Chapter 295: The Same Decision
Chapter 295: The Same Decision
Lilian was aware that she wasn’t in the right state of mind.
This was the first time her mind was in utter chaos despite being completely physically unharmed. All sorts of information were jumbled up in her head, and her emotions were stinging at her nerves like razor blades.
Roel had expected Lilian to be in an unstable state of mind after having witnessed the gruesome sight of an old acquaintance’s corpse, so it was inevitable that she would be distraught at suddenly being teleported into the Witness State.
But what he didn’t know was that none of these mattered to Lilian.
There was only one thing dominating Lilian’s mind at the moment, and it was a fact she simply couldn’t accept.
I’ve lost my younger brother.
Lilian clearly remembered Roel mentioning that he was in a bad condition after defeating Marceus. In this seemingly familiar yet foreign city filled with monsters and all sorts of menaces, it was indubitably a dangerous environment for someone who was in a ‘bad condition’.
She didn’t even dare to think about what could happen because she was afraid that she might just lose her mind.
“It’s all my fault. If only I didn’t touch him…” muttered the disconsolate Lilian.
The worry and remorse bubbling in her heart made her voice sound a little hoarse.
Prior to Roel’s enrollment in the Saint Freya Academy, she received orders from Emperor Lukas not to come into contact with anyone from the Ascart House. She ought to have prevented such a situation from happening.
While Roel did grab her hands back in the wine cellar in order to stop her from touching the corpse, the gloves she was wearing prevented any physical contact between them.
Ultimately, it was her recklessness that resulted in the current crisis they were facing.
She had let her guard down.
When she heard Roel saying ‘I need you’, something within her seemed to have become complete. At that moment, she suddenly felt an irresistible urge to get closer to him.
Who could have thought that her audacious desire would end up placing her newly found younger brother into such danger?
“*＆%”
“＃￥%＆…”
She suddenly heard annoying whispers that pricked at her mind, snapping her out of her thoughts. She immediately turned her cold amethyst eyes toward the countless monsters hiding inside a nearby building.
“Silence!”
Lilian waved her hand grandly, and a rain of arrows fell upon the army of black-armored soldiers and black-robed figures, causing them to fall one after another.
A war horn sounded, and armored warriors raised their swords and charged into the building. They swiftly cleared the corridors and eliminated the enemies room by room.
Metallic clangings could be heard as swords collided into armor, and the smell of blood gradually suffused the building. Lilian looked upon the dying monsters as she found her heart worrying about Roel once more.
Based on her experience last night, the whispers of these monsters were able to induce headache and potentially even drive a person insane. But for some reason, its effects were much less pronounced on Lilian. She did feel uncomfortable to hear those whispers, but her bloodline would immediately respond and protect her from them.
Thanks to that, she was still doing well for the time being. But what about Roel?
He did share the same bloodline with her, but he was only at Origin Level 4, not to mention that he was in a bad condition. Would he really be able to fend against these monsters?
Lilian clenched her trembling hands tightly. She felt like her heart was really going to explode if she continued thinking about it, so she quickly took a few deep breaths and turned her attention to finding Roel.
After a month of interaction and the Bloody Envelope Incident, she was able to get a good grasp of Roel’s character, and that allowed her to roughly predict his train of thoughts.
Someone as meticulous as Roel wouldn’t be so foolish as to recklessly attempt to enter the Saint Freya Academy. He was bound to know that they were foreigners without a proper identity in this world, so he would be imprisoned even if he managed to get in somehow.
Losing one’s freedom in such a dangerous environment was a lousy move. That was equivalent to leaving his fate in the hands of others when he didn’t even know whether ‘others’ could be trusted or not.
In other words, Roel was somewhere else in the city.
From interrogating the evil cultists yesterday, she learned that two major evil cults were currently fighting against one another in the city, and the monsters roaming around were one of their means.
Is it possible for Roel to have sought refuge with one of the evil cults?
Lilian immediately shook her head.
That’s impossible. How could my kind and righteous younger brother possibly throw his lot with an evil cult? It’s more likely that he’s camping in one of the buildings, using the power of his bloodline to fend off those monsters.
There was a problem with that deduction though, and Lilian was well aware of it. She was making an implicit assumption that Roel was trying his best to reunite with her too, or else it would have been much safer for him to bide his time in the forest outside the city.
She couldn’t help feeling a little afraid when she thought about this.
It was true that they were bloodline kin, but whether Roel recognized her as his older sister or not was a whole different matter. Roel was a noble of the Theocracy and was particularly close with the Rosa Merchant Confederacy and the Sorofyas. Acknowledging her as his older sister would only put him in a difficult spot.
If he refuses to acknowledge me when the time comes…
Just imagining the possibility of it happening made Lilian feel vexed and insecure.
The war horn sounded once more, and yet another wave of warriors charged at the black-armored soldiers.
The sudden noise snapped Lilian out of her thoughts. She quickly shook her head as she thought about the expression on Roel’s face prior to their separation.
“That won’t happen. Roel would never do that…”
Lilian patted her chest as her haywire emotions calmed down a little. Her amethyst eyes finally began regaining their usual rationality. Soon, she came to a decision.
It won’t do to blindly search the city. It’ll be much more efficient if I make my location known to him instead. I’ll just have to keep killing until everyone knows of my existence. By then, Roel would surely be able to find his way to me.
Just like that, the two bloodline kin ended up choosing identical methods to find one another in this city of chaos.
…
“The Salvation Brotherhood has been knocked back? How is that possible?”
In the central command center in the Saint Freya Academy, an orange-haired young man was shocked to hear the report from the soldiers. He quickly lowered his head to browse through the report papers in his hands carefully.
Antonio Wyatt, the highest commander of the Saint Freya Academy’s Defence Army and the vice commander of the Leinster City Garrison Troops.
When his superior lost his mind to the blasphemous whispers of those monsters, Antonio swiftly reorganized the garrison troops and evacuated everyone into the Saint Freya Academy, where they were currently holding their defence line while waiting for reinforcement.
Had it been years ago, no one would have fathomed that the Saint Freya Academy would have been forced to employ defensive warfare. After all, it was the most famous academy for transcendents for humankind. Anyone who attempted to siege the Saint Freya Academy would be immediately crushed by its superior forces…
… but things were different now.
Due to the war against the deviants, every single country was practically a hollow shell after directing the bulk of their military forces to the frontline.
The same applied to the Saint Freya Academy too.
Most staff members and elites from the Scholar Guilds were dispatched to the battlefield, and a good portion of the Fourth Grade students even dropped out of the academy to join the army in hopes of doing their part for humankind.
As a result, there were only about three thousand people in the academy at the moment. It might look like a sizable force at first sight, but it was worth noting that they were mainly students from the First Grade, Second Grade, and Third Grade. Most of them weren’t properly trained for combat yet.
Furthermore, the Saint Freya Academy was simply too huge that no one would see one another if the three thousand people were to spread themselves equally around the campus.
If not for the academy’s barrier, there was no way Antonio and the others would have been able to hold their ground against the Salvation Legion.
The Salvation Legion was the nightmare summoned by the Salvation Brotherhood for this uprising. Those monsters ran rampant throughout the entire city, driving countless innocent citizens insane. Even an established evil cult like the Saints Convocation was nearly forced to the brink of extinction under their prowess.
But to Antonio’s surprise, the dying Saints Convocation made a counterattack—a huge one at that.
They actually managed to recoup over a quarter of the entire city within a single night!
This miraculous accomplishment left Antonio greatly perplexed. He couldn’t comprehend how they managed to overcome the tight lockdown by the Salvation Legion.
“Holy Envoy Roel…”
The young Antonio muttered the name of the man who had appeared out of nowhere and orchestrated the Saints Convocation’s comeback, but it simply didn’t ring a bell in his head at all.
In truth, Antonio had more than one identity. He had joined the Twilight Sages Assembly while he was studying in the Saint Freya Academy, going by the alias of ‘Guardian’. He was privy to a lot of confidential information about the evil cults as a member of the Assembly, but he had never heard of such a formidable figure amongst the Saints Convocations’ Holy Envoys.
Aren’t Holy Envoys supposed to be no more than tools in the Saints Convocation? They do have a high standing in the organization, but their individual prowess tends to be unimpressive. This is queer…
“I have to meet with Lord Astrid,” said Antonio.
He quickly walked down a long corridor that was tightly guarded by two rows of soldiers and headed into a palatial room.
The sun was already up by now, but the room remained dark due to its shut windows. He slowly walked toward the center of the room and raised his head.
Beneath the iridescent glass on the ceiling floated a beautiful figure—‘Academic’ Astrid.
She was a highly important figure in the Twilight Sages Assembly who had remained elusive for many years, but the appearance of a traitor in the Assembly compromised her identity, resulting in their current crisis.
Antonio sighed softly before walking closer to her. He slightly lowered his back respectfully and was just about to speak when the floating figure suddenly opened her eyes. It was a pair of mystical iridescent eyes, just that they were filled with complex emotions at the moment.
“Antonio, did something happen outside?” asked Astrid as she gazed nostalgically beyond the academy. “I sense some familiar auras.”