Chapter 51: A Leap Of Faith For Love?
Chapter 51: A Leap Of Faith For Love?
Twang—Swoosh—Thwack!
The ash-wood arrow, coated in a faint green luminescent energy, pierced cleanly through the skull of a third-circle Orc Fighter.
"Ack!"
The leader collapsed into the dirt with a heavy thud. Despite their commander falling, the remaining horde of Orcs and Goblins didn't hesitate, surging forward toward Yin Meng and me.
Out on the perimeter, Taki Tsuki maintained her scouting watch, while Shehuang masked her presence entirely through stealth. They had no intention of participating in these Secret Realm trials. It wasn’t out of cruelty or reluctance; they simply knew that if I failed to grow through genuine life-or-death struggles, I would never reach the ninth circle. Because both of them were seventh-circle powerhouses—frankly the strongest entities currently residing in this Royal Realm—they wouldn't show their hands unless a threat exceeding the fifth circle materialized.
Yin Meng, as a fifth-circle fighter, lacked the true defensive capabilities of a vanguard, meaning her assistance balanced our group out perfectly without making the trial trivial. Her presence wouldn't feel over-the-top later when rival outsiders inevitably infiltrated the realm, where breaking through to the fourth or fifth circle within two days was entirely possible.
Stopping our retreat near the roots of a massive tree, Yin Meng held her jian sideways. She channeled her aura, chanting firmly to activate her technique.
"Silver Flower Petals, Whirlwind Attack!"
Much like casting traditional spells, an aura user can drastically reduce their energy consumption by focusing their intent through spoken words. It wasn’t a true magical incantation—more like shouting a finishing move to give the technique a burst of emotional momentum.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
Dozens of Goblins rushing her position were instantly diced to shreds, collapsing into a messy heap of green blood and severed meat.
Just as I shifted my aim to shoot the final running Orc leader in the back, a vanguard of four standard Orc Fighters rushed me with the terrifying speed of a Swift Knight. I didn't hesitate.
"Rising Leaf Storm, Ground Stomp!"
Flooding my foot with a combined mixture of Air and Life aura, I slammed my heel into the earth. The sudden impact forced the wind and loose foliage violently upward, amplifying the power of a standard Ground Stomp twofold.
Thud—Whoosh!
The updraft carried dirt, twigs, and debris, but my channeled aura went a step further, manifesting razor-sharp leaves and high-pressure air currents that sliced into the advancing Orcs. The storm shredded their flesh and blinded their eyes, leaving them severely stunned and hovering on the brink of death.
"Drek!" "Hoke..." "Ah!" "Frosh!"
Twang—Swoosh—Thwack!
Noticing that I had already ignored the flailing, blinded Orcs to re-align my sights on the fleeing leader, Yin Meng swept in to finish off the remaining four for me.
"Frau!"
With a final thud, the last Orc leader collapsed, an arrow buried deep in his chest. As the four dying Orcs beside me fell completely silent, the clearing grew quiet. The battle was over.
Flick.
Letting out a long-held breath, I lowered Yggi's Heartbow and turned to look at Yin Meng, who was casually flicking the green blood off the edge of her jian.
"The area around the cave is clear," I said, catching my breath. "Let me clean up this mess. Go get some rest."
She sheathed her sword and pulled a pair of black snakeskin gloves from her belt—essential gear to keep monster blood off your hands while extracting cores. She shook her head softly.
"My Master, I am your blade first, your maid second, and your lover last," she replied, her voice steady. "I will help you with this chore. Let us hurry; the sun is setting."
I pulled on my own pair of snakeskin gloves, which Shehuang had crafted from her very own molted skin, and we knelt down to extract the Life Cores from the fallen Orcs and Goblins.
Unlike the Xianxia web novels I used to read in my past life, the purpose of entering this realm wasn't to accumulate points or prove political superiority. It was purely about personal growth, mastery of skill, and securing rare resources like these cores. Once we returned to the capital, the academy would allow students to trade these Life Cores for magic cores matching their specific elemental affinity. This system made harvesting cores the absolute fastest way for students to advance, granting them access to exceptionally rare elements that were otherwise impossible to find, such as Time Cores.
In this world, the natural rarity of elemental cores runs from the most abundant to the absolute rarest: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Life, Dark, Ice, Lightning, Death, Light, Gravity, and finally, Time-Space.
Later that evening, Shehuang stopped by briefly to fashion us a makeshift burrow cave out of the terrain. Utilizing her abilities, she shaped the earth into a clean, secure shelter complete with a stone bed, seating, and a basic cooking area forged from blended stone and metal.
Naturally, a stone bed required a thick bedroll to be remotely comfortable, but that wasn't an issue. The girls carried all our bedding and supplies within their personal sub-dimensions, meaning they didn't have to clutter their standard Storage Rings with bulky items. Taki Tsuki had even taken my dirty laundry into her personal world to wash and mend. I was thoroughly convinced she used them as pillows before returning them, because they always smelled exactly like her when I got them back—an assumption that was entirely accurate.
Even though I knew Shehuang and Taki were lingering somewhere outside in the dark, Yin Meng and I were completely alone inside the small stone shelter.
Sizzle.
Yin Meng stood over a heated wok, expertly tossing a beef stir-fry that had quickly become a mutual favorite of ours. In that moment, she looked exactly like a traditional eastern wife. She had already showered, and her damp, long hair fell across her back like a sleek, shiny waterfall.
Sitting just behind her, I let myself fully enjoy the quiet domesticity, feeling very much like a newlywed couple setting up their first home.
Rustle.
I slid forward onto the bench behind her, wrapping my arms gently around her waist and resting my chin on her shoulder to watch the food cook. While my embrace clearly brought her immense joy, her stoic, metal-element nature kept her external expression serious and disciplined.
"Husband, do not be wicked," she murmured, keeping her eyes on the wok. "You have two breakthroughs to endure after we eat. No eating me tonight."
I caught the subtle gleam of happiness in her brown eyes as I leaned in to breathe in the scent of her neck. She was right, of course.
"Meng'er, I will be good," I promised softly. "I'm just enjoying this rare piece of quiet with you."
"Mwah."
She smiled slightly, turning her head just enough to press a brief kiss against my cheek as she killed the flame beneath the wok. "Husband, the food is ready. May I feed you?"
And so, for a brief window of time, I shed the weight of the realm, opening my mouth like a coddled child while her happy eyes danced, soaking in our quiet moment of love.
A short while later, I sat cross-legged on a mat in the center of the room, biting down hard on a thick leather strap. I had just swallowed a vial of the bone-shattering Advancement Solution.
Of all the stages within the Vanguard Knight progression path, the fourth and seventh circles were notorious for being the most excruciating, soul-wrenching trials a warrior could endure. The liquid currently burning through my veins was designed to systematically fracture every single bone in the body, one by one, forcing the user to utilize their concentrated aura to rebuild and reinforce the shattered fragments. Even the skull had to be broken and reformed in precise sections.
To make matters worse, you had to remain completely conscious through the entire ordeal. The moment your focus slipped or your aura wavered, the advancement would fail entirely—wasting invaluable time and incredibly expensive medicine.
Crack—Hah—Buzz!
The solution targeted the worst area first: my spine. An unearthly, blinding agony tore through my central nervous system, and my world reduced to a haze of pure pain.
While Loki lay twitching in agony on his stone floor miles away, Princess Lana found herself entirely unable to sleep.
She had just been shaken awake by another strange, prophetic dream—one that left a bittersweet taste in her mouth. Throughout her life, whenever Lana met certain influential figures—like her father, mother, Thorin, Loki, Sylvia, or Shade—she would inevitably experience bizarre dreams involving them.
She wasn't explicitly remembering her past-life memories as Sif in a traditional sense. Rather, her subconscious was blending those ancient echoes with her modern reality. The Loki in her dreams was visually replaced by her current acquaintance, Loki Sky, and she never viewed these events in the first person. Instead, she existed as a detached, disembodied soul floating silently to the side like an invisible bystander.
In this latest dream, she had been married to Thorin, yet they shared a child that wasn't biologically his. To her utter shock, she watched as Loki covertly sneaked into her home while Thorin was away on business in the capital. Despite being a mere observer, her soul felt a phantom wave of pleasure as she watched her dream-self and Loki make passionate love. For some inexplicable reason, her dream persona was simultaneously consumed by shame and entirely compliant during the midnight-bed-battle of the forbidden lovers.
During the encounter, Loki had quietly scolded her for hiding the fact that he was the child's true father. The dream version of herself insisted that this would be their absolute last night together, and Loki had promised never to disturb her again. Yet, the moment she fell asleep wrapped in his arms, Loki pulled a blade and severed her long, golden hair—an act meant to explicitly expose her infidelity to Thorin.
The dream was as bizarre as it was highly amusing, though Lana remained deeply confused as to why Loki persistently referred to her as "Sif."
Furthermore, her dream-self had a notoriously difficult time looking away whenever Loki was unclothed, especially after catching a glimpse of his impressive stature in Thorin’s dream-bedroom. Fortunately, her visions were somewhat lucid; if a segment bored or upset her—such as anytime Thorin took center stage—she could actively skip the memory and force herself awake.
These peculiar dreams occurred roughly once a week, shifting across an array of different people, many of whom she had never even met in the waking world. Her mother had once explained that this was the unique inheritance of an Elven Seer, a power that made her exceptionally sensitive to the souls of others. Because of it, Lana possessed an innate radar for discerning good people from bad. For instance, she knew with absolute certainty that her adoptive mother was an incredibly manipulative woman.
"Ah, faster! Thorin, don't stop... I'm cumming!"
Standing near the edge of a rushing waterfall, Princess Lana looked on with a mix of mild amusement and deep annoyance.
The source of her irritation was simple: Thorin had proposed to her with absolute, unwavering sincerity a mere two hours ago. Now, he was currently doing to Jane the Mage exactly what Loki had done to her in the dream.
Yet, as annoyed as she was by Thorin's blatant hypocrisy, a part of her felt a wave of profound relief. Seeing his true colors completely absolved her of any lingering guilt regarding her dream-self's infidelity, and it solidified her absolute refusal to ever marry the man in real life. She hadn't intended to spy on them in the first place; she had merely walked away from the camp to check on her summoned beast, Blitz.
"Thorin dear," Jane's breathless voice echoed over the rushing water, "are you going to marry me now?"
"Don't worry about that yet, let's just wait," Thorin replied, his voice heavy with exertion. "But if I happen to get you pregnant, then definitely right away. I just don't want to tie myself down this exact second because I just secured this Protector Knight position."
"Then let's go again... I don't mind carrying your child, dear. Ah! You are so naughty, haha."
Lana picked up her pace, eager to drown out the sounds of their sexual escapades, and walked toward the edge of the abyss cliff.
The Summoner looked down to see her Storm Giant, Blitz, peacefully resting a safe distance away from the drop-off point. Driven by a sudden spike of curiosity, she walked right up to the edge of the bottomless chasm. Normally, a sane person like Lana would never dare stand so close to a fatal drop, but her fingers brushed against the Escape Talisman Loki had gifted her. The safety net gave her the courage to peer into the dark.
Whoosh.
A heavy updraft of moist, damp air rushed up from the canyon floor, fueled by the crashing waterfalls. It was proof that there was indeed a bottom down there, somewhere deep in the dark.
[Jump!]
A voice echoed sharply inside her mind. It was her own voice—the distinct cadence of her dream persona—and the suddenness of it caused her to shudder in fright.
[Jump, it is our fate...]
"Who... Who are you?" Lana whispered aloud, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Why can I hear you?"
[I am you, and you are me... Take a leap of faith, for the love you cannot bear to lose...]
Stepping back from the ledge, Lana frowned. Like any rational person, she knew that any mysterious voice instructing you to throw yourself off a cliff was explicitly not your friend.
[Fate is unavoidable. Sigh.]
No matter how many times Lana mentally called out to the echo, the voice refused to answer again.
Just as she began to convince herself that the entire episode was a byproduct of exhaustion, a sudden disturbance shattered the quiet of the camp. It certainly wasn't the sound of Thorin adjusting his armor after his waterfall tryst.
"Attack! Hiss!"
Slicing through the roar of the waterfalls, dozens of third-circle Lizardmen Fighters erupted from the upper streams, the surrounding pools, and the thick brush to the north and south, blitzing the camp.
With a sharp mental command, Lana jolted Blitz awake. Through the trees, she saw Thorin sprint wildly toward her empty cave, entirely too panicked to realize she had wandered off toward the cliffside. The limping Jane—clearly suffering the physical consequences of her first sexual encounter—and Mary scrambled to Thorin’s flank, desperately chanting spells to form a defensive perimeter.
Thorin swung his Thundering Maul with reckless abandon, screaming Lana's name in a panic. Lana kept her mouth shut; if she yelled back, she would immediately give away her hiding spot near the gorge.
"Hiss! The fourth human is over there!"
The shout drew everyone's attention. The Lizardmen, Thorin’s vanguard, and even Lana’s Storm Giant—which had begun hurl-blasting lightning bolts into the fray—all pivoted to look at the pale-faced Summoner standing precariously against the sky.
A dozen Lizardmen immediately broke from the main line, sprinting full tilt to capture her. Backed completely against the crumbling lip of the cliff with nowhere left to run, the voice echoed in her mind one final time.
[Jump!]
"Laaaaaana! Nooooooooo!" Thorin screamed, charging desperately across the clearing toward her.
Step—Whoosh.
As the scaly claws of the lead Lizardman reached out to grab her, Lana looked back at the chaos, a serene smile touching her lips. She took a deliberate step backward, committing her weight to the empty air.
With a rush of wind, she plummeted into the darkness of the abyss, vanishing from sight as Thorin watched on in absolute horror.
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