The burden of truth was too heavy for Ezra to bear. He had come here hoping to seek answers and rediscover his past, but Oferion’s revelation only added to his mental trauma.“I…am not the son of a crazed murderer! I cannot be!” Ezra denounced, clenching his fist.Oferion however, remained calm and replied in a gentle voice, “Your father already paid for his crimes. And you forget that you also have the blood of one of the bravest elves running through your veins.”“I don’t believe you. If my mother was an elf, why don’t I look like her?” he asked.It was true that Ezra looked like a perfect human and had no features that could liken him to any kind of elf. But Oferion knew something that he did not.“How kind do you think fate would have been to you if you looked like a dark elf? Do you think the Romanovs would still have adopted and accepted you as one of their own?” Oferion sighed and shook his head. “No, my dear boy. They would have either left you to die out here or fed you to the

The wooden beams supporting the roof of the monastery crackled and snapped like twigs as the flames spread across the room. As the fire bolts kept raining upon the building, it quickly turned into a pyre, with smoke billowing out the hole in its ceiling like a chimney.Ezra realized that if he stayed inside this building even a minute longer, the whole structure would collapse on his head and bury him alive. He could already feel the heat from the flames raging around him, and the smoke made it extremely difficult to see anything.Tying his silk kerchief around his mouth, Ezra took a deep breath and touched his Lunar Howl pendant. “Summon Spectral Companion!”The spectral white wolf leaped out of the pendant and howled. Hearing the ferocious predator’s hunting cry, the Centaur Warriors accompanying the Brutes scampered away in fear.However, the four Brutes attacking the monastery held their ground. Since they were high-level humanoid hybrids, they were extremely resistant to intimidat

As the dark fog wafted in Ezra’s direction, the veins on his arms turned black and his skin changed from peachy white to stony gray. His lower body gradually became numb and after a while, he could barely feel his legs.“What is with this fog?” Ezra had never experienced anything like this before and it made him anxious and uncertain.Just then, his system panel flashed open, displaying a terrible status effect.[Warning: Lethal proximity to Dark Fog.][Necrotic Rot contracted!][Skin and flesh decay accelerated by 100%.][Step out of the fog to slow the decay.]“Necrotic Rot? How is this even possible?” Ezra was shocked by the status effect displayed on his system panel. As far as he knew only necrophages and necromancers could inflict Necrotic Rot.But there was no way the undead had raided this forest or else the Centaurs would not have survived the onslaught. What was even more shocking was the presence of a Centaur Shaman in their midst since Centaurs despised magic and were amon

Ezra felt a strange restlessness in his heart as he stared at the wooden totem erected in the middle of the settlement. Even though he had killed the Shaman, he could feel an evil presence lingering in the dark.With the Shaman dead, the dark fog gradually dispersed, and the moon cast its pale glow upon the forest, illuminating the dense undergrowth and pushing back the shadows.Ezra gulped the last healing potion in his inventory to slow the spread of the necrotic rot, but it did little to reverse the damage which had already taken place. His flesh had turned squishy, and his skin dry and flaky. “God, that stinks!” He scrunched his nose as the smell of rotten flesh wafted up his nostrils.Bruised and battered, Ezra looked like he had crawled right out of a nightmare. Even his hair was starting to fall off, and the veins on his arms had turned sickly black. Any sensible person would have hurried out of the forest, but Ezra felt drawn toward the wooden totem before him. It was a stran

The Rosington firearms were always custom-made for high-ranking nobles, and their single-barrel shotgun was no different. It was a smoothbore pump-action shotgun enchanted with magic glyphs that were carved onto its stock.Ezra marveled at the shotgun’s polished steel muzzle and the specially designed silver trigger with runic engravings on its surface. Unlike the basic 12-gauge shotguns available in the market, this one had ivory ribs jutting out like pine needles from the top of its barrel, and its movable forestock was made of varnished mahogany wood.Just by looking at the gun Ezra could tell it had cost Count Gressil a few thousand Sovereigns at least, and the silver slugs which came with it had probably set him back by another hundred. As Ezra reached for the shotgun, Marlin’s cursed eye re-opened, but his mouth no longer appeared under it.“You’re finally back. I guess you could not contain your excitement upon sensing a new weapon?” Ezra’s question remained unanswered, but h