Chapter 2193: 99% [Bonus] |
[Bonus thanks to BobTheEngineer <3]
"Sylas? SYLAS!"
Cassarae dug at piles of soot and ash on her hands and knees. Her nails scraped against the ground, pulling at large amounts of dirt and grime every time.
She could have used her sword, or even a tool, but she was afraid. Too afraid.
What if she accidentally hit Sylas or what remained of him? What if she didn't control her strength and ended up killing him? The only way to make sure she wouldn't do this was if she could make sure that she could sense him first.
She wasn't an idiot. She knew that with her senses, if Sylas was anywhere here, even if he was buried beneath piles of earth, she would be able to find him almost instantly.
If she couldn't sense him, it meant that he was either not here or his Will had already been wiped out. But she didn't dare to stop for long enough to think that through.
She just kept screaming, kept digging.
Just a few minutes ago, she had been thinking about having his child and teaching the Duchess about what it meant to be the mother of Sylas Grimblade's firstborns.
Sylas was her everything, he had been her everything for a long while. She had always trusted him, always trusted that he would always come out on top. If it required sitting and waiting, she would do that.
But things were different now. There was a baby in her. She couldn't fathom doing it by herself, she couldn't hold the weight of bringing a child into such a dangerous world without an infallible Sylas holding up the skies.
How long would they survive without him? How much time did Earth have with him as a shield? Would their child even make it to adulthood?
The glow of birth and motherhood was ruthlessly stomped away by reality, so much so the world was nothing but a blur of soil and soot to her.
She had already dug through a crater that stretched for kilometers, large amounts of earth being plowed out again and again under her shrieks.
The Duchess stood in a daze at the edge of the crater. Her expression was impossible to read, but she seemed to be at least somewhat shell shocked.
She wasn't quite sure how to react, either. In the Demon World, husbands died all the time, but it had never been something she experienced.
Well, she had never had a husband before, but her point was that ever since the fall of her mother—something that happened before she was even conscious of life—the Sanguara rarely if ever lost anyone.
There were so few of them, but they were so powerful that it was a near impossibility for anyone to take them out even when their True Blood wasn't awakened, let alone after it was.
She had been so coddled in her youth that she didn't even truly experience the loss of a mother either. It just wasn't her experience.
She had always believed that when she built a family, her husband would be so strong that none of this would matter at all. It would never matter because her husband would be the strongest.
What need was there to worry if that was the case?
"What need is there… to worry…?" she said softly.
The Duchess' body suddenly froze, her veins seizing as she felt something squeeze tight within her.
Then, a pillar of light descended from above, swallowing her whole.
When it vanished, she, too, was gone.
Cassarae was so focused on digging that she didn't even notice what happened.
"SYLAS! SYLAS!"
Someone grabbed her wrists.
"LET ME GO! YOU—!"
Cassarae looked up with tear stricken eyes to find Sylas squatting in front of her, holding her wrists tightly and seemingly having no intention of letting go.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sylas asked calmly.
"Sy… Sylas… Sylas…"
Cassarae started an ugly sort of sob. She couldn't stop it at all. She didn't care that Sylas was holding her wrists at all, she pushed her head forward into his chest, crying harder.
Sylas had been angry just a moment ago. The idea Cassarae certainly thought he was dead was just ridiculous to him. Part of why he loved Cassarae so much was because she had never doubted him, no matter what her mouth might have responded.
This was so far outside her usual character his first reaction really was fury.
But the moment her head buried itself into his chest, even Sylas couldn't just continue to be angry.
"Alright. I'm here." Sylas said softly, wrapping his arms around her.
Maybe it was just different now. Cassarae was fine when the only one at stake was herself, but now there was a child who was also relying on him being alive, a child that had the weight of the Grimblade bloodline running through their veins.
It was too different, and Cassarae wasn't ready to uphold that burden on her own.
He needed to be strong, and he needed to be untouchable. That was the only way.
Sylas' gaze flashed with cold.
The Monkey King hadn't quite pissed him off before. When it was just targeting him, he didn't really care. That was just the way the world went, it was the natural course of things.
Sylas was 99% sure that the Monkey King was dead now, but 99% wasn't good enough.
And even if the Monkey King was dead, those gazes that had been watching, looking for an opportunity, or just trying to find a seat to observe.
Sylas' gaze flashed with endless amounts of cold.
He picked Cassarae up and nestled her close.
They needed to leave this place. But first, he had something else to do.
After all, he didn't have just one woman pregnant with his child, there was a second, and he had to go and get her now.