Chapter 734: Lilith Angry
Chapter 734: Lilith Angry
"You were too reckless." Lilith reprimanded in a serious voice as she followed Bai Zemin closely during the process of descending to the ground.
"... It's not like I had too many options." Bai Zemin argued back.
His voice sounded weak and rather lackluster, there was even a tinge of pain in his words. However, it was already a miracle that he was talking and moving considering the current condition of his body.
Lilith did not immediately reply to the words Bai Zemin said and instead looked at his body. However, the more she looked the more she frowned, and amidst the worry in her eyes, there was also anger and irritation.
The upper part of Bai Zemin's armor was nowhere to be seen anymore, the durability of the armor had fallen to 0 some time ago during the process of the battle. In fact, it wasn't just the upper part of the armor that had been destroyed but the shoulder pads, cape, leg guards, gloves... all the equipment he was wearing had been brought to 0 in durability and except for the lower part of the armor which was in considerably good condition as it had not been targeted by attacks, and the accessories that came from the Soul Record, Bai Zemin had been left in ruins when it came to equipment.
His torso, which in the past was enough to steal the breath of countless females, had at least 20 burns, four or five cuts of varying degrees of depth, and even a hole that went through him from one side to the other just inches from his heart. His arms had practically lost all their skin and one could see the red flesh and blood barely contained by the skill Blood Manipulation; his left arm had even lost 1/4 part of the total flesh and one could even see the golden bones underneath and the same was true about his left shoulder.
Bai Zemin's back was a mess not much better than the front of his upper body. Even his handsome face had a deep cut on his right cheek and a pretty serious burn on his neck.
His current condition was critical, not serious; critical.
Were it not for Bai Zemin using Overlap Regeneration to increase his Health practically to double in order to improve his current condition a bit, and were it not for the use of Blood Manipulation to prevent bleeding out and assist in the growth of new tissues he might die at any moment.
"Your fighting style... Are you thinking of committing suicide?" Lilith frowned tightly and a flash of anger shone in her ruby eyes as she recalled the previous battle.
At first, Bai Zemin had managed to end the lives of a couple of Third Order goblins despite suffering quite serious wounds. However, as the seconds and minutes passed, the battle became considerably more complicated for him.
The wounds he had suffered had taken their toll on his overall combat power and thus the strength of his physical attacks and the power with which he balanced using the blood threads had greatly diminished, which also ended up affecting the speed at which he moved. This consequently caused the number of wounds on the body of Bai Zemin to increase and his condition to worsen.
A vicious circle from which there was no escape.
In the end, Bai Zemin managed to win, however, the cost was very high.
"You let the zeppelin cannons hit you on more than one occasion only to wound one enemy severely, you received several attacks from Third Order existences only to be able to cut off an arm and a leg of your enemies, you received a deadly poison that almost pierced your heart only to kill one of your enemies." The more Lilith spoke, the angrier her voice sounded. At the end of her words, she was gritting her beautiful teeth as she said in a choked voice: "Abandoning defense altogether while facing enemies whose levels are far above yours is no different from seeking death! Have you ever sat down to think about how I will feel if something happens to you? Have you ever stopped to think about how your family will feel when they see you in this miserable condition?!"
Bai Zemin felt his head buzzing because of Lilith's shouting, however, he did not dare to say anything.
He was aware that his fighting style was not the most suitable in terms of care, at the end of the day, what Lilith said was true and the way Bai Zemin fought was no different from courting death with every passing second. What Bai Zemin was doing by abandoning all defense for the sake of dealing a good blow to his enemies was basically shouting that if he died at least he would take one more with him.
It was also true and Bai Zemin knew that he was being a bit selfish by acting this way even though in his heart he knew that there were people who cared deeply about him and would probably suffer greatly if something bad happened to him.
However, it wasn't as if Bai Zemin wanted to fight like this.... It wasn't as if he loved being mortally wounded and experiencing these kinds of pains that drove him to the brink of insanity over and over again. At the end of the day, Bai Zemin was not a lunatic who took joy from pain.
... It was just that he really had no choice but to fight with his life as a gamble.
The enemies that Bai Zemin was facing this time were all Third Order existences, and there were even a handful of Second Order existences adding some wood and gasoline to the forest fire. While Bai Zemin was powerful, fighting against approximately ten Third Order existences and around twelve Second Order existences in combination with approximately twenty flying war machines was not an easy task; even less so when the battlefield was in the sky, which gave the enemy an advantage and detracted from his advantage.
If it was on the ground, Bai Zemin would have used another type of approach, but in the sky, he did not have much of a choice unless he was willing to prolong the combat which would end up endangering his subordinates and loved ones; after all, on the ground, there was a terrifying war still in progress!
Fighting against numerous enemies two Orders above that had support from flying ships with great firepower, fighting on a battlefield that did not favor him at all, fighting against time.... If Bai Zemin wanted to finish off his enemies fast, then he had to sacrifice something... and the only thing he could sacrifice was his safety.
Life worked like this; to have something we needed to surrender to something else. Only all-powerful beings were able to monopolize everything without letting go of anything, unfortunately, Bai Zemin was by no means an all-powerful existence.
"... Lilith, are you mad?" he asked carefully.
Bai Zemin made no excuses nor did he try to explain his reasons. Although he had practically 0 experience dealing with women as this was his first relationship with a girl, Bai Zemin was sensible enough to understand that regardless of all logic, from the sentimental side he was wrong and Lilith was right.
"You ask me if I'm mad?" Lilith's eyes widened and she looked at him as if she really couldn't wait to tear off a piece of his skin. "If it wasn't for your current condition I wouldn't mind beating you to death even if the Soul Record kills me later! You bastard, go die by yourself if you want to die so badly!"
Bai Zemin opened his mouth to say something but by the time he wanted to it was too late.
Lilith had disappeared.
"... Lilith, let's talk." Bai Zemin could still feel that she was near. Even if Lilith was hiding, her essence was practically the air he breathed every second of the day, and besides, she wasn't trying to hide too well either.
However, she did not respond to his call nor did she move to show herself again.
It was clear that Lilith was really angry, and probably wouldn't come out for a few hours or maybe several days until she calmed down a bit.
Bai Zemin could not help but sigh in his heart. Even though Lilith was indeed acting irrationally, could he really blame her? Of course, he couldn't.
Love was irrational to begin with, logic did not apply to emotions. Reason was blocked and eyes were blinded when it came to strong emotions, not to mention the strongest of all which was love on equal footing with hate.
In fact, Bai Zemin would be hurt if Lilith didn't react like that as it would mean that her feelings for him were not as strong as she said or as they appeared to be.
'Let's let her calm down a bit first.' Bai Zemin had no way of finding a solution to this matter this early, besides, he needed to take care of another matter.
He needed to rest.
Bai Zemin had activated Overlap Regeneration 8 times in total, only 2 more times before his soul began to feel pressure. However, despite his situation, he decided to wait for Xia Ya to help him instead of using those last two chances of the day to double his Health for a couple of seconds.
When Bai Zemin slowly descended on top of the walls, he was greeted in silence by the entire south gate.
While the goblins were still emerging from the mana egg, it would take at least a few minutes for them to get there as the previous attack had wiped out a large number of them and the change in terrain would make it difficult for them to get this place as fast as before.
For a few seconds, the only sound that could be heard was the distant explosions coming from the other three gates. The two closest gates, the east and west gates, were approximately 120 kilometers distant so the explosions sounded quite muffled even though they were definitely frightening.
There were no cheers welcoming the hero, no thanks either; just silence.
Leaving aside the soul evolvers and soldiers of the Chinese Renaissance faction that were still not too familiar with Bai Zemin, those who had fought alongside him on at least one battlefield observed his current condition in shock.
Except for two people, this was the first time the rest of them had seen Bai Zemin in such a miserable condition as the one he was now!
"You..." She looked at Bai Zemin with wide eyes, her beautiful blue pair of eyes trembled as she noticed that from her position she could even faintly see his heart beating. She seemed to gather energy from somewhere and without caring how others would see her from today onwards, she shouted with panic in her voice, "What are you waiting for to sit down?!"
Shangguan Bing Xue felt her heart being squeezed so tightly that it was becoming difficult to breathe. She was glad that Wu Yijun was not here or her good sister would definitely have wordlessly fainted if she saw the current condition of the man she loved!
"... Don't shout, please." Bai Zemin didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but when he finally decided to laugh, an involuntary wince stopped him.
He obediently sat down.
"Xia Ya, cure him." Shangguan Bing Xue walked toward Xia Ya and did not care whether she accepted or not but simply dragged her forcibly to Bai Zemin's side.
Xia Ya felt that something similar had happened in the past but she didn't have time to think about it too much as she was scared herself. If something bad happened to Bai Zemin, then the boundless future she could reach would vanish like illusory soap bubbles!
Seeing Xia Ya extending both hands in his direction, Bai Zemin closed his eyes and clenched his teeth tightly to prepare for what was coming before silently activating Overlap Regeneration.
At the same time as Bai Zemin's body was surrounded by that golden radiance that increased his charm tremendously and temporarily gave him a sort of god-like aura that took everyone's breath away, Xia Ya activated Healing of the Cursed and a flash of white light shot out from her palms before it entered into Bai Zemin's body.
"Ugh!"
A groan of pain rang out amidst the silent atmosphere.
When the white light went into Bai Zemin's body, a black light surrounded Xia Ya's body and a grief expression appeared on her face at the same time as she couldn't fight the pain that assaulted her.
She looked at Bai Zemin in shock, she could not believe that he was still sitting calmly. Xia Ya had only suffered 20% of the total pain that Bai Zemin was feeling but she felt as if her skin was being slowly peeled off by a knife and yet he wasn't even complaining!
However, Xia Ya stopped just as she was about to ask if he was not feeling pain. Upon closer inspection, Xia Ya noticed that Bai Zemin was clenching his teeth so tightly that his jawline was firmly marked and he was clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles had turned completely white due to the loss of blood circulation.
Beads of sweat covered his body and his eyes were so wide and red that it was scary. Every muscle in his body was tensed to the max. Even then, Bai Zemin did not complain and endured everything silently.
Xia Ya could not help but feel even more admiration and respect for him. She did not complain, and despite knowing that what was facing her was even worse, she stretched out both hands to him again.
"Healing of the Cursed."
...
"Healing of the Cursed!"
...
"HEALING OF THE CURSED!!"
...
In longer and longer intervals, with the difference between the third and fourth activation being more than ten minutes, Xia Ya used Healing of the Cursed on Bai Zemin a total of four times.
After the second activation, Xia Ya could not help but scream in pain, and for the last of the four she could not help but fall on top of the walls and writhe while howling with her eyes wide open.
No one understood what was happening to her, however, the most knowledgeable and informed explained about the skill Healing of the Cursed that Xia Ya possessed. However, when they learned that she was writhing in pain because she was experiencing 50% of the pain Bai Zemin felt, everyone's faces went deathly pale.
She... That woman named Xia Ya... They had seen her slaughtering tens of thousands of goblins by herself in a matter of minutes. They were all aware that she was a powerful Second Order soul evolver.
However, such a powerful existence was wallowing in pain and howling from the suffering she was experiencing..... But that was only half of what he was suffering?!
"Damn monster..." Lin Min couldn't help but mutter under his breath as he looked at the young man surrounded by a halo of golden light.
He hadn't complained even once and even though his expression was practically distorted due to the pain and the veins in his eyes stood out horribly, not even a sound of pain fled from his mouth!
How much tenacity and willpower one had to have to be able to achieve such a thing!
But little did they know that apart from enduring twice the physical pain Xia Ya felt, Bai Zemin was even enduring the pain he felt from his soul due to the excessive use of Overlap Regeneration!