CHAPTER 457: ATTACK OF MO NING

As the last of the chant filled the air, the bloody array swiftly burst into crimson flames, heating up the giant hall that once summoned me. Despite being in a cave, the flames danced about as if blown by a gust of wind. Yet this strangeness did not last long as the flames suddenly parted to reveal a black rift from which a blackened hoof emerged…

Unlike a normal horse’s hoof, the area above was covered in a tuft of reddish fur that seemed more like fire than fur. Next was to emerge was a black horse head. On the head itself was a bloody red mane that flowed majestically as it emerged from the darkness of the rift. Finally, the entire horse emerged. Red fur and the size of a normal horse… These were characteristics of a Nightmare Steed!

I had fought with a Nightmare Steed multiple times before so I knew full well how to identify one. But wasn’t I trying to summon Mo Ning?! She was a Purgatory Warhorse the last time I checked…did she die? How else was there a Nightmare Steed standing before me right now?

I really did not know if I should be happy or sad if my hunch was proved true. However, that conundrum didn’t last too long as I realised I was overthinking matters once again. If she were really dead, I would have sensed it through our pact. In other words… She evolved?!

Hold on… hasn’t it just been a week since I came to the Shadowhunter Clan… how is she already a Nightmare Steed?

“Dearest!”

The moment that black horse stepped out of the rift and laid eyes on me, she galloped towards me in a fit of excitement, calling out to me with that dreaded word.

Scram! I’m not your dearest! Blasted horse, I don’t want you anywhere near me!

Unfortunately, I needed her right now so I did not say that out loud. Blast… better keep a smile on…

“Don’t call me dearest!”

Or not…

“But… we already signed a pact…” She said with the downcast eyes of someone who had been wronged.

“Don’t bring up that pact too…” What are you looking all wronged for? Dang it, I should be the one who feels wronged.

Faced with such obedience however, it wouldn’t be right of me to stay angry, but I really wanted to… such a conundrum. In the end, I decided to turn the subject to something else before she had the chance to bring up any further talk of that pact.

“How has Mo Na been while I was gone these few days?”

“She’s doing well, but she doesn’t seem to like me too much.” As she said that, her tone seemed a little odd, as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words to say it with.

“It’s all thanks to the pact I signed with dearest!”

The moment the subject was about her evolution, her eyes practically lit up as she went on and on about the whole process. Honestly, the whole reason was because of my noble lineage and that high level pact we signed. Thanks to that, she ended up receiving some unintentional benefits. Said benefits included the strengthening of the weaker party’s bloodlines. However, this strengthening had strict conditions attached to it. The bloodlines of both parties must have differed by at least three tiers before one side could be strengthened. Furthermore, the party being strengthened must have had a higher evolution available as well.

In Mo Ning’s case, the Nightmare Steed was the next evolution of a Purgatory Warhorse, so she naturally evolved into that form when her bloodline was strengthened. Now, if she were a Nightmare Steed to begin with… the strengthening might not have happened at all.

Naturally, that wasn’t to say that the Nightmare Steed was the peak of Mo Ning’s evolution either. That only applied to ordinary Purgatory Warhorses.

So I’m basically a walking miracle elixir then? Just one taste and you will see the effects right away? Horse breeders hate him! But this horse has never looked stronger since using this one little trick! Not like it matters though… you’re still a horse. Let’s see you try and turn into a human instead! If you can do that, I swear on my bottle of chili oil that I will engage in the act of fornication with you right away!

Naturally, I was not one to voice out something so hurtful to a horse…

“Master… master…” Came a timid little voice from behind me. Clearly, our resident timid bunny was startled by the sudden appearance of a black horse.

“There there… no need to cry. Mo Ning is my steed, she won’t hurt you.”

Being the timid girl that she was, her first instinct upon seeing a Nightmare Steed was to duck behind my back for cover. Her little head shrunk into her neck as she began shivering uncontrollably. If there was ever anything more pitiful looking than her, it hadn’t been invented yet. But that was what made her so endearing to me.

After a short session of comforting, along with Mo Ning standing harmlessly beside me, Jezsere finally conquered the fear in her heart and stuck her neck out. “Hell… hello. I’m Jezsere, the master’s… servant…”

“Hello, I’m Mo Ning. I have an engagement pact with dearest over here.” Mo Ning nodded in Jezsere’s direction. “Are you one of Dearest’s new servants? So you’re my servant as well then? Is there a lava lake nearby? I would like it prepared later…”

Seeing as her requests were only getting weirder by the second, I quickly interrupted her while hugging Jezsere in the process. “Jezsere is my own personal servant, not yours.”

“But dearest…”

“No buts!”

Hmph. How dare you try and touch my harem, you must be looking for death!

Once again, she had on that look of a bullied wife. Even so, she didn’t seem to show any signs of wanting to object.

To be honest, her personality was really likable, but I just had no feelings towards a horse… not even if that horse could take on a human form in my dreams and perform the acts of fornication… ahem…As everyone knows by now, I am a person of virtue. I have walked the path of a sage and have now set my sights on the title of Grand Sage. And that’s why, I will have to pass on doing it with a Nightmare Steed…just let me be a quiet little monk… minding his own business… cultivating his days away…

Now that Mo Ning was here, I took the opportunity to introduce her around. First, there was Paliseth, Reyage and Jezsere. These three were the closest to me right now. Paliseth seemed intrigued by this newcomer, and because of Paliseth’s own strength, Mo Ning showed her a great deal of deference.

Yet since finding out about the rather complicated relationship between Mo Ning and I, the look Paliseth gave the both of us changed, and in the strange direction no less… Either way, this horse and Dark Elf combo chatted for a while then left together, hand in hoof.

Because this whole exchange happened through a private channel, I had no way of knowing what went down exactly. At times, I saw Mo Ning shaking her head as if she was objecting to something. But whenever that happened, Paliseth would slap her bountiful chest as if to say, leave it to me. At that point, Mo Ning would hesitate and look in my direction. Finally, she seemed to nod her head in acquiescence… what the potato were those two even talking about? Some new way of scamming me, I bet.

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I swear I’ve gotten PTSD ever since Ferti’nier scammed me so many times… maybe they have a medieval shrink somewhere…

Before leaving however, that old hag elegantly walked up to me and said, “Your Holiness, Paliseth intends to bring her new younger sister over here around the city, would your holiness like to come along?”

“No. It’s fine. May your trip be a fruitful one.”

Hah. Like a Grand Sage would ever accompany a female on a shopping trip. You know what, I hope those two have a blast together, that way all that nonsense with Mo Ning is settled as well.

Even though it was a guarantee that I had to travel with Mo Ning within the Western Human Realms…but this isn’t the Western Human Realms, is it? There’s no need to rush now… early bird avoids the horse and all that… I just can’t stand having that kind of relationship with a horse…

Still, looking at the way Mo Ning turned her head back to look at me every step, I couldn’t help but wonder if going to the battlefield now was a good idea.

Before this, my plan was to head to the battlefield myself to harvest some souls, but now that I had absorbed the souls from the Soulstones, my body was perfectly fine… Really, why didn’t I think of this sooner?

With that in mind, I turned to look at the timid girl in my embrace… Sigh… if there’s one fault to be had about her, it’s that she is unreliable… I mean how does an Occultist not even have a filled Soulstone?! Geez!

Maybe she’s just born into the wrong environment, or job.

“Master?” Feeling my gaze on her, Jezsere blinked her eyes adorably then poked her own face gently. “Does Jezsere’s face have something on it?”

“No, no. I just wanted to look at you, that’s all.”

Jezsere blushed in an instant. “Oh… master can keep on looking then.”

“Oh you…”

Really… what am I to do with her… just smile lovingly, I guess.