Chapter 579: While You Weren’t Around
Golden light inundated the southern area of Tark Prairie as if someone had inverted day and night, but it was extinguished a brief instant later. It was like someone had hurriedly switched off the lights after accidentally switching them on.
This brief flash of light didn’t interest the animals in the forest too much—they merely glanced at it before returning to their business—but this was a nightmare to the targets of those raining holy spears.
Boom!
A resounding explosion belatedly followed the flood of light.
The resplendent cloud of flame channeled by the deviants was severed into two by one of the holy spears, resulting in the army spell losing its stability. The flames began to fly in all directions like gorgeous fireworks, but they brought about disasters and screams wherever they landed.
The warrior deviants hurriedly raised their shields to protect their priests from the aftereffects of their failed spell.
The other holy spears rained down on the deviants in Roel’s vicinity, instantaneously disintegrating them. The war horns finally stopped, and it looked like the battle had concluded for now.
Watching all of these from the eye of the storm, Roel widened his eyes in astonishment as a question surfaced in his mind.
When did Nora become so strong?
While he had activated Crown’s Bestowment to summon Nora, his intention was only to have her take him to safety. He knew that it would take at least an Origin Level 2 transcendent to confront an army spell, so it wouldn’t be wise for her to challenge its might.
Yet, Nora crushed the army spell with absolute ease.
This baffling situation confused Roel, but of course, it was good news to him. However, his joy swiftly faded as soon as he raised his head.
Nora had broken down into tears.
“!”
Roel’s mind went completely blank when he saw tears trickling down from Nora’s sapphire eyes. Only once in his entire life had he seen her cry, and that was when she stabbed his heart while under the control of her bloodline.
Be it when she was struggling in the Witness State or under the threat of the Angel Sovereign, Nora had never cried. She had always held herself to strict standards, and to her, tears were a sign of weakness for a ruler. She would never allow herself to cry.
Yet, under the moonlit sky, she had broken her own rule. She slowly descended from the sky with her eyes firmly locked on him.
“If this is all real…” Nora murmured hoarsely as if uttering a prayer.
She carefully placed her hand on Roel’s chest and activated the angel power lying dormant in him. Golden shackles manifested around their wrists, connecting them together by a long chain.
“!”
The moment she saw the chains, she couldn’t hold back her emotions anymore. Light wings sprouted from her back as she leaped into his arms and sobbed uncontrollably like a child.
Roel caught her in a fluster. Looking at the surrounding environment and the crying woman in his arms, his eyes flickered in vague realization.
“Yes, Nora. It’s me, Roel Ascart. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“Roel, I…”
His familiar voice only made Nora cry even harder. Roel looked at her with a tender smile as he gently wiped off the tears from her cheeks.
“I know that you are confused. It’s the same for me too. I’ve been in the Witness State, so I still have no idea what has happened out here. Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
Nora nodded amidst sniffles. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to compose herself. Seconds later, she finally held back her tears to properly face him. With a hoarse voice, she revealed a fact that shocked him to the core, though he had also somewhat guessed it as well.
“A year has passed. You’re finally back.”
“!”
…
Roel’s expression stiffened up. Staring at Nora once more, he finally understood why she had reacted in the way she did earlier.
He had somewhat guessed from his surroundings that he had spent more time in the Witness State this time than he had before, but he didn’t think that so much time would have passed.
His initial guess was that a few months had passed and the season had just changed to spring, but it was already the second year since the attack on the Ascart Fiefdom. An entire year had slipped by him while he was away in the Witness State!
Roel found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t know how he should start explaining the situation to Nora.
On the other hand, Nora tightly held onto the chain while staring at him with reddened eyes.
“We searched everywhere for you for an entire year, but we couldn’t even find the slightest clue. Wilhelmina told us that she sensed your entrance into the Witness State, but there was no news afterward. We thought that you were… wu…”
Unable to finish the sentence, Nora clasped her mouth and wept. Her sorrowful expression brought a pang of pain to Roel’s heart.
Before he could say anything, a powerful aura suddenly surged from the devastated enemy formations. At the same time, the other deviants were starting to close in, filling in the positions of their fallen comrades.
“That aura! It’s an Origin Level 2 transcendent!” Roel remarked with a frown.
He hurriedly turned to Nora to quickly fill her in on the situation he was in, only to see her staring at his body with widened eyes. While he was keeping an eye on the enemies, her attention was focused on his physical condition after ascertaining his identity.
She could sense his vital signs through the angel power she had left in his body, but to her horror, he was suffering from a fatal deficiency of mana and life force.
“Roel, your body!”
“…Many things have happened. I’ll tell you later.” Roel grabbed the hands of the panicking Nora and squeezed them to calm her down, pulling her back with him. He then summarized the situation with a grim expression, “I have enemies after me. I suspect it’s the Deviant Sovereign.”
“!”
Nora gasped. Her expression turned severe as she realized the urgency of the situation. Without any hesitation, she unfurled her light wings with an outpour of mana.
“To think that it’s the Deviant Sovereign… We have to leave right away!”
“You’re right, but we’ll have to go at it from another way,” Roel replied with a glint in his eyes.
“Hm?”
Nora turned to look at Roel.
The Nine-headed Serpent, who had been fending off the deviants, received Roel’s order and began spewing black fumes into the surroundings, veiling the two of them. Shortly afterward, a tinge of golden light darted out of the fumes and flew off toward the human world.
The deviants flew into an uproar, but there was nothing they could do without the ability to fly. However, a brief moment later, a dark cloud rose into the sky. It was a pursuit team made up of countless aerial demonic beasts.
To fulfill their Sovereign’s order, the deviants released almost all of their aerial demonic beasts. Thousands of them, made up of different races, flew toward the west, and the ground army also started giving chase.
The war horns sounded once more, but there was a slight difference in their pitches this time. The deviants began to march westward, following the trail of the aerial demonic beasts.
The commotion lasted for more than an hour before gradually settling down.
The animals of the forest began to return shortly after the departure of the deviants, but they subconsciously avoided the devastated area where Roel was previously at. They seemed to have instinctively sensed that a terrifying demonic beast was still lingering in the vicinity.
Time slowly ticked by.
It was only after a familiar black sphere whizzed across the forest, heading from the east to the west, that the soil on that land began to loosen.
Thirty more minutes passed by.
After confirming once more there were no enemies in the vicinity, a massive serpent head carefully rose out of the soil and slithered out. Wrapped safely within its coiled body were a black-haired man and a golden-haired girl.
Roel stared in the direction the black sphere had departed for with a grim expression.
There’s indeed more than one of those things, and they are pursuing me.
Roel and Nora exchanged gazes before fleeing in the opposite direction.
…
The following morning, in the depths of Tark Prairie, Roel awoke from his sleep.
The night of fighting had expended his strength and mana so much that he couldn’t move on his own. He had to rely on Nora to carry him out of the deviants’ encirclement, and he even passed out in the midst of their escape.
Roel’s golden eyes slowly regained their light as he recalled the events of last night. He scanned his surroundings and found that he was inside a cavern. Nora was nowhere to be found.
Her absence left him feeling anxious, but his heart calmed down when he touched Ascendwing.
From Ascendwing’s mana pulsation, he could tell that Nora hadn’t gone too far away. Now that he was taking a closer look, he could see that there was a barrier erected around the cavern to keep intruders out. Most likely, she had gone out to gather some necessities.
It was then that he belatedly noticed his extremely parched throat and sighed softly.
Roel sat upright to examine his injuries while reflecting on the dangerous situation last night. He had sustained considerable damage, and his mana was almost depleted too. The only silver lining was that he had successfully activated Ascendwing’s second ability to summon Nora, who then rescued him from that despairing situation.
His final plan had played an important role in his survival too.
As impressive as the deviants’ large-scale encirclement looked, it was actually not too difficult for Roel to shake them off. What truly intimidated him were the black spheres scattered around the forest—or, to be exact, there was only one individual whom he had to avoid at all costs.
The Deviant Sovereign.
In fact, his escape route was designed specifically to avoid the Deviant Sovereign.
Roel’s current condition was no different from a rickety old cart that couldn’t take any bumps. Heading directly westward was the shortest path back to the human world, but it was bound to be filled with many hindrances too. The slightest carelessness could spell his death.
It was wiser for him to first head eastward, where enemies were fewer and weaker, and take his time to recover to his tip-top condition before finding another way back.
The deviants should have lost track of my position after my feint last night. I should be safe at least for the next few days.
Roel tried to prop himself off the ground with the support of the Nine-headed Serpent Staff, but his movements caused the barrier to shimmer.
“She even put up an observation barrier too? Do I look like a child who needs to be tucked into bed?” Roel murmured with a helpless smile, knowing that this barrier was usually used to care for the young and the elderly.
Before he could stagger out of the cavern to take a look, Nora had already appeared at the entrance with a gust of wind.
“Roel, are you fine?”
“I’m fine… Nora?”
Roel was startled when the golden-haired woman rushed straight toward him and tightly embraced him, but when he thought about how he had vanished for a year, he suddenly felt a pang of guilt. He could understand why she had put up an observation barrier.
She must be afraid that I’ll disappear once again.
Her unease pained him.
“Nora, I’m sorry. I’m fine now. I won’t disappear again, so…”
“…Mm.”
Nora continued to hug Roel with trembling arms for a long while before finally answering with a nod. She rested her head on his chest while trying to calm her breathing, as if coming to terms with her emotional turmoil.
Roel dared not to disturb her.
Time slowly ticked by.
A long time later, Nora finally raised her head, revealing a conflicted expression. She took a deep breath to muster her determination.
“Roel, there’s something I have to tell you…”
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