Chapter 633.1: Choice (1)
Chapter 633.1: Choice (1)
As the aurora enveloped Carolyn, Alicia took the chance to escape together with Roel using Shrouding Fog’s spatial ability. It took a mere instant for them to vanish into thin air.
Roel’s Being Toward Death stopped shortly after he entered the white fog, and his body immediately felt incredibly heavy. His consciousness began to fade, causing him to let go of Alicia’s hand. 𝐛𝗲𝗱𝐧𝐨𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝐦
“Lord Brother!” Alicia exclaimed as she tightly held onto Roel’s body.
Sensing her nervousness, Roel mustered his willpower to pull himself together.
It was also then that the spatial distortion faded, and the scenery around them changed.
This is… a palace?
What appeared before Roel’s eyes was a quiet corridor, but he was more focused on whether they were being tracked. When he confirmed that there was no spatial spell following them, his body finally ran out of strength, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Lord Brother, open your eyes! You mustn’t sleep now!”
“Alicia, this place is…”
“We’re inside Shrouding Fog. We should be safe for the time being. Lord Brother, you mustn’t fall asleep! I’m begging you…”
At Alicia’s tearful pleading, Roel forced himself to maintain consciousness. He could feel his body growing colder, and he was shivering nonstop. He grimly looked at his injuries, which were emanating a faint light.
The problem was that his injuries weren’t healing.
This was not the first time he had witnessed such an ability. Swordghost, one of the deviants’ Race Sovereigns, had a similar ability, but it was nothing compared to Carolyn’s.
She had only struck him once throughout the battle, but her mana obstinately latched onto him like some sort of venom and even exploded without warning afterward. When she summoned the second ray of golden light, he had a feeling that it would agitate his existing injuries, so he activated Being Toward Death and squeezed out every last bit of mana to invoke his Crown’s Stones to block the attack.
Yet, although he stopped the ray of golden light, his injuries still worsened.
Roel wasn’t sure how the second ray of golden light had injured him, but it had left him in a terrible condition. He lay weakly on the ground, depleted of mana.
Alicia anxiously examined his injuries as she racked her brain for a solution.
“Right, I can use my life force…”
Suddenly remembering how her tears had suppressed the severity of his wounds earlier, she grabbed his clothes and pulled them open without any hesitation.
“Alicia?” Roel weakly asked.
“Don’t move!” Alicia ordered hoarsely.
She slit her palm with her finger, and blood spurted out. Some got onto her face, but she wasn’t bothered by it. She placed her palm close to Roel’s injuries and allowed her silvery blood to drip onto it.
Pu!
The blood droplets falling on Roel’s injuries produced a sizzling sound reminiscent of water falling into blazing flames. Roel widened his eyes.
“Stop it, Alicia. Your blood can only suppress the mana; you won’t be able to destroy it. Furthermore, you’d require a huge amount of blood to heal the injuries. Your body is also…”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“How can it be fine? You’re wasting your effort…”
“Stop talking, Lord Brother!” Alicia suddenly cried out with an unusually forceful tone that echoed loudly in the silent palace.
Roel was taken aback. He stared dazedly at her for a long while before he carefully spoke up. “…A-Alicia?”
“Didn’t I tell you not to talk?” Alicia angrily howled.
“…” Roel quickly quieted down.
Alicia glared at him as she wiped her tears with the back of her hand before berating him with a quivering voice, “I don’t want to hear that it won’t work and that I’m wasting my effort. I know full well it doesn’t solve the root of the problem! But if it buys you some time, what does this bit of blood count as?
“I know that my blood isn’t enough to fully heal you up, and that I am not in a good condition to do this too, but it’s fine as long as it helps you even a little. What I need now isn’t your dissuasion but your encouragement! Wuuu… I-I really… really…”
Looking at the pitifully sobbing woman, it suddenly struck Roel that this was the first time Alicia was seeing him in a near-death state.
He had become somewhat accustomed to near-death experiences after facing plenty of powerful enemies in recent years, but never had it happened in front of Alicia. He also made sure to avoid mentioning the dangers he encountered on this battlefield to her lest she worry.
Her complete lack of immunity toward seeing him in such a state made it difficult for her to even maintain her composure. She was like a child from a military household fearing dearly for the life of a family member; it was only normal for her to be terrified.
“…I’m sorry, Alicia,” Roel softly apologized.
Alicia nodded while wiping away her tears.
“I can’t squeeze out any mana now, so Artasia and the others won’t be able to help me. I’ll be counting on you,” Roel said.
“Mm,” Alicia replied hoarsely.
She first placed her hand on his chest and took a deep breath. Slowly, her agitated emotions began to settle down. Then, she proceeded to examine his injuries.
Roel was surprisingly embarrassed by it.
It tickled him to have his top half bare and touched by Alicia. Her gentle fingers running over his body made him feel oddly sensitive, and her tearful and worried expression made his brain heat up.
It was just that he had lost too much blood and mana to dwell on such extraneous matters, and Alicia’s expression slowly grew serious.
As time passed, Alicia’s face started to pale due to the profuse loss of blood, but she managed to stabilize Roel’s condition for the time being through the infusion of life force. That helped him to better stay conscious, and his mind didn’t feel so groggy anymore.
Carolyn’s ray of golden light was formidable—most people would have disintegrated on impact. Who could have thought that there was an additional layer to it?
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From the looks of it now, the side effect imbued into the attack was the true killer move, as it was much harder to deal with.
“Is it something like a parasite or a virus?” Alicia asked.
“Yes, it’s similar to those but more dangerous. My mana is hardly recovering; I suspect that it’s absorbing my mana to worsen the injury.”
“I see. That simplifies the issue.” Alicia pondered for a long while before her eyes hardened with determination. She gently touched his wound and asked, “You’ll recover as long as I destroy the light imbued in your wounds, right?”
“Yes, but that’s impossible to pull off.”
“It can be done,” Alicia said as her crimson eyes glowed brightly. She grabbed Roel’s hand and asked, “Lord Brother, you told me to trust you earlier?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Do you trust me?”
“…”
Roel was taken aback by the question. He looked at her and saw that her pupils were shaking. She was nervously waiting for his reply.
“I have only recovered a portion of my memories, but even so, Lord Brother, are you willing to put your complete trust into me?”
“Alicia, you’re thinking of…”
“Black Moon.”