Chapter 165: Chapter 165: What Remains After Survival

"Ugh..."

The groan cut through the heavy silence. Everyone turned toward Andrew, who was now slumped on the ground.

His arm was still skewered by the stone that had stabbed straight through him. Maria was the first to reach him and shook his shoulders with trembling hands.

"Andrew? We will send you back now. Stay awake."

Andrew let out a weak chuckle. "I think I lost all my luck here."

"No. What luck? There is no such thing in this world, only effort and hard work! So you stop talking nonsense like that!"

She spun toward Seamus. "Why are you just standing there? Help your father."

Seamus jolted. "Sorry." He turned to Madeline.

"Can you teleport him back to the orphanage? Or teleport all of us?"

Maria snapped, "Are you out of your mind?!/Some of us still need to help the villagers here."

"Right." Seamus ruffled his hair, fingers trembling slightly as he tried to steady himself.

The whole situation was too absurd for him. Less than a month in Rowani many hunters and vampires wanted to kill him and now he was trapped in Lilium in the middle of some kind of sick cult.

Worse, he had used the mirror to travel too far, it cracked the moment he arrived. It takes three days for the mirror to ’bloom’ to normal before he can go back.

So now, he was trapped with his injured father, his enemy, and his ex-childhood friend who hated him to the core. His brain is about to melt.

He exhaled deeply. "What a mess."

At this point, nothing happening in front of him felt strange anymore. Just another normal day for someone from Crimson Nectar.

But spending three days with these people? That was far worse than whatever horror had unfolded in the mine.

Madeline’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "I can only teleport your father and two more people. The distance is too far and it drains my power too much."

Seamus blinked. "Then take both of you with Madeline. You two look like a disaster."

Dylan narrowed his eyes and marched toward him. "No. You could do weird and dangerous things to these people. I am staying to keep an eye on you."

Seamus scoffed. "I would not do anything like that."

"Oh, you already did that with my friends. You can do it with anyone."

Seamus rolled his eyes and decided the conversation was a waste of energy. Maria suddenly tossed something at him. He caught it and looked down. It was a worn doll.

"Teleport me with Andrew and Matthew," she said. "I will take care of them."

With the help of Dylan, they lay Matthew near Andrew to teleport them.

Seamus took a long breath, clearly wanting to go with his father. But Madeline’s glare killed the thought immediately.

"All of you stay here and don’t do anything stupid," she ordered. "Continue your investigation if possible. One piece of that Crest is still missing."

A golden circle flared beneath them, and they vanished, leaving Seamus, Dylan, and X behind.

The Emblem looked delighted, almost cheerful.

"This is awkward," he said.

"Shut up and just take your Crest back," Seamus groaned.

Dylan asked, "Wait. What do you mean one part of the Crest is missing? That thing was not all of it?"

Neither answered. It was too long and too troublesome to explain from the start.

Seamus finally muttered, "Yeah. It is separated into two."

Dylan squatted down and held his head. "No. I am done. I refuse to be part of any horror cult thing."

X hummed, ignoring him as he walked toward the statue with Seamus. The statue had become ordinary stone again.

X reached into the eye sockets and pulled out the two ruby crystals.

"What will happen to the Crest now? Can you fix it?" Seamus asked.

"This one is empty. Madeline absorbed all the sins already." X clicked his tongue. "And she still dares to demand my help. Ridiculous."

The ruby crystals lifted into the air. They fused into the shape of a half-moon and changed color to gold. The remaining shards rose and circled the formed piece, shifting into smaller golden crystals.

Seamus watched in awe. A question gnawed at him. "If you need that thing to punish vampires, why can I do it without it?"

The Vessel of Sinner vanished from X’s hand. He turned and smirked. "Because you have a special connection to the False God."

Seamus froze. "What does that mean?"

"It is nothing personal. You are not part of Them. They simply created you with a specific purpose. A strange phenomenon that could disrupt Their creations."

"I never thought about anything like that," Seamus admitted.

X walked among the unconscious villagers, hands clasped behind his back as if inspecting a garden.

"The False God enjoys conflict. This world is Their playground. Putting you here is like placing a natural disaster in a sandbox."

He grinned. "You destroy everything you touch, but you also force Their creation to build something new. A fresh beginning."

Seamus understood and did not understand at the same time. He said nothing more. Together, they checked the villagers and guided the survivors out of the mine.

X’s eyes could see from afar and pinpoint the only hospital in the village before opening a teleportation gate and they moved the still alive villager’s body.

The snowstorm had left most of them hypothermic. About half were already dead from the cold and the lack of people to help them.

Others had turned into monsters and could not be saved at all. Even the survivors looked hollow, as if the mine had taken something they would never get back.

***

"Bianca! Help them!"

Maria shouted as they reached the foyer of the orphanage.

"Calm down, Maria. Everything is under control."

Fortunately, Bianca had stayed alert. She prepared everything ahead of time and already called Doctor Ben along with his colleagues.

They were on standby the moment she heard Isolde mention that Seamus would be helping and the condition was out of control.

Everyone rushed Andrew and Matthew into the infirmary which was already turned into an emergency room for operation and treating patients.

Matthew was physically fine, but the Crest had dragged him through a dream so vivid he thought he actually burned in hell.

He woke up screaming and tried to claw at the air as if something still had him. The doctors had to sedate him before he hurt himself.

Once Matthew’s vitals were stable, they moved to Andrew. His condition was far worse. He kept bleeding despite already being anemic.

His red blood cell count was so low that they ended up transfusing seven bags, and thankfully the orphanage still had enough stock to cover it.

After an urgent surgery, the doctors were finally able to close the wound. It was large but missed vital organs. Most of the damage was shredded blood vessels, and repairing them took time.

When the operating room door opened, Maria was already standing there, tense and pale.

"Well, the operation was successful," one doctor said. "But he is in critical condition. All we can do now is wait and hope."

Maria froze. "You are a doctor. Can you please be more scientifically accurate than ’wait and hope’?" she asked sharply.

Bianca blinked and snorted quietly, surprised the girl had that much bite in her voice.

"Fine," the doctor said. "His chance of survival is below thirty percent. Interpret that however you want."

That answer silenced Maria instantly. After a shaky breath, she asked, "Can I see him?"

"Yes. He is still under the influence of anesthesia. Whether he slips into a coma or not, we will only know with time."

Maria nodded and pushed the door open.

The room smelled of iron and fresh blood. The blood bags hung from the stand, steadily draining into Andrew’s arm.

"Andrew, are you awake?" she asked in a very soft voice.

To her shock, Andrew’s eyes slowly fluttered open. His gaze found her, and he managed a faint smile.

"Yeah. For now."

Maria frowned when she saw how pale he was. His skin felt cold. He looked like someone whose life was already half gone.

"What do you mean by now? You brought me here. You need to take care of me," her voice trembled.

They had not traveled together long, but he had been the only one patient enough to stay by her side.

He gave a weak chuckle. "We both know my life is not long anymore."

"What about Seamus? You are leaving him just like that?"

"He will be fine. Honestly, he might be better without me. I have done too little for him and left too much on his shoulders."

Maria opened her mouth. The thought she hated most appeared again.

Why not turn him into a vampire? Andrew’s cancer would disappear, he would be healed, and turn to normal again.

She finally understood the weight behind Seamus’s decision when he turned her.

She hated understanding it.

She grabbed Andrew’s hand and cried silently. "I still need you. You cannot leave me here. I am basically your adoptive daughter, so take responsibility for me."

Andrew laughed, then coughed harshly. "Alright. I will try. Stop crying, Maria. Just a moment ago you were ready to snap at me, were you not?"

"I never said that. Stop twisting things. I have never, not even once, hated you. So stay alive. Please."

Tears kept rolling from her eyes as Andrew nodded weakly. His eyes closed slowly and didn’t opened again since then.