I sat next to her feeble body, holding her hand gently, trying to gauge just how difficult it would be for me to take out the corrupted aether from her body without damaging her body. After all, this whole thing was a lot more complicated because of the nature of the aether.

It wasn’t the same as mine. It was corrupted, possibly because it came from a demon. However, those were still hypotheses that I had. I had no way to tell if I was right about that.

“So, can you do it?” Zale asked me.

I was surprised by this question. I was practically sure that he was certain that I could do it. Otherwise, he would not have asked me to do it now out of all times. After all, Zale could see in the future, or at the very least, see parts of it.

“I’m not sure. Her situation is a lot worse than what you had told me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The corrupted aether is on the verge of reaching her heart, which means that I need to be extremely precise during the extraction of the aether, or else there is a big chance that she could become a cripple for the rest of her life.”

Zale just looked at me and didn’t utter a word. For the first time since I had met, I could see some emotions on his face. He wasn’t able to hide them when it came to Phoebe. Explore hidden tales at empire

“Hm, how much time does she have left?” He asked as he regained his composure.

“A few hours, I’d say, maybe a day at most.”

Zale gulped. I could see his throat tightening from where I was standing, just looking over at him. He was thinking about what I should do.

Time was of the essence, and he knew it very well. The more I waited, the more dangerous would the extraction of the aether in her system would become. That’s why a choice had to be made quickly.

“A few hours…if I had known, I wouldn’t have started this whole tournament.” He clicked his tongue as he kept caressing Phoebe very gently. Then, he looked at me. “What are the chances of her becoming a cripple if you extract the aether right now?”

“I have no idea. But there is a chance for it to happen. I’d say…50%? If I had been extremely skilled in my aether manipulation, it would have been 0%, but I have only been practicing for around two months. I’m no master just yet.”

Zale nodded. He knew that much.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. He tried to look into the future, trying to see what would happen. However, his ability was more complicated than I thought because even when he reopened his eyes…he couldn’t make a decision.

“Are you seeing me fail in the future?”

“I see both results. In some futures, you succeed, and in others, you terribly fail.”

My eyes widened. I had completely misunderstood his power. I thought that he was able to see only one version of the future, but it seemed that he was able to see all the possibilities thrown at him.

“What happens in the one I succeed in?”

“I have no idea…you don’t say anything at all. Anyway, it’s not like we can go get blood from Zero in less than a day. Becoming a cripple isn’t the worst thing in the world, either. It’s better than dying at the very least.” Zale sighed. “Do it…but please bring her back alive and healthy.”

I wanted to say, “I promise.” However, I simply couldn’t. I just nodded at his request as I swore in my mind that I would do the absolute best.

***

POV Zale

It had already been around five hours since I had left Caedrel inside the room with my daughter, Phoebe. For those five hours, I had prayed that she would be alright, more times than I could count.

Caedrel had asked to leave the room because he wanted all his focus to be given to Phoebe, and I accepted. If it meant that there would be more chances of success by doing so, then I would gladly accept. However, I was still worried; she was the only thing that remained from my wife, who had died by bringing her into the world.

Even if she became a cripple, I would give her my everything, but she also wouldn’t be able to leave the village as she wished anymore. Otherwise, she would surely be killed by some kind of beast.

Just thinking about it was frightening.

‘How could I have missed her condition being this terrible…’ I thought in the back of my mind, unhappy with myself.

I looked outside my window, and I could see fights between the tribe members continuing without the slightest problem. None of them knew what was happening right now, and it was better this way. Who knew what they would think if they knew that I had left Phoebe’s life in the hands of a “stranger.”

The tribe members were immature. They couldn’t see the path that I could see. They couldn’t see the gracious glow of light that kept emanating from Caedrel’s body. He was unlike anyone I had seen before.

A man with many terrible secrets and memories where he suffered more than I could care to admit. However, it is remarkable that a man stays pure-minded even while facing all those atrocities.

In that regard, Caedrel was a lot better than our last visitor, a man who practically destroyed us from the inside when we welcomed him with open arms. A vicious man who I still regret helping to this day… However, I had to admit that it was surprising to see that man inside the memories of Caedrel.

He called him his master in it, and he was the one who had made Caedrel so overwhelmingly powerful. However, even in those memories, he had not changed. Nevertheless, I didn’t want Caedrel to have a bad opinion of his master, so I never told him those things.

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