His skin was pale, carrying a sickly hue from a long absence of sunlight. Veins bulged slightly beneath the skin, and his knuckles were somewhat stiff, but they were human hands.
They could bend and stretch. They had warmth and a pulse.
Human.
He had turned back into a human!
The sea breeze blew in from the north, carrying a salty, fishy scent. Marcus stumbled and fell to his knees on the wet reef. Slowly raising his head, he reached up to touch his face.
The contours of his cheekbones, his brow bone, his jawline... He felt each shape, confirming whether they belonged to him. Once he was sure, an uncontrollable wave of excitement washed over him.
But in the next second, he remembered that snow-white figure.
Where was the Saintess of the church?
Marcus turned his head.
His gaze swept across a stretch of tide-soaked shallows and a few piles of black gravel, finally landing on a massive silhouette not far away.
It was a cocoon. It stood at the edge of the shallows, its base wedged between the reefs. Its surface was covered by a bizarre membrane that throbbed gently, as if it were slowly breathing.
Beneath the membrane lay an extremely faint light.
Marcus's heart leaped. He knew that was a cocoon for birthing a monster. Before long, a brand-new monster would take his place in the Oswell territory.
The Saintess of the church had sacrificed herself to grant him a new life.
At this thought, his chest felt tightly constricted, filled with an indescribable ache. He took a deep breath, scrambled up from the ground in a daze, and began to shuffle toward the territory step by step.
He had to go back, find Elena, and tell her everything.
...
In the side parlor of the lord's manor, Elena stood by the window. The hem of her dark blue gown brushed her ankles. With her hands clasped in front of her, she stared out at the scenery with a trace of unease.
Clement sat on a chair against the wall, legs crossed, puffing on a cigar. Gale was slowly sipping his tea, while Mia rested her fingers on the hilt of her sword, her gaze also fixed outside the window.
“Where is Lady Saintess? Did she go to purify Marcus? She's nowhere to be found in the lord's manor.” Elena turned around, her gaze sweeping across everyone's faces.
“Probably. Counting the time, tonight should be the final purification.”
Gale rose from the sofa, his right hand moving slightly, causing the longsword hanging at his waist to clatter.
Elena looked at Gale, her eyes falling on his newly regenerated right hand.
“Gale, your right hand is healed?”
“The Saintess healed it.”
Gale chuckled.
Elena was silent for a moment before speaking with a suggestive tone, “I suppose she didn't do it just to heal your hand?”
“Exactly.”
Gale raised his right arm, flexing his muscles. “Elena, is the lord's manor still hiring guards? I can hold a sword again. As for the pay... could I get a few months' advance? I've been a bit short on cash lately.”
Gale and Marcus were brothers who had faced life and death together, so his relationship with Elena was naturally quite close. Not to mention, when the three of them were young, they used to go on adventures together.
“Is this for that little girl, Lina?”
Gale arched an eyebrow. “How do you know about that too?”
“With our relationship, of course I would keep an eye on you,” Elena said. “But even if I give you an advance, you won't be able to protect Lina every single moment.”
“Toronto will stop at nothing to get his hands on Lina.”
The advance would help Lina through her immediate difficulties and save her from having to work as a servant under Toronto. But knowing Toronto's character, he would inevitably find other ways to get her.
Gale wasn't Lina's father, and as a guard of the lord's manor, he couldn't protect Lina around the clock either. It was safe to say that as long as Toronto wanted to, he would eventually get his hands on her in the future.
Unless...
“I know what to do.”
Gale lowered his eyes, a flicker of murderous intent passing through them.
To have risen to the position of leader of the Eagle Mercenary Group meant he was no pushover. His hands had long been stained with blood.
Thus, taking one more life wouldn't bother him in the slightest.
Elena turned her head toward Mia. “Lord Holy Knight, did Lady Saintess mention that tonight would be the final purification?”
Mia didn't turn around. Her gaze remained fixed outside the window.
“I don't know... She said she wanted to eat dessert and asked me to buy some for her. When I returned, she was already gone from the room.”
For some reason, the unease in her heart grew increasingly intense.
No matter how she looked at it, the request for dessert seemed like a trick to send her away.
Not only that, but those words spoken in bed earlier... At the time, she had thought it was just a way of showing affection that she wasn't quite used to, a playful probe that she had failed to respond to in time.
But now, they kept echoing in her mind.
If those actions really were just Her Highness forcing her affection upon her... then why had she given up on kissing her at that moment? With Her Highness's fox-like personality, she definitely would have gone through with it.
So... was last night her farewell?
Mia bit her lower lip, her face turning slightly pale.
Clement turned a page of his newspaper and said unhurriedly:
“Don't worry. Lady Saintess won't meet with mishap so easily. Who knows, we might see Marcus back as a human very soon.”
In his eyes, the Saintess of the church was exceptionally mysterious and unpredictable. He could no longer read her.
Precisely because he couldn't understand her, he didn't jump to conclusions about her whereabouts like the others did. He knew she would return when she deemed it necessary. It was an inexplicable sense of trust.
He didn't know where this damn trust came from, but that was just how the Saintess of the church was. Whenever everyone fell into despair and agony, she would always step forward like an angel to save them.
He had already been thoroughly won over by her.
Dammit.
Just then, the door to the side parlor was flung open.
A guard stumbled over the threshold, his shoulder slamming into the doorframe with a dull thud. His armor still carried the dampness of the night mist outside, and his collar was slightly askew, making it obvious he had run here in a great hurry.
“My Lady! My Lady!”
Elena turned around and glanced at him.
“Why are you in such a panic?”
The guard caught his breath.
“At the front of the lord's manor, a human has arrived who looks just like the lord! He... he claims to be Marcus, your husband! He says he wants to see you!”
“What?!”
Without a moment's hesitation, Elena picked up her skirts and hurried toward the door at a near-jog, her voice sharp and urgent:
“Quick, take me to him!”
Gale, Mia, and Clement exchanged glances, quickly rising to follow her.
Reaching the steps in front of the lord's manor, where the night was dispelled by blue lanterns, they saw a figure sitting at the bottom. He was thin, his robes stained with seawater, looking like someone who had just been pulled from a drowning rescue.
Standing beside him were two guards from the manor.
Elena's footsteps halted for a fraction of a second at the top of the stairs. Then, she quickly rushed down, crossing the final two steps to stand on the wet stone pavers.
It felt as though those few steps had drained her of all her strength.
“Marcus...”
Accompanied by her trembling voice, the figure slowly turned around and said hoarsely:
“Elena, I'm back.”
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