By the end, Belinda's voice was nearly choked with tears.
"All right! I didn't expect the acting we did those few times to work so well. Was it because the mental suggestion took too deep a hold?"
Leilin Farell watched her weep and found himself at a loss for words.
But right now, what he needed was to keep a low profile. There was no way he would tag along with her and invite trouble. The beauty of those two sisters was the kind that could spark chaos wherever they went.
Knowing this full well, how could Leilin put himself in danger?
"Being a mercenary? Ha. Could you even afford the rent and prices in the Holy City? And the Stewart Family isn't something you can just walk away from. With their tendrils reaching into every corner of the Holy City, what can you really do?"
Leilin could only play the part of the most pragmatic man, coldly shooting her down.
"Nick! You've changed! The old you would never have said something like this!"
His harsh words left Belinda stunned. She stared at Leilin, looking almost dazed.
"I haven't changed. I've just accepted reality. Go." Leilin waved his hand as though nothing could be done, then broke into a violent coughing fit.
"Wait — that's not right!"
Belinda stepped forward and pushed his hand aside, finally catching sight of the blood he had coughed up.
"Your life force — how did it become so weak? And these symptoms? What happened to your strength? Has it disappeared?"
Though Leilin's life energy was draining away moment by moment, his outward appearance remained the same as before. But the vitality radiating from him was steadily fading — the difference between now and before was like comparing a torch to a candle.
"Old wounds from my adventuring days. It's nothing."
He didn't try to hide this, nor could he.
This was precisely why he went out of his way to avoid conflict. When your strength was in constant decline and you still recklessly provoked powerful forces, the word "fool" barely scratched the surface.
"I understand! You're afraid! You're afraid of being a burden to me and Sophia!"
She hadn't expected Leilin's condition to lead her to an entirely different conclusion.
"You're afraid of holding us back? Don't worry — I'll find a way to heal you!"
Belinda gave Leilin one long, deep look, then her figure vanished into the moonlight.
Leilin stood there, thoroughly speechless. "She connected those dots? Even though that's not even close to what's going on..."
Still, if that was how she wanted to interpret it, it didn't exactly hurt him. After a moment's thought, he decided there was no reason to set the record straight.
"Right now — or rather, after today's appearance of the Devouring King, the balance of power in the entire Holy City is probably going to shift dramatically..."
Once Belinda was gone, Leilin picked up the watering can and tended to the young shoots in the flower bed with quiet care, his expression calm and serene, as though nothing in the outside world could touch him.
And in truth, that was exactly how things stood. The following day, Agnes returned gravely wounded, and with her came an even more horrifying piece of news — near the Holy City, wild beasts corrupted by the power of devouring had appeared!
Though the Mother of Myriad Serpents had already detected the contamination and launched a purification, Beelzebub's interference meant her plans had clearly not succeeded.
That said, the earlier purification had still been somewhat effective. At the very least, Agnes had managed to survive, though the injuries she sustained were devastating enough to frighten many of the serpent-folk guards.
According to Agnes's intelligence, a group of giant serpents corrupted by the power of devouring had broken through to the Holy City's vicinity. Several half-serpent settlements nearby had suffered devastating losses.
Even the squad members who had accompanied her had all perished, their bodies entirely devoured by those ravenous creatures.
After all, compared to ordinary food, the flesh of high-energy serpents contained far richer energy — and the more powerful the serpent-folk, the more likely they were to become targets for those Devouring Beasts.
Devouring Beasts. Agnes had been the one to coin the term, and it was quickly adopted widely to distinguish them from other serpent species.
Any creature that became contaminated by the power of devouring and entered that terrifying state of insatiable hunger could be called a Devouring Beast.
The Holy City authorities and the Stewart Family both treated this intelligence with the utmost seriousness. They immediately mobilized the city garrison, called up a large number of reserves, declared martial law, and even posted high-reward bounties for mercenaries and adventurers, all targeting the Devouring Beasts encroaching on the Holy City.
In an instant, the entire Plain of Myriad Serpents was thrown into turmoil, and the chaos was still spreading outward across the Heil Continent.
What the ordinary residents of the Serpent Holy City did not know was that this situation would persist for a very long time indeed — and that in next to no time, Devouring Beasts would replace every previous natural disaster and man-made calamity as the foremost enemy of their survival.
...
Time slipped by, and before anyone realized it, more than another year had passed.