As the moonlight condensed into festering silver spots on the surface of the poison pool, Alyssa's fingertips were stuck in the blood groove of the sword blade. Kane's black iron wristband pressed her wrist and smeared the semi-solidified wolf poison ointment on the sword edge - that thing was mixed with the blood of the silver wolf fetus and the brain of the priest of the Wailing Wall, and it glowed bluish-white like a frog's belly under the candlelight.
"Lick it clean." Cain's scepter tip lifted her chin. Alyssa's canine teeth scraped the blade, deliberately letting the hemlock juice on the side of her tongue seep into the poison paste. The poison pool suddenly boiled, and the skeletons of three silver wolf cubs floated to the bottom of the pool. Each rib was engraved with anti-poison runes - exactly the same as what she saw on the smuggling stone tablet last night.
The sword suddenly turned. Alyssa cut her thumb while wiping it, and the poisonous blood mixed with the flame of the lunar eclipse dripped into the blood tank. Cain's heart suddenly burst out with thorns, piercing through the brocade robe and stabbing at the hilt - those vine-like black blood vessels were greedily absorbing the poisonous blood, dyeing the blue-white poison paste into a strange fluorescent blue.
"Good resistance to poison." She stared at the hilt and swallowed her own blood. Kane's sneer shook the wailing relief on the weapon rack, and the human face on the wall suddenly opened its third eye - the pupil reflected the illusion of Lucien preparing the antidote in the dark room.
The skeleton in the poison pool began to tremble. Alyssa's thorn birthmark suddenly twitched, and vines crawled up the hilt along her forearm. When Cain forced her to hold the blade, the eclipse flame suddenly flowed back, and the blue flame condensed into a miniature crown in the poisonous blood - it was the spare crown in Lucien's secret room.
"Good girl, you should learn to be grateful." The lord tore off her linen gloves, and the newly branded slave mark on her wrist was oozing blue blood. Alyssa's poisonous blood suddenly turned to attack herself, coagulating into thorny thorns in her veins - a miniature version of the parasitic vines on Cain's heart.
The weapon rack suddenly tilted. Alyssa used the momentum to knock over the poison pool, and the wolfsbane ointment splashed on the weeping relief. The human faces burst into screams in Silver Wolf language, and the anti-poison runes on the wall twisted into Lucien's engagement totem. Cain's scepter shattered the bottom of the pool, revealing a hidden stone box - inside it were three hundred barbed thorns, each engraved with her initials.
"Test the blade." Cain threw the poisoned sword over. Alyssa spun around to avoid the sword and crushed the skeleton of the cub beside the pool with her boot heel. When the ashes rose, she saw Cain's pupils expand into a dark mirror, reflecting the cold emerald light of Lucian emerging in the void behind her.
When the blade cut her shoulder, the poisonous blood was absorbed by the thorn birthmark at the wound. Alyssa's eclipse flame suddenly turned and burned along the hilt towards Kane's heart vine - but the flame suddenly extinguished when it touched the black thorns, as if it was swallowed by some more ancient curse.
"Surprised?" Cain tore open the brocade robe on his left chest. The thorns of the parasitic heart had buds on their tops, which were the fluorescent blue watered by her poisonous blood. Alyssa's birthmark suddenly grew, and the vine patterns formed a complete anti-poison rune under her skin - exactly the same as Lucian's handwriting on the hilt.
The secret door of the poison room suddenly exploded. Lucian's cold emerald light swept across the mess on the ground, and the tip of his hook held half a piece of the engagement bell - the antidote inside was emitting the same fishy sweetness as Cain's thorns. Alyssa's animal taming whip wrapped around the poison blade and threw it towards the light source, but the sword pierced through the shadow and nailed it to the human face relief on the wall.
"Double insurance," Lucian's afterimage chuckled beside the poison pool, "my dear contracted bride."
The tip of Cain's scepter suddenly softened and turned into thorns that wrapped around Alyssa's neck. The poison flowed back along the vines and condensed into a new slave brand under her collarbone - this time it was a crown totem that wrapped around the twins. When the moonlight shifted to a certain angle, she saw the true nature of the anti-poison rune: each stroke was a miniature thorn that was taking root in her blood.
When the midnight bell rang, the last secret emerged from the bottom of the poison pool - Alyssa's mother's silver ring was embedded in the bottom of the pool, and the ring face was engraved with the first king's anti-poison forbidden technique. Kane's thorn heart suddenly grew, and the vines wrapped around the silver ring and pressed it against the mark on her chest, burning a warning from three hundred years ago on her skin: **Poison and medicine are both nutrients**.
The Wailing Wall formation in the poison room suddenly reversed. Alyssa's Eclipse Flame lost its color and turned into a transparent energy stream that was absorbed by the anti-poison rune. Before Lucien's emerald cold light completely disappeared, she saw fragments of the future in the pupils of the human faces on the wall - her heart was pierced by black thorns, and Cain and Lucien each held half of the crown and grinned.
As the moonlight was swallowed by dark clouds, Cain's heart vine suddenly blossomed. Fluorescent blue petals fell on the poisoned blade, transforming the anti-poison rune into a new curse totem - entwined with the names of Alyssa and Lucien, the ends of the roots pointed to the core of the eclipse flame deep in her birthmark.