Crownless: The Fallen World - Chapter 29

“You seem like you’re very tired of life. I would like to do the honor of killing you, fcking mutthead, you idiotic blond,” Hale smiled, eyes disappearing into a dangerous glint. 

The blond flinched from his position who instantly felt cold sweats trickling down his back. 

“Who’s Seb?” The little boy curiously asked.

“The tall man… his name is Sebastian Aires… the one who was left behind…” in a matter of seconds, Hale’s voice suddenly shifted to being soft. 

“Oh… Then, no! Seb is my dad!” Then the child whined as he hid in the crook of Hale’s neck, seemingly shy about finally confessing that Aires was his dad. 

It looked like it calm the older down seeing how his expression softened with just this adorable gesture of the child. The city Lord took a breath of relief. 

“Hoho! That child must be yours too, male beauty! Did you got conceived?” Kassean took another risk despite being scared by the threat. However, he suddenly winced and grabbed his shoulder who got hit by Arya, this brute force of a woman.

“We don’t have any idea about it and it looks like Aires is the one that got stuck inside the city. If the storm couldn’t even escape the barrier, then Aires can’t-“

“He can,” Hale and the child in his arms both said in unison, their words were coated with strong determination and belief to the person occupying their mind.

“… if that is how it is. We’ll take care of anything here, you focus on Aires. See you later.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

Once he stood up, he ran towards the opaque wall where he saw the strained figure of Aires. He tried to catch his attention by knocking, which could be impossible to be heard, but Aires turned and gave them a warm smile.

“Aires! You have to get out of there!” He yelled but Aires scrunched his face and shook his head, signaling that he couldn’t hear him.

“Sht!” Hale cursed and he was surprised that Aires put his hand on his mouth, then used his arms to cross before slowly mouthing the word ‘curse’ then pointed fondly at the child in the Hale’s arms.

The taller left him dumbfounded, his mouth agape as he looked at the male with furrowed brows, “You fu…fudger! You heard my curse but you didn’t hear my concerns?! You frickity fu…fudge of a human being!”

Aires pushed his hands down then pointed at them, his head turned towards the vortex that was now 10 meters above the ground. His mouth slowly moved, ‘I will go and try to do something. Be careful, okay?’

Hale grabbed the child’s hand and pressed it on the opaque wall and his hand against the little one. He gave a desperate gaze to Aires then looked at their tangled hands and back to the male.

Aires smiled, so soft and sweet as his gaze bore through Hale’s. He gently pressed his hand at the same spot and curled his hand as if trying to hold them into his. He looked at them one last time, seeing how tears stained their cheeks but their belief and faith in him never faltered.

He felt a sudden tug on his heart, seeing how he might never survive this and only a slim chance of success, and the very reason he might never see them after this was enough for his eyes to mist.

It was then that he heard a lot of breaking sounds and the creeks of the metal shrilled in his ears. He pressed his forehead on the wall with his eyes closed, knowing that he wouldn’t feel their warmth and how their breaths wouldn’t invade each other’s system, pained him. This was all new to him, so new, yet he’ll be lying if he said he didn’t like it. 

When he opened his eyes, he saw Hale doing the same. He didn’t know what came over to him as he kissed where Hale’s forehead rested on, lingering his lips there, he pulled out with a newfound strength he got as he smiled eagerly. Without any reservation, he darted forward the raging tornado, releasing strings of lightning at its wake.

His eyes were serious and determined when he looked at his enemy that was likely impossible to beat. “I will come back safely in their arms.”

On the other hand, Hale’s eyes were wide and his body was stiff. That was the first time Aires did that to him, though he desired to be in the taller’s embrace and was always envious of those who could touch him, this still overwhelmed him.

As he saw the taller disappeared from his sight, it was already too late for him to call Aires to tell him not to do it and just stay, survive, then come back to him… to them. His tears gushed out like waterfalls, hiccuping, then he felt two warm little hands cupped his cheeks.

“Dad will come back to us, safely.” The little child wrapped his thin arms around Hale’s neck, nuzzling his bandaged cheek. The older male shakily sighed in content as he tightened his hold around the child.

“He will come back… he will come back…” He whispered, over and over, trying to convince himself. He gazed once again at the scene before him, chaos and destruction. The fire spread all over the houses as the tornado violently coursed through to the City Center.

The glow in his eyes faltered, losing the confidence he just built, crumbling it to pieces. His breathing became rigid, “He’ll come back… he will definitely come back…”

“Dad will come back… dad will always come back to us because he promised me.”

Hale pushed the boy’s head further in his neck, softly rubbing the small back of the boy, “Definitely… because he promised me too. He can’t die yet.”

“Your dad will come back to us, his little family.”

Even if it took weeks to months, he will wait eagerly for him. But if it became years, he would have no choice but to travel and find Aires’ ass then beat him to a pulp and make him unable to move. To make him stay beside him.

He might as well do that.

—–

Aires climbed up to the roof of Starframe Hotel, peeking at the tornado that stilled at the supposed to be a fountain of the City Center. He saw how its vortex drilled its way down and the updraft of the tornado destroyed the road and left the area in shambles.

The air current around him was also strong, which was still far from the vortex, but the wind was not enough to inflict a wound on him. He once looked at the tornado that already held a foot under the ground that left him confused.

“There’s something underground?” He thought as he wrecked his brain to find some kind of an entrance to the underground or this tornado was just stuck in the ground. In either case, trying to dig was not bad if the city was already close to being destroyed.

I’m just digging a hole. Yep.

He hurried down the stairs. Upon reaching the wide paved road, the strong wind brushed past him that made him step back. Fortunately, he didn’t receive any cuts from the sharp cutters of the wind.

He used the metal stick he bought from the supermarket earlier to tap the paved road, intently listening to every sound it made. When he tapped in a certain spot, near the circle of the City Center, he immediately started digging while battling the pressure he kept on receiving.

When he dug for about 1 meter, the dirt crumbled and his butt met with a hard stone path. The width of the path can only accommodate almost half of his huge body, thus he crawled towards where the pressure was coming from. It was a long minute before he was sucked into another path.