"You must be hearing things!" Arlo placed his hands on his waist and laughed, "I already feel better since my nephew and son are caring about me!"
Although he said he was fine, his body was saying something else. They could see him trembling like a tree in the wind. Clearly, he didn't have the strength to support himself. He was close to breaking down and fainting and was staying conscious by relying solely on his willpower.
"This isn't the time to be stubborn. You need rest." After speaking, Damien waved his hand, and a powerful gust picked up Arlo, bringing him into the master bedroom of the manor through the open window and laying him down on a bed.
"He has grown up. Now he disregards even me."
Arlo complained under his breath but closed his eyes shut, planning to rest for the night.
"We will set out for Constantine County early in the morning. So be prepared."
Arlo's voice was loud and heard by the ones in and outside the manor.
Roy turned to look at Damien and said, "I have a question for you."
"Do ask," Damien uttered.
"You guys are so strong and even have a way to bypass the divine barrier and head inside the Ashen Land. Why haven't you gotten rid of Voss?"
Damien sighed. Hearing what Roy said made him remember something unpleasant.
"We can't," Damien answered.
Roy's eyebrows raised, and he asked, "Eh, why?"
"Hmm, how should I explain it to you?" A thoughtful look appeared on Damien's remarkable place. He recalled what he knew about that place and reorganized his words before he said, "The Ashen Land is a very big place. The Empire is on its left, and the Uncharted Land is on its right. Great benefits lie in taking control of it. Not only is it full of resources and exotic beasts and places, but year-round, it is protected by a divine barrier. It's so strong that only the strongest man in the Empire, the Great Sun Emperor, is rumored to have the strength to break it. However, the truth is the five kingdoms once allied to take control of it. The barrier was said to be impossible to break, but they created entrances in it. Rumors have it that they used the help of a first-class weapon to do so. As for what it was, its name and rank, it wasn't recorded in history. It remains a mystery to date. Anyway, back to what I was saying, the allied forces entered the Ashen Land through the gaps in the barrier, and all of them were experts. The weakest among them was an aura master, and they were led by 13 Grandmasters and 3 Realm Lords. They hadn't even begun exploring it and laying down the foundation to create fortresses when they met with disaster. A few days after entering it, their number dwindled down to just one. Out of the thousands of experts sent to explore and conquer it, only one managed to escape, and even he died. His last words were that Death's wife was slumbering deep inside the Ashen Land."
Roy felt shocked. Damien's words were too heavy for Roy to handle.
'Death's wife? Is it the same death that Yulran mentioned? If it is, then it is really scary.'
Suddenly, Roy felt a shiver creeping up his spine. It was like death's claw and reaching for his neck. All his hair stood on edge.
Unlike Damien, he knew that Death wasn't just a concept in the Far West Major Realm. It was like the Gods of Death mentioned in myth, a real entity. So thinking about Death started to attract its attention his way.
Roy remembered what Yulran had said to him back in the ancestral land.
Yulran had given him a warning, telling him not to think about it.
Thus, he immediately stopped thinking about Death and everything related to him, and the discomforting feeling filling him immediately vanished.
'Because I know that it's a real entity and exists somewhere in the Far West Major Realm, I can't think about it casually. Otherwise, I will attract its attention and enter its eyes!'
Roy's back was drenched in sweat. Thankfully, he didn't have Alzheimer's and wasn't forgetful. Or else today might have been his last. After all, What were the chances of surviving after getting Death's attention?
'Maybe zero.'
Roy raised his hand to wipe the sweat off his face, but someone was far faster than him.
"It's so cold here." The Female Siren meticulously used her sleeves to rub the sweat off him. She was wearing his clothes. They were not as exotic or sexy as her birthday suit but still good enough as they covered her entire body, and they were too big for her. "Why are you sweating so much?"
"I don't know."
Roy didn't want her to be worried, so he hid the real from her.
The Female Siren thought about it for a bit and looked into his eyes lovingly, "Could it be you are in heat?"
Their eyes met, and the desire to embrace her erupted in Roy's heart like a volcano, but he gulped it down.
"N-no… I am not."
Before mating with her, he needed to hear out Damien.
"Ahem! I am still not done. What's to be said is the most important part of the story," Damien cleared his throat and looked at them with narrowed eyes. They saw him lost in deep thoughts. "The same Realm Lord left behind three important messages before he died in an unnatural way, and then he wasn't given a burial but burned to dust."
"Ever since then, no one dared to enter it."
Damien finished recounting what happened in the distant past to the ones around him. They all looked like little cats to him as they blinked their eyes at him in curiosity.
"What might those be?" Roy questioned the knowledgeable young man.
'Honestly, Damien can become a historian.' Roy thought.
