Once the actual treatment began, things went much more smoothly. She cleared away the residual magic in the wound, stimulated cell regeneration, and accelerated the healing process. As for the missing blood, Thea had no way to help—this guy had lived for over fifteen hundred years. Who even knew what blood type he had at this point?
Thea worked until she was drenched in sweat. The actual healing took one minute, while suppressing the demon took nine.
"What exactly happened? I don't see you injured—so why is this guy on the ground?" Thea turned back to look at Old Ma. Though his clothes were a bit disheveled, he was completely intact, without the slightest sign of injury.
Combined with Old Ma's claim that Etrigan had saved his life, Thea found it surprising that the two of them had ended up together at all.
Malcolm began recounting his experience—a very clichéd story.
The knight lying on the ground, a fifteen-hundred-year-old man still deep in his edgelord phase, was someone Old Ma had met in England. He usually disguised himself as a learned scholar. The two traveled together, chatting freely about all sorts of topics, and had gradually come to regard each other as friends.
The knight hadn't lied. He truly hadn't sensed any special bloodline in Old Ma and had assumed that the surname Merlyn was just a coincidence. They were originally searching for the Pointer when they were suddenly ambushed by Felix Faust, despite having no prior grudge against him. During the chase and escape, Old Ma sensed something was wrong and used a secret technique he had learned in Nanda Parbat—playing dead.
He pretended to fall off a cliff, using a special breathing method and special drugs to completely suppress his heartbeat. By all logic, that should have fooled the enemy. What he hadn't expected was that the knight believed his good friend had truly been killed. With no more reservations, he released the demon sealed within him and fought Felix Faust with reckless abandon. In the end, both the evil mage and the knight were gravely injured.
When the fox-like Malcolm circled back up from the base of the mountain, he found that the evil mage had already escaped, leaving the reckless knight on the brink of death.
With all communication devices lost, he could only drag the knight to a nearby cave for emergency treatment. The place was truly in the middle of nowhere, and despite his intelligence, Old Ma didn't dare stray too far—so he ended up stuck there.
Thea couldn't help thinking that this was the real difference between heroes and villains. Old Ma played dead so convincingly that not only did he fool the enemy, he even fooled his allies. Meanwhile, this so-called hero ended up severely wounded.
"The Pointer has already been found. Should I send you back to Star City? This guy's lost too much blood and needs rest," Thea suggested.
"No. I'm continuing the investigation. Felix Faust is also one of my targets," Old Ma rejected the idea outright.
"Yes… I've also received information. Faust has found the temple of the dark archmage Morgan le Fay. He's very important…" the knight said weakly, having just regained consciousness.
"Heh." Thea smiled faintly and explained to Malcolm, "He might look like an ordinary knight, but the demon inside him was once one of the greatest of them all. He fell in love with King Arthur's sister, the dark sorceress Morgan le Fay, and betrayed his comrades. Merlin turned him into a demon. Only by killing Morgan le Fay can he regain his human form."
"Then how did the two of them end up sharing one body?"
"If I remember correctly, Jason Blood was gravely injured. Merlin sealed the demonized Etrigan into a human body. Anyway, it's a long and complicated story," Thea said with a click of her tongue.
"Descendant of Merlin, your knowledge is truly extensive. You are correct. I must kill Morgan le Fay to obtain redemption—for Etrigan and myself…" With the magical residue removed, his recovery was rapid, and he was already able to shakily sit up.
Hearing the phrase "Descendant of Merlin" again made Malcolm irritated. His daughter's bloodline was so powerful that it made him, her actual father, seem fake by comparison. Was this kind of generational inheritance really fair?
For a moment, all three fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.
"How about this—I'll go capture that guy and bring him back for questioning," Thea said.
She recalled the original events: Felix Faust did indeed discover a temple deep in the Peruvian jungle. Inside were Morgan le Fay's remains, along with a map she and Merlin had calculated together—a map supposedly leading to the so-called Book of Magic.
That "Book of Magic" was an absolute farce, sending countless magic-oriented figures running in circles. John Constantine and his arrogant best friend Nick Necro staged an impressive cycle of betrayal and counter-betrayal.
Only after everything settled did they realize that the so-called Book of Magic was actually a technological device—one that led to a world called Epoch, a realm that rejected all supernatural power.
Constantine could no longer lie. The dead returned to life. Madame Xanadu, who had enjoyed eternal youth, nearly died of old age. In short, it was a storyline drenched in the writers' cruelty.
Originally, Thea had no intention of getting involved. The map itself was a joke. But then she remembered that Morgan le Fay's remains were still there. This was a grand mage who had fought Merlin her entire life—Thea didn't believe someone of that caliber would truly die. Perhaps her remains concealed other secrets.
Even under peaceful circumstances, Thea would have knocked on Faust's door. And now that he had dared to bully her father? That was an unforgivable insult.
If that bastard weren't hiding in an alternate dimension, she would have already dropped a thermobaric bomb on him.
Finding Faust's alternate dimension would take some effort. The Cult of the Cold Flame had tried to ambush him twice, but both attempts failed when he escaped into that space.
Since Faust had launched a sneak attack, and Old Ma was burdened with a critically injured knight, the cave was likely not far from the entrance to Faust's hideout. Thea closed her eyes and extended her psychic senses, tracing the world's ley lines in search of his location.
"Descendant of Merlin, the enemy is a very powerful mage—"
"Shut up." Thea glanced at him coldly. This guy loved acting like a senior. Fifteen hundred wasted years. Strip away the demon, and he was nothing but a weakling, yet he strutted around with a perpetually stern face, lecturing everyone he met.
Without the demon's assistance, he would have been cut down long ago. In Thea's eyes, he ranked alongside Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Time always felt scarce to her—every minute had to count double—while these people drifted through a thousand years unchanged. Letting them live was a waste of food.
"Found him. I'll be back shortly." Using Sargon's technique, she tore open the spatial barrier and teleported directly into Faust's alternate dimension.
"…Is that really your daughter?" Jason Blood asked uncertainly as he watched the deep-blue portal vanish. "She's the strongest mage of the modern era I've ever seen."
Malcolm felt both pride and frustration. The gap between himself and his daughter was only growing wider. Pushing those feelings aside, he asked, "Modern-era mage? How would she rank in ancient times?"
"Hard to say. She's certainly inferior to your ancestor Merlin," Jason Blood replied, finally including Old Ma this time. "But in King Arthur's era, she'd still be considered extremely powerful. At the very least, even the demon inside me wouldn't be able to defeat her."