Chapter 96: The Sick Old Man

Chapter 96: Chapter 96: The Sick Old Man

Derrick chuckled, waving his hand dismissively. "Relax. I’m just good at reading people.

Plus, ninety percent of kids end up taking directly after their parents.

You can pretty much guarantee the father holds the exact same trash views as the son, even if he’s smart enough to put on a show in public."

"I am curious about what actually happened to your grandfather, though," He said, suddenly turning serious.

"I know you told me he was sick and that you needed me to get a pill for him, but if I don’t know the exact details, I won’t be able to find the best one."

This was the reason she asked him for help. Half an hour ago, she had gotten a call that her grandfather’s condition was suddenly getting worse and that she needed to be there in case something happened.

Keira went quiet for a few steps, looking out at the courtyard.

"My grandfather is one of the four High Generals in the Federation Army," she said softly.

"He made his name on the battlefield. He built the Chen family from absolute nothing to where it is today all by himself."

Derrick listened, keeping his pace with hers.

"He’s also one of the few people in the entire land who actually managed to step beyond the Super Power Realm," she added.

"If he’s that strong, how did he get hurt?" Derrick asked.

"Ten years ago, on an expedition out in the wild," Keira said, her voice turning bitter. "He ran into a King-level beast."

"His subordinates were messed up and couldn’t fight, so he held the monster off alone so they could run."

She clenched her fists at her sides.

"He managed to kill the beast, but it left him brutally injured."

"He still hasn’t healed. We’ve brought in every famous alchemist we could find over the last ten years, but...

Nobody can cure him. They can only drag his life out with temporary methods and numb his pain."

Derrick stayed silent, letting her vent.

"And the worst part," Keira spat, anger flushing her face, "is that almost everyone in this family is just sitting around waiting for him to die so they can fight over the family head position."

"My uncle, his kid... and my father. But I’m not going to let that happen."

Soon, they stopped in front of a heavy pair of closed doors guarded by two heavily armed sentries.

The moment the men saw Keira, they dropped into quick bows.

"Miss Keira," one of them said nervously, avoiding her gaze. "We can’t let you in right now. The acting family head gave strict orders that no one is allowed inside."

Keira stared at them coldly. "Did my grandfather tell you I couldn’t come in?"

The guards hesitated, cold sweat breaking out on their foreheads. They shook their heads quickly.

"N-no... it was your father’s order, Miss Keira," the guard stammered.

Without warning, a suffocating, crushing pressure erupted from Keira’s body.

The air in the corridor turned impossibly heavy, and both guards collapsed onto the hard floor, gasping for breath under the sheer weight of her aura.

"Scram before I kill you both," she warned, her voice dropping into a dangerous, icy threat.

Derrick didn’t feel a single drop of the pressure.

Keira had dialed her aura with scary precision, pinning the guards down while completely sparing him.

Just before things escalated any further, a heavy, resonant voice echoed from inside the room.

"Is that my little Keira outside? Come in, girl. Why are you standing out there?"

Just listening to the voice, you would never guess it belonged to a dying man.

It sounded deep, firm, and full of life.

The tense atmosphere vanished all of a sudden.

Keira immediately pulled back her aura, letting the terrified guards scramble away, and pushed the doors open.

Derrick followed her inside, but as soon as his eyes landed on the bed, he froze.

Despite how strong his voice had sounded, the man lying there was a weak, shriveled old man.

His skin was pale and dry, stretched thin over his fragile frame, and his body was hooked up to half a dozen complex medical machines with glowing translucent holograms monitoring his erratic vitals in real time.

Keira walked straight up to the bedside and took the old man’s thin, dry hand in hers.

"How are you feeling, Grandfather?" she asked, her cold tone completely melting away as she leaned in to talk with him.

Derrick stayed a few paces back, watching quietly.

Out of sheer curiosity, he activated his All-Seeing Eyes.

His vision shifted instantly.

The old man’s body turned semi-translucent under the skill, revealing a dense ball shaped mass right below his naval, right where the energies of all the Enhanced Being Stage or above humans gathered.

He looked closely and saw a nasty dark mass sitting inside of it.

It was a chaotic, entangled knot of several different dark energies, writhing like a nest of black vipers.

Before Derrick could analyze the mass any further, the old man’s cloudy eyes suddenly flicked directly toward him.

"You’ve got some special eyes there, kid," the general muttered, his sharp gaze cutting right through Derrick’s concealment. "Is that your innate talent?"

Derrick deactivated the skill instantly, giving a calm nod. "A part of it, sir."

He stepped forward and bowed slightly. "I’m Derrick Storm. It’s an honor to meet the man my teacher looks up to so much."

The old man stared at him for a second before bursting into a low, wheezing laugh. "Derrick Storm, huh? Good backbone. Sharp eyes."

Just like that, the general started chatting with Derrick like they were old battle buddies, completely ignoring his own terrible health.

Keira stood in the background, genuinely surprised.

Her grandfather was infamous for being a stubborn, prickly old goat who hated almost everyone he met.

Seeing him open up and talk to Derrick so freely was weird.

Then again, Keira thought, a faint smirk tugging at her mouth, I picked him myself. Of course the old man likes him.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the medical suite slammed open with a loud BANG.

A stoic, sharp-featured man marched into the room, backed by a squad of fully armed guards.