Dark Magic had greatly enhanced the witches’ power. Even when encountering vampires, they no longer had to flee as before; they now had the ability to fight back. This made the witches even more anxious to rescue their kin from the vampires’ grasp.

Rescue their people, then return to their territory. Given time, they too could grow into a powerful race like the werewolves and elves, a race the vampires would be wary of and dare not treat lightly.

While the Morgan Family was in the God Race’s territory to pick up their people, the other witches did not halt their rescue efforts. A nearby city held many of their kin, but it was also heavily guarded by vampires. Elder Kana, in collaboration with the other elders, worked day and night, tirelessly using divination to find the perfect opportunity.

As the Garcia witches discussed their rescue plan, the patrol and guard duties once again fell to the Anderson Family. Surprisingly, Elder Molly did not complain about this tedious and boring task. Instead, she led her people on patrol with dutiful obedience, a stark contrast to her previous self, who wore her dissatisfaction plainly on her face.

Had it been the Morgan Family witches, they would have certainly grown vigilant at the Anderson witches’ abnormal behavior. But the Anderson witches often acted this way in front of the Garcia clan. Coupled with the fact that the Garcia witches were entirely focused on dealing with the vampires and rescuing their people, no one spared a thought to ponder the Andersons’ true intentions.

Thus, when Elder Molly led her kin to meet with the Sethite wizards under the cover of patrol, the Garcia witches remained completely oblivious.

Previously, Camille had reaped great rewards by covering for Maia’s escape, obtaining numerous Dark Magic incantations. This gave her a taste of the benefits. Since someone was personally delivering the spells to their doorstep, why should they waste time researching them?

Wasn’t taking a shortcut better? Camille sat on the ground, cupping her face in her hands as she gazed at a skeleton rat in a dirt pit, a sweet smile on her face. The life and death of others had nothing to do with her, anyway.

Although they had the patrol as a cover, they couldn’t be gone for too long. Molly leaned against a tree trunk, looking up at the sun to estimate the time.

The Sethite wizards were late. Just as Molly’s patience was wearing thin, the figures of Maia, Ryan, and a dozen other witches materialized within a teleportation array. Despite their previous collaboration, Maia was still extremely cautious. Only after carefully observing the surroundings did she lead her people out of the array, still maintaining a certain distance from them.

“Right on time,” Elder Molly said, her eyes following Maia and the others. She toyed with the bone staff in her hand, a half-smile on her face. “Is this the sincerity you offer when seeking cooperation?”

Before Maia could speak, a black-robed witch behind her expressed his displeasure at Molly’s attitude, frowning. “We were just a little late.” The vampires were rude to them, but what right did these witches have to treat them with such an attitude?

Camille grabbed the skeleton rat and stood up. She ran to Elder Molly’s side, looked up at Maia with a brilliant smile, and offered a kind reminder, “Elder Molly hates people who aren’t punctual. She can be very scary when she’s angry.”

The black-robed witch scoffed disdainfully. Maia stared at Camille for a moment before extending a hand behind her. The black-robed witch’s expression changed slightly, but after a sharp glance from Maia, he reluctantly produced a piece of parchment.

Maia handed the parchment to Camille, saying flatly, “An apology.”

Camille took the parchment, her eyes lighting up as she saw the incantations on it. “This witch sister is so nice,” she said happily.

She held up the parchment for Molly to see. Molly glanced down, a slight curve forming on her lips. She casually stuck her bone staff into the ground, crossed her arms, and lifted her chin at Maia. “Let’s get to it. Don’t waste any more time. How do you want to cooperate?”

“I heard you were driven out by the God Race,” Maia said, meeting Molly’s gaze. Her tone was calm. “As it happens, we also have a grudge against the God Race. We can unite to completely eradicate them from the Sitatul Continent.”

“There are already enough races on this continent, don’t you think?”

Molly raised a hand to her chin, her eyes darting around as she said ambiguously, “You want to deal with the God Race?”

“Actually, we don’t have much of a grudge against the God Race,” Molly said, spreading her hands toward Maia with a smile. “I’m afraid we can’t help you with that.”

Maia frowned at her refusal. She exchanged a look with the person beside her, who then produced a stack of parchments.

Maia handed the parchments to Molly. “Think carefully. Do the witches truly have no grudge against the God Race?”

Molly took the parchments and casually flipped through a few pages. A knowing smile appeared on her face as she said nonchalantly, “I misspoke just now. We have a deep-seated hatred for the God Race.”

“I know the Garcia and Morgan families have a decent relationship with the God Race. If this gets out, it will cause conflict among you witches. Therefore, I don’t need you to confront the God Race directly.” Maia’s eyes were dark as she spoke in a low voice, “You only need to destroy the God Race’s teleportation arrays. We’ll handle the rest.”

The God Race lacked the superior speed of the elves and werewolves, which could be used for both pursuit and escape. Without their teleportation arrays, they would be birds in a cage. Maia wasn’t worried about being unable to defeat the God Race; she was only worried about them getting away.

“You want us to destroy their teleportation arrays without alerting them?” Molly looked down in thought. “That’s a bit difficult.”

Although she was arrogant, she was well aware of the God Race’s current strength, especially with Cynthia among them.

Even though they had lived in the God Race’s territory and were very familiar with teleportation arrays, accomplishing this without alerting the God Race would still be extremely difficult.

Maia took out her bone staff and softly chanted an incantation. A pitch-black eagle appeared out of thin air and landed on her shoulder. The eagle’s eyes glowed with an eerie green light, looking exceptionally strange.

Molly’s eyes narrowed slightly upon seeing the eagle, a playful look flashing across her face. “A nice pet,” she said meaningfully.

The aura emanating from this eagle was equivalent to that of a fourth-generation vampire, and Maia had summoned it with a spell.

To summon such a powerful puppet, they usually had to sacrifice humans.

Maia presented both the eagle and its summoning incantation to Molly, saying flatly, “Is it still difficult now?”

Molly reached out to stroke the eagle’s feathers, a smile on her face. “With such an obedient pet, it’s much simpler.”

Although the Anderson witches were greedier than expected, it was still within an acceptable range. Seeing that Molly had agreed, Maia set a time for them to act. After finalizing all the details, she added, as if it were a casual afterthought, “I’ve heard that the witches’ divination can foresee anything. I’m looking for a place. I was wondering if I could ask for your help?”

Having obtained far more magic spells than she had anticipated, Molly was in a cheerful mood. Hearing Maia’s request, she readily agreed, “Of course.”

Seeing her agree, a faint smile touched Maia’s lips. “I’ll come find you again after we’ve eliminated the God Race.”

Of course, if Molly discovered she wanted to divine the location of the Temple of Darkness and went back on her word, Maia wouldn’t be so polite.

After all, once the God Race was eliminated, the witches’ only remaining use would be to divine the temple’s location.

Maia gave Molly a deep look, then turned to leave with her people, but Camille’s voice stopped them.

Maia looked at the little witch, who appeared cute but was in fact deeply cunning, and asked, “Is there anything else, Eunice?”

Molly paused at the name “Eunice,” casting a thoughtful glance at Camille.

Amidst the strange looks from the other witches, Camille asked without a change in expression, “Witch sister, where did you get the incantations for these spells?”

Maia’s brow furrowed, a trace of vigilance rising in her heart. “They were researched by our clan’s elders.”

It was unclear whether Camille believed her or not. She smiled at Maia with an innocent and lovely expression. “Is that so? You’re all so amazing then.”

Maia glanced at her one last time without another word and led her people into the teleportation array.

Camille watched them disappear into the array before retracting her gaze. Cradling the skeleton rat, she sat back down on the ground.

Molly waved the parchments in her hand and kicked Camille’s back lightly. “Since when did you change your name to Eunice?” she asked in a peculiar tone.

Camille tilted her head back and blinked at Molly. “Do you think my sister would be angry if she knew I was using her name?”

Before Molly could respond, she began muttering to herself, “But she’ll never know anyway.”

Camille reached up to touch her own face. She was looking more and more like Eunice. It was truly amusing to do bad things with a face like this. She lowered her head, and the thought of something made her laugh out loud.

Far away in the God Race’s territory, the Morgan Family had no idea that Molly and Camille had colluded with the Sethite wizards and were planning to move against the God Race. After being asked to stay by Cynthia, Chelsea and her kin had begun to focus on studying the dark formation that Cynthia had brought back from the temple.

The witch clans had studied formations for thousands of years, and their understanding of them was far more thorough than that of the Sethite wizards. Although the witches had declined with each generation, they still possessed books passed down from the era of the gods. This was the advantage of heritage.

It was because of these books that they were able to identify the dark formation used by the Sethite wizards.

According to the books, this was a formation the God of Darkness had favored, called Sacrifice.

It had the same name as the spell Cynthia had obtained from the Light Crystal.

Sacrifice, then destroy. This formation was perfectly suited for destroying temples.

Formations were originally a favored method of attack for the gods. But during the era of the gods, they were high and mighty, and other races had no way of getting close to them to obtain their formations.

Even the formations passed down among the witches were pieced together slowly after they glimpsed traces left behind in places where divine battles had occurred.

For the Sethite wizards to have obtained a formation created by the God of Darkness… where did they get it?

Chelsea was baffled. After the gods left, all the temples had sunk into the earth. Aside from some Godheads formed from the lingering divine power, everything else had long since dissipated.

It was impossible for any books recording the formations to have been left behind.

Cynthia was also puzzled by this, but she was more concerned about the formation itself. “Is this formation complex? How powerful is it?”

“It’s rather troublesome to set up, and it requires a Godhead to activate.” Because they couldn’t sacrifice humans like the Sethite wizards, they would need a large number of gems to provide energy.

In fact, when the God of Darkness used this formation, it didn’t require human sacrifice either.

It was the Sethite wizards’ limited understanding of the formation that led them to use this simplest and most brutal method. Moreover, when they used it, they didn’t even unleash half of the formation’s true power.

“I have Godheads,” Cynthia said, taking two from her Space Gem. One was from Avira, and the other she had obtained from the Beast God’s temple. She handed one to Chelsea and was about to say something when footsteps suddenly sounded at the door.

Cynthia paused, turning her head slightly toward the entrance.

A small hand appeared on the doorframe, followed by a little elf peeking in from outside. Soft, green hair framed her face, and her pointed elven ears were slightly red. She held a small flower basket woven from branches and looked curiously at Cynthia and Chelsea in the room.

Cynthia’s expression softened instantly upon seeing the little elf. She put the Godhead away and beckoned to her.

The little elf obediently walked over to Cynthia, carrying the flower basket. The basket was filled with white petals, upon which rested two vials of honeydew.

Cynthia took the basket from the little elf’s hands. Her gaze fell upon the honeydew, and a beautiful curve formed on her red lips. “Her Majesty the Queen has sent you to bring me honeydew again,” she said softly.

The little elf sat on a chair, looking left and right before her eyes landed on Chelsea. She blinked but didn’t respond to Cynthia.

Chelsea met the little elf’s gaze for a moment, then silently reached out and stroked her hair.

Although Chelsea had a dark aura about her, the little elf wasn’t afraid. She even reached for the bone staff in Chelsea’s hand.

Since they began cultivating the power of darkness, the witches had reforged their staves to be more suitable for channeling dark energy.

The bone staff emanated an even denser dark aura. Worried it might harm the little elf, Chelsea put it away and took out her old staff from her Space Gem for the elf to play with.

More and more humans were flocking to the God Race for refuge, and the food supply in the territory was nearly depleted. Susan had dispatched a team of knights to clear a large tract of land to plant fruit trees. She then asked the elves to help accelerate their growth to temporarily alleviate the problem.

The elves were always very enthusiastic about helping their friends. After learning that Cynthia and the others needed a lot of food, they brought seeds and came through the teleportation array to help.

And they truly lived up to their name as children of nature; even in a harsh environment like Ochester, they could find suitable plants to grow.

As the elves traveled back and forth to the God Race’s territory, busy with the food situation, some of the little elves would tag along through the teleportation array to play. It was unclear on which day it started, but these little elves began bringing a flower basket for Cynthia whenever they came to play.

Although the little elf never said who gave her the basket, Cynthia had already guessed it was Olivia.

This basket was identical to the “farewell gift” Olivia had given her when she left. Cynthia picked up the honeydew from the basket and glanced at it, then her gaze shifted down to the petals lining the bottom.

In the baskets the little elf brought, the vials of honeydew would change, and the color of the basket would change, but these petals had never changed. Cynthia picked up a few, lowered her head to smell them, her expression thoughtful.

“Do you like honeydew very much?” Chelsea asked, looking down at the basket.

The little elf brought Cynthia honeydew every time, yet she had never seen Cynthia drink it.

Cynthia placed the petals back and put the basket into her Space Gem. “I do,” she said with a smile.

Of course, she liked the person who sent the honeydew even more.

In the Elf Territory.

After sending the little elves to the God Race, Polly returned to find Olivia in the Forbidden Land, pruning the branches of the Tree of Life.

She stood behind Olivia, looking at her back, and couldn’t help but sigh.

Hearing Polly’s sigh, Olivia’s pruning paused for a moment. She glanced sideways at her. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked with a frown.

Polly hesitated for a moment before saying, “The little elves have all arrived safely at the God Race. The flower basket should have been delivered as well.” She put extra emphasis on the words “flower basket.”

It was unclear whether Olivia understood Polly’s hint or not. She turned back with a blank expression and continued pruning the branches.

Polly scratched her head. After a moment of forbearance, she finally gave in to her curiosity and asked, “Her Majesty the Queen, does Cynthia know that those are petals from the Twin Flower?”

Olivia was silent for a moment before replying flatly, “I don’t think so.”

Judging from Cynthia’s reaction, she didn’t know they were petals from the Twin Flower.

“This…” Polly was taken aback. “Shouldn’t you tell her?” she asked cautiously.

If she didn’t say anything, that God Race member would never understand Her Majesty’s intentions. Although Polly wasn’t keen on having this God Race member become her Queen’s partner, she wanted even less to see her Queen’s feelings go unanswered.

Olivia’s grip on the shears tightened, and she pressed her lips together, displeased. “Why should I tell her?” Anyway… anyway, she’ll find out sooner or later.

But how difficult would it be for an outsider to discover what a Twin Flower looked like? Besides, most people’s attention would be on the honeydew; who would notice the petals? Polly’s lips parted, but she automatically fell silent under Olivia’s glare.

Fine. Cynthia was so clever, she would probably figure it out soon enough.

And if she never figured it out… well, there was nothing to be done. That’s what you get for being an outsider.