Everyone's heart stopped at the sight.
Immediately, the healers like Reesa surrounded them as they used their abilities, all while Finn carried the baby to the [Clinic].
Various experts surrounded them, taking various tests and checking her state. Syl cleaned up the baby while this was going on. The entire time, the child was cold, and it gave the fear that she was losing life force in front of their eyes.
Fortunately, after a few hours, the healers told him that she had become stable. She was still pale, almost bloodless, but her breathing had become uniform again, and some color was starting to return.
"Why is she not waking up?"
"She just needs energy," Syl said, wordlessly placing toughened-level cores around her in the bed. "Think of the time she was an egg."
Thinking of this, he placed dozens of toughened-level cores on her bed. Syl looked and thought fortified-level cores could also be absorbed.
This was unusual, but the baby's constitution was unusual, so not entirely surprising. A few minutes later, the bed was filled with various cores.
Finn's eyes were red as he looked at his sister's unmoving figure.
Baby sister, please be alright.
Syl, on the other hand, looked at Finn and Lily with a complex expression on her face.
Hopefully, the siblings would be able to get through what could happen next.
…
Far, far east, on the other hand, there was a similar patient, except this one vomited a bucketful of blood. It was as if he just puked his own internal organs.
This was none other than Shala, who had received the backlash of the items being destroyed.
The people around him at the time (and there was always someone around him) screamed in shock. "Your highness!"
"What happened!?"
"HEALERS! HEALERS!"
It could be said that this side wouldn't cause trouble in the near future.
…
Back at the inn, things finally settled down, and everyone had gone out of the cellar to gape at the sight outside of the barrier. The area at least a kilometer away had been flattened and even burned, everything obliterated.
It was like a nuclear bomb passed through, not that the locals would understand the reference.
One could now clearly see the odd shape of the barriered area, as it was the only place nearby with greens. Those who came back from the extension gaped in shock, finding it hard to believe that so many things happened in such a short period of time.
The 'excitement' wasn't over, though.
This time, it was news from all over the world. It was definitely not about what had happened here. Not many had the energy to send out origami birds after the chaos.
Rather, it was more accurate to say that they received the news instead, all received quickly, thanks to the origami birds.
This was because every Aphelion Tracker tool had been triggered!
There were tools and runes in various places that would forewarn a territory if the Aphelion Phase was about to come. Sadly, it could only warn people a week before at the quickest, and this was already from the tool from the capital. Most of the other warning devices would only warn on the day.
"The Aphelion Phase is coming! The Aphelion Phase is coming!"
People panicked.
Despite this world undergoing this ordeal every few years, it would always cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every time.
No matter how much they prepared, no matter how much they invested in the infrastructure or the defenses, it was still lacking. Many people still perished, and a lot of them were deep into the safe zones as well.
The borders took a lot of losses in proportion, yes, but they were also the best fortified. Not to mention the fact that the inner safe zone had a much denser number of people, so the casualties deeper in the safe zone wasn't too different from those in the borders. Sometimes, if the territory's fortification failed, then it would even be more.
At this, people started heading home to prepare for their own places, and they looked at the inn with complicated expressions. They worried if the inn would be able to go through the next tribulation.
Finn, who willingly distracted himself from worry about his sister to worry about the mobs, smiled at them. At the same time, he started 'selling' the inn as a viable place to stay.
Despite all the upgrades and functions, he couldn't handle everything alone, right? Besides, he wasn't lying. Even after all these years, the hundreds of thousands of casualties every few years were still the norm.
"Don't worry about us," he said. "We managed to handle the explosion of a peak-level apex cockroach, after all!"
He said, and they nodded, suddenly enlightened.
"The barrier has extra functions to hide us for a time. It's just that I can't use it so often and for the entire duration, so I will only activate it when the people inside the barrier direly needed rest.
"I'd like to believe that the inn is the safest place to be during the Aphelion Phase."
When he said this, people's expressions changed, though mostly in introspection. Finn took this chance to barrage them with facts.
"I can lift some of the limitations, allowing more people to stay here. We can also create temporary timber structures with two floors to maximize the area.
"I can also maximize the extensions," he added. He still had thousands of duplicable slots after upgrading.
"Finally, the stay within the inn during the Aphelion phase will be completely free."
They nodded, with many genuinely considering moving their families there.
Everything Finn said was true. They had seen the damage of the explosion of an apex-level bastard. It only faltered a bit because the old bastard borrowed more energy from the mysterious source.
Monsters would not have that, and this meant that even if the apex level monsters did their best, they might not necessarily breach the barrier successfully.
In contrast, if an apex landed on a territory, thousands of casualties were practically guaranteed.
In the end, almost everyone was still left, but most of them were actually going to return within a few days. They just headed home to prepare and, possibly, bring along their families.
Most importantly: Reinforcements.
Like this, at least for now, Finn and his family were finally left alone to prepare on their own.
…
"I feel like there's something you have been hiding, Syl," Finn said, holding his baby sister's soft but cold hands.
He had noticed Syl's complex gaze for a while now, as if she was struggling to tell him something. This was very unlike Syl, who was rather direct when it came to these things.
Knowing that it wasn't a light topic, he sighed and stood up, gently leading Syl out the clinic and to the gazebo. "Please tell me," he said. "I…I can't handle any more surprises now. With what's about to come, I need to know everything that I have to while there's time to prepare."
Syl looked at him with a complicated expression before nodding. "Yes, there…is indeed something, and it is heavily related to the upcoming Aphelion Phase."
Finn nodded, asking her to go on.
"I have finally found out what Lily's power is based on," she said. After awakening her runes skills, things had become clearer, but it was only today that Lily's power had been confirmed.
"Lily's power… It's very similar to the energy that powered the portal barriers," she said. "No…it is identical."
"I mentioned before that many eminents had to work together to create the barrier that controlled the portals, right?" she asked, and he nodded, though his expression was solemn as he pushed down the heavy feeling in his gut.
"None of those eminents survived because they had to give their very essence to create the barriers."
"...what…does that mean?" he asked. He had a vague guess, but his brain instinctively didn't want to go there.
She looked at him. "There is a chance for the barriers to regain their previous strength—one where no monsters could leave again."
"But it means that Lily…she…"
Finn raised his hand to stop her from speaking. He rubbed the bridge above his nose, his eyes heating up as tears threatened to escape.
Was Lily sent down here to be sacrificed?
Although he wasn't sure if it was his parents doing this, he had a gut feeling that it had something to do with them.
Regardless of the degree of their involvement in this, Finn hated them.
"IF YOU WANT TO BE SAINTS, DO IT BY YOURSELF!!!" he screamed to the skies, eyes burning.
He did not know whether his parents were alive or if there was something else out there intent on killing their family. Either way, whoever they were, he hated them.
"MY SISTER WILL STAY WITH ME. SHE WILL GROW OLD AND HAPPY AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!"
He screamed his heart out, not caring whether he was heard by the people he was speaking with.
It took him a while to calm down, and when he did, every staff member was already there, looking at him in concern.
"I'm sorry… but we will have to go through this aphelion phase. I don't care if we have to deal with hundreds of them in the future,"
He will never sacrifice his sister!
"It looks like we'd have to fight through this Aphelion Phase with brute force no matter what."