Chapter 1003 Hope
“What a coward!” Thrax angrily shouted.
“Stop it, Thrax!” Although Julian was just as angry after hearing the sage’s words, he still held the emotional gladiator down.
“Should we really just accept our fate and do nothing!?”
“Calm down, you two! Sit down… we will eventually figure something out!” Klea said and quickly forced the two to calm down.
Meanwhile, Chumo was casually finishing the steamed fish on the other side of the table.
—Slurrppp.
All four of them simultaneously turned to look at him weirdly, prompting Chumo to respond.
“What? It’s really good. You guys should give it a try.”
“…”
Chumo’s carefree attitude quickly changed the atmosphere and calmed everyone down.
The room instantly fell silent.
“What should we do now?”
Emery, who had been staying quiet the whole time, stood up and walked away.
“Emery, where are you going?” Klea quickly asked and tried to stop him. “Just leave the sage alone, we can try again later.”
“No, I still have something to say… I am going to talk to him, you all stay here.”
By the time Emery left the room to find the sage, the place had already turned dark. Through spirit reading, he quickly found that the old man had once again gone to the pond.
‘He can’t possibly be fishing again, can he?’
Emery was walking toward the place when all of a sudden, he faintly heard a gentle tune from afar. As he got closer to the melody’s source, he saw the sage standing next to the pond playing a long bamboo flute.
A sense of peace seeped into Emery’s heart as the melancholic melody drifted in the air. He couldn’t help but stop and listen, afraid that his arrival would disturb the tranquility of this place.
It was only after the sage finished his tune that he finally dared to approach.
“What a beautiful song, senior,” Emery complimented.
The old man’s eyes looked into the distance and calmly spoke, ignoring Emery’s comment.
“Just leave the old man in peace, will you?”
Emery subconsciously held his breath for a moment, clenched his fists, and mustered his courage to say what he needed to.
“Senior… why are you here?” He paused, a little hesitant. “Are you hiding from something?”
The old man’s expression subtly tensed for a brief moment. He almost spoke out of impulse, but he quickly calmed himself.
“How bold of you… You know I can kill you with a snap of my finger, right?”
“Yes… I do, senior… but I believe you won’t.”
After a few moments of silence, a sigh with a hint of dry laugh came from the sage.
“Ha… you, fey… you’re all crazy, aren’t you?”
Emery was startled for a second when he heard the sage mention his bloodline.
“That’s not it, senior… I believe you were lying to us. You wanted to help us, didn’t you? Or else, why did you allow me to see a memory of your past if you weren’t hoping for something?”
The old man once again fell silent and heaved a deep sigh.
“…Do you know… how many times I’ve failed in the last two thousand years? …No… hope is a dangerous thing.”
The sage’s voice remained the same, but Emery could feel the heavy sorrow in his voice. Emery could only assume that the sage was talking about the failure of the second generation that he trained, where everyone except the abbot died.
He slowly walked closer to the old man with determination.
“Senior, please… please help us, just one more time… We promise you, we will do our best, and will not fail this time… we won’t!”
The sage didn’t immediately respond. He closed his eyes before finally speaking out his thoughts.
“You know… you really remind me of him… that man… you didn’t just inherit his bloodline… it’s strange, really.”
After saying those words, the sage opened his eyes and his expression slightly changed. In the end, he decided to walk into the darkness without a word, leaving Emery alone in the vicinity.
This time, it was Emery who sighed.
He did the best he could. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.
…
Upon returning to his friends, he was immediately met with four pairs of nervous and curious gazes.
Emery shook his head.
“Sorry, I failed.”
They were a little disappointed, but none of them said a word. After all, they also couldn’t do anything.
That night, the group took out a drink and drank away their helplessness.
…
The next morning, the group prepared to leave the place right after waking up. However, when they exited the wooden house, they were surprised to see that there was nothing outside.
No houses, no clay people, just an empty clearing.
Julian even thought that they were perhaps still drunk, but that was confirmed to not be the case when they met each other’s eyes wondering about the same thing.
Did the grand magus leave?
Before they could say a word, the bamboo forest in front of them suddenly split in two. From it came two figures, Grand Magus Fuxi and the little girl Naya.
The little girl had an excited look on her face as she exclaimed, “We’re leaving!”
The group was momentarily stunned, but they quickly became elated when they realized what the little girl’s words meant.
They were going with them!
“Thank you, senior!”
The sage glanced toward Emery with a smile and said.
“One last time.”
Now that the path had been opened, it only took them less than half an hour to get out of the mountain. When they stepped out, they were immediately greeted with the sight of Yuria and the other golden warriors gathered.
Together, they all headed to the portal gate, returned to Terra Castle by ship, and arrived a day after, just in time to meet the Nephilims the next day.
To their surprise, as soon as they arrived at Terra Castle, they found that the place was bustling with a ceremony held.
“What is going on!?”
“Our Lord has returned! Our Lord has returned!”
It was a little difficult to enter the castle due to the crowd, but when they finally did, the first thing they saw was a huge figure in golden armor who had been waiting for their arrival.
“Hahaha! My juniors, did you all miss me?”
The figure was no other than Lord Izta himself. Except for Emery, it had been a while since he last saw the others, so he had a wide grin of excitement on his face.
However, when his eyes met the sage, his gaze suddenly turned cold.
“You’re finally back, you old fart!”