Chapter 665 - 66: Divine Bloodline

Chapter 665: Chapter 66: Divine Bloodline

The old man saw her and grinned, revealing a few chipped teeth.

Sera giggled and buried her face again.

Deep within the village stood a stone temple.

Six stone pillars stood at its front, their surfaces covered in carved patterns.

The patterns had been worn uneven by the wind and rain.

Wide stone steps led from the temple’s entrance down to the flagstone path below.

The stone temple was open to the sky, revealing the pale gray heavens above.

In the center of the temple was a stone altar, upon which sat a cracked stone bowl filled with clear water.

The surface of the water reflected the daylight, perfectly still.

This was the village’s Holy Hall.

Mira set Sera down and led her up the stone steps.

A figure stood at the entrance to the temple. Hearing footsteps, he turned around.

He was a young man of sixteen or seventeen, tall and broad-shouldered.

He wore a short white robe, its hem stained with flecks of mud and dried blood.

The bloodstains had turned black, matting the fabric into stiff clumps.

His dark brown hair was a mess, with a few strands plastered to his forehead.

A cut stretched across his face from the tip of his eyebrow to his cheekbone. It had stopped bleeding, but the edges were still red.

The new flesh was pink, a stark contrast to his light-brown, sun-tanned skin.

When Sera saw him, she let go of her sister’s hand and ran over.

"Leander!"

She ran up to him, tilting her head back to look at the wound on his face. She reached out as if to touch it.

Leander bent down to let her.

Her fingers lightly brushed the edge of the wound before she pulled her hand back.

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn’t hurt."

Sera nodded. Having touched it, she ran back to her sister’s side, grabbing the corner of her robe and peeking out from behind her.

Mira walked over to the stone altar. From underneath it, she took out a clay pot and an unbroken bowl.

The pot was unglazed and rough to the touch, with a chip in its rim.

She poured a bowl of water and handed it to Leander.

"Drink."

Leander took the bowl and drank it down, sip by sip. As the water settled in his stomach, the new flesh on his face began to turn the same light brown as the rest of his skin, and even the scar vanished without a trace.

He set the bowl aside, took a step back, and placed his right hand over his heart as he bowed.

"Thank you, High Priest."

Mira looked at him.

"Rise."

Leander straightened.

"I have to return to the front."

The temple fell silent.

Sera clutched her sister’s robe, pulling at a loose thread on the corner until a white strand came free.

Mira watched him.

"You just got back."

"That’s why I have to go back," Leander said, his voice a little hoarse. "I can—"

"You can die there."

Leander fell silent.

Sera buried her face in her sister’s robes and looked away.

Mira walked to the side of the stone altar, her fingers tracing the rim of the stone bowl.

The rim was worn smooth, but several fine cracks spiderwebbed down from it.

"Leander, your blood is potent."

Leander said nothing.

"Three thousand years ago, the blood of a Divine Spirit was spilled upon this land. Those who caught the blood became Demigods. They used the Divine Spirit’s power to drive back the invaders, and they sealed the rift for three thousand years."

Mira’s finger stopped on one of the cracks. "The bloodline has been passed down from generation to generation, unbroken for three thousand years. Your blood is more potent than anyone else’s in the village. Even more potent than mine."

She turned to face him.

"That is all the more reason you must live."

"It is precisely because my blood is potent that I must go," Leander said.

"The Demigods need people to hold back those things that squeeze through the rifts. An ordinary person can’t last. If I go, I can hold out a little longer. And if I hold out a little longer, the Demigods can kill one more invader. One more invader killed means the war will end one day sooner."

Mira’s fingers tightened.

Ripples spread across the remaining water in the bowl.

Ring after ring, they spread out, hit the side of the bowl, and bounced back.

Sera poked her head out from her sister’s robes, looking from Mira to Leander.

"Sister," she called out softly, her voice trembling slightly, "is Leander really going back to the battlefield?"

Before Mira could answer, Leander said, "I have to."

Sera asked in confusion, "But sister, didn’t you say the war was almost over?"

"It will be soon," Leander said. "Every person who goes brings the end that much closer. I went, and I came back alive. If I can come back alive once, I can do it again."

Mira said nothing. Her fingers were still pressed against the rim of the stone bowl, and the water within it continued to shimmer.

"I’m not going there to die," Leander said. "I’m going there to fight. People die in war, but if we don’t fight, even more will die. You understand that principle better than I do."

Mira finally turned her head to look at him. The young man stood there, his back ramrod straight.

In the temple’s light, the bloodstains on his white robe looked dark, but his expression was calm—unnervingly so for a boy of sixteen or seventeen.

"Then go."

Leander’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

He bowed again, his right hand over his heart.

"Come back alive," Mira said.

Leander straightened and met her eyes.

After another bow, he turned and walked down the stone steps.

The sound of his footsteps on the stone steps grew more and more distant.

Sera watched his retreating figure.

The wind lifted his short white robe, revealing the bandages wrapped around his waist.

The bandages were a dark red. They might have been white once, but now they were soaked through with blood.

He reached the bottom of the steps and paused for a moment. Without looking back, he walked on.

A gust of wind blew the wildflower from behind Mira’s ear.

The small, yellow, five-petaled flower fell onto the steps. The wind pushed it, and it tumbled down two steps before getting caught in a crack in the stone.

She didn’t pick it up.

Sera tugged on her sister’s robe. "Sister, Leander will come back alive, right?"

Mira looked down at her sister.

"He will."

"Then when will he be back?"

"He’ll be back when the war is over."

...

「Late at night.」

At the high platform, the moon was hidden behind the clouds. Only a few faint stars hung in the sky.

Nothing could be seen at the spot where Ephialtes had split open.

The air was still. The wind that passed over it was silent.

And then—

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

The sound came from the empty air.

A pale gray light began to coalesce in the air.

At first, it was a line as thin as a hair, but it slowly widened, as if someone were slicing an opening in the void.

Pale gray streams of energy roiled at the edges of the rift, just as they had when Mira closed it during the day.

The energy surged outward, kicking up a day’s worth of dust from the stone slabs and spinning it into a small vortex in the moonlight.

But it stopped after a single rotation.

A flash of crimson sword light shot out from the rift.

The instant it emerged, it bent sharply, like an open hand closing around the pale gray energy that was spreading from the rift’s edge.

The energy was forced back inside. The light gently swept over the edges of the rift, and it sealed shut, like a wound being smoothed over by a fingertip.

The wind still blew.

The stars remained in the same position.

The village was dark.

It was as if Ephialtes had never opened at all.

The crimson sword light hovered above the high platform for a moment before slowly descending.

The light gathered, coalescing into a human figure.

Murphy stood on the high platform.

He raised his head and looked into the distance.

The village was there.

Stone houses stood clustered together.

An olive tree stood at the village entrance, its leaves rustling softly in the wind, a sound like someone turning the pages of a book far away.

He stood for a moment, then walked down from the high platform.

His soles made no sound as they touched the stone steps.

The long flight of steps led down, one by one, to the dirt road below.

He walked toward the village.

In the Holy Hall, the bowl on the stone altar held clear, calm water.

A bed in the corner of the Holy Hall rested against the wall. Sera was fast asleep, her hair fanned out on the pillow. Mira lay beside her, breathing evenly.

In a crack on the stone steps, the small yellow flower remained caught.

Its five petals had already wilted, their edges curled, their color faded from yellow to a pale, whitish-yellow.

It stirred when the wind blew, but did not fall.