Witch, Fireball and the Evil God of Steam-Chapter 683 - 75: Hunger_2

Morganna didn't suffer much in Dark Furnace City, which was fortunate during Julius's rule.

A peaceful life lasted until one day, over a dozen years later, when a group of demon hunters arrived in Dark Furnace City to investigate a bizarre ghoul attack incident. They believed the ghoul involved in the commission was extremely special, retaining human thought, acting in groups, laying traps on trade routes, waiting for victims to take the bait.

Several caravans had been attacked before the demon hunters arrived.

The ghouls cleaned the scene thoroughly, leaving no bitten corpses behind. They transferred all victims to their lair, stockpiling them as food.

It was then that Duke Bellamo fell in love with one of the demon hunters.

However, Morganna did not get along well with her. From the moment they met, they disliked each other. As Bellamo's relationship with the demon hunter grew closer, conflicts finally erupted.

The demon hunter sensed an evil aura from Morganna, but despite conducting tests on Morganna with holy water and various exorcism tools, they found nothing amiss. Yet the demon hunter insisted on keeping Morganna away from the family, claiming Morganna's presence would bring misfortune to the Bellamo family.

Helplessly, Duke Bellamo decided to send Morganna to be cared for by a distant relative, yet the convoy escorting Morganna away from Dark Furnace City suffered an accident—they were attacked by ghouls on the trade route, and everyone's whereabouts were lost. A month later, when the demon hunters finally found the ghouls' hideout, they discovered the guards' relics there.

Morganna had long become food for the ghouls, concluded the demon hunters.

But in fact, the ghouls did not trouble Morganna; rather, they were ecstatic upon seeing her. They transformed Morganna and instilled the concept of "family" into her: no matter what happens, family cannot abandon one another, and Duke Bellamo's actions were an unforgivable betrayal.

They sought revenge for this new member.

They broke into Duke Bellamo's home, tearing him and the demon hunter to pieces, which later turned into the direct cause of their exposure.

Valerie recorded it in detail in the Sheepskin Book, as if she had personally experienced that past.

Ave felt it was very likely from Morganna's recounting.

And it was here that the story turned bizarre.

Because ghouls were never capable of transforming others; such a concept usually only occurred with vampires and werewolves.

Undoubtedly, these were "evolved" ghouls, and the question was, what prompted these ghouls to evolve?

This became Valerie's direction of investigation for quite some time.

According to Morganna's recounting, she was captured by the clan leader to the lair, where during her transformation, they produced a basin, and the ghouls used their blossomed claws to slit a merchant's throat, letting his blood flow into the basin. When the blood flowed into the basin, it turned into a pitch-black substance, resembling black mist. When Morganna gazed into the black mist, an unprecedented hunger enveloped her.

This made her lose her senses immediately. When she awoke, she found herself lying on a bed, the merchant's corpse gone, and only fragments of bone left on the ground, with her taste buds flooded by a strong bloody taste.

The existence in the black mist was the source of everything.

Originally, Valerie thought this was another creation of Evil God Bajatos, as nowadays most dark creatures were created by Bajatos and His followers, yet this idea was quickly overturned upon meeting Morganna—the followers of Bajatos were also on their menu.

They never interacted with any other evil god's followers, as the evil god's followers would almost invariably attack her upon encountering her.

Evil god's followers appeared very afraid of her, seemed like an instinctive biological fear.

This also became the reason Valerie survived.

Morganna also wanted to understand what the basin held, creating this abnormal space. When she arrived, the mirror of Dark Furnace City already existed, its citizens turned into ghouls, and Valerie couldn't explain this abnormal space with what she knew.

Ghouls were humans transformed, according to demon hunter theory, at least ten thousand people must have died here, all turned into ghouls.

This was clearly impossible, as since the empire's establishment, Dark Furnace City hadn't seen such large-scale death.

Valerie leaned towards the belief that these ghouls were "hatched" by some means in the Sheepskin Book. She considered Morganna-Blackref and her offspring not to be the greatest threat; the true threat lurked in the deeper fog, transforming them.

Even Morganna didn't know how to leave here, and of course, she never intended to leave.

The existence they were investigating possessed characteristics akin to an evil god, able to create such a vast contamination zone, enveloping the entire Dark Furnace City within.

'Hunger'.

This was the name Valerie gave it.

From Morganna's limited description, it seemed Hunger didn't have a physical form, usually appearing as a shadow, and in this contamination zone it created, it was everywhere, able to appear anywhere at any time.

Ave's unease grew stronger.

If the person who wrote her the letter wasn't TeacherValerie...

Then "Hunger's" target might not have been her from the beginning!

Ave almost immediately recalled the anomaly Ethan mentioned, the elemental elves lost contact with him here, something unprecedented before, whether confronting Old Ba or Sincaro, they couldn't sever the presence of natural elements.

Sincaro also mentioned that natural elements are older existences than the Old Gods.

And after all elemental elves lost contact, Ethan grasped a strange spell.

Shadow Arrow.

The naming format is similar to Fireball, Ice Arrow, like a basic spell of some path, yet before this, no records about shadow elements existed in the academy or the Astrology Guild.

With this thought, Ave shivered.

Do not use Shadow Arrow.

Such an idea almost immediately surfaced in her mind, if Ethan were still in the room, she would definitely warn him the first thing after flipping through the Sheepskin Book.

Ave felt this sudden magic was more like a trap; she couldn't predict what would happen when Ethan used Shadow Arrow.

"Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock—!"

The knocking interrupted her thoughts, "Is Sister Ave home?"

A young voice came from outside the door. It sounded very familiar, because not long ago, this red-eyed ghoul named Peter warmly invited Ethan to tour the ranch they established.

Fortunately, Ethan came back in time.

Ave rolled out of bed, ran barefoot to the door, and opened it quickly.

She had a lot to tell Ethan; this place was much more dangerous than they imagined, and the thing TeacherValerie named "Hunger" was likely after him; it forged the letter just to lure Ethan here.

Yet in the next moment, Ave was stunned.

At the door stood Peter alone.

She almost blurted out, "Where's Ethan?"

Peter tiptoed and peeked into the room, "Is Mr. Ethan not here? I'm interested in the gourmet club he mentioned earlier and wanted to chat with him."

"Where were you just now?"

Ave found her breathing become somewhat difficult.

"Me?"

Peter appeared puzzled, "I was with my siblings, we were discussing Mr. Ethan, everyone wants to invite him over."

…

Meanwhile, elsewhere.

"This isn't right."

Suddenly, Ethan halted, Peter had been guiding him through the fog for a long time, and he felt this wasn't the way back, instead leading farther away from Dark Furnace City, "We didn't come from this direction."

"You're right."

Peter, ahead, turned back to look at him, "Mr. Ethan, this is a shortcut (^_^)."

He squinted, smiling gently, seemingly harmless.

Only at this moment, his head and body appeared a bit misaligned.

Peter's body didn't turn around, still maintaining the forward walking motion, only his neck turned around, looking at him with his head tilted back at a 180-degree angle.

——"We're almost there."