Chapter 207
"A child..." Adi muttered in disbelief.
The girl was so small that she barely reached Adi’s waist.
Clutching a knife in her little hands, the girl whimpered in fear as tears pooled on her face.
'How could they do something like this?' Adi thought, her shock transforming into rage.
She simply couldn’t believe that the evilus would stoop so low as to use children as soldiers.
Seeing how frightened the little girl was—likely unaware of the true nature of what she was being forced to do—Adi let her guard down and smiled warmly.
"It’s okay, I would never hurt you," she whispered as softly as she could.
Then, Adi lowered her sword and reached out with her free hand.
The little girl stared at Adi with vacant eyes, slowly inching closer to her hand.
"Come here, let’s get you to safety," Adi said, noting the girl's timid movement.
As soon as their hands touched, the little girl spoke in an emotionless tone.
Across the battlefield, Vasiliki caught a glimpse of the scene and her heart nearly stopped.
This was exactly the scenario her brother Draco had warned her about: Adi had let her guard down for a little girl.
"Vasileios!" Vasiliki screamed desperately, hoping he could intervene.
Vasiliki and everyone else were too far from Adi.
Vasileios, having been thrown near the scene by Valletta, was the only one who could act.
Quickly picking up on Vasiliki’s plea, Vasileios sprang into action.
"Oh Lord, please..." the little girl began, her actions driven neither by good nor by evil, but by a desperate, single wish.
"Please let me see my mother and father again..." she said, closing her teary eyes in resignation.
Click!
With that sound, the little girl pressed a switch concealed within her body.
In that instant, time almost seemed to freeze, the moment stretching as though it would last forever.
Adi, not understanding what was happening, couldn’t bring herself to let go of the little girl’s lonely fingers.
However, that seemingly eternal moment was ended by a terrible blast—the force, the shock, the heat—all of it tore apart everything around them.
The Ganesha, Astraea, and Bahamut members who were present flinched in terror.
Most could not form a single thought in the face of such unimaginable chaos and destruction. The blinding light, the deafening noise, and the violent tremors threatened to knock them off their feet.
It felt as if the building would collapse over their heads; even the sturdy shipping containers were dented, and some were even flung away.
The sudden, destructive explosion leveled everything it touched—except one particular area. Vasiliki was the first to stagger to her feet, her clothes covered with dust, soot, and fragments of ice.
She had managed to create a decent wall of ice in time to absorb part of the shock, though it barely saved her life.
As the ringing in her ears subsided and her vision adjusted, she surveyed what remained.
"Wha..." she stammered, unable to form complete words.
Before her, there was almost nothing but the sound of crumbling stone and creaking metal. "Clair, Vasileios, Alise, anyone?" Vasiliki called desperately as she made her way toward the origin of the blast.
Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears as her mind braced for the worst.
Had she just sent her brother Vasileios to his death, being closest to the explosion?
Guilt, fear, and rage swirled within her—so many emotions that she couldn’t even pinpoint just one.
Soon, Vasiliki arrived at the blast’s origin.
Her breath caught in her throat at the sight that greeted her: nothing remained but a smoldering crater, as though a god had carved a void in space itself.
"Aaaaaaaaah!" Vasiliki screamed, clutching her chest in pain as her worst nightmare unfolded before her eyes.
There was no sign of Vasileios or Adi, no wall, nor even a floor where they should have been. Staring lifelessly at the crater, Vasiliki’s staff fell to the ground.
It was happening all over again—she had barely managed to contain the pain from losing her parents, teacher, and grandparents, and now this.
It hurt all the more because this catastrophe could have been avoided, unlike the incident with the one-eyed black dragon.
Her decision had led to this; she had done this.
Tears began spilling from her vacant eyes as her body shook uncontrollably with the weight of her emotions.
The other survivors of the blast slowly stirred, coming to grips with what had just happened. "No, it can’t be..." Kaguya whispered in terror.
"Th-the kid, she blew herself up?" Lyra muttered in disbelief.
While the others sank into despair, an eerie laughter echoed through the room. "Ahahahahahahahahahahah," a voice rang out.
It was Valletta, trembling with mad ecstasy and joy.
"Did you see that, Lord Thanatos! The kid you tricked just did something amazing," Valletta announced.
The little girl had made a pact with Valletta’s master—a god of death.
If she managed to slay some adventurers, she would be reunited with her parents in the afterlife.
Valletta had just witnessed this dark pact come to fruition, filling her with twisted delight.
As her cackling continued in the background, Shakti stood rooted in place, her mind utterly fractured.
"Adi," she called out, but no one answered.
Staggering forward, she relied on a miracle to keep her from collapsing completely.
‘This can’t be happening,’ she thought, her gaze fixed on her sister’s sword, with smoke still curling from the deformed blade—what remained of her sister being a charred hand.
Ryuu, maddened with rage over the loss of her friend, charged at Valletta, but was quickly restrained by Lyra herself.
"Keep it in, Leon," Lyra warned, struggling to control the uncontrolled elf.
She was cautious because the little girl had blown herself up, implying that other evilus members might have similar devices hidden on them.
The pallum girl couldn’t let herself wallow in sorrow just yet—she had to warn the others.
However before she could speak, another voice echoed through the room.
"They are all rigged with bombs," Clair’s cracked voice rang through the room.
Though devastated by everything unfolding, she knew that letting her emotions run amok might lead to more losses.
Using her heightened senses, she detected odd ticking sounds coming from the fallen evilus bodies.
Instantly, she deduced what they were and alerted everyone.
……………………………………………………………….
"Ugh, where am I?" Vasileios muttered as he stirred from his unconscious state.
Looking around, he soon spotted Adi, who appeared to be unconscious as well.
Immediately, memories flooded his mind, and he recalled everything that had just happened. After being thrown far away by Valletta’s attack, he remembered Vasiliki desperately calling out for him.
It hadn't taken long for him to grasp the situation.
He had soon spotted Adi talking to a little girl dressed in evilus robes—the scene exactly as their brother had warned them before the raid.
Springing into action, Vasileios covered as much distance as his heavy armor and shield would allow.
Realizing that he wouldn’t make it in time, he began chanting a spell he had little experience with but had no choice but to use given the situation.
"Aegis counter!" he cried out, completing the incantation.
The spell created a 10-meter territory, granting immunity to 80% of damage from all sources for 5 seconds.
After absorbing the damage, he would need to disperse it—a part of the spell that often troubled him.
By a stroke of luck, Adi was barely within the spell’s outer edge.
When the explosion suddenly occurred, the spell took effect, protecting both Vasileios and most of Adi from the initial force.
However, the explosion’s force was not to be underestimated.
It devastated the surroundings, causing areas outside of the spell’s protection to cave in.
The very ground beneath them collapsed, dragging them down into an unknown space.
To make matters worse, Vasileios could not choose the direction in which the absorbed damage would be dispersed in time.
Randomly, it was directed downward, causing another explosion that sent them both even deeper.
Fortunately, they both survived the fall.
Straining to his feet, Vasileios made his way over to Adi to check for injuries—the faint smell of blood in the air sparked panic.
They needed to escape quickly; they were still in enemy territory, after all.
Upon inspecting Adi, Vasileios’s face twisted in horror.
One of Adi’s hands was missing, and she was bleeding profusely.