Chapter 369: The Hard Choice

After leaving the band of gnomes, Jiang Fei found a place with no one around and landed. After he made sure he was safe, he took out the silver box.

"Let's see what treasure is in this box." Jiang Fei snickered. The ring's treasure-seeking function did not simply glow. The only treasures that the ring detected were top notch.

"HAH!" Jiang Fei shouted as he opened the box.

"..."

There was nothing. No glow. No light.

"What?! A tier-less item?!" Jiang Fei was stunned. He then peeked into the box.

"OHH@#$^&%#^&%@!" Jiang Fei shouted as he tossed the box to the ground.

Thud...

A severed human head rolled out of the box.

"Damn! Those gnomes had tricked me!" said Jiang Fei after he had calmed himself down from the shock of looking at a pair of dead eyes. He was so pissed that he could not wait to take Isabella back to the caverns and kill all the gnomes!

"Oh my... Curtis..." Isabella gasped.

"What?"

Jiang Fei braved himself and picked up the severed head and carefully examined it. After picking up the slimy head, Jiang Fei had no doubt that it was indeed the severed head belonging to the now dead Curtis, Fourth Prince of the Royal Nephilim!

"How on earth did Curtis' head end up with a bunch of gnomes?" Jiang Fei could not figure out how the head, that was supposed to be in the care of the Luminous Church, end up with the gnomes. Something must have gone wrong. A thought came to him. The members of the Luminous Church would be in for a treat when they learn that they had lost the head of Curtis. Celestials and Nephilims were different from other races. Higher ranking Celestials or Nephilims could be revived with a few complex steps as long as their body was intact. Isabella was a good example of that.

The reason Count Wilson had severed Curtis' head was to prevent such an event from happening. Just when they had thought they had stopped the evil from growing, they had lost the head when it was sent to the Luminous Church. At this moment, the Archbishop that was in Twilight City must be raging. All of the members currently in Twilight were sent to search for the head of Curtis.

At the same time, the Royal Nephilim received news about the death of the Fourth Prince. They had sent members of the Shadow Keeper to retrieve the body of Curtis. What was left was the head of Curtis. Right now, both sides were in chaos. If they were not busy with the search of the severed head, the Nephilim and the Shadow Keeper would have exacted revenge on the Luminous Church.

The head that was found in the hands of the Dark Moon Circus gnomes was stolen from Count Wilson. It was purely coincidental. They had been minding their own business when they came across a traveling group of the Luminous Church. Of all the carriages, two were protected heavily, one carrying a woman, and the other a silver box. The gnome had no interest in an unconscious woman. However, besides that, their greed was just the same as a Draconian.

A fight would not be wise since they would never be able to win against the Luminous Church. However, they were good at stealing, especially their leader Forlow. That gnome's skill in thievery was so good the caravan had not even realized that they had lost the head of Curtis until they reached the Luminous Church's headquarters.

Unfortunately for Forlow, before he could even open the box, Jiang Fei had appeared and he had had to offer the box, not knowing what was inside, to buy his life.

"What am I supposed to do with this... thing?" said Jiang Fei as he dropped the head to the ground. He could deliver the head back to the Nephilim but there would not be a good reward. Moreover, Isabella had expressed her desire to not revive the "bastard".

"Verdure Glider..." Isabella muttered indecisively.

"What's wrong?" said Jiang Fei.

"I..."

At that point, Jiang Fei could see Isabella had mixed feeling about something. What Jiang Fei did not know was, instead of using the head to revive Curtis, a Royal Nephilim could use it for a different purpose.

The purpose was Extraction. There were two ways for a Royal Nephilim to do Extraction. The first way was organ harvesting and the second was blood transfusion. Organ harvesting in this situation meant transferring Curtis' eyes, through a secret art which only a Royal Nephilim would know, to grant a lower ranking Nephilim the Royal Nephilim's Eyes.

Blood transfusion would be much more potent in a sense that after this method of Extraction, the original Royal Nephilim would lose not only their eyes, but also the possibility of being revived. The effect of blood transfusion was to change a normal Nephilim to a full-fledged Royal Nephilim.

From Isabella's perspective, using blood transfusion to permanently kill Curtis was the least of her worries. She had already hated her brother from the bottom of her heart and through blood transfusion, Jiang Fei could become a full-fledged Royal Nephilim. However, not only would Jiang Fei become stronger, he would also have the same blood flowing in her veins. That would make Jiang Fei Isabella's brother. That was an outcome that Isabella could never accept.

It was a hard choice for Isabella to make. On one hand, she wanted Jiang Fei to grow stronger. On the other hand, she did not want Jiang Fei to have any blood relations with her.

Before this incident had occurred, Isabella would not have had any doubt in her mind and would immediately conduct blood transfusion for Jiang Fei without hesitation. However, after yesterday's event where Jiang Fei had used Heartfelt on the female human, she had been greatly affected emotionally when she saw how the female human had looked at Jiang Fei. That Slyphy girl was a rival and she would not allow herself to lose by becoming Jiang Fei's blood sister.

"What's going on with you?" asked Jiang Fei, oblivious to what was happening inside Isabella's mind.

"We, the Royal Nephilim have a secret method that could transplant Curtis' eyes to you. That way, you can have the Royal Nephilim's Eyes," said Isabella after she had steeled herself to make her decision. In the end, she could never accept the outcome of becoming a sister to Jiang Fei. She would rather have Jiang Fei be only slighter stronger than have him stay by her side as her brother.

"Is that true?!" Jiang Fei cried happily. It was a permanent skill that was very hard to come by. In that case, having the severed head was not a bad outcome after all.

Because Isabella had hidden the truth about the other method of Extraction, Jiang Fei would never know that there had been a chance for him to become a Royal Nephilim and become even stronger.

"It's quiet here. Let's do the transplant right away!" said Isabella as she wanted to quickly get things over with in case she regretted her decision. There was only one head there and after the transplant, she would never have a second chance.

After drawing out a complex magic circle, Isabella placed Curtis' head in the center of the magic circle and began to chant in an unknown language. Even though Jiang Fei was able to understand Nephilim tongue, he had only able to decipher half of what Isabella had said.

"Sacrifice!" Isabella chanted the last word and the dead eyes of Curtis lit up in flames. Jiang Fei, who was sitting on the ground patiently could have sworn that he heard the sad cries of Curtis in the air.

"Transfer!"

Isabella danced around gracefully and pointed her finger to the eyes and then toward Jiang Fei.

In a flash of red light, Jiang Fei felt a burning sensation on his own eyes.

Not two seconds later, he opened his eyes and saw the world with a brand new perspective.