Chapter 190: Return

Chapter 190: Chapter 190: Return

The path out of the A-rank rift took another two days.

There was no tier-eight magical beast blocking the way anymore, but thousands of four-star ones still drifted everywhere, and no one in the group was in good condition.

Lucius’s shoulder was missing a chunk of flesh, temporarily held together by magic. Phoenix’s spiritual energy was so drained that he couldn’t erect a healing array. Evelyn had two broken ribs. As for Leon, both of his wrists were sprained from parrying his rebounding lunar blades too many times.

And Jeremy, aside from his entire body falling apart, also had to endure the lingering aftereffects of forcing the Devil to relinquish control - every few hours, a wave of nausea would surge up, accompanied by auditory hallucinations of distant screaming.

But they made it out.

When the teleportation array spat the five of them out onto the front yard of Griffin’s house, it was raining in the Sky City.

Griffin was sitting on the steps, holding a teacup, not bothering to take cover.

He looked up and swept his gaze over the five of them - from Lucius’s bandaged shoulder to Leon’s splinted wrists - and asked exactly one question:

"Did you get it?"

Jeremy opened his palm.

Griffin glanced at the silver seed, then glanced up at Jeremy’s face.

"You chose to plant it."

It wasn’t a question.

Jeremy paused. "You knew about both choices?"

"Of course."

"Then why didn’t you tell me beforehand?"

Griffin took a sip of tea. "If I told you beforehand, it wouldn’t be a choice."

"..."

Griffin set the cup down and stood up.

"If you swallowed it, I would no longer teach you."

Jeremy looked up.

"Because teaching someone who has permanently capped at the sixth tier is a waste of time."

Griffin said, his voice still as bland as if he were commenting on the weather, "You chose correctly."

With that said, he snapped his fingers. A spatial door opened.

"Go back and rest. Seven days. Then return to the training ground."

"Seven days?" Leon bristled. "We just crawled out of an A-rank!"

"Seven days," Griffin repeated. "You have three years left. How many months were you planning to rest?"

Leon fell dead silent.

That night, Jeremy returned to the dormitory.

He didn’t go to sleep immediately. After showering and changing his bandages, he went out to the balcony.

The rain had stopped. The sky above the Sky City was clear enough to see the entire Milky Way.

The silver-gray-trunked tree still stood there, waist-high, its pale yellow leaves trembling softly.

Jeremy sat down, took out a new magical planter, and placed it beside the tree.

He opened his palm, looking at the silver seed for a long time.

Seven years.

One person.

He hadn’t chosen. And he also knew he wouldn’t be able to choose tonight.

But if he didn’t plant it today, those seven years would become seven and a half years. Then eight.

Jeremy buried the seed into the soil, pressing down lightly.

"Are you really planting it?"

Lucius’s voice rang out from behind.

Jeremy didn’t turn around. He was used to this guy appearing without warning.

"Yeah."

Lucius stepped out, sat down beside him, and also looked at the planter.

Lucius’s shoulder was still wrapped in bandages. Blood had soaked through one layer.

"You haven’t changed your bandages," Jeremy said.

"Too lazy."

"..."

Jeremy took out the magical potion box Lomita had given him three years ago - which he still kept and restocked regularly - opened it, and pulled out a roll of bandages and a bottle of medicine.

"Give it here."

Lucius glanced at him, then obediently turned his body, pulling down his collar.

The wound was worse than Jeremy thought. Three bite marks overlapped, the chunk of flesh severed by its own owner to escape now left a deep, unhealed crater.

"Why didn’t you dodge?" Jeremy asked, his hands still unwrapping the old bandage.

"When?"

"When we were up there. When I lost control."

Lucius was silent for a few seconds.

"Because if I dodged, you would go looking for someone else."

Jeremy’s hands stopped.

"And the next person in your line of sight was Phoenix," Lucius continued, his voice still soft, as if recounting an unrelated matter. "His spiritual energy was depleted at the time; he couldn’t erect an array. He would have died."

Jeremy looked at the nape of the neck in front of him.

"How long did it take you to calculate that?"

"I didn’t," Lucius replied. "My legs moved on their own."

"..."

Jeremy dripped medicine onto the wound. Lucius shuddered very slightly, but didn’t make a sound.

The two were silent for a moment.

Then Jeremy said, "Thank you."

"No need."

"I’m still saying it."

Lucius let out a very soft chuckle and didn’t reply.

Finishing wrapping the final layer of bandage, Jeremy pulled his hands back.

Lucius pulled his collar up, but didn’t stand. He remained sitting there, looking at the two planters - one with a tree that hadn’t bloomed in four years, one with a freshly buried seed.

"It will bloom in seven years," Lucius said. "How old will you be then?"

"Thirty-six, in terms of lived years. But in bone age, I’m only one year older than you."

"Mhm."

Lucius nodded, then continued, his voice still indifferent:

"I want to see it bloom."

Jeremy turned to look at him.

That sentence sounded ordinary. But the way it was spoken was not.

It sounded more like a plea than a wish.

"...Then live until then," Jeremy said.

Lucius tilted his head and smiled. That familiar smile from the past four years, the layer of scum floating on the water’s surface.

"I’ll try."

The night wind blew across the balcony.

The two sat there for a while longer, neither saying anything else.

Beneath the soil in the new planter, the silver seed lay still, yet to germinate.

And in the North, thousands of miles away from the Sky City, in a dark room with tightly drawn curtains, a person was counting into the twelfth day since his last awakening.