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墨書 Inktalez
The moonlight filtered through the Diamond Pane, casting Blood Red patterns upon Luna's Light Gold swaddling.
She stared at her curled-up Toes, trying to summon the remnants of strength within her tiny body—those magical powers that should have awakened a century later were now seeping out in fragmented Silver Light from the Zhen Chan on her forehead.
Outside the door, Qin Si's voice trembled with a soothing tone, "Third Young Master Lucius, don’t be afraid. The lady has gone to reinforce the East Barrier..."
Luna's Pupil suddenly constricted into a dangerous slit.
The Yin Chen in the air twisted at an eerie angle, outlining the dark currents visible only to a Great Mage.
She shoved her Thumb into her mouth and sucked hard, using the sharp pain to push back the drowsiness inherent to infants, wiping away the seeping Saliva against the inner side of her swaddling embroidered with the Guardian Spell.
When the eighth night breeze lifted the Wedding Canopy, Luna finally seized her chance.
A maid hurried past with a Silver Candelabra, and she tensed every muscle in her body, rolling off the Cradle like a startled kitten.
In that moment of falling, the floating Yin Chen suddenly converged into a net, gently lowering her onto the woolen carpet.
"Who’s there?" A guard at the end of the corridor suddenly turned around.
Luna held her breath, pressing her Fingertip against the Star Moon Embroidery on her swaddling.
The unique Mimicry Spell from her past life bubbled within her Blood Vessel, transforming the infant's Milk Fragrance into the scent of aged wood.
She slithered along the shadow by the wall, stopping every half-foot to combat the instinctive tremors of her infant body until a cold night breeze carrying the scent of decaying leaves rushed toward her.
The crumbling walls of the West Side were more dilapidated than Luna remembered.
Crouched beneath the withered Wisteria Arbor, she watched as the moonlight illuminated the ground, turning the spilled Crimson Moonflower Juice into what resembled a pool of congealed blood.
The Blue Blood Fern Juice, which should have vanished at Dawn, now wound its way along the Reversal Spell she had drawn during the day, forming a totem shaped like an eye in the gaps of the stone slabs.
"Thud—"
The heavy sound startled the Night Owl, causing it to flutter into the air.
Luna bit her lip hard, her gaze fixed on the Ancient Sophora Tree twenty paces away, where the once-mighty Master of the Demon Fortress was repeatedly banging his forehead against the trunk.
Leonard's luxurious Mink Fur Cloak was tattered and torn, and the black mist swirling around him had coalesced into hundreds of withered hands that frantically clawed at his temples, from which Hei Xue was seeping continuously.
"Something's wrong..." Luna used her Milk Tooth to tear at her fingertip, pressing the bleeding tip into the humid earth.
The most basic Detection Spell from her past life surged within her infant body, causing her vision to darken with pain—within that black mist, she could distinctly sense the aura of Holy Light Spell mingling with the scent of Dragon Blood she had used for sealing barriers earlier that morning.
When Leonard staggered and fell to his knees for the seventh time, Luna finally saw the pulsing bluish-purple Blood Vessel in his neck, where tiny Golden Runes danced.
Those were the Guardian Contracts passed down through generations of the Glorious Demon Fortress, now corroded by Dark Magic into a twisted serpent that gnawed at his heart through his Bloodline.
"So that's it." Luna suddenly recalled a detail from the Original that had been mentioned in passing—Leonard would always spend half an hour alone in the Prayer Room before meeting Leonard's Concubine.
If those "prayers" were actually meant to strip away the Guardian Contract using Forbidden Magic...
The sudden whimper from the infant made Leonard turn his head sharply.
His murky pupils had expanded to nearly fill his eye sockets, and the corners of his mouth twisted into an impossible arc for any human: "Little mouse?" His raspy voice carried a triple tone, the last one suddenly rising into a woman's shrill laugh.
Luna decisively bit her tongue, using the sharp pain to trigger the Suspension Spell.
She crashed into Leonard's arms like a cannonball, her palm, stained with Dragon Blood, striking fiercely against his heart.
In an instant, the Golden Venomous Snakes gnawing at the Contract let out a mournful cry, and the black blood surging in Leonard's throat crystallized in the air.
"Wake up!" Luna slammed her forehead against the man's chin, the Silver Light bursting forth from her forehead piercing into his heart. "Look at the monster you raised with your own hands!"
Leonard suddenly let out a beastly wail.
The black mist pulsating beneath his skin surged wildly toward his heart but ignited with azure flames upon touching the Dragon Blood.
Seizing the moment, Luna poured her last bit of magic into her voice: "Aelia is preparing the Antidote in the Potion Room!"
This lie, which had caused a rift between them in the Original, now made Leonard's already crumbling pupils constrict violently.
The black mist wrapping around him suddenly halted, and those withered hands frantically tried to cover his ears.
Now's the time!
Luna summoned all her strength to grasp the Family Crest Necklace around the man's neck, her bloodied fingertip tracing a Reversal Rune on the surface of the Sapphire.
When the bell calling for the Knight rang from the direction of the castle, Leonard finally collapsed to the ground, his pupils returning to their normal amber color, though black veins crept up like spider webs at the corners of his eyes.
"Lord of the Fortress!" Qin Si's figure appeared at the broken archway, holding a lantern.
Luna immediately curled up into the form of an ordinary infant, hiding her right hand, which still bore remnants of black mist, into her swaddling before the maid could reach her.
She watched as Cercis petals fell from Leonard's sleeve when he was helped up—petals that were clearly stained with blue iris pollen, identical to that found in Leonard's Concubine's scent pouch, glowing ominously under the moonlight.
As Qin Si carried her through the restless crowd, Luna suddenly caught a faint whiff of crimson moonflower fragrance emanating from the maid's hair.
Atop the highest spire of the castle, a window that had remained dark suddenly lit up with a red glow, revealing half of a face obscured by a crystal curtain.
Moonlight flowed over the spider web-like black veins at the corners of Leonard's eyes; those fine lines seemed to writhe beneath his skin as if they were alive.
Luna's pupils suddenly rippled with ice blue—a manifestation of her "True Eye," awakened during her past life when fighting against the Shadow Mage, now uncontrollably burning her fragile retina.
"Don't touch him!" Luna erupted with a sharp voice that no infant should possess, startling Qin Si so much that she nearly dropped the lantern.
The maid brushed past her with sleeves embroidered with a crimson flower pattern, and an unsettling sense of familiarity gripped Luna's heart.
This scent... it was unmistakably that of the medium used in the "Soul Merging Technique" recorded in the Shadow Codex!
Leonard suddenly convulsed violently, his pupils that had returned to amber fracturing into a spider web pattern.
The moonlight above the castle twisted bizarrely into a vortex, and those shattered black mists began seeping out from the cracks in the stone, coalescing into chains that bound his limbs.
Luna felt the Reversal Rune in the swaddling blanket suddenly heat up, and Qin Si's Pearl Earrings transformed in her eyes into two pulsating orbs of Azure Blue Flame.
"Why would you come to the West Fortress District..." Qin Si's voice carried an unusual Zhen Chan, her Fingertip glowing with a Healing Spell that emitted an abnormal grayish hue.
Suddenly, Luna's stomach twisted in pain—this was the infant body’s instinctive rejection of dark Dark Magic. The maid's Healing Spell was tainted with the spores of the Soul Devouring Vine!
The Crystal Curtain atop the Spire emitted a crisp sound reminiscent of Feng Ling.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luna caught sight of the halo from the highest window spreading into a Hexagram pattern, as golden light erupted from Leonard's neck where the Guardian Contract lay.
The previously dormant Golden Venomous Snakes frantically bit at his Adams Apple, while the Black Fog Chains took the opportunity to slither into the wounds created by their bites.
"Father!"
The title slipped from Luna's lips, causing time and space to seem to freeze for a moment.
Leonard, his face shrouded in black mist, suddenly contorted in pain, his trembling Palm hovering above Luna's head, ice crystals forming at his Fingertip mixed with droplets of Blood Pearl that fell onto her Mei Xin.
The True Eye's Zhuo Tong transformed into a soothing coolness, and Luna's vision exploded with countless Memory Fragments—
On a snowy night twenty years ago, the Young Lord knelt before the frozen Holy Spring, handing over the swaddled Third Young Master Lucius to a masked priest; on a lunar eclipse night fifteen years ago, Aelia's Wedding Ring burst forth with red light on the altar, entwining with her wrist's Guardian Contract, which suddenly sprouted barbs; three months ago, amidst torrential rain, Leonard stuffed a Secret Letter dusted with Blue Iris Pollen into a branch of Redbud, while within the wrist delivering Hua Zhi, there emerged an unmistakable connection to the same source as Qin Si Moonstone Earrings, radiating that same Azure Blue Flame...
"So you are also a Container." Luna tore open the swaddling's hidden layer with her bloodied Milk Tooth, causing the sealed away Starlight Fragment within her past life’s memories to fall like scattered leaves.
These crystallized powers that should have awakened during the Rite of Passage, now forcibly summoned by her magic, transformed into shimmering Stardust, tracing out the patterns of the Glorious Demon Fortress Honor Magic Castle Crest in the air.
Qin Si suddenly let out an inhuman screech, her pupils transforming into a compound eye structure, while countless tendrils of Crimson Moonflower erupted from her hair.
Seizing the opportunity, Luna slapped her palm, dusted with stardust, against Leonard's heart. The wandering Golden Venomous Snakes abruptly turned as one, frantically tearing at the dark chains.
"Look into my eyes!" Luna's vocal cords bled from overuse, but the sound wave imbued with the pressure of a Great Mage shattered the crystal curtain atop the Spire. "Three hundred years ago, when your ancestors swore an oath by the Holy Spring, did they ever consider that their descendants would be devoured by the very guardian spirits they raised?"
Leonard emitted a sob like a trapped beast, and suddenly blood sprayed from the gnawed wound on his neck, silver-blue in color.
The blood coalesced in midair into an ancient script that Luna had never seen before—an original contract penned by the First Patriarch using the Frost Dragon's heart's blood!
Luna's Yue Wen resonated with the floating Blood Text, and amidst the blinding silver light, she finally discerned the erased part of the contract at its bottom:
"When moonlight reveals the remorse of the betrayer, frost will cleanse the blood-stained crown."
The light atop the Spire abruptly extinguished, replaced by a golden flare rising from the direction of the East Barrier—an indication that Aelia had successfully reinforced the barrier.
Luna felt a chill at her nape as Leonard's blood-stained fingers gently brushed against her trembling back. The dark markings at the corners of his eyes faded to a pale azure under the moonlight, resembling a fragmented sky after a storm.
"Little Star..." The hoarse call made Luna freeze.
This nickname, sealed away in her memories for three hundred years, now enveloped her in an embrace scented with cedar and dragon blood, pulling her forcibly into its warmth.
Leonard's tattered mink fur cloak suddenly radiated a soft glow, and those patterns corroded by darkness reformed into scales of a Frost Dragon.
Qin Si's tendrils turned to ashes at the moment Xu Ying emerged as a giant dragon. The maid collapsed onto the ground, her figure gradually becoming transparent until only a Redbud Badge pulsating with azure blue flame remained.
Luna's eardrum buzzed as she saw Leonard pick up the badge, the last trace of Qin Si's astonishment sealed within the ice crystals of her fingertip.
When the bell from the direction of the castle rang for the seventh time, Luna realized that her infant clothing had somehow transformed into a silver robe woven from moonlight.
Leonard, carrying her, stumbled as he walked toward the main fortress. The vibrations from his chest resonated strangely: "Back when your grandfather carried me through this Rose Corridor, the Frost Contract had yet to sprout its venomous fangs..."
The night wind swept up the tattered Blood Text of the Contract, forming a patch of hexagonal ice crystals in Luna's palm.
Suddenly, half of a charred Magic Letter fluttered down from the dark window of the Spire. The unburned golden Huo Qi on it perfectly matched the emblem of Third Young Master Lucius's ring in her memory.
The ice crystals refracted twelve layers of moonlight in Luna's palm, each facet reflecting the shattered light deep within Leonard's pupils.
His fingers, marked with dark patterns, hovered above her head, carrying the unique coldness of the Frost Contract but hesitating to descend.
"Do you remember?" Luna suddenly bit through her bloodied milk tooth and drew the outline of the Honor Magic Castle Crest on the surface of the ice crystal. "Every year when the snow melts, you would carry Brother San to the Holy Spring to measure magical purity." Her infantile voice wrapped around the resonance of a Great Mage, causing Leonard's sleeves adorned with Cercis petals to tremble and shed.
The petals dusted with blue iris pollen had not yet touched the ground when they were lifted by Luna's summoned stardust, piecing together a memory illusion in midair.
Five-year-old Lucius tiptoed to reach for the measuring crystal while Leonard smiled and lifted him over his shoulder; Aelia's wedding ring rippled in the Holy Spring, and the Guardian Contract transformed into silver chains entwining the newlyweds' wrists; even their reclusive elder brother once sat in a wheelchair demonstrating basic fire magic runes to his brothers.
Suddenly, a violent twitch seized Leonard's eyes, and the contracted serpent around his neck emitted a dying hiss.
Seizing the moment, Luna pressed the ice crystal against his heart. Those memory frames wrapped in stardust suddenly materialized—sounds of her brother's wheelchair rolling over cobblestones, Second Brother mumbling while adjusting potions, even Third Young Master Lucius’s swaddled milk fragrance coalescing into tangible Guang Liu surged into the man's chest.
"Father!" When Luna called out this title for the second time, a stench of blood surged in her throat mixed with the breath of a frost dragon.
The corrupted Guardian Contract suddenly erupted with a Blue Light, and Leonard's shattered Pupil finally reflected the image of his daughter.
Seizing the moment when the man’s mind was clear, Luna flipped her bloodied Palm.
The fragile bones of the infant emitted a painful creaking sound as the unique "Star Trail Sealing Technique" forcibly Tear apart the Magic Circuit of this body.
Floating Stardust suddenly coalesced into a Hexagram Formation, compressing the black mist surging from Leonard into a crystal the size of a walnut—crafted from the residual power of the Frost Contract, it formed a Vine Cage that pulsed with a Spider Web-like Lei Guang on its surface.
"Seven Days after the full moon..." Leonard's Hoarse voice suddenly faltered as the black markings on his neck, not yet fully faded, surged violently.
Luna immediately stuffed the sealing crystal into the Hidden Layer of the swaddling, her Fingertip stained with Dragon Blood tracing three layers of restrictions on the man's Mei Xin.
As the final Seal Charm was completed, a deafening Roar suddenly echoed from the direction of the East Barrier.
Luna turned her head and caught sight of a ghostly blue Lei Guang flashing at the top of the Spire—a color that shared its origin with the flames in Qin Si's Moonstone Earrings.
"Lord!" Qin Si's voice came from around the Emerald Corridor as she turned a corner.
The fragrance of Crimson Moonflower from her hair grew stronger, and her fingers gripping the lantern took on an unnatural grayish hue.
Luna squinted, her True Eye piercing through Qin Si's disguised facade, revealing countless Soul Devouring Vines and Spores swirling within her Blood Vessel.
Leonard suddenly wrapped his daughter entirely in his Mink Fur Cloak, and the tattered Fabric instantly hardened into Ice Armor.
When Qin Si's figure appeared at the archway, the man had already regained his former imposing demeanor, though his left hand hung at his side, still trembling slightly—clutching tightly onto the Covenant Ice Crystal that Luna had secretly slipped to him.
"Take the young lady back to the Nursery." His voice reverberated with a magical resonance throughout the Emerald Corridor, startling more Night Owls. "Send word to all towers, the Dawn is initiating Level Three alert."
Luna curled up inside the Ice Armor, listening to the rising and falling sounds of Magic Messages outside.
As she passed the grand hall, she suddenly pushed through a Gap—under the Crystal Chandelier, a restless crowd had gathered. The Cook huddled in a corner with a crying child, while Chief Guard's Leonard's Sword was pressed against the throat of a frenzied Servant.
Qin Si held aloft a Healing Spell, its glowing orb hovering above the crowd. The bluish-gray light spilled over their faces, turning their terrified expressions into a corpse-like pallor.
Luna felt her stomach twist painfully again. She saw that within the healing dust falling from the orb, there were tiny spores of the nearly invisible Soul Devouring Vine.
"Father..." She feigned a weak sob, her saliva-dampened little hand suddenly grasping Leonard's finger.
The lingering dark magic aura on the man's fingertip reacted with the ice crystals, instantly creating tiny Electric Arcs that exploded between them.
This sudden Magic Fluctuation caused Qin Si's glowing orb to tremble violently. A Knight suddenly pointed at the sky over the West Side and shouted, "The Dark Moon!
It is a sign of the Dark Moon's arrival!" The crowd erupted into chaos, and Luna seized the moment to flick the last few grains of Stardust into Leonard's sleeve.
As the father and daughter encased in Ice Armor passed through the final archway, Luna heard the sharp sound of shattering porcelain behind her.
Qin Si's feigned panicked shout concealed a twisted smile: "Quickly hold him down!
Those corrupted by darkness will taint the entire castle!"
The Black Rose window of the Nursery shattered moonlight into fragments as Leonard untied the Fingertip knot of Ice Armor, revealing Frost Flowers.
Luna's Silver Robe suddenly transformed back into an ordinary swaddling cloth, the excessive consumption of magical power causing blood to seep from the corner of her mouth, staining it with Blood Vein.
The man's motion to wipe the blood from the edge of his cloak froze abruptly—on the bloodied Fabric emerged a Warning written in Dragon Blood: Beware of Contract Backlash.
"Father should go take charge now," Luna curled up in the Cradle, hiding the sealed crystal within the shimmering strands of her hair.
As Leonard turned away, she added suddenly, "Holy Spring, beneath the third stone slab on the East Side lies the Snow Bloom Nectar that Mother prepared last year."
The man staggered against the Door Frame; this secret known only to the couple was now chillingly spoken from the lips of an infant.
Moonlight streamed over his shoulder, casting two overlapping images in Luna's eyes—one of the tattered Mink Fur Cloak in reality, and another of the Young Lord in her memories, proudly cradling a Newborn as he received a Blessing.
When the door finally closed, Luna bit down on her already scarred Tongue.
Amidst the Bloody Smell, she heard the sound of Crystal Curtains colliding from the direction of the Spire. The Covenant Ice Crystal cracked with spider web-like fissures in the darkness, while outside the distant East Barrier, a massive shadow was stretching its form under the moonlight.
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