Artemis Unveiled:The Descent

Untitled Part 55: Resurrection of Death

When Aria woke up, it was pitch black around her, and her head throbbed with pain. She couldn't help but let out a low groan. She realized that the surrounding forest was constantly receding. With difficulty, she looked up and saw a man in a black robe dragging her forward, her powerless body leaving a deep trail on the ground.

She felt as if she had been unconscious for a long time. It was daytime before she passed out, but now the sky was as black as ink, with only a bright full moon hanging high. The man threw her onto the cold ground, moonlight spilling over her. She blinked her blurry eyes, trying to see where she was with the faint moonlight. Her gaze fell on a massive wing-shaped skeleton that had been burned— the corpse of a celestial deer beast.

Light footsteps approached in the darkness, followed by a woman's irritable voice: "Drag it over here...we don't have much time...hurry up...or we'll miss the full moon..."

The sound of a whip cracked, followed by horse hooves and neighs. Something heavy was being dragged by the horses. Aria looked towards the sound, her vision gradually clearing, and saw robed figures whipping two tall horses. The horses were pulling a long, pale object.

She quickly realized it was a coffin made of white crystal. In the silver moonlight, it shimmered with a chilling glow. The woman approached, the mist on her face vanishing, revealing a ghastly smile on her dried, lifeless face. She reached out with a skeletal hand, smoothing her sparse hair, where ears should have been, there was only an ugly scar.

"I thought you would sleep until you died. Feeling your own death would be worse than dying." She mocked.

Supporting herself on the ground, Aria raised her head with difficulty. "Are you... Daphne Blackwood? Damian Blackwood's sister?"

Her lips twitched, a flicker of surprise crossed her cold face but quickly vanished. She looked down at Aria without any emotion, as if gazing at a dying soul.

"But...weren't you burned to death?" Aria asked weakly.

"The Lunar Essence people are utterly stupid," she spat out with hatred. "They couldn't even distinguish a corpse. I cut off the ears of the body, then placed my Soul Stone, and they believed that charred corpse was me."

"Why deceive them?" Aria tried to stand up, but her body felt bound by iron chains, refusing to obey her will, and she collapsed onto the cold ground.

"He started investigating me after returning," Daphne's voice was filled with hatred, her eyes blazing with anger. "He was tracking missing persons and suspected I was trying to leave the Moon Tower. I had to create a body to make him think I was really dead."

"You're talking about Neven?" Aria asked in surprise, her voice trembling.

"Your friend, Neven Everhart, indeed," Daphne's tone was so cold it could freeze the air. "Now it's time for him to pay the price, to understand the consequences of opposing Mara. I'll use the blood of his beloved woman as a sacrifice to complete the most crucial part of the resurrection spell."

"Who are you going to resurrect?" Aria asked, her face pale with fear.

Daphne walked to the coffin, her malicious expression softening as she looked at it tenderly. She gently caressed the smooth coffin lid, as if soothing her cherished child. "I knew him for a long time, but he said our relationship must always be a secret. No one in the Moon Tower could know. No one knew about us."

Her voice carried a trace of helplessness and sorrow, as if her heart's affection made it hard to accept the death inside the coffin.

Aria suddenly realized that the body inside the coffin might be someone she knew, and Daphne had prepared such a rare white crystal coffin for that person. She felt a wave of fear, realizing she was to become a sacrifice for a corpse, to die here.