Free Web NovelChapter 36: 36. The Unbloodied Valley ( I )
"What was that?" Alaric opened his eyes in his mind’s world, brows furrowed in confusion, body covered in sweat.
He had entered a trance, his life right before he was reborn into this world replaying, so real one would have thought he was experiencing it for the first time.
"Mark... James..." He muttered the names of his comrades, his eyes distant, a wistful smile on his lips.
Comrades he had served with for most parts of his life. There were a few before them, lost to battle, as were the dangers of the job.
But no matter how short their lives were, their bonds were very much there.
"Maria?..." He added, brows furrowed in confusion.
"Yes!" A response came.
Startling him to his feet.
A feminine voice, one he recognized.
But this was his mind’s world.
His subconscious space.
There shouldn’t be anyone else here but himself. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
He looked around frantically but found nothing.
His mind’s world was as silent as it looked.
"I am sorry I scared you," the voice came again, echoing across the entirety of the mind’s world.
Before Alaric could make heads or tails of what was going on, the still lake began to ripple a few metres away from him.
The water rose up in a towering jet, the column of water slowly morphing into the silhouette of a woman.
Alaric already as far away from the projection as he could be.
What if this was another assassination attempt on his life?
But he didn’t outright leave the mind’s world.
What if it wasn’t?
He stayed at a safe distance, eyes narrowed, his attention divided between the projection and getting out of here if things went south.
This was his mind’s world. As long as he willed it, he could get out of it at any time.
"Don’t run from me, Mr. Alaric Silva, I mean no harm." The water projection of a woman suddenly appeared in front of him, arms raised in surrender.
Startled, Alaric almost ejected from his mind’s world, cracks forming like a shattered mirror, almost ready to give out.
But he stopped at the last moment, the silhouette of the woman extremely familiar.
Though completely transparent, her features were a distinct; oval face, long lashes, soft angled brows slightly furrowed in worry, her hair a literal waterfall that made the whole lake’s surface ripple.
"That face, this figure..." Alaric recognized her.
Though he had met her once, she had left a very deep impression on him.
Not to mention, she mentioned his name from his past life, not that she should have known.
"Mariah?"
He was curious, yet didn’t let his guard down, the cracks on his mind’s world still very much prominent.
With the slightest suspicious action, he would eject himself from the world.
"Yea... You recognized me." The projection smiled, clapping her watery hands in joy.
"Let’s talk more comfortably..."
Blue wisps of energy, the same that had entered Alaric’s body back in the Elven Kingdom, flew from the lake, converging onto the projection of Maria.
They engulfed the entirety of her being, Alaric momentarily blinded by their luminance.
The light subsided, revealing Maria Tiamat in the flesh.
Blue hair, fair skin, red upper lips, and a face that could topple nations.
And just like the first time he met her, she was adorned in the convenience store uniform.
"How are you, Mr. Alaric..."
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Meanwhile, in the outside world, three days had passed, Alaric unconscious as he lay on his mother’s lap, the latter in the carriage continuing their journey.
Most mothers would have been worried their child had supposedly been comatose for days, but Raika was surprisingly calm.
She recognized the breathing pattern and the water mana surrounding her son.
This was an attempt at a breakthrough in rank.
Only happening from the second resonance upwards, never heard of in the first resonance.
A common sense she was aware of, but this was the son of the Thunder Princess and Hell Flame. Though unprecedented, she didn’t see it as strange.
"Take your time, son, I will protect you." She patted Alaric’s hair, the latter soundly asleep.
Sensing something, Raika knocked on the carriage, signalling for Philip to stop.
The carriage came to a halt, Philip’s brows furrowed in confusion.
They were on a relatively safe path through a rocky valley, said to be safe because of the presence of an Earth Drake.
With the slightest disturbance of battle, it would awake from its slumber, destroying both parties, the victim and the assailants.
The Unbloodied Valley.
Raika stepped out of the carriage, Alaric firmly strapped to her front, like a modern baby carrier.
"Take the lead, we will meet you at the edge of the valley."
"..." Philip opened his mouth, about to say something, but paused at the last moment.
He couldn’t do anything even if he stayed.
Glancing at the sleeping Alaric, he wished them well before swinging the reins.
With that, he left the valley, Raika alone with Alaric, her golden lightning spear in hand.
"Come out, I know you are here..." She roared, her voice booming across the rocky valley.
"Is she insane? What if the Drake wakes up..." A whisper came from behind one of the many rocks, one of the assailants who had been following them for half a day now, biding their time for the right time to strike.
And now, it was certainly not the right time, but Raika didn’t care.
"Let’s ignore her, there is no..." Before the voice could finish its sentence, lightning flashed through his head, Raika’s spear piercing through the rock he hid behind and making a hole in his head.
"What the..." Like confused ants who had lost the scent of their trail, everyone began to scurry away.
Their formation broken, each running for their lives.
"These are not them." Raika, noticing their disorientation, clicked her tongue.
She was on high alert for the Nebula.
The assassins who had managed to leave a lethal wound on Alaric in her presence.
"It doesn’t matter, whether you’re the ones or not, you dared bare your fangs at the son of the Thunder Princess."
Lightning rained down in multiple places, her form levitating at the center of it all, body crackling with lightning, Alaric’s body glowing with a silvery hue, an invisible armour she had prepared to guard him from her power.
The lightning rain continued, claiming lives one after the other, a large-scale attack that consumed a week’s worth of mana in a second, her mana running low at an extreme rate.
"Let’s wait it out, when her mana depletes, then we attack..."
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