on the floorboard.

His eyes squinted in deep thought.

He had found a way to alter the protective formation into an array that could be used here.

Not only that, he had broken through his first shackle in cultivation from novice one star to two.

It was a speck of dust in his old world, but it was still good compared to his stagnation of eighteen years.

Moon walked to the only little window in the room and looked outside.

As far as his eyes could see, he could only see endless darkness, green moss, tree bark, and a ragged stone path.

’I need that bastard of my mates,’ Moon muttered.

The only way to stimulate his core was to use the essence of his mates. It would be faster than refining the vengeance power and absorbing it little by little.

Moon clicked his tongue in annoyance.

’I missed my chance. I shouldn’t have slapped that pervert yesterday.’

He muttered and walked to the door.

To his surprise, it was not locked. It protested with a crackle as he pushed it open.

He took a step out.

Looked left, looked right.

The damp air hit his face like a boiling, rotten hum. Moon took every step carefully to avoid the black stains on the old floorboard. His eyes darted around the stone wall filled with the same charcoal and paint as the outside, except it was filled with drawings of naked men and women doing weird exercises.

The floor cracked under his feet as he passed a cabin to the stairs in the corner.

He paused for a moment and looked at a charcoal drawing on the wall.

He narrowed his eyes and blushed. His hand carefully traced the lines with some interest.

Anyway, nobody was here. He chuckled.

"Is it fun?" A deep but gentle voice suddenly spoke from behind him.

Moon whipped around in shock. His ears gradually turned a pink shade.

"NO!" He yelled. Then, finding he had overreacted, he coughed.

"Cough! Oh! Um... this paint is good. Yes, the lines and vision have some issues, but the general idea is good."

Saying that, he looked at the man in front of him with utter seriousness.

Ugo didn’t expose Moon’s awkwardness. Instead, he ruffled Moon’s hair and only smiled.

"You haven’t eaten anything since you came here. Aren’t you hungry?"

Moon’s heart skipped a beat. He blinked, and he remembered he was actually hungry.

"It’s almost seven days."

Ugo looked at him with his green eyes. He raised his brows, crossing his arms against his chest.

"I am hungry," Moon said, lowering his head.

He lifted his palm and looked at the pale skin. He used to starve in his world, too. With his mere novice level, it was impossible to practice inedia. But to save resources, he would try one or two days to do fasting.

But here, of course, he was not practicing inedia. But he didn’t have a choice. Did he?

"Come with me." Ugo led him downstairs.

"Don’t touch the railing." He added as he kicked a broken chair out of the path.

After a wild night, the downstairs again turned into a gloomy, silent, and desolate place. Even the pointy-moustache man that Axe called Vadira was not in his marked space behind the large stone slab.

Ugo passed the scattered mugs, broken glass, and the stools and entered an inner room behind the counter.

The smell of freshly made stew and porridge invaded Moon’s nostrils.

Moon’s stomach churned and rumbled.

He sat on a stool and, without even an invitation, took a bowl and served his portion himself.

When he was done eating, he could not find Ugo anymore.

He had left sometime while Moon was eating. Instead, it was Vadira who came with a mug of dark coffee.

"You could have asked for food if you were starving."

Vadira sat against Moon on another stool.

Moon looked at the man and pondered.

Now in the daylight, Vadira didn’t look so unpleasant as when he saw him with his divine sense. There was a clever, scummy glint in his eyes, but no harm.

Moon took a sip of the bitter drink and contorted his face in disgust.

"I was locked up. You know that."

"Drink it; it will give you some energy. Tonight may not go as easily as last night." Vadira smiled, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

"Is that so? I see..." Moon shrugged.

"You can’t depend on your five mates. Anyway, nobody believes they are your mates in reality."

"I didn’t depend on them in the first place." Moon raised his eyes. He slowly spread his divine sense outward.

"They are just some discarded omegas now." After a pause, Vadira stood up.

"I heard the grand witch has arrived. She might be here sometime soon."

Vadira twirled his moustache and clicked his tongue.

"Seriously, it doesn’t matter whether you are a witch or not. The Alpha had already issued his decree. After the next full moon, you will be executed on the 16th of the lunar month."

"Wasn’t it in seven days?"

Moon raised his brows with interest, but Vadira didn’t answer. He turned to him and closed the distance.

"Can you really heal a defective?"

His question was direct, and his action was decisive. Unlike the nonchalant behaviour he showed during the night.

"I can..." Moon trailed his tone down when observing Vadira.

Vadira flinched with excitement, but it was just for a moment before he calmed down.

"Then?"

"I can, or precisely, maybe I will be able to heal, but not the way the guards said. I know some healing art."

Moon stood up and leaned forward to Vadira. His smile was surreal and beautiful.

"You know I am a witch."

He said and stood straight. "Can I take a bath?"

"Sure." Vadira’s eyes flickered as he turned to show the path.

--

In the next few days, Moon was busy.

He was very busy planning how he could execute his array.

After dilly-dallying for a day, he named his array "The Array of Bone-Shield Phantoms."

He had gone out of the bar a few times with Vadira on guard on the pretext of suffocating inside, and planted broken shreds of bloodstones he painstakingly prepared.

In the daylight, the Last Hole was like a graveyard. So Moon could easily walk around like a ghost, and he could almost tell how many people ran here at night and how many people were fucking in the dusty corridor.

He even knew that Vadira had a secret rendezvous with the queen’s palace head of maids.

And the little girl who gave him the berries was Vadira’s daughter. A wolfless girl.

Moon hadn’t seen a shadow of the five brothers, though. They had vanished like they didn’t exist.

’Those perverted brothers haven’t even come once. Is their dick also defective by now? Slime, boar, impotent...’

He muttered to himself as he was vigorously washing some wild cleavers in a wooden tub.

His trousers were already wet from his deliberate splashing of water.

The scratches and the blood-clotted scars on his arms were proof of cruelty, showing that his days in this bar were not peaceful.

Just after two days of peace, the defective wolves became agitated; their adrenaline was fueled with the thirst of being normal or being a proper wolf.

The mere threat of Axe or Leo could do nothing to the greed for power.

They don’t believe the guards, but they don’t want to miss even a fraction of a possibility.

So Moon’s days became a whirlwind of wrestling and fighting with these half-assed beasts.

In just five days, he had blasted twelve wolves when he also got beaten up to a pulp.

But Moon was not very upset about that. This fighting, he took it as practice.

He didn’t hide his spiritual power from them.

Anyway, they all believed he was a witch. So a witch naturally had power.

Only they didn’t know that what he used was not the big array he drew all over the floor like a witch, but it came from his very being. It’s his own natural Qi.

But his Qi was depleting fast.

His vengeance energy was refined and used up.

And his mates were nowhere to be seen. Moon was afraid he couldn’t hold on if he didn’t activate the array quickly.

’Just a little... I need just a little bit of their essence. One of them would do,’ he muttered.

"One would do? You have three here, bitch."

The door burst open with a kick. Three big men entered leisurely as they snarled.

Moon felt a chill run down his spine. Just seeing their bare chests and walls of muscle, he knew it was going to be a hard day.

At this time, the Last Hole should be deserted as always.

He was careless.

He thought they couldn’t skip their work and come to him in the daylight.

Moon stood up, pushing the wooden tub to the side so the herbs would not get wasted.

"Doesn’t your butt still hurt? Already forgotten how you were crawling out from here?"

Moon sneered, walking to the little window.

His hand clenched stealthily on his sash where he had put his last big piece of the bloodstone.

"You... little gutter-born bitch! See how I teach you a lesson today?"

The man’s muscles flexed with rage as his rough, fur-filled back spiked up.

With a guttural growl, he lunged.