Solflare: The Painter's Secret

Chapter 238: Andrew Storm’s Ghost

Heavy silence remained between Luo Fang and Hayes as they walked along the hallways of the Skywarden Tower.

Beads of sweat lined Hayes’s face every time a Skywarden materialized into the tower or phased through the walls.

The moment they walked through a transparent door labeled Records, Lord Luo Fang walked toward the most sealed files and pulled out a single document.

A mist of white dust sprayed into the air as he blew over the book’s black cover, revealing a smooth, vibrating surface. Holding it felt like holding the weight of twenty years of research that had been suspended without any proper reason.

"What is that?" Hayes asked while staring at the folder, but Luo Fang didn’t answer.

Luo Fang’s knuckles whitened as he increased his grip on the book as if handling it lazily would make it fly away. He walked to the round crystal table at the center of the records chamber.

’Why is Lord Luo Fang acting so strange holding that folder?’ Hayes asked himself. He snarled before closing in on Luo Fang and the crystal table.

A bright golden glow appeared and then vanished when Luo Fang flipped the cover of the folder as he sat in a lotus posture.

Hayes paused a step when he caught the flicker of the golden glow then shook his head.

’What was that?’ he thought, his head tilting slightly to the left as he tracked the direction where the glow had vanished.

The moment he neared the table and sat in the same lotus posture, his eyes opened wide. Inside the first sheet of the folder was a thermal scan of a human heart, caged in a golden filament like a miniature lightning bolt.

"Luo Fang, is that the Destroyer’s blueprint?"

"Yes," Luo Fang said in a cold voice. He squared his shoulders toward Hayes while his fingernail slowly tapped on the center of the heart as if wanting to destroy it. "This is the only record of what the Council wants."

Hayes hovered over the sheet before snapping his attention back to Luo Fang, while the sweat on his face trailed faint lines across his cheeks. "Then let’s go for Leon and bring him to them this instant."

Luo Fang inhaled deeply and then exhaled sharply.

"You see a boy who humiliated your nephew." He paused, his expression growing wild as he locked onto Hayes. "I see a ghost that was supposed to be buried twenty years ago."

"What are you talking about? Leon is just a lucky brat who has a power whose origin he doesn’t even know yet."

"It isn’t just a mere power, Hayes," Luo Fang said as he slowly lifted the opened folder and then closed it shut. "It is a power that was scraped out of records to save humanity and even the Gods above us."

He placed his left arm on the floor and pushed himself up. He walked to the transparent wall where the flying Skywardens could be seen, then placed his hands and the folder behind his back.

"When that golden light flared in the Pit, I felt a signature I haven’t felt since the last solar eclipse." Luo Fang turned his back to the transparent wall to face Hayes, who was now standing at his right hand side. "It was the same solar essence of Andrew Storm."

Hayes brushed his palms across his face and laughed. "Fang, Fang, Fang. No wonder you have white hair. Have you forgotten about what we did to him?"

Luo Fang’s jaw set tight but he didn’t react. He simply watched Hayes in surprise.

Hayes placed a hand on Luo Fang’s shoulder and faced the wall. "I was there on the 11th Alchemania and witnessed that same solar essence, but it’s nothing compared to what Andrew Storm could do."

He removed his hand from Luo Fang’s shoulder then took in a deep breath. "The dead can’t come back to life. What we have to do now is to make sure none of his bloodline exists to reach the level he was at."

"I’m sure you don’t know who or what we are actually dealing with, Hayes," Luo Fang said, shaking his head. "Andrew survived ten colossal death attempts, and died in a mere plane crash?"

Hayes’s expression faltered for a second, but he grinned the moment he remembered the news and what he saw after visiting the Grannum Tower that very evening of the crash.

Luo Fang studied Hayes’s grin and sighed once. "We may have removed Andrew Storm from the human world with death, but the world won’t be safe from Leon."

He turned and walked back to the sealed records. The moment he sealed Andrew Storm’s record back, golden particles seeped out of the tiny hole on the book’s cover and sprayed into the air.

’Andrew is out for good,’ Hayes thought. But as soon as the memory of seeing that Andrew’s body was not among the burnt remains returned, his heart sank into his gut.

A few minutes after Hayes and Lord Luo Fang exited from the records chamber, a large object like an eye with a golden iris appeared in the sky at a far distance. It stayed there until Luo Fang and Hayes materialized outside the Skywarden Tower. It hovered in the sky before the eye blinked and vanished.

...

As the early morning drizzle splashed on the roofs of the Agatha Special Forces building, Leon lay on his bed, staring at the diamond shapes humming faintly.

With every hum the ceiling made, a memory of him and the Madhouse squad flashed into his mind while drops of tears slowly fell from his eyes.

Wu Ze’s first expression when Leon was introduced to the Madhouse flashed in and caused a smile on his lips, but his eyes remained wet. Their faces came so vividly it looked as if he was reliving the moment until he forced himself up and walked to the glass wall.

He watched the moving of tree branches and the tiny fall of the morning blessing, then took in a deep breath.

"I can’t stay here and watch days go by," he said, looking at his palms. "I’ve got to be stronger than I am currently."

He focused on his palms and then clenched them while closing his eyes. As soon as he opened them, he walked out of the room and went straight into the training yard.