Chapter 902 (1/2)

Thea drew her fingers across Chrysanthemum’s bony body. Even though the entirety of it was wreathed in flames, Thea didn’t feel the slightest bit of warmth. In fact, she felt cold. The strong bones of Chrysanthemum’s torso were riddled with cracks. The wounds bearing the brunt of Donnyton’s resistance were considerable.

While the examination continued, Chrysanthemum stoically crouched next to Thea. The lines around Thea’s eyes tightened. Even after all the fighting, the bear didn’t seem to feel a hint of discomfort. And these sort of wounds would heal quickly…

But...

Was this a mistake…? Thea thought bitterly. Her gaze turned to the other Nemesai, and the unconscious girl held between them as the Winged Serpent set up two larger teleportation formations. But if we didn’t attack, we would have just fallen further behind. In order to survive…

...its really gone to hell, hasn’t it? I know you can’t hear me, but Chrysanthemum… what should we be doing....? Thea’s gaze turned back to Chrysanthemum. But of course, the bear was silent. As she had been silent the entire time since the Creature’s strange magic had revived Chrysanthemum.

Worse than silent, however, was blank and unresponsive. She followed orders, but not much more than that. There were a few moments where Chrysanthemum displayed a hair more… liveliness, but there was one detail in common during all those moments. Thea pressed her eyes closed.

“Torment the Earth, child,” The Creature had said to her. “Cause chaos. Someday, that fool boy will create enough connections with his Aether that he will give one to someone who is despicably weak. Capture that person and bring them to the spot indicated on this map. Then I’ll consider our debt settled…”

When Thea had asked if Chrysanthemum would regain her consciousness at that point, the Creature just laughed.

“We will find out then, now won’t we?”

“Winged Serpent, hurry,” Thea said with iron in her voice. Her eyes shot open and she scanned the horizon. “A group from Donnyton is already heading in our direction. We need to recover Roy and his new toy as quickly as possible. Then we will head into your Zone Seven to see how stable that place really is.”

The Winged Serpent bobbed his head and continued to draw elaborate diagrams on the ground with its tail. Some distance away, the Obsidian Duke continued to sweat and channel his energy to recover his body. Of them all, he had suffered the most damage in this attempt. Perhaps even more than Thea.

Regina Northwind huh… to think that even she is strong enough to fight against a Nemesis...

Deep Horror, the strange sea monster that was half-crustacean and half octopus, looked at the Obsidian Duke in concern. “Is Donnyton truly that powerful? I’m glad I was rear guard, in that case.”

“Bah, I encountered no resistance worth mentioning,” Said the newly arrived Nemesai from Zone Eleven. He was a tall muscular man, closer to orc than human. His skin was a grey-red color and two large tusks jutted out from his lower jaw. He called himself the Wildness.

Fucking Nemesai and the’s, Thea thought darkly. Just use your name. We might die like this.

The Wildness sneered at the Obsidian Duke. “Perhaps… you are simply too weak…? No wonder you have struggled so long against the people of this world.”

Rather than reply, the Obsidian Duke just glowered at his severed leg and continued to heal himself. Thea also didn’t bother to say anything; the Wildness had been the one tasked with the kidnapping. Of them all, he had encountered the lightest resistance. But there would be no point in telling him that.

Someday, he would learn that lesson the hard way.

Thea pressed her eyes closed. Soon, Chrysanthemum. Soon, you will wake up…! You have to. I know you are still fighting in there.

“It is ready,” The Winged Serpent announced.

Thea’s eyes flashed open. “Then pull him back here. Pulling the Ghosthound was done perfectly. I thought he was a fool, but… his plan worked. Now we just need to get him out of there before the Ghosthound caught up.”

The Obsidian Duke looked up from his bloody work with a smirk. “It’s been five days. It isn’t that easy to travel from Donnyton to the World Crater and then search an entire world to find someone.”

“Do you want to risk it?” Thea asked lightly. The Obsidian Duke was silent. They both remembered the fight with the Ghosthound in Lake Apollo. Where he had fucking emptied a huge amount of space of water and then proceeded to rip the Doctor apart despite the Nemesai’s interference.

No, Randidly Ghosthound was not a foe that they could fight directly. And it was exactly that sense of helplessness that had both kept Thea frozen and planning for so long. While no one knew where the Ghosthound was, Thea didn’t dare act on the Creature’s original request, even though she identified two targets that were deemed “easy”.

After all, he could return at any time. An absent Randidly was an ax hanging over her head. And there was no real need to be hasty.

No, Thea would plan and wait until Randidly returned so she could be entirely sure that he wouldn’t turn up at the wrong point and ruin everything. So she had meticulously watched everyone that the Ghosthound had contact with and slowly developed profiles. She calculated risks, mapped out schedules.

She recruited support from discontent groups in the different Zones and built up a following. These individuals would never fight, but they could feed information to the Nemesai. They connected her to the growing underworld of Earth.

And the two targets she had finally settled on were related; they were siblings, Nathan and Kiersty.

Of the two, Thea instincts told her to attack Nathan. He was generally protected by a few high-Level people, but it was a much less intimidating option than going after Kiersty, who stayed in the heart of Donnyton most of the time.