Versatile Mage

Edited by Aelryinth

The Sunset Valley was not part of the battlefield. In fact, it was located behind enemy lines. They purposely took the long route around a huge canyon to reach their destination. General Fenna had provided them with the safest path.

Cairo was currently in a defensive position. It was unlikely they would try to ambush the demon creatures from behind. They were only hoping for the fighting to end, instead of starting new battles.

Unlike the battlefield, demon creatures did not actively roam around behind their own armies, but their density was still quite high. The group would stumble into a powerful creature every one or two kilometers.

Fighting the creatures was only going to attract more attention. Luckily, the group mainly consisted of elites. They knew how to preserve their energy and avoid the demon creatures as they made their way toward their destination.

“Did you notice? They are squads patrolling close to the Sunset Shrine. Each of the Silver Snake Warriors is leading a bunch of snakemen soldiers. I don’t think they are just roaming around. Let’s try to avoid them,” Chad noticed, pointing at some demon creatures ahead.

The Silver Snake Warriors were completely covered by silver scales. They looked like armored warriors riding snake-like beasts from afar. These Silver Snake Warriors rarely invaded human territory, as they were the most loyal guards of the Medusae!

The Silver Snake Warriors were no weaker than Brutal Sword Death Servants. Mo Fan’s group would have no trouble taking them out, but they would be exposed the moment a fight started. They would then have to take on huge groups of Silver Snake Warriors!

“We have come to the right place. They are a lot of Silver Snake Warriors here,” Benz said softly.

“They are patrolling very frequently. How are we supposed to get inside the Sunset Shrine?” Zoey asked.

“That’s easy. These Silver Snake Warriors are particularly fond of the Sunset Demon Mice. I saw a nest of demon mice nearby. We can find a way to lure the Sunset Demon Mice here and make them run around the Sunset Shrine. These Silver Snake Warriors will instinctively chase after them. We should be able to find an opening!” Chad replied swiftly.

—

The Sunset Demon Mice were not very powerful, yet the snake beasts still struggled to catch them, since the demon mice were innately good at running away from them.

However, it was very easy for humans to catch them. They just needed to smoke them out with the Poison Element and trap them with Ice Lock and Plant Magic traps. The pack of Sunset Demon Mice immediately became bait to lure the Silver Snake Warriors away!

The Silver Snake Warriors would hold their positions most of the time, but these Sunset Demon Mice never failed to drive them crazy. They could not stand the sight of these dumb fat demon mice wandering in front of them!

The plan was a success. The group sneaked past the area the Silver Snake Warriors were patrolling. The black silhouette of the Sunset Shrine under the dim moonlight gradually entered their vision.

The ancient ruins of the Sunset Shrine were monolithic. The site contained over thirty structures of different sizes, each with a spacious garden and a watchtower. The structures spread across the place in a fixed pattern, making the Sunset Shrine feel more like a dilapidated ancient city. The collapsed beams, the half-exposed halls, the weeds crawling all over the place, and an altar that was covered by plants… not a single thing was preserved.

“What now?” Vani seriously had no clue what the plan was.

“We wait, until the morning,” Mo Fan said.

“Why?” Ferrero asked.

“Just do as you’re told. Feel free to leave if you don’t want to,” Mo Fan grunted.

Ferrero was displeased by the reply, yet did not say a word.

—

The group hid inside a hall covered in debris and rocks. They had no idea what the hall was built with. The place actually looked quite new, and did not feel like it had been around for a few thousand years. It looked as if it had been exposed to the wind and rain for only a few hundred years.

The ancient ruins of the Sunset Shrine were quite sturdy. Most ancient ruins would only have some foundations or a few rocks left after a few thousand years, but the Sunset Shrine’s framework remained standing even today. It was a lot bigger than they had imagined.

Benz kept scratching his back, as if he was being bitten by some poisonous bugs.

The others did not take note of it at first, but when Benz kept scratching it every few minutes, Chad realized that something did not feel right.

“Benz, your back is about to fester!” Chad exclaimed.

“My back is itching a lot… aren’t you guys feeling it too?” Benz asked.

“Now that you mention it, it does feel…” Sofia said awkwardly.

Zoey immediately went behind Sofia and checked on her back. She noticed some red marks with bumps like chickenpox. Her condition was slightly better than Benz, but she was obviously poisoned too!

“I…I think I can feel it too…” Zhao Manyan said.

The strange condition continued to spread among the group, as if it was contagious. Even Mo Fan had itchy bumps on his arms!

“Are we Cursed by the ancient god?” Vani recalled the Curse that was said to befall anyone within three kilometers from the Sunset Shrine.

As soon as Vani mentioned the Curse, everyone immediately panicked as they recalled the horrible corpse they had seen in the photograph.

“Stay calm. No Curse can last for a few thousand years, let alone one with such a huge area of coverage. There must be something we missed,” Mo Fan said.

“But we haven’t come into contact with anything!” Zhao Manyan exclaimed.

Mo Fan looked up, and stared at the moon with an eerie green glow hanging in the sky.

“Don’t tell me you’re considering the moonlight poisonous?” Heidi asked when she saw Mo Fan staring at the moon.

“The letter Anna sent me mentioned that they suspected the wounds on the rotten body were caused by some kind of Light Magic, but the victim clearly went to the Sunset Shrine at night, and the only light here is from the moon,” Mo Fan replied.

“How could the moonlight cause this? Unless there’s some evil energy hidden in the moonlight that we aren’t aware of…” Heidi said.

“I believe that thing there might be the cause of it,” Mo Fan pointed at a tower further away.

The tower was over forty meters tall. There was a huge hole in it, with something glowing inside. Zhao Manyan had believed it held some kind of treasure, but he did not dare go any closer, as they were too many Silver Snake Warriors nearby.

“Let’s go take a look?” Heidi suggested.

“Yeah,” Mo Fan nodded.

It was difficult for the whole group to move around. Some of them were now suffering greatly from the festering. Mo Fan only brought Heidi and Sofia, who was also a Shadow Mage, along.

—

Heidi was a Sound Mage. She could keep a lookout for the demon creatures nearby with ease.

Mo Fan and Sofia had no trouble sneaking past the Silver Snake Warriors with the Shadow Element, they just needed to conceal their presence. These Silver Snake Warriors that had not reached the Commander-level were unable to detect their shadows.

They flitted past a few gardens overgrown with weed and looked up the pitch-black tower. The glow it was emitting felt quite eerie!

“Don’t…don’t you think it looks like an eye?” Sofia asked in a trembling voice.

“It is an eye!” Mo Fan said confidently.

Heidi’s night vision was not as good as the two Shadow Mages, yet she was covered in goosebumps when she heard Mo Fan and Sofia mentioning that the thing glowing on the tower was actually an eye. How was an eye so big and glowing? What kind of creature was it?

“I’ve seen something similar before,” Mo Fan went on.

Mo Fan remembered there was something like an eye in the Ancient King’s imperial tomb, called the Wicked Eye Copper Mirror.

The Wicked Eye Copper Mirror’s uses were very odd. Han Ji had mentioned that it was made using the Light Element and the Chaos Element.

Mo Fan referred to it as an ancient surveillance camera. It was not difficult to understand how the Wicked Eye Copper Mirror worked if he considered it a combination of the Light Element and the Chaos Element.

The thing on the tower was not a living creature. It was something evil, similar to the Wicked Eye Copper Mirror, and was fixed into the tower. When the light it emitted was mixed with the moonlight, the moon turned an eerie green in the eyes of those looking at it.

“It must be the Burning Evil Eye,” Mo Fan said.

“Burning Evil Eye? What’s that?” Sofia asked curiously.

Heidi was also staring at Mo Fan. She was extremely curious about how Mo Fan knew these things. He definitely did not look like the knowledgeable kind to her!

“I read about it in an ancient manuscript in Greece. In the early days, when humans had just invented magic, their ways of using magic weren’t mature yet, so they used the organs of dead ancient beasts to forge some defensive artifacts to stop demon creatures from invading their cities. This Burning Evil Eye was quite popular back then. It’s similar to a light barrier, but it doesn’t stop the enemy from entering. However, the light will destroy the enemy’s cells inside the barrier. The longer the enemy stays inside it, the greater the damage. It seems like the guy that died to the Curse of the Sunset Shrine was actually killed by this Burning Evil Eye instead!” Mo Fan declared confidently.

“How did you learn all that?” Sofia asked with a confused face.

“It’s normal to prepare myself before coming here. I read about these things in some old books,” Mo Fan replied loftily.

The God of Death in Greece, Egypt’s national beast, and the Totem Beasts in China; it seemed like every ancient civilization was tied to these sacred beasts in some ways. Therefore, when Mo Fan was convalescing at the Parthenon Temple, he had read a lot of books about the European countries and the countries to the south of the Aegean Sea. The books at the Parthenon Temple had historical records that were not disclosed to the public. Mo Fan just wanted to see if the Totem Beasts had any ties to the sacred beasts in foreign countries, while learning about their ancient civilizations at the same time.

Greece and Egypt were tied closely together, and it seemed they had even once clashed with one another because of the Burning Evil Eye!