Chapter 198 Chapter 198: A Win-Win!
Chapter 198: A Win-Win!
Whoosh!
One after another, emerald-green vines broke through the soil, instantly forming a small grove on the barren beach.
"I could have endured the darkness, had I never seen the light."
No one understood better than Kevin what kind of despairing scene it would create to give ordinary people hope and then personally snuff it out.
The lamplight could make the mutations on their bodies recede, shatter their masks of numbness...
But there was one thing it couldn't do: fill their stomachs.
However, the land could.
Using "Withering" to decompose the salt content, and using creations to reconstruct the nutrient cycle.
When Vill-V was creating Divine Keys, a single-purpose killing weapon would never become her design philosophy...
"Although it might not be useful now, it can do more. The Key of Creation isn't just about killing and healing, you know."
The Grand Magician once said this to the acceptance personnel, but obviously ordinary people couldn't find the backdoor she left.
Thud!
A tree branch, under everyone's shocked gazes, directly pierced into Dario's right chest.
And our person involved, because things happened too suddenly, his sluggish body didn't allow him to react.
It was also fortunate that poor Irene was still embedded in the ground and didn't see such a horrifying sight.
"It doesn't hurt, and there's no blood..."
After a brief moment of surprise, the expected pain didn't arrive; there was only a slight tingling sensation.
Dario could be one hundred percent certain that his pain nerves weren't malfunctioning.
After the tingling sensation passed, his right shoulder began to itch.
"My hand?"
The original charred stump was pushed open by flesh buds; several streams of pus and blood flowed down his body. Jade-white bone fragments also pierced through the charred stump, miraculously growing!
Regrowing a severed arm?!
Dario had indeed heard of such technology, but that was in Iberia before it was lost due to the Great Silence.
But now... it's no longer complete.
Just to maintain the life of his teacher, Saint Carmen, the Inquisition had already exhausted all its efforts. There was basically no possibility of allocating precious resources to Inquisitors.
"Don't move."
Kevin glanced at him but didn't pull out the Abyss Flower stuck in the sand.
After all, it was a mimetic creation; it would naturally dissipate once energy was insufficient.
Hearing his voice, Dario's body stiffened. The Grand Inquisitor now completely couldn't figure out the situation.
But he wasn't a fool; he knew the Aegir man before him wasn't a member of the Deep Sea Church; there wasn't even any malice present.
The Grand Inquisitor's intuition told him that the man before him hadn't taken them seriously from the very beginning.
The Deep Sea Church, Inquisitors, Seaborn... even all of Iberia—everything depended only on whether he wanted to or not.
It was that simple.
"They need seeds."
Kevin stood on the coast, gazing at the entire Salt Wind City.
"But that's impossi..."
Under his calm gaze, Dario forcibly swallowed the second half of his sentence.
Even before the Great Silence, Salt Wind City's land wasn't suitable for farming, let alone now?
But the meaning in the man's eyes was already very clear.
If I say it can be done, then it can be done.
"I understand. There will be seeds. But there are too many such ruined cities; we can't save them all..."
Dario said heavily.
"Why do you think I would go save them?"
Kevin's surprised look made the Grand Inquisitor pause abruptly. Right, he had no such obligation; Dario had just been taking it for granted.
"This city is merely what you exchanged for that lantern. That's all."
Lantern?!
Dario felt he had deeply fallen into a mystery.
As one of the standard weapons for Inquisitors, the lantern's manufacturing cost was quite reasonable, completely within the Inquisition's acceptable range.
Although its power in Kevin's hands always gave people a sense of the weapon "mutating," this didn't change the fact that the lantern itself wasn't of high value.
Exchanging one lantern for the revival of a city.
Win!
But Dario's train of thought actually hadn't been on the same wavelength as Kevin's from the start.
Nor did he realize that what Kevin was referring to was the manufacturing technology of the "Inquisitor Lantern" itself—that technique called "Will Ignition."
Exchanging some harmless Honkai energy for an unfamiliar yet effective technology.
Win!
The two mature men exchanged a glance, both quite satisfied with this transaction.
Before long, Dario's arm had already regrown.
Pale skin tone, slightly thinner compared to his left hand—after all, it was a newly grown limb. Without long-term adaptation and training, it would probably be difficult to achieve the same dexterity as his original limb.
But Dario was already very satisfied.
"Hey, she seems to have fainted."
Skadi pulled the unconscious little bird out of the sand like pulling a radish.
She easily carried her over to the two men, shook her a bit, but apart from fine sand falling off, Irene showed no signs of waking up at all.
The exhaustion from fighting all night, worry about her teacher's life and death, and that heavy blow from behind being the final straw that broke the camel's back...
With all these factors combined, our poor little Inquisitor finally succumbed to the pressure and fainted.
"Leave her to me."
Looking at Irene who had fallen into slumber, the iron-faced Grand Inquisitor's expression finally softened slightly.
Skadi looked at his newly grown arm with suspicion but ultimately handed Irene over to the Grand Inquisitor.
"You are not our enemy. But if you're willing, could you come to the Inquisition? You can consider it... an invitation."
Dario might usually be a serious, impartial Grand Inquisitor.
But he wasn't a fool; his methods were far more seasoned than those of the inexperienced little bird. With just a few words, he defined the nature of this matter.
"Invitation"—such a polite term.
"I'll consider it."
Kevin knew he held complete dominance in this situation, so he wasn't in a hurry.
Moreover, there were some other things worth doing.
"Aren't you looking for your companions?"
Kevin looked at Skadi. He knew what she wanted to ask, but now wasn't the time yet.
"?"
The orca girl looked up in astonishment. The topic shift was too abrupt; for a moment she didn't even know how to respond.
"There, there is an aura sharing your origin."
She followed Kevin's pointing finger and looked—there, at the church atop the mountain.
——————
"You're in a hurry."
"We must relocate."
Quintus had already seen that man's attitude toward Seaborn.
He didn't even have time to investigate why the mutation process on Salt Wind City residents was receding.
Leaving here first—for his own "near-perfect" body, he was indeed quite confident, but not to the point of blindness.
If crushed by that "sun" once more, his fate wouldn't differ from that of ordinary "comrades" at all.
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