Chapter 66: Summers siblings shock
Ethan’s eyes widened until they were almost as large as saucers, his entire expression frozen in disbelief as he stared at the figure standing before him. He had been just about to raise a vial of mana potion to his lips, but his hand stopped halfway, the bottle hovering awkwardly near his mouth. For a few seconds, his mind simply refused to process what his eyes were seeing.
A ghost?
But it was still daytime.
How could a ghost suddenly appear in broad daylight?
The ridiculous thought flashed through his mind before another possibility struck him. Ethan’s fingers tightened around the vial as his eyes widened even further.
If it wasn’t a ghost...
Then that meant.....
She actually recovered?
"Impossible...!"
The words escaped Ethan’s mouth before he could stop himself. His voice carried genuine shock as he stared at Trisha, almost as though he were afraid that blinking would cause the scene before him to disappear.
Even Jessica, who was usually far more composed than her younger brother, couldn’t hide her reaction.
Her eyes were fixed intensely upon Trisha’s figure, studying every detail with an almost obsessive focus. It was as though she wanted to engrave this very moment into her memory so deeply that even the passage of decades wouldn’t be able to erase it.
The woman standing before them was completely different from the bloodied figure they had carried out of Blessed Moon City.
Her injuries had been horrifying.
Her body had been on the verge of collapse.
Yet now...
She was standing.
Alive.
And judging from her appearance, her recovery had gone far beyond simply stabilizing her condition.
Jessica’s mind suddenly returned to the words Cole had spoken before they parted.
A cure for her condition...
At that time, she had assumed Cole was simply making an overly confident claim. But now, looking at Trisha standing alive before her, Jessica’s heart couldn’t help but tremble.
Could he really have been telling the truth?
Had he actually possessed a method capable of curing such an unimaginable injury?
For a moment, Jessica found the thought almost impossible to accept.
The injuries Trisha had suffered were severe enough that even an ordinary spiritual doctor might have struggled to save her life, yet Cole had locked himself inside a room with a collection of strange ingredients and somehow achieved this result.
It was simply too shocking.
While the two siblings were still struggling to process what they were seeing, Trisha’s cautious voice suddenly broke the silence.
"Now... who are you?"
Her voice wasn’t loud, but there was a clear wariness hidden within it.
Her eyes moved carefully between Jessica and Ethan, observing their expressions and every slight movement with restrained suspicion.
The gentle and trusting maid who had once greeted almost everyone with a warm smile was no longer the same.
What had happened inside the Saint Family compound had changed something within her.
She had learned the hard way that kindness didn’t guarantee safety, and familiar faces didn’t necessarily mean good intentions. After being tortured and nearly executed, she could no longer afford to trust people simply because they appeared friendly.
So even though the two people standing before her seemed harmless...
Trisha remained cautious.
Her fingers subtly tightened against the fabric of her clothes as she waited for their answer, her eyes never leaving the two strangers.
After everything she had endured...
She had no intention of letting her guard down again.
It was at this moment that Cole, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, finally decided to speak.
He lightly cleared his throat, drawing Trisha’s attention toward him. Then he raised his hand and pointed toward Jessica and Ethan one after another.
"Yeah, I almost forgot to remind you... These two are the Summers siblings, Ethan and Jessica. If it weren’t for their help, we might not have been able to escape from the Saint Family."
His voice was calm, but the gratitude behind his words was genuine.
Cole hadn’t forgotten what they had done for him.
If Jessica and Ethan hadn’t appeared at the right moment, he couldn’t even imagine what would have happened. He might have died on that execution stage, and Trisha’s already fragile condition would likely have become even worse.
There was no reason for him to pretend otherwise.
He was genuinely grateful to them.
Ethan, however, immediately wore an expression that seemed to say, You better remember that.
They hadn’t merely helped Cole escape.
They had also dragged themselves into a terrifying conflict with the Saint Family without receiving any obvious reward in return.
As far as Ethan was concerned, a little gratitude was the bare minimum.
Jessica, on the other hand, simply shook her head.
"There is no need to thank us. After all, we need you to cure my disease."
Her tone remained as calm as ever, without any attempt to make Cole feel indebted.
After a brief pause, she glanced toward Trisha before continuing.
"We’ll catch up later. You should focus on recovering first."
With that, Jessica turned around.
Ethan followed after her, although he couldn’t resist giving Cole one last meaningful look before leaving. The two siblings didn’t linger for long, and soon their footsteps gradually faded down the corridor.
The door slowly closed behind them.
Leaving only Cole and Trisha inside the small room.
For a moment...
The air seemed to stop moving.
The room became strangely quiet after the departure of the Summers siblings. Only the faint sound of breathing remained, along with the occasional creaking of the wooden structure beneath the weight of the silence.
Cole remained standing where he was.
Trisha, meanwhile, continued staring at him.
Her eyes contained countless questions.
Where had he gone?
Why had he returned?
How had he survived?
Why had the Saint Family accused him?
How had he escaped?
And most importantly...
How had he managed to save her?
Cole could practically feel those questions gathering behind her gaze.
He silently sighed inwardly.
Here it comes...
He had faced assassins.
He had fought Moon Knight Realm warriors.
He had even stood beneath the blade of an executioner.
Yet somehow...
The upcoming conversation felt more troublesome than all of those things combined.
Cole could already imagine the endless stream of questions that was about to descend upon him.
He let out another quiet sigh.
For the first time, he felt that even the A.I. Chip might be completely useless.
After all...
How was a machine supposed to help him survive an interrogation from someone who had spent years caring about him?
Just as Cole braced himself, the first question finally arrived.
"Young Master... what happened? I feel as if my heart has changed..."
Hearing the expected question, Cole couldn’t help but let out another quiet sigh. Fortunately, this was one question he had already prepared an answer for, so unlike the countless questions that would probably follow, he didn’t need to scramble for an explanation.
That was right.
After successfully fusing with the Abyssal bloodline, Trisha’s heart had undergone a fundamental transformation. What had once been an ordinary human organ responsible for circulating blood had been reshaped into something completely different.
A dantian.
A special organ capable of storing mana and circulating that energy throughout the body.
From now on, Trisha would no longer need to rely solely on mana potions to cultivate. She could directly absorb the mana flowing through the atmosphere and refine it for herself, just like the other races of this world.
For humanity, this alone was an unimaginable transformation.
But compared to Cole’s own bloodline, there was one important difference.
Cole’s expression gradually became solemn as he focused inward and sensed the almost invisible thread connecting him and Trisha.
The connection was extremely faint.
An ordinary person would never have been able to detect it.
But Cole could clearly sense its existence.
It was born from the bloodline they now shared.
After all, the bloodline flowing through Trisha’s body wasn’t an independent power that had naturally awakened within her.
It was his.
The bloodline potion he had refined had allowed a portion of his Abyssal bloodline to merge with her body, meaning that the power running through her veins ultimately originated from him.
Because of that connection.....
Cole possessed a certain degree of control over her bloodline.
If he wanted to, he could suppress it.
He could even interfere with the circulation of the bloodline’s power.
Of course, Cole had no intention of ever using that ability against Trisha.
But he had deliberately left this backdoor behind.
He wasn’t foolish enough to create a power capable of changing the world and then give it to someone without considering the possibility that the same power could one day be turned against him.
If someone he had personally empowered eventually became strong enough to annihilate him...
That would be a truly tragic ending.
Countless possibilities flashed through Cole’s mind in an instant.
What if the bloodline evolved?
What if Trisha became stronger than him?
What if someone controlled her?