Her clothes were already torn and there were light scratches on her body but thanks to a werewolf's healing ability, these scratches were only superficial and would not cause her any permanent harm. She would admit that her situation was tricky and she had been looking for ways to get past the darkness that was attacking her.
Amber had been leaping from side to side and using her claws to parry the spikes attacking her. She had also been using these claws to destroy those spikes. After landing a few feet away from the darkness, she decided to move forward while simultaneously dodging the attacks.
She lost track of how many hours she had been running away and she could already feel the fatigue slowly settling in and that was when she noticed a small glimpse of something white from a distance. She was not sure what it was but it was better than waiting for her to be filled with holes.
Her movements hastened as she used her strength to reach the source of that light or whatever it was. The nearer she got to that light, the sluggish the movements of the 'darkness' was. She noticed this so her movements became faster and every step she took was made sure so that she would reach that light. With the strength she still has, she channeled it towards her feet and propelled herself to land on the light.
She was gasping for breath while she was lying on the cold ground and when she opened her eyes what met her was not the something that she expected. The smell of fresh grass was distinct on the air and the touch of the wind caressed her softly. One would think that this place was not the Lurea Woods because of how different it looked from the outside.
Amber pushed herself up to sit down. Her eyes looked around and saw that her surroundings turned out to be normal, too normal that it felt a little bit weird even for her. 'Don't let your guard down, this place feels ominous.' Eirian broke her silence as she sustained the wolf-man form of Amber.
"Alright," she slowly stood up and walked straight forward but for some reason she still ended up at the same place where she was before. "This is not good, it seems that we are trapped in an endless loop," she muttered.
'This must be one of the defense mechanisms of this place since it's a place that holds the vampire king's blood. So. I'm not surprised to encounter something like this. Someone who can manipulate mana is the only one who could create something like this.' Eirian heightened Amber's senses while telling her of her guess. In a world where werewolves and vampires exist, a person who can manipulate mana could also exist.
"Are you telling me that a mage might have done this? But the records did not say any of this information nor there was any clue that may imply that someone like that helped them to hide the vampire king's legacy," Amber had a frown on her face after hearing her wolf's statement. It has been so many years and no one had seen any mages, even her father told her that they were now merely a legend.
Eirian could already sigh, 'There's nothing impossible right now. Remember, we thought that there were no vampires and yet they appeared, flesh and blood, very real so the existence of these people who can use mana is not impossible.' She scolded Amber and if she could face her right now, Amber was sure that her wolf was already glaring at her right now.
"Yes, you are right. I'm sorry." She shook her head to give way to her wolf. "Do you have any idea on how should we deal with this?"
'Break the core of the spell.' She confidently answered.
"So how do we do that?" Amber asked while stopping herself from laughing at how childish her wolf was even at a time like this.
Eirian on the other hand was not happy at how Amber was treating her but even so she still answered very unwillingly, 'Why not find something unusual or different from this place then destroy it.'
Without answering, she looked around then walked back and forth until she found a point where the place doesn't seem to change. She had taken note of everything in the space where she was in, every tree, grass, flower and even stones, she had observed them all and made a mental note. After walking around the area several times, she finally found something that remained still, no matter how she looked at it. She already noticed the moment she started to walk around again that the scenery would subtly change to make anyone feel like they had made progress even though they were only walking in circles. After a few more rounds, she confirmed that one of the trees was not moving nor changing.
'That must be the core of the spell,' Eirian agreed so without thinking much about it, Amber walked towards the tree. 'Be careful, another trap might be waiting for us once we touch that tree.'
"Isn't this way too simple? We already found the core of the spell just by moving around." Amber stood before the tall tree which felt like it was real. It was the same as the normal ones that can be seen outside the Lurea Woods.
'That's why I told you to be careful. I once read from a book you were reading that people who can manipulate mana are tricky and they got so many tricks up their sleeves making them as enemies difficult to deal with.' Eirian was already fuming because of how Amber was acting. Normally, she was not like this so why was she acting dumb? She could not understand. 'Are you alright?' she asked with a tone full of doubt.
"I'm fine, what made you think that I am not doing fine?" she casually brushed of her wolf's question. Amber took a step forward and stretched out her hand towards the tree when she was stopped by Eirian's screaming. Instead of the wood, her hand went to massage her head that just experienced a splitting headache.
'Were you not listening to me? I just told you to be careful! Are you just going to stick your hand in that tree? Just destroy it one go!' Eirian did not spare her from the noise and continued to scream inside her head.
Amber was pissed at the sudden action of her wolf, "Alright! Stop screaming! You know that I can hear you clearly right because our minds are connected."
'Hmph,' Eirian decided to ignore her so she did not speak. Amber could only sigh and do as her wolf had kindly suggested.
She drew back her hand to form a fist aimed at the tree and with the strength she could muster, she punched the object in front of her. The blow barely scratched the tree but she could already hear something breaking.
Her surroundings started to change into a dark front porch of a manor. It was like the vampire manors she had seen in pictures from the story books her mother would read to her when she was young. Rather than a manor, it was appropriate to just call it a castle. She did not expect that behind the tower like trees of Lurea Woods was a black castle befitting the king of vampires.
'Well, this is unexpected.' Both of them did not expect to see something like this, well, they were not expecting anything at all. Since it was a forest, then the center should have been full of trees too.
"I have seen this castle so many times, it looks exactly the same as the one on the picture books I have as a child." Amber held her breath at how real this place was. The more she looked at it the more she was in awe.
'How could a castle on your books be in this place? Besides how are you sure that this castle was the one on those books?' Since Amber was talking about the time where she has not shifted yet, she did not have a chance to have a look at the castle she was talking about.
"How could I forget? This castle was vividly described on those story books and I remember being fascinated with them. It was a castle as dark as the night made with dark bricks as it was surrounded with black trees that had died because the soil was poisoned. The windows were lit even though there were no people inside, perpetually bright in the midst of darkness." She recited the words written on those books as it slowly resurfaced in her mind.
'What kind of stories have you read? Are those even stories a child should learn?' Eirian was confused as to why something dark like that was treated as children's books.
"Because those were supposed to be fairytales with happy endings," Amber answered. She started to walk forward, towards the closed door. "Even these ghastly looking birds were the same as the illustration on those books." She stared at the bird statues on both side of the door that were acting like gargoyles as their blank eyes were staring at exactly where she was standing. It was a bit unnerving because she had not seen anything like this before but she calmed herself and instead looked at the intricately carved door of the castle.
The carving was something like a root of a tree spreading from the bottom of the door towards the top. But the root like details on the door seemed to also converge on the part where the door handles were placed before spreading once again. Amber tried to push open the door but it remained closed even after she used her wolf strength to push it.
'So how do we open this door?' Eirian asked after a while of silence. Amber had been standing in front of it for sometime now but they haven't figure out a way to open it yet when Amber suddenly had a bold idea.
"Why don't we use blood since it is vampire's castle."