Chapter 75
“Mate, it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t left, I could have joined you and protected you from all this suffering. But look at me now. I can’t even dream of getting past this vortex. Lavana, if anything happens to you, I can never forgive myself and I can never face Beatrix. Moon goddess, you’ve shown me where my mate is. Just this last favor. How do I get in? Even if I’m gonna lose my powers, I don’t mind. Please, show me a way.” he cried while looking at the sky.
At that moment, he felt his face become really hot. He touched it and hissed at the pain. What was happening to him?
He took out a mirror from his spatial ring and was shocked to see that the new face gifted to him by Thora had shown and the marks on his face were… glowing?
His eyes widened in disbelief.
Could it be that this was a way to be recognized by that vortex? After all, there were marks of a dragon on his face. He quickly rose and thanked the moon goddess.
Then he flew towards the vortex again. This time, he did not try to dodge the ice chains that were lunged at him. They wrapped around his hands, waist, legs and neck. Just when he thought that was all, one naughty one decided to come to wrap around his member. At that moment, Phoenix wanted to cry. If this damn chain pulled a little harder then he’d become a eunuch.
Maybe it wasn’t a good decision to come here with a white flag. He started praying that he’d be let go. Suddenly a bolt of thunder from the vortex struck his shoulder. Before he could register why it was this way, more bolts were launched at him and he couldn’t escape. His body trembled greatly as he gritted his teeth not daring to let out a sound. He felt the ice chains tighten around his body, his member wasn’t even spared. Now he was more afraid for his shaft than his entire body. What sort of trial was this?
While he’d begun devising ways to be free of the chains, he felt them all disappear and even the lightning bolts stopped coming. He was free but he could barely maintain his balance in mid-air. Suddenly, an opening appeared in the vortex and he mustered all the strength he could to fly into it before it closed.
Now that he was finally in, he fell into the boiling water that was bringing out great steam. He tried to cast a magic bubble over him but it failed. He managed to swim to the surface and made out the faint image of an island.
He flew out of the water and sighed in relief. At least, flight wasn’t prohibited here for outsiders.
He headed in the direction of the island and upon reaching there encountered a sovereign-level array.
For a wizard, it might have posed a problem but he was a sorcerer who was naturally proficient at arrays. Some minutes later, he found the eye of the array and launched a ball of magic energy towards the small array eye. After he spewed out blood from a backlash, the array crashed and he quickly flew in but he felt a pressure that sent him crashing to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he rose and tried to run but the pressure on him was even greater, causing him to spit out blood.
He started crawling instead since he found the pressure lessened this way. But he couldn’t crawl too fast either. As frustrating as it was to him, he couldn’t complain.
30 minutes later, he reached the spot where the platform was and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest.
Several pillars were joined together above his mate who was enveloped in a huge ball of lightning. To worsen things, water occasionally launched from the small holes that had opened around the platform. His beloved mate was screaming while hugging herself, not daring to open her eyes.
He could not get close to her for he found another sovereign tier array around the platform and if he was correct, this one had 3 eyes. Finding the first 2 eyes would be easy but finding the third eye would be like finding a needle in a haystack. He instantly set to work on finding the first two array eyes. He located them 5 minutes later and proceeded to search for the 3rd eye around the platform.
It took him half an hour to find the 3rd array eye and it was so problematic to undo. Any mistake and he’ll even be sent out of this domain.
“Well, here goes nothing.” he rose and steadied his feet. His peacock fan appeared in his hand and light covered him. When it dimmed, he was now clothed in wizard robes. He threw the fan upwards and it scattered into bits and rearranged itself into a thin dagger which landed in his hand.
He began to study the connection between all three eyes and found some minutes later that the point they all met was actually the fourth eye.
“Now that’s way better.” he threw the dagger that was enveloped with his magic in the direction of the 4th eye. Upon coming into contact with it, the dagger evaporated but the array crashed. He quickly jumped in and saw that the array had mended itself again like nothing happened to it earlier. As expected of a peak sovereign tier array. Whoever set this up was a genius!
Now that he was officially on the platform, he could see how terrifying the lightning ball was.
At this moment, Lavana’s eyes opened and she let out a terrifying roar that caused him to cover his eyes while being rendered to his knees.
He witnessed in incredulity as her body absorbed that huge ball of lightning. Then the pillars above her separated from the meeting point and went back into the platform’s surface.
The holes that constantly launched water at his mate had also shut. Phoenix felt the pressure fade too. He quickly ran over to catch her before she collapsed.
“Lavie, Lavie!” he called out in anxiety but received no response.
He quickly took out a bottle containing a huge brown pill. He opened the lid and took out the pill. Then he put it into her mouth and let her swallow it. He took out a golden bathtub and placed it on the ground close to the platform. Then he took out huge kegs containing refined water which he emptied into the bathtub. When it was filled, he carried her from the ground and placed her in it. The water soon began to boil and steam rose as her body turned red.
“Mate, please calm down. Phoenix is here. I won’t leave you. I’m here now.” he whispered while caressing her hair gently blowing some air on her face.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left coz you asked me to. If I had waited even a minute longer, you wouldn’t have had to suffer all this alone. Lavie…” he stopped talking as he saw the water had become chilly. He wanted to get her out of it only for it to start boiling again. He figured he might as well leave her there. He took out more kegs containing the refined water and poured them into the bathtub.
“Lavana, please be alright.” he kept reiterating as he poured water on her head.
Some minutes later, he found that the water had become of normal temperature. He felt her forehead and saw that she was okay now. What was left was for her to wake up.
He took her out of the bathtub and placed her on the bed that he’d taken out of his spatial ring 2 minutes ago. He covered her with a blanket and rubbed a strange foul-smelling, sticky black liquid on her face and neck. Then he fed her a yellow pill and some refined water.
He changed his clothes to a white t-shirt and loose black pants that possessed several pockets. He placed a chair beside the bed and sat, watching his mate.
…
3 hours later.
Lavana opened her eyes slowly. She felt dull pain all over her body but compared to the torture she received on the platform, this was nothing. She found that she was lying on a comfortable bed. How strange! There was no one else on this island when she arrived and no one showed up when she was eating the torture underneath the joined pillars.
She quickly sat up and saw an empty chair beside the bed. She soon started sniffing and got off the bed.
“Hey, easy there, babe.” she heard a familiar voice and turned to look in the direction of the voice.
“Phoenix?” she called out in shock upon seeing him, her eyes widened in disbelief. How… How come her mate was here? How did he get access to the ancestral island?
“Are you alright?” Phoenix asked with concern, feeling her neck and forehead with the back of his right hand.
“Ph… Phoenix…”
“Ssh! I know you have a lot of questions. I can answer them slowly. But the priority now is to get you in good shape although I can see you don’t need to add more meat.”
“Eh?” this made Lavana check her body only to exclaim. She was no longer skinny. She now even had little flabs!
“Gimme a mirror, please.” she requested.
“Why? I’m the best mirror you can find out there. Lavie, you look tasty.”
“*scoff* That’s not gonna work on me. If you aren’t giving me one, I might as well use the water then.”
“Wait.” Phoenix took out a mirror from his loose pants pocket and handed it to her.
“Take a look at yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said while looking at her new self. The old Lavana, although skinny was beautiful and gentle. The face looking back at her in the mirror was one that would cause Alphas to fight! Her round face made one want to touch it. She looked wild instead of gentle. If she were to try hard she could intimidate someone without even using her fists.
She looked back at Phoenix who simply smiled.
“I become like this after all that suffering,” she muttered to herself. She saw that her three spirits were still asleep but they seemed weaker than before. While she was enveloped in that huge ball of lightning, the three of them held hands and then started muttering words in a language she did not understand.
After that, their bodies glowed so bright that she couldn’t see their figures. After some time, their bodies became weak and they directly went into slumber after wishing her good luck. Then she absorbed the huge lightning ball into her body and the last thing she recalled was that she was about to collapse.
“Phoenix, how did you get in?” she asked after placing the mirror on the bed as she sat.Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.
“Um… Let’s say, it’s fate. And those marks Thora put on my face turned out to be so useful. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to get in here. I must thank Thora.”
“She’s resting with the other two.”
“I guess they expended themselves for you?”