The soldier who wanted to crawl away took his st breath as the bandit reached out for his possessions.

  Unfortunately for him, the moment he leaned towards the still-warm body, someone attacked from behind like a strike of lightning, easily knocking him out.

  It was Illyan, who then took the bandit’s powerless body and quickly approached Aurelia.

  “What are you pnning to do?” Aurelia asked as she cautiously looked towards the square.

  “Let’s find a safe spot and interrogate this guy first before doing anything.” Illyan gave a suggestion, which Aurelia promptly agreed with as they sneaked away.

  Neither of them had any thought of joining the fight and instead pnned to gather information first.

  They settled down farther in one of the abandoned buildings as Illyan threw the man like a sack of potatoes on the ground.

  Aurelia took out a dagger and rope as she approached the man, but Illyan stopped her and shook his head.

  “He is just a regur person, so it is fine. I have a certain drug that will make him speak,” Illyan said confidently as he held the man so he couldn’t drown and took a vial from his pouch, which he subsequently poured forcibly down the man’s throat.

  After waiting for a while for the drug to take effect, he spped the man in the face. The strength used was enough to wake the man but not enough to hurt him in any way.

  The shock spread through the man as his eyes suddenly opened, and he looked around in disorientation.

  The man could not muster any kind of resistance as he spilled out everything he knew before he was beheaded by Illyan.

  From the man’s words, it seemed that this attack was just another jab to keep the convoy uneasy. However, there was a slight difference. They wanted to keep ordinary people who had nothing to do with this power struggle, like Terren and others, in fear of leaving the town or even the main square of the city.

  The reason was unknown to this bandit as he was just a pawn, a hungry peasant who crawled into Ezekiel’s cws for the sake of keeping himself fed.

  But Illyan felt that Ezekiel wouldn’t want to keep them in one pce for no good reason.

  Illyan sighed. The situation seemed to be even more difficult than he originally thought.

  “Aurelia, do you know anything about this?”

  In the end, he could only ask Aurelia. He was suspicious that she knew something about this since she knew about the powers working together.

  Aurelia looked him straight in the eyes before shedding them away.

  “I don’t know much. I only know a little bit that I overheard from my father.” After saying that, she gently caressed the hilts of her sabers.

  “You see, my mother… She had an incurable disease. No doctor or acolyte could guess what kind or what was its cause. It just appeared out of nowhere. This disease or illness caused my mother’s state to rapidly deteriorate. She couldn’t live past thirty years.

  From what I know from other elders, my father tried everything he could to save her. But he failed miserably. She died in his arms. Afterward, I was the only reminder of her existence in this world. That bastard hated the idea of seeing me, which caused him to remember his failure, and he started to avoid me completely, failing at being a father.”

  There was no sorrow in Aurelia’s eyes. Her mother died soon after her birth, so she didn’t have many feelings for her. On the other hand, her eyes shone with silent resentment when she spoke of her father—not because he didn’t act as her father.

  She couldn’t care less for that piece of shit to be her father. What she cared about was the fact that he tried to control her for most of her life.

  Illyan, who heard all of this, opened his eyes wide and became speechless for a second.

  His social experiences didn’t prepare him for this as he didn’t know what to say or whether to say something. There was a feeling of wanting to comfort her but at the same time a feeling of incongruity because he wasn’t used to such things at all.

  ‘Is this the so-called tenderness towards the fairer sex?’ This was something Zers had told him. It was at that time when he started meeting Yii and bragged to Illyan at every turn for a good while.

  The only females Illyan was close to in his life before were his mother and Zephyr, who was just the seed of his imagination.

  That made him wonder if he really cked a woman’s tender touch. It wasn’t for the sake of comfort.

  He just realized… that Aurelia had gotten quite close to him over these few months, and it scared him. Despite his determination, his heart softened a bit when it came to her.

  And that made him afraid. He didn’t fear challenges of fate or gods. But if he was ensnared by some woman and failed to realize his goals because of it, he would never forgive himself.

  ‘Love is an obstacle that needs to be avoided at all costs.’

  Illyan didn’t feel love towards the woman in front of him, but he couldn’t say that he hadn’t become attracted to her.

  She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and was also intelligent and powerful at her young age. And most importantly, he felt at ease with her.

  But this was never meant to be. There was too much disparity between their lifespans.

  Now, with his blood energy, he could actually estimate to some extent his own lifespan.

  He could already live up to 2,000 years.

  How strong did someone have to be to even have such a lifespan? Meanwhile, he didn’t need to do anything and would probably live even longer than that.

  In the end, love was a distraction in Illyan’s eyes to achieving his goals, no matter how grand or petty they were. He remembered the stories of knights saving princesses that Granny Meddie told him in the past and could never understand why someone would even want a partner who only ever brings trouble to you.

  He would never—Smack

  “Agh?” He suddenly felt a burning pain on his forehead.

  When he looked up, he saw Aurelia’s annoyed expression with her hand lifted.

  “Why are you lost in thought when we haven’t even started with the serious things!”

  “Ugh… I apologize,” Illyan said with an expressionless face as he acted as if nothing had happened.

  Aurelia, seeing this, found it funny as she just shook her head.

  “What to do with this freak…”

  Illyan didn’t bother to argue against her mumbles as he asked.

  “Since you talked about that, I guess your father didn’t give up, right? Is it about alchemy inheritance?”

  Illyan felt the crux of the problem as he asked, which made Aurelia nod.

  “That’s right. This inheritance is something our gang has wanted to get its hands on for millennia but without avail. It was not until recently, when several people joined forces, that there was some progress. My father is one of them because of his obsession with reviving my mother.

  I don’t know exactly when, but he joined hands with Ezekiel behind Aziro’s back and also with Varel and Korin. I don’t know how Varel came to this alliance as he didn’t have any leverage, but Korin was valued for his deep knowledge of mathematics.

  Together, they tried to open the vaults several times but to no avail. Now, they are trying again, and this time it seems to be quite violent. I think they want to do a blood sacrif—Ugh!”

  Suddenly, Aurelia started to cough as all of her seven orifices began to bleed.

  “Ugh… I thought I managed to keep it under control… Sorry, but I can’t say anything more. A blood seal was put on my body after my father realized I knew his pns. He didn’t want me to spoil his stupid schemes. My father’s knowledge of this seal is quite subpar, so I can bypass it to a certain extent, but this is my limit.”

  When she vomited a certain amount of blood, Illyan stepped in, and with a quick jab, he used his fingers to seal some of her acupoints with his newfound flow.

  He had this idea in his mind for a long time, and this was the first time he implemented it. Fortunately, he didn’t screw up as the bleeding stopped and he could feed her some medicine.

  “It’s alright…” Aurelia said weakly, but Illyan ignored it as he continued treating her while using his mind power to examine her.

  At the same time, he was grumbling in his heart that if that man really loved his wife, he wouldn’t put his daughter through all of this suffering.

  His actions weren’t logical at all.

  But as he continued, he noticed something much more horrifying.

  He found the blood seal. But the blood seal wasn’t the source of his terror.

  The blood seal also wasn’t the source of her injury. From what Illyan saw, he guessed that it would just stop her from talking and wasn’t dangerous.

  However, because of that, it triggered something much worse.

  ‘What is this?’ Aurelia’s organs were a decaying mess, rotting and disintegrating with each passing second. Her flesh, though outwardly firm, was riddled with an unseen substance corroding it. Bones had grown brittle, sinews sck, and every breath seemed to bring the structure closer to colpse.

  ‘What kind of disease…’ Illyan’s eyes widened the moment he realized something.

  When he looked Aurelia in the eyes, she couldn’t keep eye contact as she turned her head away, ignoring his gaze.

  Illyan could only bnkly look at the inner state of her body.

  ‘Is it hereditary?’

  Illyan felt that something was wrong with this world as he gritted his teeth.

  …….

  The square soon turned silent as the bandits retreated with jeers, leaving the soldiers bewildered.

  At least some of them were.

  However, those unaware were soon relieved as the strength left their bodies, and they barely stood. This was especially true for academics who could not fight at all.

  Some of them accidentally got into crossfire and lost their lives. Especially those who were not in the square and were wandering outside as they studied the ruins.

  Most of these were chased back to the square as the bandits wanted to create the illusion of the square being the safest pce for them, but some of them were mercilessly killed to make an example.

  Then there were those smart and lucky enough to hide.

  Slowly, after the bandits left for some time and the chaos in the main square was calmed down by the remaining leaders, they came back cautiously.

  This made other academics cheer as they noticed their colleagues were alive.

  Terren, Cara, Nord, and Garran, who were quiet most of the time, suddenly noticed one of the silhouettes and happily called out to him.

  “Kaoran! You are alive!”

  They were relieved when they saw Illyan coming slowly from one corner. In fact, during the battle, there was not much time to think, and they thought only about their survival.

  Cara and Nord hid behind one of the statues, and Garran hid in his carriage while Terren, who was the soldier, engaged in a fight with the bandits.

  And surprisingly, he managed to take down his first enemy!

  Other soldiers were proud of him and wanted to praise him, but when he started to throw up after the battle ended, they comforted him instead.

  All in all, they were quite lucky. However, they didn’t celebrate when they realized Illyan wasn’t there from the beginning. They started to panic while looking for him.

  The only comfort was not being able to find his dead body.

  Fortunately, Illyan came in one piece.

  While everyone was happy the fight ended, Illyan sighed inwardly. He thought about Aurelia’s state.

  ‘That’s not something that could be fixed.’ Thinking about it, he looked around, trying to see if she had already arrived.

  To deceive people, they decided to separate and come to the square from different directions at different times.

  Illyan didn’t agree at first, but when Aurelia showed she was fine, he just went with it.

  It seemed that this disease had been permeating her body for years and that she could function normally. It was only because of the blood seal that she colpsed.

  But that didn’t change the fact that she was dying.

  By Illyan’s estimate, she should live a year at most. A few more, depending on the abundance of her Blood Energy, which should revitalize her.

  Illyan’s eyes, which were bnk for the entire time, slowly turned cold.

  ‘I don’t need any companions in this life. Zephyr is enough…’

  Thinking so, he suppressed his negative emotions, which he hadn’t felt for a long time, and smiled at his group of ‘friends’ as he reunited with them.

  Unbeknownst to him, there were two women sighing in mencholy as they saw him like this.

  One was Aurelia, who was standing in the distance and felt the mortality of her life, muttering to herself.

  “Not perfect at all… If I get the inheritance, I should be able to reforge my body to perfection… Should I ask for his help? He seems to care about it. But he doesn’t want to. He seems to be scared to care… But that makes him worthy of putting my trust into him…”

  A complicated expression adorned her face as she thought about her disease…

  On the other hand, the second female was no one other than Zephyr! Most of the time, she was quiet or slumbering, but now she felt the disturbance of his emotions as she observed what was happening and sighed.

  ‘You need to put yourself together… If your mind colpses even more, then even I won’t be able to hold it together. Even if your power regenerates the mind, the scars will remain. But I guess that's who you are. Shattered pieces sticking together despite all the physical and mental trauma inflicted upon them… That’s also the reason why I was chosen to help you. Soothing your scars and helping you find your way is my pleasure and responsibility…’

  Zephyr smiled mysteriously as she dissipated soon after, while Illyan didn’t have any idea…

  Happy New Year!