Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation(1-3VOL)

Lost

"The situation is beyond what I alone can handle now. We should hurry back to report to the Archbishop and get reinforcements,"

She had lost her appetite now, urging me to prepare to head back immediately.

"More people here will soon collapse. We have to race against time."

After bidding Sister Hila and Pastor Simon farewell, Selene had me tie her up again just like when we arrived, flying southwards towards the royal capital.

...

It was a clouded, moonless night. Flying high up, other than some faint mountain contours, everything on the ground was pitch-black, unable to see clearly.

"What exactly happened?" Soon after taking off, Selene and I kept discussing the origin of those inexplicable dark elements in the sky, but to no avail.

"Even if someone did this deliberately, where would they find such an enormous amount of dark elements, and their goal is just to pollute an obscure little town?"

"Anyway after I complete this mission it won't concern me anymore. And I should have helped a lot this time right, can't you church show some gesture of thanks, like rewarding some gold coins or something..." Although I was also very puzzled, I didn't want to think too much about this bizarre affair. I just hoped to return as soon as possible now, so I kept looking ahead exerting my full strength flying.

"Alright, alright, I'll try to apply to see if I can get you some," Selene's voice came from below. Because she was tied to me, I couldn't see her expression, but she sounded quite impatient, probably because I had brought it up several times already.

After all, gold coins were very valuable goods, with one gold coin equivalent to a full 10,000 silver coins.

"Looks like it's going to rain," She looked at the surroundings starting to turn grey, and suddenly warned. I'm not sure if she deliberately changed the topic. But only then did I notice we had flown into a very low layer of dark clouds.

"If it rains, your wings will get wet. Better fly higher,"

"Okay." I agreed and immediately flapped my wings to ascend. Within a few breaths I rushed above the clouds. In that instant, everything before my eyes turned bright. The soft moonlight spilled onto me. I felt the whole world suddenly become tranquil.

"So beautiful..."

Selene gazed at the bright moon overhead and sighed emotionally.

Below, you could even faintly see our rapidly passing shadows on the surface of the clouds.

We both fell silent, as if intoxicated by the beautiful night scene.

"How much longer? We must be close right?"

I yawned as we flew. My spirits were evidently much lower at night after all. I reckoned we had flown for an hour. We should arrive soon. So I started lowering altitude.

The clouds remained just as thick with no sign of dispersing. You could still vaguely see lightning flashes within. It did make me somewhat uneasy, afraid of getting struck by accident.

Fortunately our speed was fast. We passed through soon.

Below the clouds, luckily it was not raining, only pitch black below since the moonlight was blocked, and I couldn't see anything on the ground at all, without any lights either.

"Don't you feel something is off?"

Selene suddenly sensed something amiss and spoke to me.

"After flying so far, the level of dark pollution around hasn't decreased. It might have even increased slightly."