Chapter 11.4 - Choice
On the screen was once again a scene enveloped in the flames of war. However, what was different was that the mountain peaks were all covered in white snow, and one could see that the current battlefield had already penetrated deep into the north. Persephone was still as charming as always, but there was an undisguised fatigue at the corners of her brows. It seemed like the intensity of this battle left her feeling quite some burden.
Persephone laughed and said, “Dear, are there any good news? If there are, hurry up and tell me. Without me, those subordinates wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer!”
“There are good news and bad news. The good news is that Su’s treatment was successful. At the very least, from what I can currently see, he can make a full recovery…”
Without waiting for Helen to finish speaking, Persephone suddenly cried out, "His fighting strength won’t be affected? That’s great! Dear, you are so awesome!”
Helen coldly cut off Persephone’s excitement and said, “You should listen to the bad news first! Su already knows of Madeline’s death, and the Spider Empress has sent people over to have him meet Madeline one last time after his recovery.”
Persephone’s expression first froze, and then it turned to shock. She couldn’t help but cry out, “What did you just say?! Madeline died in battle? How did she die? Whose hands did she die under?! Helen, why did you never tell me about this matter?”
Even through the screen, Helen still felt as if her eardrums had been blasted through by Persephone’s screams. She frowned slightly, and then with a cold expression, she said, “I heard that Madeline launched a surprise attack on Sunset Castle one night and killed everyone under Unwavering Sunset Piccolo, and in the end, she also died after that battle. I only know this much, and the source is unreliable as well. I originally thought that you already knew about this.”
With Persephone’s identity as a dragonrider general, the intelligence she had should obviously be much greater than Helen who didn’t have any official position. Persephone stared at the screen in a stupefied manner, but it was unknown where her eyes were looking. Two streams of tears sorrowfully flowed down from her eyes, but she seemed completely oblivious to this. She only began to mutter, “I didn’t know, I haven’t looked into her matters for a long time… I really didn’t know…”
Helen adjusted her glasses. With a somewhat worried expression, she softly said, “Phoney, phoney?”
Persephone suddenly woke up from her distractedness and noticed her own abnormality. She forced a smile and said, “Alright, dear, I have to fight now. After fighting this battle, I will return to Dragon City! If there’s nothing else, then let’s leave things like this!”
“If you feel any discomfort, don’t forget to take the medicine I gave you!” Helen warned.
“I known.” Persephone hurriedly replied and then cut off the chanel.
Helen stared at the completely empty screen, and only after a long time had passed did she softly sigh.
---
The abundant and powerful medications, Helen’s masterful surgical skill, together with his powerful recovery ability made it so that Su’s heavy injuries were pretty much recovered from after seven days. Even though he still hadn’t recovered 100% of his fighting strength, Su who wasn’t willing to wait any longer still followed Peperus into Lanaxis’ territory.
The vehicle fleet formed from three off-road vehicles left Dragon City along the coastline and sped towards the south. Only when night fell did the vehicles stop by an ocean pier.
While standing on the long pier, strong and violent sea breezes assaulted their faces, blowing Su’s fragmented light blonde hair everywhere. Great waves several meters tall would surge from the sea below his feet, heavily slamming down on the wave breaker. The ocean spray that splashed outwards would sometimes travel several meters, splashing Su’s onto Su’s cheeks. The ocean water was bitter, salty, and it also brought a stinging, burning sensation, a representation of high radiation.
In this era, the great ocean had long become well known as a dangerous place. Just the radiation that was several times more powerful than that of dry land was already enough to make ordinary people shrink back. In addition, several dozen types of enormous and vicious mutated beasts had already been detected within the shallow sea. As for the mutated fish that were relatively smaller but even more deadly, there were just too many to count. Meanwhile, the even further out deep sea was pretty much a world humans could not explore. Perhaps there had been someone who had explored in the boundless deep sea, but records of what they discovered was not something Su’s current level of authority could come into contact with.
There was no need to explore the ocean depths, because just by standing by the shore, Su was already greatly intimidated by what laid beneath these boundless waves.
On top of the pier was a dozen or so meter long small-scale speedboat. Even though there was a small circular wave guard protecting it, the crazy waves still made the speedboat continuously rise and fall more than ten meters at a time, as if the cable holding it to shore might break apart at any time and allow the speedboat to be engulfed by the ocean waves. It looked like it might be torn apart into pieces of metal by the ocean spray any minute now. However, even though the speedboat’s movements were rather horrifying, it never capsized.
The speedboat already started up. Two husky fellas were standing on it, their physiques that were over two meters in height, coiling muscles, and shiny skinheads made Su involuntarily associate them with Guile. However, their dark brown skin, as well as the rusted iron chains wrapped around their arms made them look quite different from Guile. Su noticed that one end of the chains passed through the two giants’ leg bones, and then it locked up firmly on the speedboat. It seemed like these two giants were always locked onto this speedboat, allowing the great winds and ocean waves’ corrosion.
Peperus jumped and landed inside the speedboat, and then she indicated for Su to do the same. Su didn’t hesitate and similarly jumped inside the boat. However, the speedboat suddenly shook violently, almost making Su who hadn’t rode on a boat many times and never crossed the sea before fall!
The two large men skillfully undid the cables and turned up the engine’s power output to the highest, pushing the speedboat between the crazy winds and great waves into the boundless ocean.
When they went out to sea, night had already completely descended. The high-power searchlight hanging in front of the speedboat was especially dim inside this great ocean. The speedboat traveled between ocean waves, occasionally being tossed above the waves and then falling down into the troughs, as if it might even be sunk. They hadn’t set out for a long time, yet the great waves that crashed over the boat already completely drenched the people aboard. As the ocean waves blew over, even with his constitution, Su still felt a bone-chilling coldness and couldn’t help but break out into shivers. Even though they were in the darkness, long range sensation told Su that Peperus’ body that was full of flexibility was currently shaking slightly and quickly, producing heat in this manner to resist the radiation and cold. The only ones that weren’t affected were the two giants. They almost didn’t seem to understand the meaning of cold.
The winds were strong ands the waves great. The powerful engine continued to push the speedboat through the waves with great speed. Roughly 20 minutes later, a weak light gradually appeared in front of them. Soon after, it already became bright and splendid lights! The outline of a steep island gradually emerged in the darkness, and the most eye-catching thing was the powerful and grand castle. Countless lights seeped out from windows of varying sizes, and one could see the splendorous and majestic sight of the building complex.
The speedboat stopped at the pier. Even though Su’s evaluation towards the terrain was a bit off since he was still at sea, he still deduced that this was an island roughly a dozen or so square kilometers in size, and that they were roughly 30 kilometers from the coast. The two several kilometer long wave guards protected the pier within. There was no lighthouse at all, but every hundred meters or so, there would be a low lamp pole that released a faint red color. It was hard for this weak lighting to even travel three meters, so they didn’t serve any illumination purposes. No matter how great an ordinary person’s sight was, they could still only see several glimmer-like red glows. Unless they had many sight strengthening abilities, they couldn’t travel at sea in the darkness at all.
The sea level by the harbor was unusually peaceful, forming a clear contrast with the crazy winds and great waves brewing on the ocean surface. Su could vaguely feel that some intangible force field was suppressing the ocean waves.
The giants skillfully anchored the speedboat. Peperus lead Su onto the pier and passed through the pier region towards a winding mountain road that led directly to the ancient castle located at the island’s highest point. The pier region had another wide main road, but one had to travel much further. It was a special road meant for vehicles transporting large amounts of goods.
There was no sign of anyone on the path. This Blood Parliament’s strategic location didn’t seem to have any defenses set up, making it much different from the heavily guarded place he had expected. However, Su’s keen perception detected that even though he couldn’t distinguish any traces of human activity, he instinctively felt countless dangers lurking here.
The mountain path was formed from a black stone material. It was polished to an extremely glossy state. Under the cold and wet weather, a thin layer of frost had formed on its surface, making it so slippery that it was almost impossible to stand on. It was unknown what kind of material the black stone was made of, but in the darkness, it was actually releasing a faint glimmer. This material wasn’t much different from nuclear waste. However, Su felt that these black rocks’ radiation was a bit different from that of nuclear waste’s. Its direct destructive force towards one’s body cells and tissues was less, but it instead made one’s genes become increasingly unstable.
At both sides of the mountain path were a meter tall light posts. They similarly released a weak red light that didn’t provide much illumination.
A figure suddenly scuttled past, fast and noiseless. There was also an icy cold killing intent that was released! Su immediately squatted down, his left hand lightly touching the pavement. And his light blonde hair floated upwards. He immediately entered a combat state!