Chapter 2371

From midnight that day, heavy rain suddenly fell on the Tobesk urban area as summer reached its latter half, seemingly mixed with hail, because Xia De, who was still exercising with a witch at the time, heard the sound of the windows being pelted.

This rain showed no signs of stopping even by Wednesday morning, so Wednesday's breakfast was conducted against the background sound of the pouring rain.

"I actually like this sound of rain, especially when I can be in a warm and dry room. Falling asleep to the sound of rain, or writing a book under a gas lamp, this is one of life's happinesses."

The very literary writer said, but then smiled and said to Galina:

"Rextia asked me to tell you that your voice was too loud last night, disturbing her listening to the rain. And, ever since we moved in, it seems you've only spent one day not in Xia De's bedroom. Rextia said to tell you not to be so... I won't say the adjectives she used."

The witch, who was in excellent spirits and an even better mood, didn't care at all about her grandniece's complaints:

"Anyway, we have to move back to the manor after the Moon Bay business is over, so of course I have to take every opportunity to communicate with Xia De.

Besides, who told you to be unwell? Counting the time, from last Friday, today is Wednesday, it should be almost over, right?"

"Can we not discuss this topic during breakfast?"

The owner of the dining table asked, and petted the cat.

Dorothy did not relay what Rextia, who was having breakfast at the Yodel Palace a few hundred meters away, had just said—"I really envy you for not having this trouble"—fearing it would irritate the witch, but instead said:

"Xia De, Rextia said the butter bread for breakfast today is delicious; she wants you to try it."

As she spoke, the bread appeared out of thin air in her hand. Xia De took a bite, and the taste was indeed very good. Moreover, it had Rextia's faint perfume on it.

Tobesk was experiencing torrential rain, and the fog in Moon Bay City had not dissipated either. Just after breakfast, when Xia De appeared in the Dragon Nest north of Moon Bay City, he was surprised to find others there.

Just after walking out of the hidden passage, Xia De saw the previously lightless Dragon Nest illuminated by golden light like the sun, a light that even made the perpetually cool underground nest feel a bit warm.

An unknown person wearing golden lion armor... well, although wearing a helmet, Xia De recognized it was Iluna at a glance through perception.

Iluna stood in the center of the nest, looking as if she had been waiting for Xia De for a long time.

After Xia De placed Little Mia on top of the floating dragon egg at the "Dragon Altar" and told her to squat properly and not move, golden electric arcs crackled and exploded on the entire right arm and gauntlet of the lion armor.

Ding-dang~

The holy bell hanging at the waist of the armor rang crisply, and the leaping golden thunder gathered from the gauntlet into the Sunlight Spear in Iluna's right hand.

But she did not throw it at Xia De, instead holding the long spear and gesturing for Xia De to try it with her left hand.

So silver moonlight appeared around Xia De, and he reached out to take the Moonlight Greatsword from the void. After preparing the spell materials, he lunged forward and appeared directly in front of Iluna.

With a loud bang, the Moonlight Greatsword collided with the restless Sunlight Spear. Moonlight and sunlight ground against each other, and Xia De's face was almost pressed against the armor's visor.

Neither the greatsword nor the long spear could break the other, so Xia De, who was one ring lower than Iluna, relied on his own strength advantage to push Iluna down bit by bit.

"Ha!"

Iluna certainly wouldn't sit still and wait for death. She controlled the gauntlet to squeeze hard, and the Sunlight Spear exploded directly between her and Xia De.

Scorching sunlight and golden thunder with penetrating properties splashed everywhere. Xia De hurriedly retreated, but was still affected by the exploding golden thunder, feeling a moment of full-body paralysis even with his physical fitness.

"Meow~"

The cat suddenly cried out, and in the huge smoke and dust stirred up by the explosion, another golden thunder spear pierced through.

Xia De reached out to draw the Night Watchman he was carrying on his back—to prevent needing a sword in Tobesk, Xia De carried this sword every day when he went home—then suddenly turned and jumped:

"Principle of Regression!"

A phantom of a brilliant galaxy appeared behind him, the tip of the Night Watchman pointed forward, and then the longsword was hit head-on by the "Sunlight Spear."

As Xia De turned in the air, the golden thunder attached to the 【Night Watchman】 turned into a golden ring of light around him. And after Xia De threw it out, the light stream slashed toward Iluna's position in the form of thunder again.

Iluna in the armor threw another "Sunlight Spear," and the two Sunlight Spears collided head-on in the center of the Dragon Nest.

But Iluna didn't seem to expect that the power of the "Sunlight Spear" returned by Xia De would actually increase. In her haste, she was knocked down by the aftermath of the Sunlight Spears annihilating each other, but fortunately, Xia De appeared beside her again using "Lagley's Jump."

He reached out and hugged Iluna's waist. Golden arcs were still splashing on the ground, and the two stared at each other in that posture. Then, not knowing what method Iluna used, the helmet fell off by itself and fell heavily to the ground.

Her face was revealed, her forehead slightly sweaty, her complexion rosy, and her red lips slightly pursed. Her eyes dodged at first, but after only a moment of hesitation, she hugged Xia De's neck and kissed him.

The eighteen-year-old girl felt secretly happy; the suggestion Luvia made when she ran to the Belindell manor for breakfast this morning was indeed very effective.

"Meow~"

The cat cried out boredly; it wanted to know when they could leave here.

The fog in Moon Bay was indeed still dispersing, and the degree of the fog's glow was still increasing.

Nowadays, one could hardly see pedestrians walking idly on the streets; most people followed the reminders in the newspapers, wrapping themselves tightly before daring to go out.

But for a living, the coachmen driving rental carriages still had to work in this "weather." After Xia De and Iluna walked into the city hand-in-hand from the gate of St. George's Stone Bridge, they first saw a large number of citizens dragging their families, wanting to leave the city to stay in the countryside for a while to take refuge. After finding a carriage, they saw a scar like a burn mark on the coachman's face.

"It's not a burn."

The carriage started slowly, and the coachman rang the bell to remind people in the fog to avoid them before saying:

"It's the skin disease mentioned in the newspapers. I've been exposed to this fog way too much."

He didn't seem very depressed when he spoke, and he explained the reason himself:

"I'm already forty years old, and I don't care about my looks anymore. As long as it doesn't make me lose my ability to move, the skin disease doesn't matter. Besides, business has been exceptionally good these past few days, and most passengers even give an extra tip when getting off."

Although he was suspected of actively asking for tips, Xia De and Iluna still gave an extra ten percent fare when they got off.

The fog also permeated the courtyard of the Belindell manor, so much so that even the little unicorn didn't want to go for a walk in the garden. And the continuous glowing fog caused the temperature of this cool summer to continue to rise; this morning even felt like a normal summer.

Since Iluna could wear that set of armor so well, it meant Megan and Audrey had only used half of Monday and all of Tuesday to complete the "modification" of the armor.

When meeting Megan, who was preparing to move the laboratory to the "Radiant Messenger" in the manor basement, Xia De even praised her, and the wise great witch just smiled and said:

"This is a very simple job."

Xia De's main business today was to meet Nadia Follen with Megan in the evening, but he was not idle during the day either.

Iluna running to the manor so early naturally had something to say. After finding Luvia, who was talking to Sister Dervin on the "Radiant Messenger," the eighteen-year-old girl said to Xia De:

"The preliminary investigation of the local Dawn Church has ended. The traitor who stole the relic during the 'Night of Long Fangs' two weeks ago has been captured. The current handling is to imprison the soul after execution and send it to the Dawn Church's Holy See. It is said that they are going to use some kind of Light of Destruction to grind the soul, but I don't know exactly what's going on."

The Church never goes soft on traitors, and a report on this matter will certainly be sent to all dioceses in the Old Continent after this, so that all believers will know.

"But this matter is not important either. Money corrupting a pious soul is not a rare thing in any era. It's like this: while reviewing the classics, the Peace Church discovered some records of that 'Dragon Feast Ritual Site.' I think you should not know these yet."

So even Sister Dervin, who was at the long table in the cruise ship's banquet hall, "looked" at her.

"That ritual site was originally the ritual site of the Old God 'Dragon of Radiant Light.' You already know this. But the original purpose of that ritual site was certainly not to hold the Dragon Feast ritual to absorb the power of dragons. In the distant past, in the lost era, this was a place to celebrate the birth of dragon hatchlings, the place where dragon hatchlings broke their shells."

"Newborn dragon..."

Xia De read out the sentence on the fragment of the poem found with the golden dragon scales. Luvia nodded:

"Although I really don't want to admit it, the possibility of that place becoming the location for the Chosen One's ritual is very high. Of course, we cannot give up looking for other places. Iluna, continue, what else."

"Even for dragons, newborn hatchlings are very fragile, so dragons born in that ritual site will be influenced by the power of that Old God and become powerful. But this is definitely not giving them power out of thin air, but manipulating time to let them directly pass through the most dangerous newborn period. After all, for dragons, as long as they are alive, the older they are, the stronger they are.

In other words, that ritual site meets the conditions of the 'Ancient Spacetime Ritual Array' required by Xia De's Low Ring Sublimation Word: 'The echo of time and space shakes the sleeping power.'"