Chapter 636: The Sun Must Die

Just as one of the containers fell from the edge of the box, the light-haired young man moved his index finger.

Several thin, semi-transparent lines appeared in the air and formed a geometric angle.

Then, instead of hitting the ground, the falling container changed its path and landed inside the empty box on the table.

Tap.

He smiled.

"See? Even the medicine knows where it should go, only you still don’t know."

"If you’re so good at this, why don’t you help me yourself?" The female staff member looked at him with a tired expression.

"I am helping, didn’t I just stop that from breaking?"

"I mean, get up and move the boxes!"

The young man let out a short sigh and jumped down.

"Fine, fine, there’s no need to get so angry."

Lian watched the scene for a few seconds.

Strange magic.

The container had not stopped; only its direction of movement had changed.

This meant that instead of using a common element like wind or water, the young man had directly affected the path of the force acting on the object.

At the same time, the young man noticed Lian looking at him.

"Oh, we have a famous guest." He placed one of the boxes on the table.

"Lian Vorhelm, right?"

"Yeah."

"I’m Mathieu Renaud, from the French National Academy."

"You’ve probably heard of me." He continued with a confident smile.

Lian thought for a moment.

"No."

Mathieu stared at him for a few seconds, then let out a short laugh.

"Great, finally someone I don’t have to meet any expectations for."

The young Vorhelm gave a faint smile, thinking about the mana lines he had seen a few moments ago.

"Vector Magic?"

"Oh? You recognized it?" Mathieu looked surprised.

"You changed the container’s path, but its speed didn’t completely disappear."

"Exactly."

Then he spun one of the containers between his fingers.

"Most people think mages have to create fire or bring lightning down from the sky, but I prefer to use a force that already exists instead of creating a new one."

He threw the container into the air.

When it began to fall, two mana lines appeared and changed its path, making the container land in Mathieu’s other hand.

"Direction of movement, amount of force, angle of impact... These are simple things, but if you use them correctly, they can become very interesting."

"Then can you redirect any attack?" Lian asked.

He laughed.

"If I could redirect any attack, I wouldn’t be here waiting for the Sun’s Judgment right now." Then he continued in a slightly more serious tone.

"To change the direction of any force, I need to spend enough mana and have time to form its structure, if the pressure is too great or I can’t measure it correctly, my calculations fall apart."

Lian nodded.

That makes sense.

Vector Magic seemed to be Mathieu’s special ability, a non-elemental method that changed the direction and way a force was transferred instead of directly creating force.

Despite its limitations, such an ability could be very dangerous in a battle between Awakened of the same level.

"By the way, are you looking for someone?" Mathieu asked after placing the last box on the table.

"I came to check on the medical area and see if they needed anything." The medical area had been set up by Alaric’s order.

Previously, there had been no need for such a place in the Land Of First Dawn because there were no monsters that could harm the Awakened there, but that had changed since yesterday.

And since the medical area had only been set up a few hours ago, he wanted to see if they needed anything.

"We don’t need anything, since we already collected a lot of medicinal plants, there’s no need for anything else."

Mathieu fell silent for a moment, then his smile faded slightly.

"Anyway, there’s something else I wanted to ask."

"What?"

The young Frenchman looked at the medical containers.

"Amélie... You spent her last day with her, right?"

"Most of the day." Lian nodded.

Mathieu gave a short, bitter smile.

"You know, she was very happy on the first morning."

He spun one of the empty containers between his fingers.

"Ever since she heard about the mission, she kept talking about the medicinal plants here, she had even prepared a few medicine formulas so she could test them when she found the samples."

"She found some good plants." Lian replied softly.

Mathieu raised his head.

"Really?"

"Yeah, she even gave some of them to me and my friend."

The young Frenchman slowly breathed out.

"That’s just like her."

Silence fell for a few seconds.

"Whenever she found something interesting, before using it herself, she would look for someone who might have a better use for it."

The corner of his mouth rose slightly.

"I often told her that if she kept doing that, she would end up with nothing left for herself."

"It seems she already knew the answer." The young Vorhelm gave a faint smile.

"What?"

"She said that if she couldn’t save everyone, she would start with someone she could help."

Mathieu looked at Lian for a few seconds, then let out a very short laugh.

"Yeah... That’s exactly what she would say."

Lian thought about his storage space for a moment, then took something out of it.

The medicinal plant that Amélie had personally given him beside the spring.

Mathieu took the plant and examined it closely.

"This... It looks like a medicinal plant, judging by its shape, I guess it’s something rare, she probably wanted to use it to make a better healing medicine."

"I know."

"She always loved mixing medicinal plants to make something better, I argued with her a few times because doing that could make the final result less stable."

"And who was right?" Lian asked.

Mathieu shrugged.

"We still don’t know, we were supposed to test it when she came back to see who was right."

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

"If you want, you can keep it." The young Vorhelm finally said.

Mathieu immediately shook his head.

"No. She gave it to you."

He handed the plant back.

"Keep it, maybe one day it’ll really be useful to you."

Lian put it back into his storage space.

The young Frenchman remained silent for a while, then asked without looking directly at Lian.

"When they sentenced her... Was she very scared?"

Lian paused.

Mathieu was not trying to blame anyone, he only wanted to know what the final moments of someone he had known had been like.

"Yeah... It was natural for her to be scared."

Mathieu’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table for a moment.

"But she was still thinking about the others until the very end." Lian continued.

The young Frenchman lowered his head.

"That’s also... just like her."

Vorhelm did not add anything else, there was no need.

After a while, Mathieu took a deep breath, and when he raised his head again, some of his earlier playful expression had returned.

"Well, I think if Amélie were here and saw me wasting my time feeling sad, she would scold me badly."

He gave a small smile.

"She would probably say that so many injured people are waiting, and I’m still sitting here thinking about myself."

"Then you’d better get back to work." Lian nodded.

"Exactly."

He picked up one of the medicine boxes, but before leaving, he turned around.

"Lian."

"Hmm?"

"If you ever find out how to kill that thing in the sky..."

He paused, and his gaze grew colder for a moment.

"Let me know."

Lian nodded.

"Of course."

Mathieu gave a small smile and walked toward the treatment area.

The young Vorhelm watched him leave.

A talented mage, fast, smart... and apparently, he also liked making himself seem less capable than he really was.

But more importantly, Mathieu now had a personal reason to learn more about the Hollow Sun.

As night approached, Alaric gathered the people in charge of the main groups and the present Chosen Ones in the command building to review the situation on the second day.

A large map of the land was placed on the table.

Red markers showed the locations of new cracks, blue markers showed relatively stable routes, and black markers showed the locations where the Withered had been seen.

Lian was standing beside Rindo.

Noah was on the other side, and Myra Kessler stood beside the map with a serious expression.

Mathieu was leaning against the wall a little farther away, spinning one of the small map markers between his fingers.

Five Chosen Ones.

Of the ten people who had entered the land two days ago, Amélie was dead, and the other four had still not returned.

The situation of two of them was not even roughly known.

Alaric began the meeting.

"First, the condition of the ground."

One of the officers moved the map of the eastern section forward.

"Position One has been completely destroyed, the alternative route is still stable, but the cracks in the southeast are spreading."

"If this continues, how much time do we have?"

"We can’t say exactly, some cracks remain stable for several hours, then spread rapidly within a few minutes."

"Then we won’t keep any position based on an estimated time." Alaric nodded.

Rindo pointed to a section of the map.

"Two of our current routes also lie along the northern fault lines, they might be damaged and collapse at the same time."

After reviewing the situation, the commander ordered another backup route to be prepared for the emergency transfer of injured people.

Then it was time to discuss resources.

Myra placed a report on the table.

"Our supplies of healing medicine and mana recovery medicine are enough for the current situation, we even have more than we need, but today we lost several boxes of medicine and two defense arrays."

One of the officers sighed.

"Those arrays will be difficult to replace."

Myra looked at him, then added.

"I know. But losing them now is better, we should make our plans based on what we still have."

"What do you suggest?" Alaric asked.

"We shouldn’t limit the use of medical supplies yet, injured people who aren’t fully healed will leave us with fewer fighters to defend the base."