Free Web NovelChapter 110: "You violated my body, and now you’re acting all innocent?"
The moment the voice reached him, Evan was on alert.
He had just woken up and hadn’t had time to properly assess his surroundings. He had assumed he was alone, clearly, he had been wrong.
That said, beyond being caught off guard, there was another reason why he immediately turned toward the source of the voice.
It sounded familiar.
There, seated on what appeared to be a simple chair made of of ice, was the same woman whose heart he had stolen. Literally.
He could feel the connection through that heart even now, which confirmed it beyond any doubt. This wasn’t an illusion or a trick. It was her.
Seraphine, seeing his expression, let a small, mischievous smile cross her face.
"Oh, don’t tell me you’re disappointed. Were you expecting someone else?" she asked, her tone carrying something deliberately ambiguous.
At those words, Evan found himself momentarily without a response. Strangely, it had the effect of settling something in his chest, and he was able to think more clearly.
"You’ll have to forgive the poor reception, but I’m really not in the best condition at the moment," he said, still feeling the lingering exhaustion within his body.
At that, Seraphine’s expression shifted toward something closer to irritation. She made a small gesture with her hand, and a sphere of soft green energy formed between her fingers. She pointed it at him and, before he could ask what she was doing, she sent it straight at him.
Evan had braced for impact.
Instead, the sphere dissolved the moment it made contact, spreading through him like warmth rather than force. The exhaustion that had been sitting in his bones vanished almost immediately.
He was finally able to push himself off the ground and stand.
"Tch. So young and already tired," Seraphine said, shaking her head slowly. "What kind of impression are you going to make when you start getting exhausted during the nighttime training sessions?"
’Nighttime training sessions?’ It didn’t take Evan long to understand what she meant by that, and the realization seemed to hit a nerve.
He had a lot he wanted to say, but he forced himself to remain calm. freewebnovёl.ƈom
"And what’s with that Formal tone? You violated my body, and now you’re acting all innocent?"
’What the hell? Violated? When did I ever do something like that? Does this woman have a few screws loose?’
Evan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at such an absurd accusation.
"Lady Seraphine, I believe there is some kind of misunderstanding. This is only the second time we’ve met. How could I possibly have done something like that to you?" he said, still trying to maintain a friendly tone.
At the end of the day, the woman standing before him was still a goddess, a divine being who, by definition, existed on a level above anyone else. Someone who could save a person or end them with the flick of a finger.
Evan had only met her once before, and even that encounter had been extremely strange.
He still didn’t have a clear read on what kind of person she actually was, which meant he needed to stay careful, or at least, he was trying to.
Unfortunately, that was proving far more difficult than he had expected.
Seraphine narrowed her eyes slightly at his words.
"Oh? You claim you’ve done nothing, yet the very first thing you did after obtaining my bloodline was steal my energy."
The moment those words landed, something clicked in Evan’s mind.
’Energy? Wait, does she mean the energy from that place?’
He remembered that castle clearly. How could he not, the strange creature inside it had nearly killed him with a single look. It wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot.
And now, suddenly, he understood why that place had contained such a concentrated mass of life energy.
’So it was hers. But wait, if she was there, how is she here right now?’
He noticed the inconsistency immediately, and his thoughts jumped to the next logical conclusion.
’Don’t tell me I’m...’
As if she had read his mind, Seraphine spoke.
"No, you’re not there. Well, not yet. Though, to be completely honest, that place would have been much better than this one."
"Better? What do you mean? Where are we?" he asked, already feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
That place had been lethal, to put it mildly. And she was saying this was worse?
Evan suddenly found himself wondering what kind of place he had ended up in.
Seraphine didn’t answer immediately. She looked at him for a moment, perhaps a moment longer than necessary.
Her eyes seemed to shimmer with a complicated emotion, one Evan couldn’t understand.
Eventually, she smiled.
But unlike before, there was none of that playful or carefree energy in it.
"We’re home."
***
In another place entirely, a cluster of buildings rose from the ground, tall, rectangular, their surfaces obscured by a snowstorm that fell without pause.
It was a city. Large, and completely desolate, with no trace of life anywhere.
Among the countless buildings stood a massive forest.
Its shape appeared strangely orderly, as if it hadn’t formed naturally but had instead been deliberately created by someone.
At the center of this forest, which had not been spared from the snowstorm either, a young woman lay unconscious atop one of the thick branches of a giant tree.
Half her body was on the branch. The other half had drifted past the edge, held in a fragile balance that wouldn’t last, and indeed, it was already beginning to fail. Her body was slowly sliding, losing its grip, tilting toward the open air below.
The moment it began, the girl’s brows moved, as though some part of her could sense the danger even through the dark.
Her body continued to slide until it had tilted completely past the point of return, and she began to fall.
In that instant, as though driven by survival instincts that hit her nervous system like a shock, her hand moved. In a single motion that carried something unnatural in its speed, she drew the sword at her waist and slammed it into the branch.
The blade sank deep into the wood.
Her grip tightened around the hilt as her senses gradually returned.
Her eyes opened.
And immediately noticed her situation.
’This... what’s happening?’
The last thing she remembered was the instructor’s warning and the five of them running, trying to get out of the forest, only to be swallowed by a crack in space that had appeared from nowhere.
And now she was here, nearly falling from what appeared to be a tree branch.
She could feel the grip on her sword arm beginning to weaken, and noticed that the rest of her body wasn’t in much better shape.
Her expression hardened as she focused on keeping her arm steady, and at the same time pushed mana through her body to draw out what strength she could.
She had looked down briefly and registered the height, far enough that in her current state, if she fell, it wouldn’t end well.
The moment the mana began to flow, her body pushed back some of the exhaustion. As soon as she felt even a fraction of her strength return, she didn’t waste it. With one short, sharp push she launched herself upward, reaching for the branch above.
The branch above was thick, at least three times her own width.
Even so, after some effort, she managed to grab its edge.
A little more effort later, and she finally climbed on top of it.
The moment she did, she collapsed onto the branch, panting heavily as though she had just completed an intense training session.
It was clear her body was not in good condition, given how easily the effort had drained her.
She slowed her racing heart and tried to steady her mind, to think with some degree of clarity.
She didn’t know where she was. More than that, she didn’t know where the others were.
Question after question surfaced in her mind, none of them with answers.
The uncertainty unsettled her all over again, so she closed her eyes and tried to stay calm. The last thing she wanted was to panic in the middle of a situation this strange.
But it seemed like that was going to be difficult, because in the next moment, the tall branch she was lying on shook violently enough that she nearly slipped off again.
She looked down immediately.
And what she saw made her skin crawl.
Below her stood a figure. Massive, broad, with two enormous horns rising from its head, currently driven into the thick trunk of the tree. She had no idea what the creature was or why it had slammed into the trunk, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
Because beyond the creature, there was something else.
Shapes. Dozens of them, pulling themselves out of the snow one after another, creatures of some kind, dragging their bodies upward from beneath the surface, all of them moving toward her tree.
