In a simple room within Ice City, Anna Loft, with her fingers tangled in her messy hair, massaged her scalp to soothe her aching head due to excessive thinking. As she pulled her hand away, she found some strands of hair stuck to her fingers, worsening her mood.
"If it continues like this, I'll lose all my hair. Ahhh!!" Anna hysterically cried out, "I am just a princess, why am I supposed to manage all these tasks!!"
"Because your brother has left." A slender shadow emerged from the corner, crossing its arms, it responded leisurely.
"Damn that Luther, it was his job to handle these things. He is the first in line!" Anna's outrage grew as her first-in-line brother had slipped away quietly, leaving all these tasks to her.
If she managed things well, and her brother returned one day, the position of City Lord would still be his. If she failed to handle it well, she'd bear the brunt of the blame. It put her in an unfair, lose-lose predicament which upset her greatly.
"You can ignore it," suggested the shadow in the corner.
Anna shook her head, her expression turning serious, "It's not possible. That despicable demon continues to lurk and has launched surprise attacks on our poorly defended Plantation Areas. Until he is found, we could face a severe food shortage next year."
The shadow was silent for a moment before he sighed reluctantly, "Indeed, it is too cruel. Our Plantation Areas are too scattered, some are even connected to the lava caves. It has multiple entrances and exits. Once a demon infiltrates slyly, they can start fires all over, leading to total crop failure. Apart from futilely scattering soldiers across each food production area, we have no other alternatives."
"Never mind, I will definitely catch them. Once I do, I'll tie them up and throw them into Witch City. Let those witches shred their souls," Anna said vengefully.
"You might have misunderstood something. Those witches have stopped ripping souls for a long time. But it doesn't matter. How do you plan to catch the demon with such limited information?" the shadow asked, puzzled.
A confidant smile formed on Anna's face. "Every event reveals much information. For instance, the first three events occurred consecutively. However, there was a three-day gap between the third and the fourth event. The distance between the two locations is only a day's travel, so where did he go in those two days?"
The shadow thought for a moment then he hesitantly replied, "Did he get tired?"
"Exactly, around the location of these two incidents, what are the possible resting places within two days' journey? He who seems to love setting fires could very likely be a Lava Demon. He loves magma the most." Anna unfolded a map and spread it out on the table.
The shadow couldn't refrain himself from stepping out of the corner, revealing his wrinkled face and thin body. His exposed face and arms were full of tattoos resembling runes.
If anyone familiar with these tattoos was there, they surely would've gasped in awe-- a Holy Light Corpse Witch! And one that had been purified by the church. Those tattoos were the marks of purification engraved on his skin.
In the human world, undead creatures are considered heretics by the Church. Once captured, they are to be purified. The Church believes that ordinary methods can't annihilate witches, only purification can eliminate their bodies and souls together. Otherwise, even if decapitated, their souls can escape and turn into undead.
Wrapped in Holy Shroud and incinerated until both their body and soul turn into ashes.
This is reasonable since some witches can't be killed through ordinary methods because they create Life Boxes.
They refine their hearts into a Life Box and place it in a special container, safeguarding it somewhere safe. In place of their hearts, they put their Soul Fire. In this way, even if they're killed, they can be reborn through their Life Box.
For such witches, the Church has invented a corresponding method. First, they are wrapped in the Holy Shroud. Then they are incinerated with their bodies and souls both turned into ashes. This way, the witch that tries to be reborn using the Life Box will lose all memories and have an indelible mark on their body which even resurrection cannot remove.
The shadow is such as witch, purified and reborn but she has lost all her previous memories. She doesn't remember who she was or how she died. An emblem engraved on her Life Box only had one character — 'Storm'. Hence, she's now called Storm.
Storm walked over to the table and quickly found a name on the map. "Here, Molten River."
"Yes, it's the Molten River. This is the only place nearby where there is lava, the environment that demon loves the most," Anna said.
Storm nodded, "Makes sense, but it's still all based on assumptions. You don't have proof that your speculations are true."
Anna pulled out a piece of paper with a smile and handed it to Storm: "I have already sent people to investigate. On the path towards the Molten River, the footsteps of a demon were indeed discovered. A demon truly passed by nearby during that period."
Lan fell silent for a moment, and couldn't help but exclaim: "You're really amazing, you actually managed to track him down."
"Of course," Anna said proudly, raising an eyebrow, "I deduced that he is a Lava Demon and inferred that he needs lava to replenish his strength. As long as we know his rest period and pay attention to places with lava, there is always a chance to corner him."
"We need to act quickly. If he starts several more fires, our food supply for next year will have a huge shortage, and many people will starve to death," Lan asserted.
"Don't worry, I've contacted the human world through a teleportation array. They have a bountiful harvest there. As long as we can afford it, they can use a large teleportation array to make a one-way delivery. They can deliver dozens of tons of food at once."
But Lan shook his head, "The cost is too high. Just opening a large transit station requires a dozen or so Demon Crystals. We don't have the appropriate large teleportation array here, the world's transit station here has long been unable to open. Otherwise, a dozen or so Demon Crystals would be enough. One-way delivery needs hundreds of Demon Crystals. Even if we scrape together all the valuables in our underground city, we wouldn't be able to exchange for so many Demon Crystals."
An exasperated Anna began scratching her head again, saying, "So what do we do? Wait to starve to death? Witch City is also short of food. Some time ago, they even sent someone to buy food, but I refused. If only they had a surplus of food and could help us out."
Just as Anna was anxiously scratching her head, a soldier came to report, "Princess, Lisa Augustus from Witch City requests an audience."
"Lisa Augustus? Who's that? Isn't it always Aisike who comes over? Why is there a new person now?" Anna muttered in wonder.
However, Lan's eyes flashed with excitement, "She's not a new person. She's the real master of Witch City. This old witch hasn't shown herself for hundreds of years. I thought she was dead. Let's go meet her, this old witch is not simple."
"The real master of Witch City? Isn't the City Lord Lord Feilin?" Anna's curiosity was piqued, she quickly tidied up her appearance and clothing, ready to go and meet her.
"Feilin is afraid of his wife, and she is his wife."
By the time they arrived at the reception room, there was only one woman in a black gauze skirt. She had fair skin and a plump figure, leaning there. There wasn't the 'old witch' that Lan had described.
Lan's attention did not linger on the woman in the black gauze skirt, but instead looked towards the entrance of the reception room, rudely asking, "Where is that old witch called Augustus?"
The woman in the black gauze skirt turned her head, a casual smile hung on her lips, she said lazily, "Are you talking about me, this old witch Augustus?"
Hearing the familiar voice, Lan was shocked, her eyes turned to the face of the woman in the black gauze skirt, her brow furrowed.
She had met Lisa while she was with the witches, the Lisa she knew was as shriveled, thin, ashen, and desiccated as she was. The plump and lustrous woman before her, how come her eyebrows and voice look a lot like that old witch? What's going on?
The woman in the black gauze skirt slowly opened her mouth and said, "Lan, the title of 'old witch', it seems only you will be able to use it from now on."
Lan's face changed drastically, she said angrily, "So it's really you! Augustus, you're too cruel, you actually invaded the body of a living person?! I will kill you!"
"What?! No, no, no, you've misunderstood, this is my body. Hey, stop it, Ouch, don't hit my face, stop it, I'm going to flip out if you keep hitting me."
Watching Lisa and Lan, who were going at it like kids, Anna, who was about to step in to help, suddenly came to her senses and stopped.
The two thousand-year-old witches weren't using magic, instead they were fighting barehanded like children. If this was a real fight, Anna would eat the chair she was sitting on.
Sure enough, after a while, the two witches, hair disheveled, stopped. However, while the shriveled and thin Lan with disheveled hair looked pitiful, the plump and lustrous Lisa looked quite seductive.
Lan, both indignant and envious, asked, "How did you become like this? Are you sure you didn't invade the body of a living person?"
Powerful witches and undead have an ability to invade the bodies of living people. However, living people would die and the bodies would lose their vitality, being able to maintain only two or three days of vitality before beginning to decay. If it's not invading, Lan couldn't think of any other way for a witch to become so vibrant.
Lisa gave a faint smile and asked lightly, "If there's a chance for you to restore the vitality of your body and become like me, what price are you willing to pay?"