Crownless: The Fallen World - Chapter 42

“Not until all of you decided to abandon me,” Leo whispered and Hale stiffened from combing the little child’s hair. His eyes glanced at the scientist who gave a genuine smile at him. Hale kneeled down then engulfed the trembling little figure–a ball of fluff–in a hug.

Garnwyn never got any reply, so he chose to be quiet then watched the female worked her way into absorbing the ice energy into her body. When the flow of blue mist stopped, she flumped back and landed her butt on the dirty ground; in the process, she kept on breathing heavily.

“Well… that sums it up. Just practice the control over that energy and you’ll be able to command it to your will. I hope that you fancy this coincidental gift to your awakening, Liden.”

“I wouldn’t say that I fancy this considering that someone almost died because of this,” She pushed her fringes back as the wetness of her hair annoyed her. The hairdo she did for almost two hours was ruined just like that! That was so terrible. Plus the fact that the male she fancied was reduced to this state and she was so close in losing him if she didn’t heard the little child’s words.

“Alright, then let me scan his body before I ended this long call,” Garnwyn sat on a chair that appeared in their line of sight and began typing on a computer. After the sound of a beep, he frowned and looked at Aires’ state, where the ice around him began melting at an unbelievable pace, “His body heat is high, but his heart is not beating. Let me perform more scans…”

“Not beating?” Hale and Sylvia spouted at the same time, their eyes showed different emotions. Hale took the initiative to speak first, “Is he… dead? But he still has body heat… so it can’t be…”

“I don’t know, young male. After all of the things that I’ve seen in my entire fifty-four years of life, this is the first time that I’ve encountered this,” Garnwyn pushed the chair and it shifted on another computer as his back was against them. Hale’s heart was beating so loud that he thought it will jump out from his chest at any second.

“Ah…” The scientist exclaimed in pure interest as he faced them again with a wide grin. Though this grin pissed the three people off who never saw what was really so interesting in the situation right now.

Garnwyn saw their expressions then he coughed his grin away and spoke cautiously, “This young man here has his heart in a frozen state and I saw this unbelievable news for you all!”

“What?” Hale and Sylvia hissed at him, but the scientist continued regardless, “He absorbed and tamed 56% of the ice energy inside his body! This young man sure has a knack about this energy thingy… tell me, young male, what is his awakened power?”

“I won’t tell you, old man,” Hale scoffed and Leo agreed by nodding his cute head with a pout.

“Mmm… well, that’s a shame then.”

“I got only 44% of the energy from him? But… it almost exhausted me when I was in the middle of the absorption… what is he really, Hale?” Sylvia asked with a frown on her face.

“I won’t tell,” Hale insisted as he walked towards Aires’ slumped body against the pedestal, ignoring their words from then on. He crouched down and the child also crouched down between them, both held Aires’ hands, on top of one another. They suddenly felt that his body temperature was going down into its normal state and a little squeeze from the taller male.

“Sebastian!” “Dad!”

Aires groaned then spoke in a small raspy voice, “Don’t yell so early in the morning…”

They launched their body towards the male who coughed from the impact he just took. He smiled weakly and rubbed their back in a soothing manner as the two were crying their hearts out, mostly just Hale.

Sylvia also appeared next to him, but he never noticed because he had his eyes closed all the time. He only recognized the delicate voice when it rang in his ears, “Long time no see, Aires.”

“That’s strange…” Aires slowly opened one of his eyes then glanced at the girl who had this ice crown symbol on her forehead. He leaned back as he soothed the people in his arms then said to the female, “I’m surprised that you got the power.”

“You mostly got them though. I’m afraid that if I took more of it, I’ll probably explode!” She smiled as she retrieved a small bottle from her bag and handed it over at Aires, “You have to drink some water. Your lips are so pale.”

Aires chuckled then shook his head, “I’m good… I’ll drink some water later after my family woke up,” he looked at the two who was now sound asleep in his arms. His big and calloused hands stayed where they were, on the back of Hale and Leo, as he supported their weights.

“Hey, don’t forget about my presence. Anyway, I will make this quick then I can leave. The storm outside subsided and I already scanned the whole city. It’s still salvageable but will require a huge amount of money to rebuild. I will transfer some funds towards Liden’s account and I hope that it will be enough to cover half of the cost.”

“Why?” Sylvia asked as Aires had his eyes close, relishing the moment he was having right now that he missed. He even thought that he slept for a very long time but judging from the clothes of Hale and the little child, it was only a few long hours.

“It is mostly because I lost some control over this energy core and the reason why the tornado drilled its way to get more energy from this. Funny, isn’t it? Those storms now have the instinct to gather power and do something with it, probably destroy the world? Who knows?”

“Okay then. This is my residency code number,” Sylvia showed her right backhand as a small green panel came out. Garnwyn immediately noted it down then sent the money in that instant.

“Wha… Fif… fifty… million…” The female took a deep breath while eyeing the huge amount of money, “You… are you serious about this?”

“Let him be… it’s for your city anyway and he willingly gave his money. He probably has more of them than you think,” Aires weakly scoffed then his face turned serious, “Now, Doctor, I’ve been wondering, how did you have contact in this place?”

“I installed a microchip in the pedestal. In case something like this happened, I’ll be able to see and fix the crack on the core.”

Aires hid his face on Hale’s hair as he wickedly smiled, though he didn’t forget to sniff it; smelling the sweat, the smell of the tunnel and a musky forest, and of course, very Hale like.