Chapter 523: Return
With a sound like a crisp explosion coming from within his body, Fisher suddenly felt as if he were being swept away in a rapidly spinning cylinder, flying toward an unknown destination. Everything around him, including space and time, was continuously retreating, yet he strangely felt a warm and kind gaze watching over him, which should have been frightening.
“Fisher ah ah ah ah ah!”
Beside him, Emhart’s characteristic quacking scream sounded like a malfunction, distorted as if separated by some strange medium, reaching Fisher’s ears.
However, Fisher was too preoccupied to care, feeling as if his body no longer belonged to him, only able to focus on the dizziness as he traversed through what looked like flowing light.
He tightly grasped Emhart’s side, with only one thought in his mind:
This return is ten thousand times more terrifying than the departure!
Just as he was about to be dragged into the long river of time, the next moment, he felt as if he had burst forth from some gap, uncontrollably shooting out from that place.
As he suddenly emerged from that directionless journey, a burnt smell enveloped him, emitting colorful smoke that rolled in the air.
In that instant, as fresh air rushed into Fisher’s nostrils, he first felt joy because it seemed to mean he had reached his destination.
But before he could celebrate for more than a second, he crashed heavily onto the ground.
“Thud! Thud! Boom!”
The immense impact turned Fisher into a cannonball, first creating a large circular pit on the ground. Yet, he didn’t stop there; he bounced, rolled several times, and left several large dents before finally coming to a halt.
“Haha..ha.”
Covered in colorful smoke, Fisher lay on the ground, gasping for breath, his white angelic robe stained with his own blood and some constantly surging deep purple symbols. But before he could rest for a few seconds, those marked portions turned to dust, leaving him in tattered rags that looked exceptionally messy.
Not just him, Emhart, who had been tightly held in his hand, also rolled down groggily, trembling and spitting out golden words, before “thudding” onto the ground, motionless.
“Damn you, Bai! Ugh!!”
It seemed that despite everything, he still held a grudge against Baemon.
Fisher stared blankly at the sky, seeing nothing but a cloudless blue, with sporadic black dots appearing in the sky. As he squinted to see better, he realized those were birds flapping their wings.
Could it be that the sky over the Storm Sea had changed like this after they lifted the restrictions?
Fisher recalled the fog and barriers when he and Renee entered the Storm Sea at night, not expecting it to have undergone such a transformation by the time they returned.
Where’s Renee?
When this thought surged into his mind, he wanted to get up and check his surroundings. But as soon as he moved, he felt a shock of pain coursing through his body, nearly knocking his soul out of him.
“Hiss!”
Gritting his teeth, he took a deep breath, then slowly raised his head in disbelief, looking down to see a massive blood hole where his kidneys were supposed to be.
Within the blood hole, countless chaotic energies were entwining his flesh, constantly growing and restructuring; on the outside, trails of purple chaotic energy eroded his body. Nonetheless, that corrosive power inexplicably weakened over time.
At first, he hadn’t looked closely; he had thought the trip was merely a bumpy ride. But seeing the wound now, it felt as if he had been stabbed with countless steel knives, the pain overwhelming.
Only then did he realize how foolish it was to threaten the Duke of Peach by detonating Renee’s mark in the Tree Continent. If that thing had truly exploded, even if he hadn’t been contaminated by the chaos, how could his small body, which didn’t even have a mythical rank, withstand the power that even made the Nineteen Rank Duke of Peach tremble?
But the question remained: why had that power been eerily quiet back then, only to explode when leaving?
Images of Hela smiling and mocking him with an arrow suddenly appeared in his mind, connecting her presence with the uncontrollable explosion of power at his kidneys’ location.
Hela is Baemon.
The demon who terrifies even Emhart.
This seemingly made sense, as at that time, the Ideal Nation was engulfed by chaos and the powers of the Heavenly Lock, giving birth to beings known as Demon Kin, which Fisher also knew were peculiar races that worship chaos.
And though Hela was an angel, she had mingled with the Demon Kin due to the chaos she had suffered while striving to drive away death from herself in the competition for the Holy Grail with Pandora and others. Furthermore, Michael had said the Heavenly Lock had taken out its anger on Hela, so it assigned her a suffering task, possibly related to the Ideal Nation.
No wonder, no wonder Eil mentioned that Baemon had a good relationship with angels; it turned out to be like this.
Hiss.
As Fisher continued to think, he pressed against the gaping wound at his back, his expression turning pale from the intense pain.
Since entering mythical rank, although the fusion of body and soul had greatly improved his abilities, it also meant that major injuries came with added pain to the soul. Moreover, given his special mythical rank, he was even more susceptible to the influence of chaos.
At that moment, accompanied by rising murmurs in his mind, his body began to move irregularly again.
“Fisher, are you alright?!”
Just then, beside him, Emhart, who had also been brought back by this peculiar traversal, seemed to be recovering slightly. He sucked in his breath, pulling back the golden words that had yet to spill from his mouth, and then a sound of swiftly turning pages echoed from within his book.
After stabilizing himself, he hurriedly turned to look at Fisher lying on the ground, giving him a once-over.
“Your body has been contaminated by chaos! And it’s a severe injury! My heavens! I… right, I forgot you’ve entered the mythical rank; this type of injury should heal quickly. But why does it look like you’re unaffected by the chaos?”
Fisher gritted his teeth and took several deep breaths, then shook his head.
“I’m just as baffled, Emhart. Where are we now? The Storm Sea? It doesn’t feel quite like it.”
“Yeah, I feel the same.”
After receiving Fisher’s response, Emhart floated up to survey their surroundings.
They found themselves lying alone in a wide, green wilderness, where everything was eerily quiet. The golden morning sun poured down from the sky, coloring both the distant horizon and the space around them with distinct layers.
In the distance, lines of rising smoke at the edge of vision formed blurred silhouettes; nearby, the lush green wilderness did not resemble the Storm Sea lying at the center of the ocean at all.
Where exactly is this?
“Chirp! Chirp!”
Just as Emhart was becoming familiar with the scene before them, a series of extremely crisp and adorable chirps from an unknown direction unexpectedly caught their attention.
Fisher and Emhart simultaneously turned their heads, only to see small eyes curiously staring at them amid the gaps in the low grass where Fisher lay.
The owners of those eyes seemed to be round creatures indistinguishable from the soil, their cautious gazes were their signature feature.
“Earth Spirits?”
“We’re in…”
“The Southern Continent!”
As Fisher incredulously covered his kidneys and sat up, below him, several Earth Spirits erupted from the soil he had previously crushed, “chirping” excitedly and quickly scattering, accompanied by the Earth Spirits that had been watching them.
Fisher frowned as he looked around, still groggy from his heavy injuries and recent travel.
Now reminded by Emhart and the small Earth Spirits beside him, he looked around and realized just how familiar everything seemed.
A faint sound of distant waves reached his ears as he slowly stood up, finally confirming that the wilderness he stood upon was indeed the same place he had traversed before.
He remembered that the last time he came to the Southern Continent, he intended to take Raphael away; although he eventually abandoned that plan, he still remembered the route from south to north.
And this was the place they had traveled after leaving Feilon City.
At that time, there had been a war between the subhuman tribes and the army allied with the City Lord of Shivali, ending in the tragic defeat of the subhuman tribes. He vividly remembered this area being littered with the corpses of subhumans and the remnants of cannon fire, only to find that upon returning, even Earth Spirits had begun to flourish here.
What’s going on?
Wasn’t he just crossing through the depths of the Storm Sea in the Eastern Ocean? Why hadn’t he returned along the original route?
Emhart, equally puzzled, circled around Fisher, looking at the wilderness and the slowly rising smoke at the distant horizon. He then turned to Fisher and suggested,
“Fisher, it seems like there are people over there. Let’s go check it out! It must be that dastardly Baemon who brought us here!”
Fisher nodded in agreement. Faced with such significant injuries, his body’s recovery speed was limited, but after some time, he could barely walk.
As he and Emhart walked in that direction, he couldn’t help but ask,
“Emhart, do you think Hela… is actually Baemon?”
“Yeah! Exactly! She must have a purpose for being nearby you! That damned demon! Maybe she is the spy sent by the Demon Dynasty to infiltrate the Holy Realm! We’ve just been fooled!”
Fisher shot a glance at Emhart, dousing him with cold water,
“At that time, you were taken away by Gabriel, so you wouldn’t know that the Demon Kin hadn’t yet been born.”
“What?! So Baemon is actually a Holy Spawn? I… I… her…”
Looking at Emhart’s shocked expression, Fisher roughly guessed that his dreams regarding all Holy Spawns besides Gabriel had been utterly shattered. Of course, the main reason for this lay with the archangel Michael, who had bullied him.
But as the conversation went on, Emhart seemed particularly certain about one thing:
“It doesn’t matter if Baemon is a Holy Angel! She must have an ulterior motive for you! Fisher! You must remain vigilant! You… that night… with her like that, surely a part of you is missing, right?”
He zoomed around Fisher, examining him up and down, worried that Hela had eaten away some part of him.
Fisher thought, whatever part she might have taken can regenerate, but aside from Emhart’s nearly emotional barrage, he felt even more curious and wary about the mysterious Hela. For some reason, he also felt a sense of relief.
Because if Hela is indeed Baemon, that would mean she is still alive in the present time; unlike other demon gods, she hasn’t been locked in the Demon Pillar by the Mother.
Well, this conveniently explained why the Mother hadn’t locked Hela’s Demon Pillar; it was because she wasn’t even a demon, hence there wasn’t a Demon Pillar.
“Y-y-you! Are you worried about Baemon?! Fisher, you lecherous person! Wake up! Wake up!”
“Thud! Thud!”
Just as Fisher was thinking about Hela’s current circumstances, Emhart, as if having guessed Fisher’s thoughts, suddenly bashed his head against Fisher’s, seemingly trying to knock him fully awake.
“Don’t think about it! Don’t think about it! Fisher, you’ve been completely brainwashed by her! Hurry up and come to your senses!”
Fisher, feeling helpless, reached out a hand to stop Emhart’s assault; in reality, he had not felt much of what Emhart described as Baemon’s “evil.”
Until now, he had felt more like he was enjoying teasing Hela.
But he also didn’t let his guard down and asked,
“I’m wide awake, and I haven’t been brainwashed. But I’m quite curious: what did Baemon… or rather Hela, do to you in the demon abyss, and what did you see that made you fear her so much?”
Compared to “Baemon,” Fisher preferred calling that evil angel “Hela.”
“She…”
Just as Emhart was about to say something indignantly, his words got stuck in his throat like a fishbone, his expression turning dazed and painful as he struggled to spit out a word.
“I can’t speak due to the restrictions placed on me; what I saw there…”
It was then that Fisher remembered Emhart had once mentioned he had lost some memories forcibly “torn away,” so he couldn’t recall them. Some parts had not been taken, but those had also been sealed by Hela and couldn’t be expressed.
The things seen had been ripped away, and yet the lingering fear remained, leaving Emhart uncomfortable to this day.
Looking at his frightened expression, Fisher’s eyes flickered slightly. He patted Emhart’s book cover, signaling him to relax.
“I understand, don’t worry; I will stay alert around her. If anything arises that night, I will clarify face-to-face.”
Fisher was indeed puzzled.
If Baemon was Hela, she must have known him long ago; then why hadn’t she shown herself or contacted him before?
No, perhaps she had reached out but hadn’t revealed her identity.
He suddenly thought of Hela, who was by Valentina’s side in the Northern Region, the very one who, according to Emhart’s report, seemed to be Baemon, and back then, had shown unusually warm enthusiasm towards him.
He was unclear about how some of his actions from the past would influence his present.
Was it that “his deeds shaped the now,” or that “his actions altered the now”?
If it was the former, then his questions were nothing unusual. Could it be that Hela’s fear of meeting him early might lead to a scenario of “his traversal to the past” being changed?
If it was the latter, then Fisher wouldn’t dare to imagine the consequences his past actions might have on the present.
For example,
Now, they had inexplicably run from the Storm Sea to the Southern Continent.
Though he had evaded death and returned from the past to the present, numerous questions still lingered in Fisher’s mind.
He only intended to find a populated area to settle down for a while before making further plans.
With the Apocalypse Prophecy already resolved and death now behind him, his future was not so much “the sky is high and birds can fly wherever,” but at least “a vast expanse.”
He was finally facing the debts he had incurred earlier.
Coincidentally, having reached the Southern Continent, he had to meet Raphael. After so long apart, he was eager to know her current state; he had also promised Elizabeth he would return, and he needed to handle their mutual promises; he also promised Valentina a real wedding ring; and he assured Renee that he would be by her side.
A whole bunch of titles from the past, and now, he needed to add the search for Tang Zeming Asuka and Hela to that list.
The more he thought about it, the more the cold sweat on Fisher’s forehead became dense.
At that moment, a sound of hurried hoofbeats suddenly resonated from the wilderness ahead.
“Clop! Clop!”
“Hiss!”
Before his eyes was a black carriage; originally, the owner of the carriage had not noticed Fisher, and he, lost in thought, hadn’t paid much attention to that direction.
But unexpectedly, as the horses pulling the carriage neared Fisher, perhaps sensing the aura of his mythical rank, they halted in place, refusing to move forward.
“Hey! You horse! Hey! Move! I’ve got to be somewhere!”
When the horses stopped, the figure holding the reins shouted loudly. This voice caught Fisher’s attention because the person spoke a certain language from the Southern Continent.
Although Fisher understood it due to the translation artifact implanted by the Holy Realm earlier, he still found it quite surprising.
For at that moment, the one holding the reins was a goblin orc wearing an extremely oversized version of Nali clothing.
Fisher blinked in surprise and approached the cursing goblin for a closer look. As he drew near, the already reluctant horse trembled even more.
The goblin, already in a foul mood, became even more irritable upon noticing someone approaching. He originally intended to curse at the ragged newcomer, but when he saw Fisher’s fair, pristine human face, the orc hesitated slightly and somewhat restrained himself.
Even so, his expression was still far from friendly or gentle. He merely asked Fisher,
“Sir, is there something you need?”
He spoke in Nali.
“?”
Fisher felt even more puzzled. He looked at the goblin orc and the carriage in confusion, and then also spoke in Nali, asking,
“May I ask, where is this place?”
“This place?”
The orc blinked slightly, seemingly not understanding Fisher’s question, but after hearing Fisher’s Nali and sensing his distinct aura, he patiently replied,
“This is… the New Dragon Court.”
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(The chapter ends)
