Tacit Understanding
At the end, Belinda’s voice was choked with sobs.
Leylin looked at how Belinda was speaking in her tearful voice, and was rendered speechless. ‘Alright I didn’t think my acting would have such a great effect, did the mental suggestions affect her too deeply?’
However, what he needed now was to be low-profile, and he couldn’t be together with Belinda and bring trouble onto himself. The beauty of the two sisters would be a source of chaos anywhere.
Knowing this, how could Leylin put himself in danger?
“Become mercenaries? Hah, how would we afford the holy city’s rent and prices? Particularly with the Stewart family, you can’t just break away from them just because you want to. Against this family who have extended their tentacles in all corners of the holy city, what can you possibly do?”
Leylin could only play the role of a realist, and coldly strike down Belinda.
“Nick, you’ve changed! You weren’t like this before!” The callous words made Belinda a little dull, and she looked at Leylin with a rather foolish expression.
“I haven’t changed, I’ve only accepted reality! Go!” Leylin seemed to wave his hand impatiently, and also violently began coughing at the same time.
“Uh, no!” Belinda stepped forward and directly brushed away Leylin’s palm, and finally saw the blood that Leylin had coughed up.
“Your life force! How could it became this weak, and why do you have all these symptoms? What happened to your strength? Has it disappeared?”
Leylin’s life force was continuously degenerating, and although his appearance was the same as before, his vitality was constantly sapped away. Compared to before, it was like the difference between a candle and a torch.
“It’s an old wound from past adventures, it’s nothing!” As for this, Leylin did not try to hide it, and it could no longer be concealed either.
This was the reason he had done his best to avoid conflict. With his strength in decline, unrepentantly provoking formidable powers could only be described as foolish.
“I knew it! You were afraid! Afraid of burdening me and Sophia!” On the contrary, Leylin’s condition made Belinda seemingly join the dots.
“Are you afraid of becoming a burden to me? It doesn’t matter, I can certainly cure you!” Belinda looked deeply into Leylin’s eyes, her figure disappearing into the moonlight.
Leylin stood there somewhat speechlessly: “She actually thought of something? Although it’s not quite the case at all...”
However, if Belinda wanted to think of it like this, it didn’t seem like it would do him any harm. Leylin thought about it a little, but did not intend to expose himself.
“Now... perhaps after the Sovereign King of gluttony’s appearance today, the structure of the holy city is likely to have changed dramatically...” After Belinda had left, Leylin took up his sprinkler again and attentively tended to the budding shoots in his flowerbed. His expression was peaceful and serene, and he seemed to have nothing to do with the outside world.
In fact, this truly was the case. On the second day, along with a heavily injured Aegnis returning home, an even more terrifying news came about— mad beasts contaminated by gluttony had appeared near the holy city!
Even if the Snake Dowager had already discovered this and carried out her purification, with Beelzebub’s disruption her schemes clearly could not succeed.
However, her earlier purification still had some effects. At the very least, Aegnis still managed to retain her life, but she had suffered severe injuries, which filled many serpent guards with endless fear.
According to Aegnis’ report, a group of giant serpents contaminated by gluttony had already broken through into the holy city. The neighbouring half snake people had suffered enormous losses.
The members of the squad that was with her had all unfortunately perished, and even their corpses had been swallowed up by those insatiable beasts, until there was nothing left.
After all, compared to ordinary food, snake flesh of a superior species was abundant in energy, especially those snake people who were of high rank. It was even easier for them to become the targets of the gluttonous beasts!
gluttonous beasts! This description had come from Aegnis, and was very quickly widely adopted to distinguish them from other giant serpent species.
No matter what creature it was, once it was contaminated by the power of gluttony, it would enter a horrifying state of hunger where it didn’t mind what it ate. They were all called gluttonous beasts.
The holy city and the Stewart family attached great importance to this report, They prepared both the city defence soldiers and a great number of reserves. They declared that the holy city was imposing martial law, and even released a large number of tasks for mercenaries and adventurers to target the gluttonous beasts invading the holy city.
In a short while, the entire Serpent Plains seemed to ripple unpredictably with activity, and this chaotic scene seemed to spread ceaselessly in the Hail Continent.
What the ordinary citizens of the holy city didn’t know was that this situation would continue for a very long time. Furthermore, in a short span of time, the gluttonous beasts would replace all the previous natural and manmade calamities to become the primary threat to their survival.
......
Time seemed to pass in a flash, and a year went by before he knew it.
“Brother Nick! Sophia is here to see you!” Looking like a younger Belinda, Sofia pushed open the door and walked in. She wore a hunting outfit and looked very exuberant and heroic, overflowing with the vitality of youth. Looking at her, Leylin felt a little envious.
“You’ve come, Sophia!” Leylin smiled and greeted her, inwardly shaking his head.
Although he had come to a tacit understanding with Belinda, Sophia clearly did not know much. Not only this, neither Leylin or Belinda could possibly tell her that much, because with her intelligence it was impossible for her to keep secrets.
As a result, although Belinda had cut back on coming to Leylin’s place, Sophia still remembered her brother Nick, and came over from time to time.
“Brother Nick, haven’t you recovered from your illness?” Sophia drew closer to Leylin, with obvious worry in her eyes. It was now possible to tell that Leylin was beyond saving. Although his appearance had not changed too much, wrinkles had appeared on his forehead and the back of his hands. His body’s life force continuously disappeared, giving an account of just how weak he was.
“*Cough*... It’s alright! *Cough*...” Leylin took out a white handkerchief and covered his lips. The back that stood so tall and straight in the past seemed to have become a little hunched.
“It’s already become like this, how could you say it’s alright? The Spring of Life that elder sister Belinda asked me to bring last time, are you using it?”
“I have!” Leylin smiled, and picked up his sprinkler.
A milky-white spring water with a rich fragrance was poured into the soil.
The budding shoots in the flowerbed before had now grown into a small tree, the glistening verdant leaves appeared even more full of vitality after being watered.
“Oh! This small tree has unexpectedly grown so tall?”
Sophia was a little surprised: “Only... Brother Nick, why are you giving your medicine to the small tree? Is it also ill?”
“No. To be honest, it needs this more than I do...” Leylin had a deep expression in his eyes, but did not continue his explanation. Instead, he picked up a small gardening hoe and slowly plowed the soil and removed weeds, just like an earnest gardener.
Sophia appeared very familiar with Leylin’s behaviour, and immediately sat by his side and began to talk to herself:
“Recently, the Calamity of Gluttony has gotten even more serious! Sister Aegnis said many garrison squads have suffered heavy losses, and the frontline reached the Crescent Moon Lakeside for a while, which isn’t far at all from the holy city. There are still lots of giant serpents that have been contaminated, and even rank 6 Serpent families cannot escape. Over half of the Serpent Plains are now occupied by gluttonous beasts...
“The entire Serpent Plains already does not have many places for us to live, and recently even a lot of the holy city residents are beginning to flee, which complicates things for sister Aegnis...
“And sister Belinda, she recently keeps on accepting missions, it’s said that she’s thinking of exchanging it for the highest grade Holy Light Crystal, and to get it she took on a very dangerous mission, and will leave tomorrow...”
“Oh!” Leylin’s hand stopped slightly, but then continued to move. He could understand Belinda’s current situation a little, she seemed to accept the holy city’s missions without stopping, and exchanged her contributions for materials full of life force, then secretly sent them to him.
These things were almost of no use to him, otherwise with Leylin’s methods, he wouldn’t need to keep living in seclusion here.
“The Holy Light Crystal?” Leylin shook his head, this type of life crystal was full of life force, and had good effects on purifying and suppressing various curses, it was said to be the Hail Continent’s peak grade material, and even though Belinda was rank 4, obtaining this was not an easy task.
An even more crucial point was that this material wouldn’t be of much use given his current condition, but it could have an even better effect on the Seed of Wisdom.
*Bang! Bang!* At this moment, a rough sound sounded out. “We’re inspectors!”
“Ah...” Leylin sighed in recognition and came to the door. “Please come in, sirs!”
Seeing a large group of guards boorishly rush in, Sophia stuck out her tongue: “There’s a lot of people. Sophia doesn’t like them. See you, brother Nick!”
The young lady prepared to say goodbye and left, and soon after the guards did the same, fully explaining that they were absolutely not here for inspection, but to serve as a reminder and a warning.
Leylin could only bitterly laugh.
Although in the space of this year, borrowing the Stewart family’s and Thomas’ name saved him a lot of trouble, Sophia was still an enormous problem. Leylin had already felt that as Sofia came to visit him more often, that Thomas had the tendency to become even more impatient.
“Ah... Just how is Belinda managing her sister?” Leylin helplessly massaged his temples.
He had a very bad feeling that if Sophia’s vague affection for him was discovered, the good relationship that he had with Thomas would be gone forever. He’d already failed at shutting her down after several attempts.
He was afraid that his position would go back up in Thomas’ mind, from the tool he was currently to something along the lines of a love rival or competitor.