A faint ghostly miasma drifted around her, but there was nothing savage about it. She looked like some ghost fairy who had stepped out of the underworld itself. She was Lydia Wraithmoor, the Ghost Clan Princess.
A black longsword rested in her hand. The aura pouring off her was vast as the sea, and she fixed Skylar with a cold stare. The killing force in her eyes was so sharp it was almost visible.
“You think you can touch him?” Lydia’s voice came out cold enough to cut bone. She spoke one word at a time. “Did you ask me first?”
Seeing that, Skylar’s pupils tightened, and he took a step back before he even seemed to realize it. He could tell it right away: this woman who had appeared out of nowhere was strong. Very strong!
“Lydia…” Jared’s weak voice sounded from behind her. His eyes widened. “Y-You… how are you here…?”
Lydia didn’t turn around. She only answered in a soft, gentle voice. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll protect you.” Then she looked back at Skylar. The softness in her eyes vanished on the spot, leaving only a cold, murderous glare. “You dared hurt him. You’re dead…”
Before the last word had even fully landed, Lydia vanished from where she stood. In the next instant, she was already in front of Skylar. Her longsword came down hard, wrapped in towering ghostly miasma. Skylar’s face changed at once, and he hurriedly raised his blade to block.
Clang! The two of them crashed together in midair and went at each other like mad. Sword light and blade arcs ripped across the sky in a tangled storm, and the shockwaves rolling out from each collision blasted in every direction, shaking the air itself until space twisted and split. The longer Skylar fought, the darker his face got. The woman who had appeared out of nowhere was actually this strong. There was no way he could put her down quickly. Worse, her ghostly miasma carried a strange force inside it; it gnawed at his demonic aura and kept tying his hands in the fight.
And right then, Jared forced himself back to his feet. He lifted a hand, and the Dragonslayer Sword flew back into his grasp. Even with heavy wounds all over him, even with death hanging by a thread and his aura faint to the extreme, his eyes still burned with a refusal to yield.
“Lydia, I’ll help you!” Jared let out a low shout and forcibly drove the last scraps of spiritual power through his body. Golden light flared around him again. It was weak, but it still carried the pressure of the Dragon Emperor. With the Dragonslayer Sword in hand, he charged straight at Skylar!
Lydia matched him without a word. One on the left and one on the right, the two of them pressed forward in an unbroken stream of attacks, and before long, they started forcing Skylar back. Skylar’s face turned uglier by the second. Lydia alone had already been enough to make this a problem.
Now there was Jared too—badly wounded—but still throwing himself in without caring whether he lived or died, and Skylar found himself slipping bit by bit into the losing side of the fight.
What made it worse was that Darian and the Demon Dragon host had also been locked down by Roland and the others. They were tied up so tightly they couldn’t break free to come help Skylar at all.
“Damn it!” Skylar ground his teeth so hard his jaw looked ready to crack. His eyes burned as he stared ahead. He had been one step away from killing Jared. One step. That was all. And then that damned woman from the Ghost Clan had shown up at the worst possible moment and ruined everything.
“Jared!” Skylar roared, “Today, you got lucky! But don’t get smug. Next time, you won’t have this kind of luck again!”
Before the last word had even settled, he hacked out with his blade. The strike forced Jared and Lydia back, and Skylar’s body shot away in a sudden retreat. “Fall back!” He bellowed the order, spun around, and tore off into the distance. In the blink of an eye, he vanished at the horizon.
Darian and the Demon Dragon host stopped pressing the fight too. One after another, they rose into the air and chased after Skylar, disappearing into the rolling demonic aura almost at once. Up in the sky, the demonic aura slowly thinned away. Sunlight spilled down again, lighting up the wreckage spread across Cloudhaven City.
Jared couldn’t hold himself up another second. His whole body tipped backward, and Lydia caught him in one swift grab.
“Jared! Jared!” Lydia called his name twice. Jared looked at her through that drained, fading state. A thin smile forced its way onto his lips. “Lydia… thank you… you saved me again…”
Lydia only gave a faint smile. “You owe me two lives now…”
Jared smiled too, but then his eyes drifted on their own toward the distance—toward the direction Josephine had gone. There was nothing there. Just empty space. Josephine… where has she gone? And when… when will she remember me again?
His awareness blurred by the second. Then everything went black, and he passed out completely. The second Vivian saw him go limp, she rushed forward and pulled Jared tight into her arms. Tears slid down without a sound. “Jared, get some rest. No matter how long it takes, I’ll stay with you and wait for you to wake up…”
Far away, Skylar chased after Josephine like a madman. He finally caught up to that purple figure a thousand miles beyond Cloudhaven City.
“Senior Josephine! Senior Josephine!” He cut in front of Josephine, his face tight with urgency and confusion. “Why are you leaving?! Why did you let Jared go?!”
Josephine looked at him quietly. Her gaze was calm in a way that chilled the air. “Junior Skylar…” She spoke in an even tone. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on between me and him, and I don’t know why my heart hurts… but what I do know is… I can’t lay a hand on him again.”
Hearing this, Skylar’s face changed on the spot. A flicker of disorder ran through his eyes. “Senior Josephine, listen to me. He’s the enemy. Our enemy!”
Josephine shook her head. She didn’t say a word. She just went around Skylar and kept walking. Skylar stood there and stared hard at her back as she moved farther away. Refusal sat in his eyes, along with a hard, burning edge and one thin trace of something even he hadn’t caught.
Jared wasn’t dead, and Josephine had started to waver. Everything seemed to be sliding in the direction Skylar least wanted to see. He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. Blood dripped down.
Jared… next time, I’ll kill you with my own hands! I swear I will!
