"Luckily, I forced the Night Walker out of this cave, so for now, it can only wander outside, and you’re safe."
"But if the Night Walkers sense that their masters, the Dark Fairies, are touched or in danger, they will swarm back here, and we won’t have much ti. That’s why I suggest you save all the Dark Fairies at once and destroy the dium that the Dark Witches use to control them."
"However, you mustn’t touch the dium directly. Even though its malevolent energy has weakened over ti, it’s still dangerous."
Then Addison rembered that Lance and the others were still outside. Since the Light Fairies had ntioned the Night Walkers, didn’t that an her people’s lives were also in danger?
She realized she had little choice but to help, because if she didn’t, the first to die would be the people in the caravan.
Now she understood why Elric had warned them not to leave the barrier, no matter what they saw or heard. He must have known about this all along. A shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding finally escaped her lungs.
"Alright then," she said. "After we release the Dark Fairies, how do we free you without breaking the orb? Or do we simply shatter it?"
"Form a contract with ," the Light Fairy replied.
"Wait—what?! What about our affinity? Aren’t you going to check that first? Besides, I’m a werewolf, not a spiritualist..." Addison said, her heart lurching like it was on a roller coaster.
She couldn’t understand why the Light Fairy would even suggest such a thing. Werewolves were shifters with no natural affinity for magic; there had never been a werewolf mage in history.
That was why her father, the Alpha King, had no choice but to form an alliance with the Mage Tower, which was led by a human, the current Tower Master, Archmage Elric.
Without magic affinity, werewolves couldn’t sense magic, much less form bonds with fairies.
"Are you sure you an ... and not the mage standing behind ?" Addison asked again, skepticism clear in her voice.
"Forming a contract with a fairy doesn’t always require magic affinity. As long as you possess the talent and a connection to nature, it’s possible. It’s just... no one’s ever done it before, so nobody knew. But I can feel it—you and I could make a contract..." the Light Fairy said, its voice growing weaker. Perhaps even maintaining this ntal link with Addison was already pushing its body to the limit.
"So, how do I save the Dark Fairies?" Addison finally asked. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice; her only option now was to gamble her life on this.
"You could simply shatter the orbs from the seven pillars to release them..." The voice faded into silence. Addison didn’t even know how to form a contract with the Light Fairy as it had described. It seed the fairy had already exhausted its strength and fallen into a deep coma.
Addison swallowed the lump in her throat. "Didn’t you say I shouldn’t shatter the orb? What’s the difference between breaking yours and breaking theirs?"
No one answered.
She guessed the reason might be that the Dark Fairies’ orbs likely didn’t have any magic imbued in them, whereas the Light Fairy’s orb served as the Core Source of the barrier. Shattering it outright wouldn’t just deactivate the barrier; it would cause the magic to backfire against the Light Fairy. In its weakened state, it wouldn’t survive.
That must be why it was asking her to form a contract. A master–servant bond would allow them to share a life force, letting it draw on her strength to survive—like a parasite clinging to its host. The thought alone made Addison furrow her brows.
When Addison suddenly went silent in the middle of her one-sided conversation with the orb, everyone grew worried. Maxwell stepped closer.
"Baby, what’s wrong?" he asked, his gaze narrowing suspiciously at the orb. He wondered if Addison was hallucinating; perhaps the Dark Fairies were trying to stop them sohow. But that didn’t make sense. If this were a prison for Dark Fairies, wouldn’t they want the barrier destroyed so they could be free?
Which ant... it couldn’t be a Dark Fairy. Then was it truly a Light Fairy?
Maxwell glanced back at Zion, Levi, and Elric. Both Levi and Zion were frowning in deep thought, while Elric’s expression was entirely different—he looked as though he had just stumbled upon sothing extraordinary, his face lit with astonishnt.
"Addie..." Maxwell called out again.
Addison lifted her gaze to him, then turned to Elric. "Can you check if the orbs embedded in those pillars have any magic or traps imbued in them?"
Elric simply nodded. Noticing the orbs for the first ti, he took his ti examining each one carefully. Maxwell, anwhile, kept glancing at Addison with growing concern.
He’d overheard her one-sided conversation and could piece together fragnts of what she was planning, but was she really intending to free the Dark Fairies? Wouldn’t that endanger all of them?
And why was Elric complying so readily, without questioning her? Weren’t Dark Fairies supposed to be dangerous?
Before Maxwell could say anything, Elric returned. "Your Highness," he reported, "those orbs have no magic imbued in them."
"Alright then, can you prepare a spell that will let us safely extract the Dark Fairies from those orbs after we shatter them?" Addison asked.
Everyone imdiately understood her aning, but confusion still lingered. Seeing the resistance in her mates’ expressions, she had no choice but to share her conversation with the Light Fairy.
Her explanation left them all deep in thought. For now, they hadn’t touched the Dark Fairies, so the Night Walkers outside were still occupied trying to reach Lance’s party. But once they made contact, the Night Walkers would surely rush back here.
That ant they’d have only a narrow window to extract the Dark Fairies and destroy the diums controlling them.
What to do afterward, however, remained uncertain.
Still, they could only move forward with this plan. Even Elric nodded in agreent. Addison’s deduction about what would happen if they broke the Core Source first made the most sense.
If it truly housed a Light Fairy, then shattering it would not only kill the fairy but might also release the Night Walkers from their prison.
And even if they succeeded in extracting the Dark Fairies and destroying the diums placed by the Dark Witches centuries ago, there would still be a problem: without a Light Fairy to purify the Dark Fairies, the Night Walkers would return, and this ti, nothing would stop them.
That would an certain death for everyone here. Not only would they have freed the Dark Fairies, but they would have done their enemies’ work for them, effectively killing themselves in the process, a perfect example of killing two birds with one stone.
With Addison’s resolve so unshakable, they had no choice but to follow her lead. Still, Zion couldn’t help but voice a warning.
"After studying the structure of this place, I’ve noticed it was built with a high ceiling supported only by these seven pillars. Once we shatter the orbs embedded in them, we’ll also be weakening the pillars themselves. It won’t be long before the entire place caves in. Based on my calculations, we’ll have at most five minutes, ten if we’re lucky."
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