novelraw Chapter 607: Parting
Chapter 607: Parting
At dawn, the plains were still cloaked in twilight. A few kilometers from the ruined royal capital of Ellen, a group of people arrived at Rico Farm, a welcome sight to those sheltering within.
“Unbelievable... I thought you were...” In the living room, Avalan Montes was so overcome with emotion he nearly threw his arms around Lu Li.
The people here had been lucky. The farmhouse roof had shielded them from the sight of the sky during the events, leaving them to hear only the rumbling that echoed across the plains. Only the four exorcists in the attic had suspected something was amiss, but thankfully, their loyalties leaned more toward the Night's Watch than the Investigators, so no one had come to harm.
“And they are...?” Avalan Montes asked, his gaze shifting to the people standing in the doorway behind Lu Li.
“Survivors from Ellen Royal City. The last of them,” Lu Li said, his eyes sweeping over the people in the living room. He spotted Lilia among them; she seemed to be doing well enough.
“The last... what does that mean?” a woman couldn't help but ask, anxiety clouding her weary eyes.
Her husband and child had stayed behind in the city.
“The royal capital is gone. It’s doubtful anyone else survived.”
The strange, hours-long slaughter had already left few people alive, and when Prada awakened, she had wiped what little remained from the face of the earth. All except for them.
Stifled sobs broke the silence in the living room, gradually swelling in volume. A pained expression crossed Avalan Montes’s face as he exchanged a look with his four companions. This was no place for their discussion. They headed up to the attic.“I’ll stay and comfort them,” the female exorcist said, remaining behind. Aside from York and Webb, the elderly couple also stayed downstairs.
“We saw the giant... Was it because of him?” the middle-aged exorcist asked the moment they set foot in the attic, wasting no time.
None of them were locals, so the fall of the royal capital was a greater concern to them than the personal grief of the survivors.
“In a way, it was on our side,” Lu Li said, briefly recounting the events in the capital, including the nature of the deity Prada and her Dry Claws.
When he finished, he went down to the second floor and stood by the warm stone fireplace, gazing out the window at the brightening sky.
The strange fog had dissipated, and within minutes, the world outside was awash with light.
The weeping downstairs gradually subsided. The arrival of dawn seemed to soothe the old men, women, and children, and one by one, the exhausted survivors drifted off to sleep.
Soon, Avalan Montes came down from the attic. He paused by the window and asked Lu Li with a bewildered look, “That shadow outside... what is it?”
Beyond the farm fence, sprawled among the wagons, lay a dark, hulking shape the size of a shed.
“A ‘horse’,” Anna replied.
Avalan Montes looked at Anna, confused—not just by the creature’s obviously un-horse-like form, but by Anna’s own contradictory aura.
Her cold exterior was unchanged, yet beneath it, he could now sense something... blazing. It was inexplicable.
The change had touched Lu Li, too. Avalan had felt the difference in him the moment he returned.
He had become more... alluring, possessed of a strange magnetism that made one want to draw closer, to breathe him in...
The thought made Avalan suspect his Mind Level was dropping, but his Contamination Detector remained silent.
He asked his fellow exorcists, and they confirmed they felt something similar. “Like fresh grass and apples.” “Like walking into a forest.” “It’s as if the gloom in my soul has lifted.”
The cause lay in Lu Li’s three full measures of Humanity. Before the events in the royal capital, he had possessed just over two.
The change in Anna was also noticeable. Losing her body had stripped her of taste, smell, and the beat of a heart. Pastries now tasted like wax. This sense of loss mingled with her other emotions, creating a complex new depth to her being.
A few minutes later, York came down from the attic. He started to say something to Lu Li but stopped when he saw him asleep in the armchair, and held his tongue.
Ten minutes later, Anna drifted out of the house and ordered the monstrous centipede to burrow underground.
The Anna of the past would have killed it without a second thought and taken its Humanity. But now, still carrying the memory of a body’s warmth, she decided to take the monster to the Elm Forest instead.
They needed a docile mode of transport that wouldn’t cause unnecessary trouble, and the Elm Forest could always use a new resident.
Food wouldn’t be an issue. Jimmy and the children on the cliff never managed to eat all the game Anna brought back each day. The monster could have the leftovers.
Anna floated back to the second floor to find Lu Li awake. His dark eyes were narrowed sleepily. “What happened?”
“I told Amper to hide underground,” Anna said, having given the monster a name. “I don’t think he’s just any monster. He might have been tamed by someone.”
He was unusually docile and calm. Despite sensing only humans around him aside from Anna, he hadn’t attacked. He had simply continued to carry them to Rico Farm, not even giving off the aura of the In-Between, as if he were nothing more than a massive local beast.
Of course, Anna could sense the source of his power. Amper was a monster, without a doubt.
“Perhaps,” Lu Li murmured, his gaze fixed on the window.
In the distance, the cracked walls of the lifeless royal capital of Ellen rose against the sky. On the roads that webbed out from it, wagons and people were already moving away, fleeing the city.
“People are forced to flee their own cities, to hide in the wilds just to survive...” York whispered from behind him, his gaze distant and full of sorrow.
Lu Li didn’t answer. Project Fire and the plans of the three organizations had to remain a secret. Even though everyone here was among those who had been left behind on the surface.
“Where will you head now?” Avalan Montes asked, walking over.
Both he and York were lost. After the fall of the royal capital, they had no idea where to go.
“Anna and I are heading to the settlement of Tuka on business,” Lu Li said, deciding it was time to part ways. After a moment’s thought, he added, “You should head for Khimfast or Typhoon.”
With a group of elderly and children, they wouldn’t survive in the wilderness. Their only chance was in a city.
And those two were the only human settlements Lu Li knew of that were still standing.
The settlement of Tuka was not on the way to either Khimfast or Typhoon. They could wait for him here, perhaps... but besides his business in Tuka, Lu Li had another task to attend to.
As regrettable as it was, this was where they would have to part ways.
York told Lu Li that if Typhoon proved unsuitable, or if they couldn’t find another refuge, they would make their way to Khimfast.
It was said there was plenty of land there, and the surrounding swamps offered a natural defense. Besides, Lu Li himself lived near Belfast on the Allen Peninsula. For York and the others he had rescued, the psychological comfort of being closer to their savior made it the preferred destination.