Book 4 Chapter 25.7 – To Pay
This mountain area was located deep north, already entering the Holy Crusaders’ territory. Their battle would sometimes erupt right by the Holy Crusaders’ base, to the extent where they had even fought inside the base. However, for the Holy Crusaders, the lesson they were taught in these past three months truly left a deep enough impression, to the extent where the higher levels even temporarily issued a strange battlefield command, which was that if they saw some unknown bonfires in the night, they were to immediately withdraw, strictly prohibiting them from approaching the fiery lights.
Meanwhile, the knights holding the front line all understood clearly what the consequences of attempting to interfere with their battle were.
Wild beasts of the olden era feared fire, while the many mutated creatures of the new era weren’t scared of flames. However, the mutated creatures who were brave enough, their stomachs hungry enough, all became the four individuals’ food.
In the past, Persephone always made the fire, ate, and rested herself. However, from tonight forth, O’Brien and Alan joined her. O’Brien’s selfless, life sacrificing act of rescue finally dissolved the formless chunk of ice between the brother and sister.
Persephone’s right hand, as well as her entire wrist was scorched black, the surface of her skin completely charred. How could the flames of death be directly touched? For the sake of rescuing O’Brien, she bare handedly removed the kiss of death, and returned it, but the price she paid was not light either.
O’Brien was staring into the bonfire, unknown what he was thinking. His pupils reflected Persephone’s figure from time to time, and under the illumination of the pulsing flame, Persephone would eternally be just as beautiful. She didn’t say anything, only using her left hand to cut the roasted meat into similarly sized square chunks, and then throwing them one after another into her mouth. Persephone ate extremely quickly; when one piece had just been swallowed, the next was already flying into her mouth. She continuously ate. Even though this type of method was completely lacking in etiquette, she didn’t care at all, continuing to focus on eating in this simple and effective method.
Next to Alan was a pile of more than ten mutated creatures, the amount of edible flesh close to ten kilograms. Meanwhile, nearly half of the meat he roasted entered Persephone’s stomach. In fact, ever since a month ago, O’Brien noticed that the amount of food Persephone ate suddenly increased several times. He originally thought that Persephone purposely increased the amount to deal with the intense battle, never expecting that there was already a small life within her belly. For high level ability users like themselves, their bodies’ genomes had already undergone substantial changes, as a result displaying completely different physiological patterns. Regardless of which domain the ability users had high levels in, their bodies’ speed of metabolism would be several times to several dozen times that of ordinary people, and as such able to use large amounts of food to quickly recover their stamina and injuries. For injuries like the burns on Persephone’s right hand, it would return to normal after just a day and night’s time. However, Persephone ate just a bit too much, far surpassing the amount needed to recover from her injuries, to the extent where it even exceeded the amount needed to nurture the small life within her. The duration of pregnancy of the new era was only six months, while for Persephone whose abilities had entered the holy levels, someone who could control their body’s various areas, she could have the embryo enter a dormant state, and from there on prolong the duration of pregnancy to longer than a year, or even give birth to an infant within three months. From how much she was eating, it looked like she wanted to give birth to the child a bit sooner.
O’Brien silently calculated the time. During the past three months, both he and Alan continuously followed Persephone, so he knew that she had been pregnant for at least three months. In addition, from the change in food intake, she had continuously controlled the growth of the embryo, while from this month forward, she instead began to increase the development of the embryo. Could there be some type of reasoning behind this?
The number of abnormal creatures at Alan’s side quickly decreased, continuously turning into roasted meat and entering the three individuals’ stomachs. When he saw that Persephone finally finished the slow and arduous meal, O’Brien looked at her and softly asked, “Older sis, the child, could it be… Su’s?”
“Of course! Who else’s could it be other than his?” Persephone said.
O’Brien became silent. Everything that happened between Su and himself continuously surfaced within his mind. Only after a moment did he release a long sigh. “That fella actually left you behind just like that! As soon as we get rid of that crazy woman, I am going to find him and drag him back! If he dares treat you improperly, I definitely won’t act politely any longer.”
When she heard O’Brien’s words, Persephone was a bit shocked. She carefully gave her younger brother who was only a bigger kid in her eyes a look, and then a smile surfaced from the corners of her lips. She shook her head and said, “Forget it! You aren’t his opponent. Instead of depending on you, there’s a greater chance if I went myself!”
“This is hard to say, right?” O’Brien was rather unconvinced. In the past year, the rate at which he improved was already something that couldn’t be described with just the word genius. He found it difficult to imagine that his current strength was still not enough to defeat Su.
“Actually, even if it is me, right now, I don’t even know if i can defeat Su!” Persephone said with a smile, her smile full of happiness and pride. “Alright, we’ll talk about this later. That crazy woman definitely isn’t someone easy to deal with!”
When he saw Persephone’s smile, O’Brien felt a speechless warmth, as if he had returned to when he had just joined the Black Dragonrider, that underripe and inexperienced time full of worries and embitterment. This type of feeling had already left him for an extremely, extremely long time.
“Yi? I only left for a bit, yet you all are already speaking randomly behind my back?” Eileen’s sweet voice suddenly sounded from the darkness.
Immediately afterwards, a strand of flame shone in the darkness. However, it wasn’t towards the three of them, but rather to ignite the pile of firewood that had been tossed onto the ground. Eileen busied about, quickly lightning a bonfire. She then dragged out a mutated small deer from the darkness, skillfully prepared it, and then nonchalantly hung it over the fire to roast.
It looked as if Eileen and Persephone were camping travelers instead of enemies that had just carried out a great life and death battle. In addition, they each did their respective things instead of disturbing each other. However, the problem laid in that the two bonfires were just too close, unexpectedly only being twenty meters from each other!
Eileen concentrated on roasting the meat, while Persephone laid down, placing her wounded right hand over her belly before closing her eyes, seemingly entering a deep slumber. O’Brien was staring into the burning bonfire, unknown what he was thinking either. Alan placed his hand on the alloy heavy shield beside him, his eyes continuously staring at Eileen who continuously busied about.
Twenty meters, this was a distance that could be covered in an instant.
Eileen’s injuries hadn’t healed, and her body was completely spent, exhausting almost all of the energy she had. She didn’t conceal this point in the slightest. However, regardless of whether it was Persephone, O’Brien, or Alan, their bodies’ current situations were only worse and not better than hers. In this current opposition situation, all four of them were completely on guard, their speed of stamina and injury recovery substantially slowed down. However, if one were comparing speeds of recovery, who among them could compare to Eileen who had more than one ninth level ability?
The night slowly elapsed.
The mountains were extremely peaceful under the curtain of night. Aside from the bonfire’s sounds, there was only an occasional slight pi pa sound, the sound of charred skin continuously falling off of Persephone’s right hand. Each time this sound could be heard, it signified that a new patch of skin already appeared, as well signifying that a bit more time had passed.
Meanwhile, time was like the sand in an hourglass, continuously scattering down, landing on the scale of victory’s tray. However, this time, it only landed on the tray that belonged to Eileen.
