Chapter 222 The Search

Chapter 222: Chapter 222 The Search

They reappeared beside an abandoned highway filled with overturned vehicles, remained there only long enough for Stefan to recognize their position, and disappeared again. The next several jumps carried them farther away from the fortress, but each one took more strength out of Stefan until he finally stumbled when they appeared beside the remains of a roadside building, catching himself against a damaged vehicle as his breathing became painfully uneven.

He straightened almost immediately and reached towards Ling Xuan again. "Again."

Instead of offering her arm, Ling Xuan took a bottle of water from the farming space and threw it towards him.

Stefan caught it against his chest, his expression darkening when he realized what she wanted. "I can continue."

"If you collapse before we find her, you become useless." Her words were harsh, but they forced him to stop.

Stefan stared at the bottle for several seconds before opening it, because no matter how badly he wanted to keep moving, he knew she was right. Finding Tina would mean nothing if he exhausted himself to the point where he couldn’t get her away from danger afterward.

While he drank, Ling Xuan looked across the familiar road. "Where exactly did you lose them?"

"Near the platform where we found Ida and Jack. Tina and Jack were with Ida when the monsters attacked, but Ida asked them to run while she fought the monsters... I came back too late..." Stefan lowered the bottle, and for a moment his gaze became distant as he returned to that chaotic scene. "When I found Ida again, she was injured and the children were gone. I searched the area, but I couldn’t find them before everything became worse... it was all my fault."

"This is not the time to feel guilty." Ling Xuan glanced at their surroundings. It was almost dawn, and for a strange reason the monsters were nowhere to be seen.

Ling Xuan’s gaze darkened slightly. Inside the farming space, Laurel reacted at almost the same moment, because both of them remembered the place Stefan was describing. On their way back from the collapsed cave, Ling Xuan had noticed signs of fighting around a shattered platform and stopped to investigate, not because she was searching for anyone, but because the amount of blood and the claw marks around the area made it obvious that something had happened there. She had followed the signs underground, killed the monsters she encountered and eventually discovered an arrow carved into one of the walls.

Gabriel had suggested following it farther, but evening had already been approaching, the fortress was still hundreds of miles away, and Ling Xuan had no reason to risk everyone following an unknown trail left behind by people they didn’t know.

At the time, she hadn’t known Tina and Jack were missing. The realization made Ling Xuan’s stomach tighten strangely, making it difficult to breathe.

’That could have been them.’ Laurel muttered in her head.

Ling Xuan remained silent, but the same thought had already crossed her mind.

If she had followed the arrow that day, perhaps she would have found them before they were forced to go deeper underground, but Ling Xuan knew there was little use judging a past decision using information she had only learned afterward. She had made the correct choice with what she knew then.

That did not mean she liked it now.

Laurel’s voice came again, quieter this time. ’We need to go back there. What if something already happened to them... what if...’ her voice broke down, her heart thumped, bleeding as if stabbed by a hundred thorns.

’I will get them back.’ Ling Xuan replied curtly. Part of her was already getting irritated by her worry. To her, getting worried right now would not solve their problem, and the more Laurel influenced her with her unsteady emotions, the angrier she became.

Stefan looked at her when the words left her mouth, confusion briefly replacing the exhaustion on his face, but Ling Xuan had already held out her arm.

"Take us back to the platform." Ling Xuan commanded.

The next jumps were slower, and by the time the familiar ruins finally appeared around them, Stefan’s breathing had become heavy again. Ling Xuan recognized the road and pulled her arm free before he could waste more strength, then immediately started walking through the debris towards the place she remembered.

Stefan followed close behind until the shattered platform came into view.

His steps quickened. "Tina! Jack!" His voice travelled through the ruins before disappearing into silence.

There was no answer, not even a roar from the hungry monsters.

For a moment Stefan stood completely still, and the hope that had appeared on his face when they arrived seemed to weaken, but before he could shout again, Ling Xuan caught his shoulder and turned towards the partially concealed entrance beneath the collapsed platform.

"This way." She said, one of her hands slowly pulled out her sword.

Stefan looked at her. "How do you know? We can’t be sure, maybe we should spread out or look around..."

"I was here before." She cut in.

She pushed aside the splitted wooden platform blocking part of the entrance and stepped underground, leaving Stefan with no choice but to follow. The smell of old blood and decaying monster corpses grew stronger as they descended, and when he saw the bodies scattered through the passage, his eyes moved towards Ling Xuan’s back with sudden understanding.

She had already come through here.

Ling Xuan remembered every part of the passage, but walking through it now felt completely different from the first time. The bloodstains along the ground were no longer traces left behind by unknown survivors, and every mark on the wall forced her to imagine Tina and Jack running through the darkness while monsters followed behind them. Tina was stubborn and braver than a child her age should have needed to be, while Jack had already proven that he would protect her even when he was frightened himself, but they were still children in a world where grown adults died every day.

Ling Xuan felt Laurel’s guilt returning. ’You didn’t abandon her.’ At this point, she would do anything to get rid of those annoying emotions.

Laurel was quiet. ’Neither did you,’ she finally replied.

Ling Xuan’s footsteps slowed for only a moment. Perhaps that was why the words bothered her.

She had spent most of her life believing attachment created weaknesses that enemies could exploit, yet somewhere between forcing Tina to correct her stance and placing her old dagger in the girl’s hands, she had apparently allowed another person to occupy a place she had never intended to give them.

Ling Xuan continued walking. Soon the familiar wall appeared ahead. The arrow was still there.

Stefan moved towards it immediately, his fingers hovering over the crude mark without touching it, and when he looked in the direction it pointed, something changed in his exhausted expression. It wasn’t certain that Tina and Jack was alive, because neither of them could promise that yet, but after searching blindly for so long, they finally had something that could lead them to the children.

Ling Xuan placed her hand on the hilt of her sword and looked into the darkness ahead. Then, without wasting another moment, she followed the arrow deeper underground.