Throne of Magical Arcana - The Hunts

0Completely out of the baron’s expectation, the silver cup in his hand was shattered by the magic missiles, and the broken pieces fell onto the thick carpet.
    

The baron and Kaelyn were totally startled. They did not understand what was going on there.
    

Seizing the chance, Lucien cast Palmeira’s Frost Blades, and three icy blades were shot straight at the baron.
    

When the blades were about to hit the baron, Habearo released an angry roar and fiercely reached out his fossilized right fist to punch one of the blades, while at the same time he put his left hand on his neck to protect himself, since it had turned into stone as well.
    

One of the blades was smashed by the baron’s stone fist, but by then the other two blades hit him — one in his left arm and one in his leg. Although they did not cause much damage, the ice temporarily froze him on the spot.
    

When Lucien was about to cast another spell, a black magic ray directly hit the invisible Star Shield covering him. As soon as the shield was hit, the previously invisible shield radiated star light and protected the person within it.
    

Lucien did not expect that Kaelyn was actually a sorcerer apprentice!
    

Although Kaelyn’s spell was not powerful enough to hurt Lucien, a real sorcerer, it bought time for the baron to get rid of the ice.
    

In the next moment, the layer of ice covering Habearo collapsed, and then the stone-man rushed straight at Lucien. Although Habearo wanted to get his sword on the desk to the side, he decided to launch the attack immediately, in order to leave the sorcerer no time to cast any spell.
    

Habearo’s dusty and fossilized fist hit Lucien’s Star Shield bitterly, and the shield cracked. Being experienced in fighting with sorcerers, Habearo changed the angle of his attack.
    

Lucien did not panic. Making the best use of the time the shield granted him before shattering to pieces, Lucien cast the first circle spell, Sleep.
    

Surrounding Lucien, green light waves expanded outward in circles.
    

As soon as the light waves touched Kaelyn, her eyes became languid, and then, right in the middle of the fighting, she yawned and fell on the floor to start sleeping.
    

Even strong as Habearo’s stone body was, he was heavily struck by a sense of tiredness, as if he was experiencing a sudden process of aging, and his movement also paused a bit.
    

Within this pause, a bright light showed up above Lucien’s left hand, and he threw a head-sized fireball at the baron.
    

Although Habearo’s instinctive reaction freed him from the tiredness instantly, it was still too late for him to fully avoid the fire ball.
    

Together with the explosion of the fire ball, Habearo’s right arm was devoured by the fire. The blast fiercely threw the three dead bodies, the baby, the young boy and the teenager, away to the other side of the room.
    

Some kind of mix of festered and stinky blood came out of the baron’s stone body, and what was even more shocking was that Habearo’s face started to age very fast.
    

Completely mad, Habearo screamed and rushed at Lucien again, with his remaining limbs.
    

Using Alert to block the baron’s attack, Lucien could see that even his sword was surrounded by stone dust as if the sword would turn into stone soon.
    

Before Habearo’s power did any real damage to the sword, Lucien activated Sun’s Corona.
    

A beam of holy light was summoned and directly struck the baron.
    

“Holy light?!” Habearo cried out.
    

The light was burning the baron’s skin and finally peeled off the stone covering his body. Seeing that his own body was rotting in a visible speed, the baron looked very scared, but then, became calm and relieved.
    

Bathing in the holy light, aging and dying in the holy light, he murmured as if he was dreaming, “My skin was losing its glory, like dried fruit…
    

“My face was fully covered with wrinkles, and so did my body…
    

“My strength and agility were fast declining and could never come back again…
    

“I couldn’t see beautiful sceneries, couldn’t taste cuisines…
    

“My passion was fading… even having a young beautiful woman in my arms was…”
    

Hearing his words, Lucien frowned, but the baron continued, “Why people age?
    

“Why when people age, all the happiness is gone?
    

“Where’s God’s heaven?”
    

Although Lucien couldn’t really understand the pain of aging, he was still sort of shocked. And he was sort of grateful that he chose the sorcerer path, so he could still have a chance to live longer than common people.
    

After someone became a senior-rank mage, he or she could make it over two hundred years old, and a sorcerer or sorceress could still turn to magic rituals and potions to further prolong their lifespan, such as Lich Conversion, although many of them died during the process.
    

Even middle or junior mage could also find assorted ways to live longer.
    

The baron’s eyes slowly closed. His sinful life finally ended.
    

Lucien felt rather lucky that he decisively made up his mind and took action in time, since if the baron had completed his ritual and recovered his power of a level two knight, that would probably be the end of Lucien.
    

However, after killing the baron, the uneasy sense of foreboding was still lingering above Lucien’s mind. What he felt mostly suspicious was the reason why, even toward the end of the fight, Habearo never cast any necromantic spell.
    

Lucien’s brows frowned, since he knew that there was only one possible explanation for this: The baron himself was not a necromancer, and it was someone else who was instigating and enticing Habearo to use young lives to keep his own youthfulness using black magic.
    

So, after binding Kaelyn’s arms, Lucien woke her up.
    

As soon as Kaelyn opened her eyes, she saw a pair of black pupils in which there was a starry sky. Lucien used his hypnosis on her.
    

“Mr. Evans, what do you want me to do?” asked Kaelyn, like a little girl speaking to someone she admired. She just completely ignored the loud fighting sound on the other side of the castle.
    

To be more specific, what Lucien was using right now was the first circle spell called Charm Person, which could control a person’s mind whose spiritual power was less strong than the spellcaster’s. Unless the given order conflicted greatly with the will of the person being controlled, in most cases, the person who got controlled would just follow the spell caster’s orders.
    

“Tell me, who taught you magic, and who taught the baron the black ritual?” asked Lucien directly.
    

“My husband, Hunt, or say, the baron’s steward, Mr. Cork.” Kaelyn smiled, as if she was very glad that she could provide any useful information to Lucien, “Several years ago, when he was invited to be the baron’s civil official, Hunt started to teach Habearo to use the power of the death of young lives to extend his own life, and at the same time, he could use the dead bodies for his experiments afterwards. In order to better disguise what they were doing, Hunt became the baron’s steward.”
    

“Cork… Hunt… Kaelyn Hunt…?!” Lucien was quite shocked, “Are you the Hunts from Bonn?”
    

Kaelyn Cork was actually Mrs. Hunt, who Lucien was looking for to fulfill his promise to the revenant girl.
    

What happened to them, Lucien wondered.
    

As soon as Lucien mentioned Bonn, Kaelyn’s mood started to become very unstable, and her great emotional pain freed her from Lucien’s spell, “How do you know we were from Bonn?! Who are you!”
    

“People in Bonn told me that Mrs. Hunt was a nice and beautiful lady, who was always willing to offer help, especially taking care of kids. Why have you become like this? Why are you helping your husband to kill other kids?” Lucien did not answer her questions directly.
    

Kaelyn was shocked, as if Lucien’s words stabbed her in the heart, and a few seconds later she started to laugh like she was crazy, “I… I was nice and beautiful? I was willing to help people? Hahahaha… You see what I got from my kindness? My daughter got kidnapped and she’s been missing for ten years, and my husband turned into a monster. Now, when I see how heartbroken these parents become when they lose their kids, I feel I have companions who can understand my pain!”
    

“Where is Hunt, then…” Lucien remained calm.
    

“He’s doing an experiment in the cemetery,” Kaelyn sneered. “Hunt was too busy, and your sword made the baron decide to be more careful with you, or we’d just have killed you, instead of preparing some stupid dinner.”
    

“Experiment…” Hearing that, Lucien had a really bad feeling about it.
    

“Hunt’s a monster now. He is still as mysterious and powerful as he was, but he’s no longer a considerate man, as he once was in Bonn.” Kaelyn murmured, as if she was talking to herself.
    

“Mysterious and powerful…” Lucien suddenly realized that he made a wrong assumption before. He had thought that Hunt turned into a necromancer when he arrived in this land, which was known for the past prevalence of necromancers, however, it seemed like Hunt was already a necromancer when he was in Bonn!
    

“Knock, knock, knock…” Something was gently knocking at the window.
    

When Lucien looked back, what he saw shocked him. There was a gray owl standing outside of the bedroom window, or, to be more specific, it was a dead owl, since its whole body was basically rotten and its white bones were exposed to the air.
    

As Lucien was staring at it, the owl also looked at Lucien and Kaelyn with its cold eyes, but kept knocking at the window with its beak.
    

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