Ears pricked up as it could hear the sound of tidal waves crashing against the rocky shores. Eyes trembled as a person groggily opened their eyes, feeling extremely lethargic as if they had never felt this weak before.
‘Ahh… it fucking hurts…’ It was the first thought that came to this person’s mind before hearing something else.
“Davis… You’re awake…?”
Davis heard Sophie’s voice echoing, but it felt so distant as if it came from afar. His hearing remained muffled while he felt extremely uncomfortable as he could even feel his soul throbbing in pain. The soul-splitting pain had disappeared, but a sharp pain shot through him every time his soul throbbed, making him feel like shit.
‘So this is the price of killing so many powerful eighth stage magical beasts with Fallen Heaven… especially those two Peak-Level King Beast Stage Scorched-Crystal Crimson Apes which are directly a stage above me…’
He blinked, feeling his head aching before he looked around. The focus to his eyes came back, and the first thing he saw was Sophie’s face filled with tears as she looked at him from above.
Well, it seems like she was using her lap as a pillow for his head. He felt delighted at that moment, but it was too bad that he could not feel her warmth as his whole body felt numb.
His sensitivity was returning one by one, or it was apt to say that nothing fatal happened to his body, but it was affected by his soul essence that was burned to power Fallen Heaven’s deadly attack.
“How long… was I out?”
Sophie revealed a smile as she heard his voice, but the moisture in her eyes began to fall as she happily shed tears.
“You’re fine…”
“Yeah… I will be more so in a few minutes, or perhaps hours…” Davis sat up as he turned to look at her, his brows imperceptibly twitching from the head pain.
From his previous case of fainting, he knew that the pain would disappear. However, since the damage was greater than the last time, he didn’t know if it would disappear or not.
Sophie sniffled, “You were fainted for about two hours…”
“Two hours… huh…” Davis’s lips widened as he chuckled, “That’s more than enough time for any surviving enemies to kill me after I had fainted…”
“Fortunately, it looks like Nadia delivered me to this safe place…”
Davis looked around and saw that he was in a cave. The sound of waves splashing could be heard, so he mused that this was a cave between the shores and an elevated hill.
At the entrance, he saw Nadia’s back. She was standing at the entrance of the cave in her human form, probably on the lookout for magical beasts.
“Did we leave the Purple Thunderflame Island…?”
Sophie nodded her head as she wiped her tears away, “Mhmm… This is an islet, like the one we stayed in the past, and luckily, there’s not a single eighth stage magical beast present here, at least according to Nadia…”
“I see…” Davis relaxed.
He trusted Nadia to protect them as she had always done as he went leaned back. He was not lying on the cave’s rocky surface but on a wooden bed, above the comfy mattress, his head falling on Sophie’s lap.
“I’ll rest for a few minutes…” Davis still felt lethargic.
“Please do!” Sophie’s expression was filled with worry.
Davis took her hand and placed it on his forehead, trying to feel her warmth so that he could feel some illusion of his pain fading. However, he couldn’t even feel her softness, and that was a strange sensation in its own way.
“What happened…?” Sophie hesitantly and worriedly voiced out.
Davis became taken aback as he brought her hand to his lips, kissing her palm.
“Nadia didn’t tell you?”
Sophie shook her head.
She still didn’t know why Davis had fainted, and Nadia didn’t say anything either, causing her to not know what exactly happened to him. She checked him with her soul sense but failed to find any injuries, not even in his soul.
How can she find his soul essence with her low understanding of the soul?
Hence, she could only wait to hear it from his mouth, and now that he was awake, she could no longer hold back and asked.
Davis chuckled as he felt pleased with Nadia. Likely, Nadia knew that his mysterious technique should remain a secret and so hadn’t told Sophie what had happened. He felt like he must praise her for it.
“It’s just I had burned my soul essence a bit to kill some magical beasts that caught wind of the Purple Star Flame…” He smiled as he kissed the back of her hand again, “It’s nothing to worry about…”
Sophie’s eyes widened as she realized something.
So it was all because that she was comprehending that he was forced to burn something like the soul essence…?
It sounded even precious than blood essence to her, and yet how could he burn that like it was nothing and tell that it was nothing to worry about?
She couldn’t help but stare at him angrily as tears fell from her eyes again, staining her cheeks. Her eyes became red as her lips trembled.
“Davis… I was thrilled to have comprehended Level Five Intent, but when I opened my eyes and saw you being carried by Nadia while you were unmoving, I was horrified…”
“I felt like I had… lost my soul at that moment at that very moment, thinking that you had died…”
“Well…” Davis smiled as he used his other hand to wipe her tears, “I am not dead…”
Sophie did not look amused at all, “But why… why did you do something like burning something like that… soul essence, was it…?”
“You could’ve just slapped me awake, and we’d have escaped in an instant!!!”
Her voice was trembling as she tried to suppress her scream.
“That’s because it was those Scorched-Crystal Crimson Apes were not going to give up their chase on me… You already know that I stole many resources from their territory, and they would kill me one way or another if I don’t kill them, right?”
Davis smilingly shook his head, “It wasn’t you…”
“You’re lying…” Sophie clenched her teeth while the whites of her eyes were still red, “I’m not stupid… Nadia’s concealment is something even Peak-Level King Beast Stage Magical Beasts would find it difficult to discover. Wasn’t it said that even Ancestor Dian was unable to find her when she remained concealed…?”
“Don’t lie…” Sophie sniffled as she took deep breaths while shaking her head, her voice ridden with guilt, “You did that for… me… to protect me while I ignorantly comprehended…”
“It’s all my fault…”
Davis still possessed a smile on his face, but sometimes, he wished that Sophie became dumb enough to not know the events. It wasn’t his intent for her to know, and he felt that he could just slide it off while concealing what he did, but it looks like she understood that she was the root cause as to why he stayed and fought rather than to escape.
He really wished that Sophie was dumb at this moment before he took a deep breath.
“Alright, I was lying. It’s your fault… indeed.”
Sophie’s expression changed as she stopped trembling. She pursed her lips before solemnly nodding her head, “I’ve caused you so much pain and suffering. Even if it means abandoning my insignificant cultivation path, I’ll stay with you to take care of you till I die. I swear th…”
“Wait!”
‘What the shit! Is she taking me for a cripple…!?’ Davis finally understood.
Now that he thought about it, this situation was a given that she obviously didn’t believe his statement of recovering within a few minutes or hours. After all, any injuries that were inflicted upon the soul could be considered permanent.
Unless they could obtain a heavenly resource that heals the soul or obtain a legendary pill that could heal his soul, it was practically impossible to heal his soul that’s in the Supreme Soul Stage. Forget Supreme Soul Stage, Sophie knew that the Alstreim Family or even the Dragon Queen would have no means to heal a soul that’s at the sixth stage.
If something that could heal the soul was readily available, why would anyone have a deep-rooted fear against soul cultivators?
In her perspective, Davis was possibly half-crippled, perhaps never to make a breakthrough again in his Soul Forging Cultivation. However, he had the life-like energy that healed his soul essence, but Sophie didn’t know about that, leading to her extreme guilt and her subsequent vow, that Davis had stopped now before he saw her bewildered expression.
“Let me take responsibility for this…” Sophie trembled as if was the least she could do for him, for the mess that she believed that she had created.
“Responsibility, my ass!” Davis sat up in a single move and forcefully pushed her on the bed.
Sophie panicked as she fell on the bed. She tried to move, but her wrists were held by him, making her unable to even move a finger. She realized at that moment even if he appeared to be weak, his physical strength was something else, like the remnant of a dragon, like the names he always yells before using a technique.
Davis stared at her from above as she pinned her down. He appeared to be a predator who had caught its prey, but his expression was something one of solemness.
“Look! I may have injured my soul but healing it is easy for me! You don’t have to feel guilty for that, you understand!?”
“You are mine, and it is my burden and joy to protect you! The only responsibility you shall bear now is to become one of my wives after we return, you understand!?”
Sophie’s cheeks went beet red as she heard his unreasonable lecture. He can worry about her but not her? Even though she had tons of retorts as she still held some disbelief as to whether he could really heal his soul or not, she still couldn’t stop herself from nodding her head.
His tone was so forceful that she didn’t know what to say, and that last sentence that sounded as if he said that she should marry him appeared like a fairy tale that made her go speechless!
