Chapter 25 : Chapter 25
Chapter 25: The Dragon and Lion in the Cave
In the campfire, the last damp log was completely swallowed by thick darkness amidst unwilling sputtering.
The cave fell into a deathly silence even deeper than before.
The wolf cub appointed as messenger had carried away the first card Caesar had staked his entire fortune on.
Now, all he could do was wait.
Caesar sat down leaning against the cold rock wall, closing his eyes, but his tense jawline and the index finger unconsciously tapping his knee revealed he was far from as calm as he appeared on the surface.
He rapidly reviewed everything in his mind—every link, every possible variable, all repeatedly deduced like pieces falling on a chessboard.
Four days now.
The supply request letter sent three days ago—Roland had executed it perfectly, and the supplies delivered were the admission ticket to this high-stakes gamble.
But this secret order written in his own blood was completely different in nature.
It carried not a simple supply request, but a nearly insane vision.
Moving hundreds of families from the Rat's Nest—thousands of people—from right under the noses of those greedy hyenas in Grayrock Town, across the peril-filled Wailing Wastes... The risks involved meant that any single mistake in any link would lead to utter ruin.
Could Roland understand the deep meaning behind every word in his letter?
Those twenty selected soldiers—facing the test of money and risk, could they truly maintain absolute loyalty?
And that wolf cub that had just established a mental link with him... Could it survive safely back to camp under threats from wasteland wolf packs and other predators?
He habitually quantified everything as risk versus reward, but this time, there were too many variables.
Moreover, beside him was the greatest variable of all, the most uncertain “reward.”
His gaze swept almost imperceptibly toward the other corner of the cave.
The girl was wrapped up in that white fox cloak stained with blood and dust, revealing only a pair of sky-blue eyes that remained startlingly bright even in the dimness.
She resembled a frightened woodland creature, vigilantly observing him—observing this “lifesaving benefactor” who had imprisoned her.
The legitimate daughter of Grand Duke Sebastian, Anneliya.
This identity was both a precious bargaining chip that could shift the Eastern Territory's situation and a bomb that could explode at any moment.
He had saved her and forcibly granted her a new identity not merely for that distant political investment.
More importantly, for an extremely practical reason—when the flood of hundreds of refugees poured into his barren territory, the appearance of an unremarkable “war orphan” would not draw anyone's attention.
This massive migration had been, from the very beginning of planning, the perfect smokescreen prepared for her alone.
But he didn't trust her.
Absolutely not.
In her eyes, besides the fear and confusion befitting a sixteen-year-old girl, there lurked a trace of carefully suppressed scrutiny and pride belonging to an apex predator.
This pride was now an obstacle to her survival.
But Caesar understood clearly that once she recovered her composure, it would become the most lethal weapon.
Caesar withdrew his gaze, no longer paying her attention.
He tore open the clothing on his chest that had become mere rags, exposing a torso covered in crisscrossing scars.
Time to change his dressing.
He pulled out from his breast a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Inside were several crushed herbs emitting a pungent smell.
This was the only plant he'd found on the wasteland with hemostatic and anti-inflammatory effects.
He expressionlessly pressed the medicinal paste onto his deepest wound. The intense stinging pain made veins bulge at his temples, but he only let out a muffled grunt from his throat, as if he were treating not his own body but a piece of insensate meat.
Anna curled up in the corner, taking all of this in.
The continuous fear of these past days was being quietly replaced by another, more complex emotion—shame.
This youth named Caesar was cold, powerful, and equally ruthless toward himself.
The way he ate was focused and efficient, without the slightest enjoyment.
He treated his wounds with the detachment of a craftsman repairing a damaged tool.
Everything about him served one purest purpose—survival.
And what about herself?
Anneliya von Sebastian, raised in a castle surrounded by countless servants, had never once even poured herself a cup of water.
The escape opportunity Grandfather Gregory had traded his life for—was it meant for her to stay here like a true piece of waste, waiting to be fed by others, then slowly rot and decay?
No.
The lion's blood in her cold veins let out a low roar.
She remembered what her father had said to her when she was very young, pointing at the thorn lion on the family crest.
“A child of Sebastian can be defeated, but never tamed.”
“Remember, Anneliya—our dignity is held in our own hands.”
She took a deep breath and forced her aching body to sit up.
The high fever and pain made her world spin, but she still supported herself against the rough rock wall, step by step, shuffling toward the fire.
Caesar lifted an eyelid to glance at her. Those deep purple eyes held no emotion whatsoever, then closed again.
It was a thoroughgoing disregard emanating from his very bones, more hurtful than any contemptuous words.
Anna bit her pale lips and didn't retreat.
She imitated Caesar's earlier movements, clumsily picking up a dead branch and trying to add it to the nearly extinguished fire.
But she had never done such a thing. The branch carried undried moisture, and the moment it touched the weak flame, it let out a hissing sound and emitted a thick plume of smoke that made her cough violently. Tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes.
Utterly wretched, a complete mess.
In the darkness, she heard an extremely light snort of derision.
It was Caesar.
He still had his eyes closed, but that arc at the corner of his mouth—fleeting, full of mockery—was like a red-hot needle stabbing viciously into Anna's crumbling self-respect.
She didn't retreat.
She wiped away her tears with her filthy sleeve and stubbornly straightened her back that had hunched from pain.
She picked up another branch. This time, she recalled Caesar's movements when adding fuel, not throwing it directly into the fire's heart but carefully, from the most vigorous side of the flame, slowly feeding in the drier end.
The flames whooshed upward, greedily licking at the new fuel. The cave brightened by several degrees, and the chill was driven back somewhat.
Caesar made no further sound, as if he had fallen asleep.
This small success was like a spark, igniting the remnant courage in Anna's heart.
She saw that after Caesar had finished treating the wound on his chest, he began struggling to tend to the gash on his left arm that wolf fangs had torn open earlier. Using one hand was obviously very inconvenient, and the medicinal paste was being applied in fits and starts.
She hesitated for a long time, so long that the firelight began dimming again.
Finally, as if using all the strength in her body, she spoke softly.
“I... I'll help you.”
Caesar's movements stopped.
He slowly opened his eyes. Those deep purple eyes appeared unfathomably dark in the flickering firelight as he stared at her, like a craftsman assessing whether a tool was serviceable.
“You?”
His voice was very calm, yet carried an indisputable oppressive force.
“Do you know how to treat wounds? Do you know which herbs are for stopping bleeding, which are for preventing infection, which are just useless weeds?”
“Do you know what it means if a wound becomes infected, on this godforsaken wasteland?”
A string of cold questions, like knives, cut the courage Anna had just mustered into tatters.
She was instantly speechless.
She truly knew nothing.
In the castle, such matters were handled by professional physicians and apothecaries.
“I... I can learn.”
She gathered her last courage and met his gaze, though that gaze made her feel a stabbing pain.
“I have neither the time nor the obligation to teach a waste.”
Caesar coldly interrupted her, turned his head, and continued using his uninjured right hand to clumsily but effectively bandage his own wound.
The refusal was swift and decisive, leaving not a shred of face.
A hot surge mixed with humiliation and anger rushed to the top of Anna's head, but was immediately doused by cold reality.
He spoke the truth.
Here, in this cave that only cared about survival, she was a waste.
A waste who couldn't even take care of her own survival and needed others' charity to stay alive.
She silently retreated to her corner, burying her face deeply into her knees.
Silent sobs were desperately suppressed in the depths of her throat. Only her slightly trembling shoulders betrayed her sorrow.
She wasn't crying over Caesar's coldness, but over her own incompetence.
Time flowed slowly in suffocating silence.
Caesar paid her no more attention.
He had to seize every moment to recover his strength and respond to any possible contingencies.
He sat cross-legged. Black-gold Battle Energy rose from his dantian, circulating through his damaged meridians like warm flowing light, repairing the internal injuries left from his battle with the wolf king.
At the same time, he began attempting more precise control over Dragon Scale Transformation.
This was more than just defense.
He discovered that by stimulating the muscle tissue beneath the scales with Battle Energy, he could make localized power explode instantaneously.
He concentrated Battle Energy in his right arm. Piece by piece, palm-sized dragon scales gleaming with obsidian luster emerged from beneath his skin, rapidly spreading to cover his entire arm and extending upward, forming at his shoulder a piece of heavy pauldron resembling something crafted by demons.
The edges of the scales flickered with metallic cold light, full of savage power.
But this wasn't enough.
He attempted to extend the power to his back—one of the vital points in knightly duels.
Battle Energy consumption increased sharply. Sweat seeped from his forehead. The condensing scales flickered in and out of existence, extremely unstable, as if they might collapse at any moment.
Suddenly, a surge of out-of-control Battle Energy violently collided within his meridians. His throat turned sweet, and a mouthful of fresh blood surged up, then was forcibly swallowed back down.
The dragon scales covering his body instantly receded. His face became pale as paper, and his breathing grew rapid and heavy.
Forcibly pushing his power beyond its limits had met merciless backlash.
Just then, a trembling hand extended a crude wooden bowl before him.
Inside was clear water, rippling with faint light in the firelight.
Caesar lifted his head and saw that Anna had at some point come to stand before him.
Tear tracks still clung to her face, yet her sky-blue eyes held an unusual determination.
She said nothing, only stubbornly used all her strength to hold up that wooden bowl that seemed to weigh more than a thousand pounds to her.
Caesar stared at her for several seconds. Those deep purple eyes seemed to flicker with a trace of complex, indecipherable light.
In the end, he still accepted the bowl and drained it in one gulp.
The cool spring water slid down his burning throat, suppressing the roiling blood and energy.
“Thank you.”
He said in a low voice, his tone somewhat hoarse from the recent internal injury.
This was the first time he had said those two words to her.
Anna recoiled like a startled rabbit, quickly withdrawing her hand and wordlessly retreating to her corner.
The cave once again returned to silence.
But this time, the string in the air named “hostility” seemed to have loosened by a thread.
Caesar didn't immediately resume his cultivation.
He poked out from the fire a piece of half-cooked lizard meat and, together with the dagger for self-defense, tossed both onto the stone slab before Anna.
“If you want to live, do it yourself.”
He commanded, his tone still cold but no longer pure indifference.
“Cook it, then eat it.”
“If you can't even do this, you needn't bother seeing tomorrow's sun.”
Anna looked at that chunk of bloody meat reeking of rawness, her stomach churning violently.
But she thought of Caesar's words, thought of Grandfather Gregory's death, thought of her father's teachings.
She picked up the dagger that was heavier than she'd imagined and, imitating Caesar's movements from memory, clumsily sliced off a small piece of meat, threaded it onto a stick, and extended it toward the fire.
The first time, it was too close to the flames and instantly turned to charcoal.
The second time, too far from the flames—it stayed raw for ages.
Her hand was cut by fine gashes from the dagger and blistered by flying sparks.
But she didn't give up.
After wasting nearly a third of the meat, she finally roasted a piece that could barely be considered “cooked.”
No salt, no spices—only a heavy fishy smell and the bitterness of char.
She closed her eyes and bit down hard.
Tough, dry, hard to swallow.
But she didn't spit it out.
She used all the strength in her body to chew, again and again, with great difficulty.
Tears welled up again, mixing with the dried meat as she swallowed it all down.
Survive.
Survive as “Anna.”
This was her only thought at this moment, and the most humble one.
Caesar opened his eyes in the darkness and glanced at that slender figure silently weeping in the firelight yet still swallowing food, then closed them again.
This wounded lioness seemed to finally be learning how to retract useless pride and bare her claws and fangs.
Perhaps the risk of this investment could be lowered slightly.