The Moon Thief

This person was a man with a very calm and ordinary expression on his face. His eyes were blue, and underneath the hood of his robe, wavy brown hair was falling down towards his shoulders, and he had a short but fairly dense brown beard. This man came before Cruxal and started to say something to him. Then he raised his arms and a white fog formed on his hands, which then surrounded Cruxal and then disintegrated.

Part of his left arm was exposed when the man raised his arms, and Heinald noticed something strange at that time. The man had a strange tattoo on his forearm. He squinted at once and began to scrutinize that tattoo with all his attention. He had difficulty seeing the tattoo clearly, being hundreds of meters away from them, but he could tell that it was a snake tattoo wrapped around a wand.

"What did that man do to the Cruxal?" Heinald thought inwardly. He could not understand what the smoke screen was for.

The man soon walked away and left the Cruxal behind.

Heinald soon left and returned to town. The sun was just beginning to rise when he returned to town. When he entered the house where Dane and the others were, he noticed that there was an extra person there.

"Heinald, welcome! Come meet Baunt. He's the one I told you about earlier, who showed us this area." Dane pointed to the man standing next to him.

"I am pleased." Baunt said.

"Me too." Heinald nodded.

"I hope nothing bad happened to you?" Dane looked at Heinald.

"No, I've actually seen some pretty strange things." Indeed, Heinald had seen interesting and strange things.

"Like what?" Dane's eyebrows rose.

Heinald explained everything he observed. What he was telling would have attracted everyone's attention, so everyone in the room listened with full attention. Especially the mysterious man Heinald saw surprised everyone.

"That tattoo is probably the symbol of the organization that man is a member of." Baunt scratched his chin. "However, I have never seen such a symbol before, unfortunately I do not know which organization."

"You still caught a very important detail. If we investigate it, we can find a very important clue." Dane had a thoughtful expression.

"You must have gotten pretty close to them to capture all that detail, how did you go unnoticed?" Morena looked at Heinald curiously.

"Well, I have some trumps too." Heinald winked, gave an evasive answer.

"I have a few friends who know about the organizations hiding behind the shadows. I can talk to them and try to find out what organization is behind this tattoo." Baunt tossed off his thoughtful expression and stood.

"Very good! We will continue our observations." Dane said.

Before long, Baunt said goodbye to everyone and left.

"Can we trust him for sure?" Heinald asked.

"Don't worry he's a pretty old friend of mine, I can vouch for him!" Dane glanced at Heinald standing beside him. "We're going to look around. If you're not tired, would you like to come with us?"

"I'm not tired, I'll come with you." Heinald nodded.

"Okay, let's go then!" Dane clapped his hands.

"I, Ruske and Mady go to observe the east side, Heinald and Dane the west side." said Morena.

"Okay!" Dane and Heinald nodded.

Heinald and Dane mounted their horses and set off to the west. The region, which included Penrith Town and its surrounding towns, was known as the Pachil Region. They would observe roads, fields, and towns to the west of this area.

"Wait! Did you feel it?" Heinald stopped abruptly.

"Yes, Dark Energy in the surrounding has suddenly concentrated." Dane nodded gravely. They were in a wooded area and immediately began to observe their surroundings more cautiously.

"Let's get off the horses and walk." Heinald whispered.

"OK." Dane nodded.

The two of them started walking slowly through the wooded area together. The Dark Energy intensity they felt increased as they walked towards the inner part of the wooded area.

"There!" In a sparse area, Heinald saw a crouching silhouette next to a dead wolf.

The sunlight filtering through the trees seemed to have no effect on his silhouette. The shape of this silhouette was constantly changing, sometimes small and sometimes large.

"What is this?" Dane whispered. The Dark Energy he felt had never been more intense.

"Nyaa!" The silhouette suddenly began to make a deafening, screaming sound.

"It spotted us!" Heinald immediately understood the situation, and the silhouette began to move towards them.

The silhouette started to stretch towards its surroundings like a dough, its size was getting bigger and bigger. He then slowly transformed into a tall monster figure whose body was tens of meters long, with long feet and fingers. However, he was still in a silhouette form, without eyes and mouth, as if a shadow had emerged from the heart of darkness.

"Damn! It's a Shapeshifter!" Heinald frowned. Shapeshifters were one of the ancient demon species. They were known as an extremely dangerous demon species that drained the energy of the creatures they captured.

"Can you tell at what level its power?" Dane asked.

"No, I do not fully understand the power contained by the Dark Energy waves emanating from him. However, I feel my own energy being suppressed, which means that his strength is close to or equal to that of a Level 2 Ainsar." Heinald immediately took a Low Level Fire Effect Potion from his robe pocket and drank it.

At this moment, Shapeshifter had gotten closer to them and had lifted one of its arms and waved it quickly. The horizontal dark energy wave emerging from his claw began to fly directly over the two.

Heinald and Dane immediately bent over and dodge the horizontal black energy wave that came upon them. The horizontal dark energy wave instantly cut the trees in its path and caused hundreds of trees within hundreds of meters to split into two halves in total. The vitality in the trees that were divided into two soon dried up and the trees began to rot.

"Dane keep your distance, if its attack reaches you, it will kill you immediately!" Heinald's Magic Energy was greater and stronger than Dane. Moreover, he had a spell that allowed him to move fast like Whisper of the Wind, so it made more sense to stay on the front line.

Dane nodded and stepped back.

"Dragon Instinct!" Five fireballs came out of Heinald's hand, and they all stuck to the Shapeshifter. Then, a reaction started between the fireballs and there was a violent explosion of fire. The entire area, about 70 meters in diameter, was destroyed.

Even though Dane used a wind spell to protect himself, the scorching heat from the explosion still affected him.

"Naaa!" The Shapeshifter let out a deafening cry again and leapt out of the fire to attack. He raised his arms and formed a black ball, then hurled it towards Heinald. 

Heinald immediately cast Whisper of the Wind and glided away before the ball reached him. When the black ball hit the tree, a black energy explosion occurred in that area and a small but deep crater formed.

"Thunder Charge!" Dane cried out and stretched out his hands. Three lightning balls appeared in front of his hands. The three lightning balls simultaneously flew towards the Shapeshifter, but were blocked by a black wall formed by it.

A black wall suddenly appeared in front of the three lightning balls, and the resulting lightning blast was absorbed by this wall.

"Lightning Spear!" Heinald raised his hand up and lightning bolts appeared above his hands. When Lightning Spear formed it flew towards the Shapeshifter quite quickly.

However, at this time, Shapeshifter also created a black ball again and sent it towards the Lightning Spear.

*BAM!* There was a violent explosion and the resulting energy waves caused great havoc in the region.

"Damn, he can respond so fast." Heinald muttered.

Although this Shapeshifter was quite powerful, it didn't seem like he had the strength of a Level 2 Ainsar, if he did, they would probably both be dead right now.

The black ball that the Shapeshifter created had to be a kind of Dark Spell, the destructive power was really great. Even a peak Tier 1 Ainsar would be killed by it within seconds if directly exposed to it.

After Heinald stepped back a bit, he cast the spell called Fire Vines. Burning vines appeared around the Shapeshifter and enveloped it. He quickly cast his spell called Predatory Destruction without wasting any time. Clouds of fire appeared over the Shapeshifter, and chunks of flame began to rain heavily on him. As the large numbers of flame fragments fell to the ground, they formed small explosions, and when these explosions came together, they actually created a sea of ​​scorching fire around that area.