All Things Are Contracts

Chapter 14: Holding Hands

Eagle King Zhan Yunfei landed beside Commander Kieran, still shaken. Kieran stood up awkwardly, with traces of blood at the corners of his mouth. Demon Bow Huoxing’s strength was too terrifying, nearly at the Spirit God level. Even though the Three Life-Taking Arrows were shot from extremely far away and weakened by the protective barrier, they still severely injured the Golden Lion Commander.

“Are you alright?” Zhan Yunfei wasn’t injured; Blood Throat’s strength was close to his, and he had subordinates assisting him.

The Sun Knight Regiment had now restored order. Except for a few injuries, there were no casualties among them. This was due to their own strong abilities and heavy armor protection. However, the Sun City soldiers responsible for maintaining order and some civilians weren’t so lucky – dozens were dead or injured.

“I never expected that it would be human traitors, not the Nightmare race, who would try to kill Her Holiness. Night Lord… Night Lord!” Zhan Yunfei said through gritted teeth. They hadn’t imagined the Night Lord would be so ruthless as to attack the Holy Maiden, completely disregarding his human identity.

“If Wind Lord were here, they wouldn’t dare to be so arrogant. Blood Throat, Puppeteer, and Demon Bow – I’ll remember this grudge, hmph!” Kieran said angrily. The Wind Lord he mentioned was Mumu Xingyun, the Spirit God level expert originally guarding the Holy Maiden, who was also her grandfather. But he seemed to have encountered something very important midway and had to leave temporarily.

“Father… where did the Holy Maiden teleport to?” Young Commander Xiongxin hurriedly came to Kieran’s side, asking anxiously.

“The Holy Maiden has a spatial stone given by Wind Lord. It will teleport Her Holiness to a random location, possibly thousands of miles away. I don’t know where she is, but Wind Lord left a mark on the Holy Maiden, so he can sense her location. When he returns, he can naturally bring her back,” Kieran explained.

“But now the Holy Maiden has no guards around her. Isn’t that very dangerous?” Xiongxin worried.

“We don’t know her location, and others know even less. But we can’t just wait stupidly. You lead some people to the surrounding human cities to wait. She should be able to find those cities. I hope the City Lord can also help out,” Kieran requested.

Zhan Yunfei nodded and immediately sent out soldiers to search, while also releasing his contract eagle beast to search from the air. “I’ll contact the city lords of the areas surrounding Sun City and ask them to keep an eye out as well.”

“Her Holiness’s own strength shouldn’t be underestimated. Xiongxin, don’t worry too much,” Kieran patted Xiongxin’s shoulder. He knew his son’s thoughts, but unfortunately, the Holy Maiden’s special status made her unsuitable for his son. If he could break through to the Spirit God Realm, there might be a tiny chance due to his father’s status, but the Spirit God Realm was the difference between humans and gods. Experts stuck at this step were as numerous as clouds and rain. Several princes in the Rising Sun Kingdom were pursuing the Holy Maiden, after all, besides her unique status, her family was also an extremely powerful political force.

Holy Maiden Lixi and Zhanyue were randomly teleported by the spatial gem to a desert. That arrow was not something the newly-come-of-age Holy Maiden could withstand, so she had no choice but to use her life-saving measure, taking Zhanyue with her.

The Myriad Spirits Realm was vast but very desolate. Humans mainly gathered around illumination Towers, and places beyond the reach of illumination Towers were sparsely populated. However, they weren’t completely uninhabited, as there were other ways to deal with Nightmares besides illumination Towers, though illumination Towers were the most effective and cost-efficient.

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“Where are we?” Zhanyue looked around in confusion. At the moment they were about to be annihilated, the Holy Maiden had teleported away with him.

The Holy Maiden, her pretty face also showing confusion, shook her head. “I don’t know either. The teleportation gem is random. Directional teleportation items are legendary objects, which I don’t have.” She suddenly realized she was still holding Zhanyue’s wrist and quickly let go.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” the Holy Maiden suddenly apologized.

Zhanyue looked confused – what had she done to apologize to him? He soon got his answer as frost immediately formed on the wrist the Holy Maiden had gripped, a cold sensation pricking his skin like needles. However, the frost quickly receded, and Zhanyue’s wrist returned to normal.

“This… how is this possible?!” The Holy Maiden looked at Zhanyue’s instantly healed wrist, her star-like eyes full of disbelief. Her surprised expression was equally cute.

“What is it?” Zhanyue had no idea what had happened. What was that frost about? And why was the Holy Maiden so shocked?

“Stretch out one finger,” Lixi said, becoming interested.

Zhanyue extended his right hand, putting his index finger in front of Lixi. Lixi carefully stretched out her own finger and touched Zhanyue’s fingertip.

The skin where they touched quickly frosted over, but in an instant, the frost receded.

“What is this?” Lixi muttered. Even her grandfather couldn’t dispel this cold so quickly. Zhanyue seemed to be only at the beginning of the Spirit Contract Realm; by rights, it should take him two or three days to dispel this cold poison. Could he be hiding his true abilities? The more Lixi thought, the more suspicious she became, and she quickly retreated far away.

“Tell me, who exactly are you? Why are you approaching me? Saving a child on the street to attract my attention, being immune to the paper figures’ possession under the Goddess Statue, and now not fearing the cold poison in my body. Who are you really?” Lixi asked seriously, ready for battle.

“You…” Zhanyue was at a loss. “How would I know? I didn’t do it on purpose.” Zhanyue also found it ridiculous how he kept getting involved with this woman when everything was just coincidence.

“Still not telling the truth.” A small staff appeared in Lixi’s hand, and with just one beam of light, Zhanyue couldn’t keep his eyes open. Then the end of the staff was pressed against Zhanyue’s throat. If Lixi wished, this strike could pierce Zhanyue’s neck.

“This reaction doesn’t seem fake.” Lixi was very puzzled. Zhanyue’s strength was indeed very poor, but how could she explain all these weird happenings then?

“Hmph, now that we’ve escaped danger, let’s part ways here.” Lixi turned and left. She still felt she should stay away from Zhanyue; this person was too strange. If there really was some plot, she didn’t know how to guard against it. She couldn’t just kill him, could she?

Watching Lixi’s retreating figure, Zhanyue felt a burst of anger. He really wanted to catch up and give her backside a couple of smacks. Did he really look that much like a bad person? “Hmph, if we’re separating, then we’re separating. Who wants to walk with you anyway.”

The two walked in opposite directions, but neither of them knew the way.

Back to walking alone, trudging on the scorching ground, surrounded by yellow as far as the eye could see, with only occasional bits of green plants. Tired, hungry, and thirsty was Zhanyue’s current state.

“How big is this desert…” After walking for a long, long time without leaving the desert, Zhanyue finally began to panic, until the sun set and the temperature dropped instantly. But compared to the cold, Zhanyue feared heat more. The cool wind cleared his drowsy head somewhat.

As night fell, no one would dare to be alone in such a desert at night, let alone an ordinary Spirit Contract Realm contractor. Soon, Zhanyue experienced the terror of the Myriad Spirits Realm’s night.

Ghost cries echoed in his ears, the night wind cutting like knives against his skin. The environment was already extremely harsh, but it wasn’t until Zhanyue saw dozens of pairs of glowing green eyes that he truly despaired.

A wolf pack! And not just any wolf pack – these wolves were either skeletal or missing limbs, some even with half a head. This was a pack of undead wolves!

“Nightmares!” Seeing real Nightmares for the first time, Zhanyue was shocked to the core. Nightmares were spiritual beings that couldn’t exist in physical form, so they possessed the corpses of various animals. One Nightmare was enough to give someone a headache, let alone dozens!

Killing people, devouring souls, then occupying their corpses to continue harming others – this was the Nightmares’ way of survival.

“Get back!” Facing a lunging undead wolf, Zhanyue threw a punch. The fire was especially visible in the night, but it only knocked the undead wolf back without causing any real damage.

“Damn it too weak. Even if I use the power of light, I can’t handle these monsters.” Zhanyue broke out in a cold sweat. Even if he revealed his full strength, he couldn’t defeat these enemies. This was the third time he had faced a life-or-death crisis since coming to this world less than a month ago. The Myriad Spirits Realm was terrifyingly dangerous. “State reversal isn’t worth jack shit in this situation!”

In the midst of crisis, a beam of light descended from the sky. Dozens of light orbs chased after the undead corpses, entangling with them. Finally, all the Nightmares were destroyed by these light orbs, and the wolf corpses returned to being motionless bodies.

“You…” Zhanyue hadn’t expected the one appearing before him to be that annoying Holy Maiden. Had she been following him all along?

Zhanyue’s guess wasn’t wrong. Lixi hadn’t actually gone far, but had been following Zhanyue. She was both worried about Zhanyue having some scheme and afraid of misjudging him. If Zhanyue really was just an ordinary contractor, he would definitely not survive walking out of the desert. When she confirmed once again that Zhanyue was indeed just a small fry at the Spirit Contract Realm, she finally couldn’t help but intervene. After all, everything stemmed from her – whether it was that arrow or this wolf pack, they weren’t aimed at Zhanyue, but he had been implicated because of her.

After destroying the wolf pack, the Holy Maiden’s face turned pale, as if she had overexerted her power.

“Let’s leave quickly. We need to get out of this desert as soon as possible. If I’m not mistaken, we might be in the ‘Sunset Desert’. There might be powerful Nightmares here,” the Holy Maiden urged.

“Are you okay? You look exhausted,” Zhanyue asked with concern. His life was now tied to this woman’s; if she died, he would be finished too.

The Holy Maiden wore a jade bracelet on her wrist, which was now flashing with blue light. Zhanyue remembered that when he saw the bracelet during the day, it was red.

“I can’t use too much power, otherwise I can’t suppress the cold poison in my body,” the Holy Maiden said with a difficult expression. If they had teleported to a relatively safe place, it would have been fine, but they were now in a famous death zone – the Sunset Desert. As she spoke, the Holy Maiden could no longer run, her whole body shivering with cold.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zhanyue felt very distressed seeing her condition.

“I’m sorry. This had nothing to do with you originally, but now you’ll die here because of me. The Nightmare pack we just encountered wasn’t ordinary. Destroying them used too much of my power, and I can’t suppress the cold poison in my body anymore. I can’t move,” the Holy Maiden said with a guilty expression.

“This… we can’t just sit here waiting to die. I’ll support you!” Zhanyue put his arm around the Holy Maiden and started to walk forward. Her body fragrance was quite noticeable, but Zhanyue’s focus wasn’t on that right now.

“Don’t touch me, you’ll freeze to death!” the Holy Maiden hurriedly tried to break free, but with her greatly reduced strength, she couldn’t escape Zhanyue’s grip. The expected outcome of Zhanyue freezing to death didn’t occur. The cold from the Holy Maiden’s body instantly receded, and instead, a warmth from Zhanyue’s body spread through the Holy Maiden. The Holy Maiden found that the cold poison in her body was instantly suppressed, and her strength returned.

She pushed Zhanyue away, her face flushed red, but when she left Zhanyue’s side, the cold poison instantly surged back.

“What’s going on? I can’t just stick to him all the time, can I?” Holy Maiden Lixi was very embarrassed. She wanted Zhanyue to help her suppress the cold poison but didn’t know how to ask.

“Your hand,” Lixi said boldly, seeming to gather all her courage.

“Uh.” Zhanyue extended his hand and was gripped by the Holy Maiden. He only felt that her hand was ice-cold yet soft.

Lixi felt a special power transmitted from Zhanyue to herself, and the cold poison in her body was suppressed again.

Fortunately, in the darkness of night, Zhanyue couldn’t see her blushing face. Lixi felt her heart racing, but she still curiously asked, “Do you really not know about the cold poison in my body? Why does it get suppressed whenever I’m close to you?”

Zhanyue was naturally clueless, only seeing that the Holy Maiden had suddenly taken his hand, and the bracelet on her wrist had changed from blue back to a red glow, very noticeable in the dark night.

“Cold poison? You’ll have to tell me what that is first, then maybe I can know the answer. Secret for secret, fair enough, right?” Zhanyue asked in return.