Chapter 497: Old Friend
Leaping across the rooftops of Misty City, Celestina was like a flaming red meteor, there one moment, gone the next before anyone below noticed.
As she kicked off a particular building and vaulted across a rather wide road at over 150 kph, Celestina couldn’t help glancing down at her shoes and smiling wryly.
Even at this kind of speed, the pair of high-heel sandals Lucas had specially made for her didn’t show any signs of stress, much less breaking.
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise seeing how the sole and heel were made from a combination of High-Rank 2 Spirit Wood and Metal, while the straps were made from a similar Tier leather. All of these materials also had high Qi conductivity and absorption properties, allowing Celestina to further reinforce them by channeling her Internal Qi into them.
Celestina wasn’t sure if she should praise Lucas for his thoroughness, or knock his head in for being so wasteful.
Whatever the case, she was at least thankful for the sturdiness of her new shoes right now.
As for the difficulty of moving at her current velocity in heels... honestly, Celestina barely even noticed. After having fought high-speed battles while suffering from severe injuries to her legs and feet, this barely even counted as uncomfortable.
5 minutes after she left the Manor, Celestina reached the eastern city wall, just below one of the tallest watchtowers overlooking the Misty Bridge.
Leaping from one foothold to the next, Celestina mounted the tower before landing softly at its top, a gentle breeze and a light click of her shoes being the only signs of her arrival.
Sure enough, when she looked over, the Marquess saw an absolute bear of a man sitting on the edge of the tower, his legs hanging off the walls as he drank from a huge bottle of strong alcohol.
Nearby, she also spotted 8 guardsmen lying on the floor, unconscious but unharmed.
Celestina didn’t blame these soldiers; if anything, she pitied them for having run into this brute.
Letting out a sigh, Celestina called out casually, "Didn’t take you for an overprotective father."
The burly man wasn’t surprised to hear Celestina’s voice, as he had detected her approach a while ago, so he just chuckled, took another swig of his drink, then turned his head back, "And I didn’t..."
He had been planning on making a wisecrack that would cause his old rival to reel from his wit, but when he actually laid eyes on Celestina, standing there confidently with one hand on her hip, her long shapely leg completed exposed through the high slit of her dress, all his thoughts evaporated.
It was a good thing he had decided to swallow first, or a mouthful of wine would probably have spilt from his lips and dribbled onto his clothes, further embarrassing him.
Getting the reaction she had been hoping for, Celestina’s grin only grew wider as she desperately resisted the urge to laugh; that is, until the giant bear snapped back to his senses, leapt up from where he was sitting, and said with completely seriousness, "Marry me."
This wasn’t the first time she had heard this line from this man, so Celestina just rolled her eyes, walked over, grabbed the bottle from him, and in a completely unladylike manner took a swig from it.
Wiping the red wine from her lips in a far more alluring manner than she realized, Celestina smiled up at the solemn-faced man before her and patted his cheek, "In your dreams, brat."
A less confident man would probably have felt insulted at being rebuffed so completely, but not this man.
This wasn’t the first time he had been rejected by Celestina; hell, it wasn’t even the 10th time, so he wasn’t deterred or depressed in the slightest, only flashing a fierce grin before throwing his head back and laughing.
Snatching the bottle back, he took another drink before leaning back against the parapet and asking, "So, what do you think?"
"Of Talia?" Celestina asked back, resting her gloved arms on the parapets as well as she looked out across the Lorren.
"Naturally," the man replied, his smile taking on a slightly warmer tone.
"She’s calm, confident, and competent," Celestina praised liberally before snickering, "a far better leader than her brainless father. Must be traits she got from her mother."
"Hah, couldn’t agree with you more," the man freely acknowledged.
"She also got Reisha’s looks, thank the Heavens," Celestina made another jab.
"I know, right? She grew up to be a real beauty," the man nodded, a hint of melancholy flickering across his face as he muttered, "I only wish she could have been here to see her now."
"A shame, indeed," Celestina sighed, the image of a gentle, delicate young woman from her past surfacing in her mind.
The two powerful masters fell silent for a while, the mood around them not exactly sad, but certainly subdued.
Only after a couple of minutes, during which time the bottle of wine was passed between them several times, did Celestina finally turn directly to her drinking partner and ask seriously, "Do you really want to do this again, Darian?"
Meeting Celestina’s gaze, Darian Darr, father of Talia, grandfather of Landon, and current king of the Darr Kingdom, muttered under his breath, "I have no choice."
Gritting her teeth, Celestina’s expression sank as she muttered, "100,000 soldiers died in the last great war, including 2 of my children and 4 of yours. Another half-a-million innocents perished during that time and in the immediate aftermath. It took both our kingdoms over 30 years to recover from the losses, and you say you ’have no choice’ but to do it all over again?"
Her voice rising in volume and anger, Celestina snapped harshly, "Was all that suffering and death for nought? Did the last war and the following 100 years of peace not teach you anything?! Were Reisha’s dying wishes meaningless to you?!"
"You, of all people, don’t get to use her name against me!" Darrian snapped back, a light of pure rage flashing across the depths of his eyes.
What seemed like a cheerful reunion between old friends had suddenly turned into a maelstrom on the verge of erupting as the Cultivation Auras of these two peak warriors surged forth.
For a moment, it really looked like Celestina and Darian might come to blows, but just as quickly as the storm arrived, it subsided.
Celestina and Darian came from different kingdoms and had very different life philosophies, but something they had in common was the thrill of a good fight. The two of them had actually fought several times in the past, sometimes seriously, sometimes just for fun, but even if that was the case, neither of them was foolish enough to start a battle right now.
Neither of them could afford the consequences of a conflict here, not that either of them really wanted to fight in the first place; they had simply gotten worked up over a mutual loss they had suffered nearly a century ago.
After taking a deep breath and withdrawing her aura, Celestina only had one question, one word, actually, to ask, "Why?"
"I told you," King Darian replied in a calm, somber tone, "I have no choice."
Knitting her brow, Celestina scanned the face of the man she had fought against and tried to kill more than 100 years ago, searching for some sign of what he was trying to tell her, but all she saw was a deep sense of powerlessness and resignation, something which seemed completely out of place in the usually battle-crazed berserker.
Something’s wrong, very wrong, Celestina quickly understood, though what exactly this something was remained shrouded in mystery.
Regardless of the circumstances, however, reality remained.
Unless something dramatic changed in the near future, war was inevitable.
Fortunately for Celestina, she had a little anomaly on her side whose speciality was creating chaos.
Thinking of Lucas, and her other two Disciples for that matter, Celestina couldn’t help smiling warmly before nodding, "Since that’s the case, I won’t ask anything further."
Darian Darr could only nod, his expression cold and stoic.
Glancing back towards the heart of Misty City, Celestina decided to do her old rival a small favour, "While she’s here, I’ll take care of Talia and her boy. You have my word that as long as they obey my laws, no one will touch them."
Staring at the beautiful profile of the woman before him and seeing the kind, motherly smile on her face, Darian couldn’t resist asking one more time, "You sure you don’t want to marry me?"
Stumbling despite standing perfectly still, Celestina glanced back, saw this overgrown bear was serious, and rolled her eyes in exasperation, "Don’t you have enough wives already?"
"There’s always room for one more," Darian declared without a hint of shame.
Rolling her eyes again, Celestina decided to throw the poor sop a bone, "Tell you what, you become a Spirit Elite before I do, and maybe I’ll consider it."
"Deal!" Darian took it, knowing this was his best, and likely only chance at ever possessing the woman he had desired from the moment he first laid eyes on her some 200 years ago.
As for Celestina, while it seemed like she was giving him hope, with the recent progress they were making on Project Ascension, she was 100% confident that this big oaf would never again surpass her when it came to cultivation.
Once again, she silently thanked her funny little Disciple for his help.