Chapter 183: Voice in the Water

Chapter 183: 183: Voice in the Water

Elowen looked at him without speaking. Cedric also stayed quiet. Puff sat near Cedric’s side, its ears low, as if even the small beast knew this was not the time to make a sound.

Lucard lifted his hand slightly. "Give me the spring water."

Elowen blinked. "The Deepwell water?"

"Yes."

"You want to use it now?"

"I will use it to heal myself. Now that I am better than before, I can do it."

Elowen looked at Cedric first, then back at Lucard. "Can it heal that much?"

"It is not a healing potion," Lucard said. "But pure water with enough mana can push out Alan’s earth mana and repair what my blood cannot fix quickly."

Elowen still looked worried. "But that water is the reason Alan chased us this far. If you use it now, then everything we suffered for will be gone."

Lucard’s eyes moved to her. "If I cannot stand, there will be no later use."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Cedric said nothing.

His eyes were half-closed, but he was listening.

Elowen frowned. "Then what about Cedric? What about me?"

Lucard looked at her. "Both of your conditions are getting worse."

Elowen’s face tightened.

Lucard continued, "Either I use it to heal myself first and then help you, or we all sit here and wait for Alan, another beast, or our wounds to finish the work."

She did not like the answer.

That was clear on her face.

But she also knew he was right.

Cedric moved before she could ask anything else.

He reached into his torn coat with shaking fingers and pulled out his vial of Deepwell water. The crystal container glowed softly in his hand. He looked at it for one breath, then threw it toward Lucard.

Lucard caught it.

Cedric leaned his head back against the cave wall. "Do it."

Elowen looked at him in surprise. "You are giving it?"

Cedric’s eyes stayed closed. "If he dies, I die. If I keep it, I still die. This is not generosity. It is mathematics."

Lucard almost approved of the answer.

Almost.

He pulled out his own vial and placed both in front of him. The two sealed containers shone in the dark like pieces of cold moonlight. Even through the glass and crystal seals, the pure water inside carried a quiet pressure. It was not wild like beast blood. It was deep, clean, and heavy with old mana.

The cave reacted to it.

The rain outside still fell hard, but the cold inside the cave changed. It became clearer. The smell of blood and beast flesh did not vanish, but it became less heavy. Even the faint steam from the dead bear’s body moved away from the two vials, as if the pure water disliked anything dirty coming close.

Elowen stared at the water with tired eyes. "It feels different from normal magic."

Cedric answered weakly, "That is why old monsters wanted it."

Lucard broke the first seal.

Then the second.

The water did not spill.

He raised two fingers, and the Deepwell water floated upward in two thin streams. The streams joined in the air before him, forming a clear ring around his body. The cave grew colder. The dead bear’s blood on the floor stopped steaming. Even the sound of rain seemed softer for a moment.

Elowen stared with wide eyes.

"Do not touch it," Lucard said.

She pulled her hand back before she realized she had reached forward.

Cedric opened one eye. "If that explodes, I want it known that I objected in spirit."

"You did not."

"I was too tired."

Lucard ignored him and closed his eyes.

The ring of water began to move.

It circled his body once.

Then again.

Each turn pulled a thin thread of pure mana into his skin. Lucard did not absorb it greedily like blood. That would be foolish. Deepwell water was clean, but it was not his power. It needed to be guided, broken down, and made useful.

The first thread entered his wound.

Pain struck him at once.

His fingers dug into the stone floor, but he did not make a sound. The pure water met Alan’s earth mana inside his body. The two powers pushed against each other. One was cold and clear. The other was heavy and stubborn. Lucard used his blood between them like a blade, cutting the earth mana loose piece by piece.

It was slow work.

Too slow for his liking.

Alan’s power had not simply entered his body and remained there like dirt. It had rooted itself in the damaged flesh. Every small piece of earth mana clung to his wound like a thorn with hooks. When Lucard pulled one part free, another part scraped against his blood and tried to tear the wound open again.

The Deepwell water helped.

It washed through the wound without becoming dirty. It carried away broken fragments of earth mana and pushed them toward Lucard’s blood circle. Lucard caught those fragments and burned them with Bloodfire before they could sink deeper.

A thin gray powder fell from his wound and scattered onto the cave floor.

Elowen saw it and became tense. "What is that?"

Cedric opened his eyes a little more. "Alan’s earth mana."

Lucard did not answer, but Cedric was correct.

More gray dust fell.

The ring of water moved faster.

A faint glow surrounded him.

Elowen watched with her breath held. For the first time, Lucard did not look like someone controlling everything. His face was still calm, but sweat formed on his forehead. The veins on his neck tightened. Blood moved under his skin in thin dark lines.

Cedric watched too.

His expression became complicated.

The man who had nearly killed him, saved him, used him, and might still kill him later was now their only way out.

The cave stayed silent.

Then Lucard heard it.

"Lucard."

His eyes opened.

The cave was still there.

Elowen sat near him. Cedric leaned against the wall. Puff hid beside Cedric’s leg. The bear’s corpse lay near the entrance. Rain kept falling outside.

No one had spoken.

Lucard’s gaze sharpened.

Cedric noticed it. "What?"

Lucard did not answer.

The voice came again.

"Lucard."

This time, it was clearer.

It did not come from the cave.

It came from inside his mind. ℯℯ𝑙.

Lucard’s blood turned cold in a way that had nothing to do with the Deepwell water.

Someone had entered his mind.

Not touched his senses.

Not sent a message through mana.

Entered.

That should not have happened. His soul was not an ordinary mortal soul. Even after reincarnation, even after losing almost all his old power, the center of him was still the Blood God Lucard. His mind was not a door that any lower world mage could open.

Yet someone was inside.

Lucard immediately tried to close his mind.

His blood moved toward his heart and brain at the same time. Blood Concealment folded inward, no longer hiding him from the outside world but protecting his thoughts. Bloodfire rose inside his soul sense, ready to burn anything that did not belong.

The voice did not disappear.

"Lucard," it called again, softer this time.

The sound passed through his defense as if it had already been there before the walls rose.

Lucard’s shock became sharper.

That was worse.

An enemy forcing through a wall was one thing. An enemy already standing inside before the wall existed was another. It meant the invasion might not have come from outside his mind at this moment. It might have entered through something he willingly absorbed.

His attention turned to the Deepwell water.

The clear ring was still floating around his body.

Inside the water, a tiny light moved.

Lucard had not noticed it before because the water itself was pure and bright. Now he saw it clearly. A mark. A hidden will. Something sealed inside the deepest part of the spring water. Not Alan’s power. Not Gravenhart earth magic. Something older and cleaner.

The cave faded.

Elowen’s worried face blurred.

Cedric’s breathing grew distant.

The rain became a sound from another world.

Lucard found himself standing in a silent white space.

There was no floor, but he stood. There was no sky, but light came from everywhere. The Deepwell water floated around him here too, but it had changed. It no longer looked like water. It looked like clear ribbons of memory.

Lucard looked around.

"Who are you?"

His voice echoed without sound.

At first, there was no answer.

Then light gathered in front of him.

It came together slowly, like dawn taking human shape. A figure appeared within it. Lucard could not see the face clearly. The body was made from soft white-gold light, neither male nor female at first glance, but its presence felt old and gentle in a way that made Lucard more alert, not less.

Gentle things were not always harmless.

In the gods’ world, some of the cruelest beings had worn the softest light.

Lucard raised one hand. Bloodfire appeared around his fingers inside the white space. It was weaker than it should have been, but it still answered him.

The light figure did not step back.

It only looked at him.

Then it spoke.

"Lucard."

Lucard’s eyes became sharp.

The light figure knew his true name.

Not the body’s name.

His name.

The name he had carried before death.

The name that belonged to the Blood God of Null.

Lucard’s voice became cold. "Say one more word without explaining yourself, and I will burn this place apart even if I have to damage my own mind to do it."

The light figure stayed silent for a breath.

Then the light around its face moved, almost like a sad smile.

"You are still the same," it said.

Lucard’s bloodfire grew darker.

The figure lifted one hand, and the clear ribbons of Deepwell water stopped moving around them. For a moment, the white space became so quiet that even Lucard’s own thoughts felt distant.

"I have waited a long time to find you again, Lucard."

Lucard stared at the figure.

Again.

That word struck harder than the name.

This was not a lower world spirit randomly sealed in spring water. It was not a simple memory left behind by an old mage. It knew him. Or it claimed to know him. It spoke like someone who had seen him before his reincarnation.

The light brightened.

The figure took one slow step toward him.

"Do you remember me?"

Lucard did not answer. He did not remember. And that made the danger worse.