Chapter 29: The Golden Blood (2)
Maeve couldn’t even blink. "You’re telling me your blood can... move on its own?" she asked.
"A little," Ikarus admitted. "The golden blood inside our bodies is different from normal blood. It responds to our will."
As soon as he finished speaking, thin golden strands flowed out from his pores. They moved through the air like living threads, twisting and weaving together until they formed a single drop of blood that floated between them.
Maeve stared at it with wide eyes.
"I can send my blood into your heart through your pores," Ikarus explained. "But I can only do it in a special place. More specifically, inside the Tomb of Heart."
Maeve looked at him in confusion. "Why don’t we just do it here?"
Ikarus answered immediately. "Because the process would be extremely painful for someone who isn’t from the Azuryn Tribe. But if you step into the Tomb of Heart, our ancestors will recognize you as one of our kind as well."
He paused before adding softly, "They’ll help ease your pain."
So, in simple terms, Ikarus wanted to ask ghosts for help.
Did that sound ridiculous? Absolutely.
But at this point, it wasn’t even close to being the strangest thing Maeve had seen in this world. Compared to magical blood, giant monsters, and a floating pink system mascot, asking ghosts for help felt surprisingly normal.
"When are we going to do it?" Maeve asked.
"Right now." Ikarus’s answer came so quickly that she almost thought she had misheard him.
He gently held her face and looked into her eyes.
"If we wait any longer, your condition will only get worse," he said seriously. "But there’s another problem. I know the Tomb of Heart is somewhere near the Heart of the Forest, but I don’t know exactly where it is."
That was understandable. After all, the Azuryn Tribe hadn’t welcomed an outsider as one of their own for centuries. Over time, even something as important as the tomb had slowly faded into legend.
Maeve fell silent for a moment before saying hesitantly, "I... might be able to help you find it."
One of Ikarus’s eyebrows lifted. "How? You’re not even from this world."
Maeve let out an awkward chuckle. "Well... let’s just say that even though I’m not a Goddess, the Sky Mother seems to love me a lot. She keeps helping me stay alive and apparently wants me around long enough to help rebuild your civilization."
As someone who had believed from the very beginning that Maeve was special, Ikarus didn’t doubt a single word she said. Instead, he trusted her so much that he didn’t question her further.
"If you say so," he said. "Then I believe you."
===
Maeve would happily swear on every god in existence that she was perfectly capable of reading maps easily.
But the problem was that she had spent most of her life using digital maps. Reading a traditional map suddenly felt a lot harder than she remembered.
But this maps wasn’t just old-fashioned. The symbols were completely different from anything she had ever seen back on Earth.
The map didn’t even use colors or anything, just plain black and white.
’What the hell are all these spirals supposed to be?!’ Maeve screamed internally, feeling frustrated because she genuinely had no idea what she was looking at.
[Those spirals represent dead trees, Host,] Pinky explained helpfully. [And the symbol that looks like a dried-up snake is a river that has already dried out, leaving behind an empty trench.]
The lines on Maeve’s forehead became even more obvious when Pinky said "dried-up snake." After looking at it carefully, the symbol really did resemble a dried snake.
"What are you looking at?" Cerus’s voice suddenly came from beside her. He leaned closer, trying to peek at the map.
Usually, Maeve would have immediately moved away. This time, however, she didn’t bother. Maybe she had gotten used to him, or maybe she was simply too tired to care.
"This is a map," Maeve explained softly.
The two of them were currently sitting on the porch outside the hut while waiting for Ikarus and Axan to gather the supplies they would need for the trip.
Maeve tapped the edge of the map. "This should lead us to the forgotten Tomb of Heart."
Her voice gradually grew less confident toward the end because the truth was... she still had absolutely no idea which part of the map was supposed to be the Tomb of Heart.
"That looks like the Tomb of Heart," Cerus said, pointing at a symbol on the map that looked like a sun.
Maeve immediately twitched at the corner of her eye. No matter how many times she looked at it, that symbol did not fit the image of a tomb at all.
In fact, she had been expecting that the symbol for that place would look something like a skull or a heart.
"Why?" Maeve asked. "It looks like a sun."
"A sun?" Cerus smiled. "Yes, it is a sun. But I prefer to call it the Light of Life."
His expression softened as he looked down at the symbol. "My mother used to tell me that every drop of life comes from the Light of Life. And when we die, our souls return to the sun and help it continue giving life to the world below."
"But unfortunately..." Cerus continued. He was still smiling, but there was sadness hidden in his eyes. "It feels like too many people have died, so many that the light has become too strong. Instead of helping life grow, it started hurting the lives below."
His gaze drifted toward the sky. "Including my parents."
Maeve fell silent after hearing his words. She lowered her eyes to the map, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.
After all, there were no perfect words for someone’s grief. She considered staying quiet, but after a while, she finally spoke. "But every life depends on something else to survive."
Cerus deepened his gaze on her, but said nothing.
"Just like parents need each other to protect their children, even the sun can’t do everything alone."
