Chapter 112: The Perfect Bait
Without wasting another moment, Cher sent messages to both Silas and Lara, informing them that the forces had begun their descent before asking whether everything was proceeding according to plan.
She expected to wait for their replies. Instead, both responses arrived almost instantly.
[The dragon is following me.]
[Do it! We’re close to getting the dragon blood.]
A wave of relief washed over her.
The dragon had taken the bait. Rather than killing Silas, it had chosen to chase Lara, who carried the flower.
Only after reading those messages did Cher realise how tense she had been. The breath she released felt far heavier than she expected, leaving even herself surprised.
"Since when did I become this worried about him?"
The thought caught her off guard. For a brief moment, she stood in silence before shaking her head.
"This isn’t the time."
He was alive. That was enough for her.
Turning away from her thoughts, she looked toward the carefully concealed tunnel exit beside her.
"It isn’t surprising, I suppose... he really is an extraordinary Enhancer."
She couldn’t help recalling how all of this had begun. It all started with an impossible Gaia Calling. Then an even more impossible plan.
Even after hearing it days ago, she had doubted it could ever succeed. There had been too many uncertainties, too many variables, and countless hidden dangers. The sudden appearance of her father alone had been enough to shatter everything.
She knew how many setbacks they had faced over the past few days. Every obstacle had threatened to derail the plan, yet somehow they had endured, adapting again and again until they returned to the path Silas had envisioned.
The result spoke for itself.
The dragon had been isolated from every other force. Its body was covered in wounds, its strength steadily draining beneath its fury and impatience. The flower remained in their possession, while the dragon marched willingly toward the trap prepared for it.
Every force that had tried to stop them had failed. Even if they all gathered now, they were already far too late.
"...And my father couldn’t force me to obey him."
Her thoughts drifted back to the moment she learned he was here. She had known exactly what he intended to do. She had also believed there was no escaping his grasp if she continued down this path.
Yet here she was, hidden deep inside a tunnel thousands of meters away from him, feeling safer than she had in years.
For the first time in a long while, she felt free. And she knew exactly who had made that possible.
Her thoughts naturally returned to the next step of the plan, the most dangerous one after luring the dragon itself.
"Fear wounds what Strength cannot."
Silas had assured her everything was under control. She still had no idea what he meant.
No matter how many times she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine how they intended to draw blood from an enraged, exhausted dragon that was still powerful enough to slaughter them all.
Even so, another sentence surfaced in her mind.
"Trust your companions."
Her voice faded into the silence as the words lingered in her thoughts.
"Was that message meant only for him... or for me as well?"
She didn’t know. In the end, she chose to believe in it, believe in her friends, believe in Silas. Determination settled over her face as she stepped toward the hidden tunnel exit.
"It’s time for me to finish my part."
"It’s time for me to act like bait, again."
A faint smile slowly curved across her lips.
"My only regret is that I won’t be there to see Father’s expression after I slip out of the trap he prepared so carefully."
Cher carefully emerged from the tunnel and took cover behind a rocky cliff, observing the several hundred Dark Hunters gathered in the distance.
Seeing how many of them were there, this close to her, made her realise something.
Even if she played the role of a bait before, this was genuinely the first time she would stand in front of such a large gathering of enemies, intending to toy with them.
The realisation made her feel quite nervous at first. Then a weird feeling of satisfaction washed over her.
’It feels great to hold such immense power, to play with the heart of hundreds of enemies all alone.’
She pondered for a moment.
’Was it how he felt all this time, toying with thousands of enemies and even a dragon head on?’
She couldn’t tell. And yet she felt like she would never grow tired of such a feeling.
Getting pumped by such thoughts, she slowly checked the area she appeared in.
She had chosen her position well, remaining far enough to stay out of immediate danger while close enough to ensure she would be noticed. The moment she stepped into view, she raised a crystal in her hand and activated her ability.
Four radiant white fireballs materialised above her head. As soon as they appeared, brilliant beams of white fire erupted from them, sweeping across the ground in erratic arcs, scorching the earth and instantly drawing every eye in the area.
She didn’t have any control over her ability, and she never intended to. After all, she wasn’t here to fight with them. She was here to do something else.
Looking at the Dark Hunters up front, she couldn’t help but recall how Silas paid extra attention to keep them alive. At many turns, she even lost hope of any one of them remaining alive by this current stage of the plan.
And now, they were about to repay their unknown debt to Silas and play the last role he drafted for them in his plan.
Seeing the bright four white fireballs from nearby, the Dark Hunters, who had been busy collecting high-grade mana crystals, immediately stopped.
"Is that the same bastard? Did he crawl back from the land of the dead to haunt us?"
One Dark Hunter blurted out in panic, only to receive a hard slap across the back of the head from the Scorpion leader. The last thing they needed was fear spreading through their ranks.