CHAPTER 100: I’LL SKIN THEM ALIVE!

Aldriana is jolted awake.

She feels something snap in her sleep, and her eyes fly open. Her heart is pounding loudly.

Was I dreaming? I don’t feel good.

She takes a few steadying breaths and scans the area.

Oh? This is interesting.

She sits up calmly and looks around. The cave is quiet. Everyone should be either sleeping or meditating.

She glances toward the spot where Arthur and Liam are meditating, and sees exactly what she sensed earlier.

Liam sits comfortably in a meditative pose. He looks relaxed, as if he’s been doing this his entire life. The complete opposite of his usual daily routine, which is filled with physical activity and endless gym hours.

Yet here he is, meditating like a monk. A very faint blue light surrounds him.

Aldriana smiles. This is amazing. In just a few hours. A place full of mana can do that to you.

She shifts her attention to Arthur.

Arthur sits in the same pose as Liam, but his aura is completely different.

If Liam looks relaxed, Arthur looks alert. Not tense, but coiled.

Ready to move the second he needs to.

And this is fascinating to Aldriana, who knows how Arthur normally is—calm, collected, calculated, cold, detached.

But here? He looks like he’s about to burst.

Ready to explode.

A faint bluish-red light surrounds him.

Aldriana chuckles softly. "When they wake up, they’ll be surprised," she murmurs.

"You see, elemental resonance never lies. It reflects the real you."

But Arthur and Liam aren’t the only interesting things she has noticed.

She gets up silently and walks to Julian, checking the time on his watch.

Seven a.m.

It’s morning already. Ugh, I hope Mother and Father don’t know none of us were home last night.

She walks calmly toward the cave entrance.

She stops before the shield and scans again.

She smirks.

There are haelions outside.

Their number is close to one hundred.

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"We should call the police." Leila is on the verge of panic.

"Sweetheart, we can’t. If we do, the media will catch wind of it, it’ll explode, and it will put the company at risk." Maurice tries, for the nth time, to calm her.

Miranda glances at Maurice, half amazed, half annoyed.

They’ve been doing the same dance for almost five hours now. And yet, Maurice has stayed calm and collected. Not once does he raise his voice or lose patience with Leila.

Meanwhile, Miranda is two seconds away from ripping her own hair out. She’s tired, irritated, and hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep.

Leila tried to sleep last night, but she couldn’t. She was too worried about Thea.

She isn’t as worried about Arthur or Julian not because she loves them any less, but because she already knows they can protect themselves. She trusts them.

But Thea...

Thea just woke up from her coma.

She had a high fever after the Beachwalk dungeon.

And even though she has been diligent in training, her physique can’t improve that much in such a short time.

Thea is the fragile one.

Leila is actually angry at Arthur, Liam, and Julian. She’s sure Thea is with the three of them.

She’s angry because how could they be so unreasonable and take her out all night? And even worse, none of them can be contacted.

And none of Julian’s lab assistants are giving her answers. She doesn’t know that Arthur—through Liam—had forbidden them from telling the parents anything.

He didn’t want them to worry.

Talking about ironic.

"So what can we do, Maurice?! What?! Tell me!" Leila yells.

"We can wait, Leila," Maurice says in the same patient tone he has used the entire night.

"URGH! You’re so infuriating! You don’t care about your children!" Leila snaps.

Maurice doesn’t respond. He knows nothing he says — in any tone — will soothe her. It’ll only make her angrier.

Miranda steps in before Leila decides to throw a vase at him.

"Leila, honey. Calm down. We’re all worried. But we can’t report to the police, it hasn’t been twenty-four hours. And Maurice is right. I doubt Arthur or Julian would ever put Thea in danger."

"And besides, Liam is with them. They’ll be fine. When they get back and explain why none of them could be contacted, you’ll laugh. Their reasons will be so ridiculous you’d never guess it."

"When they return, I’m skinning both Arthur and Julian alive!"

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"Ugh." Julian shivers and rolls onto his left side in his sleep.

He pulls his blanket up to his chin and continues snoring peacefully.

He has no idea that at this very moment, Aldriana is standing behind the shield at the cave entrance, staring at the hundreds of haelions arranged in formation in the dark.

This is what jolted her awake.

The sheer malice coming from the haelions was sharp enough to yank her consciousness back like someone slapped her.

"Well, let’s see. I haven’t really been training my magic lately. It’s about to get rusty."

She stretches her body as if she’s about to go on a morning jog.

She cracks her knuckles.

And she steps out of the cave.

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Liam slowly opens his eyes. He’s a little disoriented. For a second, he forgets where he is. He wonders why he isn’t sleeping on his own bed at home. Instead, he’s sitting upright in a meditative pose.

But the next second, everything comes flooding back.

And yet he doesn’t feel dizzy. In fact, he feels refreshed — like he just had the best sleep of his life.

He feels... different.

I was meditating to feel mana and to introduce myself to nature. I feel like I’ve been accepted into some elite and exclusive club. This feels amazing.

He turns to his right and sees Arthur still meditating.

Hm? He tilts his head. Arthur looks different. Something about him feels sharper... heavier... more awake than usual.

He can’t put his finger on it, but he knows Arthur is different.

He gives up trying to figure it out and slowly stands up — then freezes.

His legs aren’t numb.

At all.

Despite sitting in the same position for... hours?!

Liam’s eyes widen when he checks his watch.

Whoa! I didn’t even notice!

Then a sound reaches his ears.

Fighting.

Someone is fighting outside.

He dashes toward the cave entrance.