Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 106: Welcome back, Host

A loud feminine scream tore through the silent mortuary. "HOW?!"

Leon flinched, his head snapping toward the sound. Kira stood frozen in the doorway, her face a mask of unadulterated horror as icy sweat traced down her brow.

Inside the vast room, Leon stood motionless, dressed in a grey robe that hung loosely on his body. A plastic identification tag wrapped around his ankle.

The lieutenant’s words reeled in his mind like clotted blood: Promise to live for the universe. He whirled around, scanned the room, confusion filling his gut.

’Wait, am I dead?’ The question tumbled in his skull.

There, a notification churned in his mind, pausing his thoughts.

Ding.

[System Notification]

Soul Signature... Reacquired

Physical Vessel... Active

Welcome back, Host.

Leon’s eyes rolled in their sockets as he stopped wandering. ’I died!’ he screamed heavily in his head, clutching his face in his palms, exhaling sharply.

His eyes snagged on the bed beside the one he had woken on as the notification in his skull vanished.

He took two steps forward, then halted. Lieutenant Prince lay there, his face pale as wax, eyes closed.

Two hot tears welled in Leon’s eyes and traced burning paths down his cheeks as he stretched his right arm forward, placing his palm softly on the white sheet the lieutenant was clothed in.

The tears on Leon’s chin hung for a moment on the line of his jaw before falling.

Plink. Plink.

The soft thudding sound of water swallowed the room’s humming silence.

Leon’s heart turned into a frantic drum against his ribs as he stretched his trembling left arm forward. His fingers curled around the cold metal rail of the bed for support.

His jet-black hair fell forward as he lowered his head. "I should have listened," he whispered in a rough tone. "I will fulfill your promise."

Leon remained in the same bowed posture until the well of tears ran dry, leaving him with a gritty exhaustion.

After ten minutes, sharp footsteps echoed from the corridor outside the mortuary and pulled his attention. His body tensed the moment he turned.

"Leon Storm?!" Zoe screamed in a voice laced with disbelief.

’Is that Zoe?’ Leon’s thoughts hummed again in his mind as he scanned the lady moving closer to him from the entrance.

The notification sound echoed in his head once again.

Ding.

[System Notification]

Presence Detected.

Scanning...

Name: Zoe Qing

Rank: C

Hostility: Negative

Leon blinked, rubbed the backs of his arms across his eyes, then stared at the lady again. He saw her new curves, indicating a new transformation in her.

"Leon, is that really you?" Zoe asked in a deeper voice. She dashed forward without waiting for an answer, her arms already stretching wide.

"I thought—" she choked on the words, then pushed them out. "We thought you were dead."

She crashed into him with a warm hug, her arms wrapping around him in a vise-like grip. Leon’s throat cracked as the last air in him fled.

Zoe brushed her face again and again against his shoulder, her hair whipping through the air.

The clean vanilla scent of her hair stabilized the decaying air in the mortuary.

After ten minutes of a deep hug, Zoe pulled back just enough to look at his face. She stared at him for three heartbeats, then hugged him again, tighter, not caring about the death-tinged smell that clung to him.

Finally, after another ten minutes, she released him and stepped back. She wiped her eyes clean with her left arm, then took in three shuddering breaths—in, hold, out.

Before she could speak again, another set of footsteps echoed from the doorway. The two of them turned their heads sharply.

"Mr. Lee," they said in unison. Zoe’s face was still blotchy from crying, but Leon’s own was pale, his eyes wide with unresolved trauma.

Mr. Lee stood at the door for three minutes, his mind reeling with thoughts as he stared at Leon. ’Did he really survive? Was he alive all this while? I can’t believe this.’

A slow, weary smile touched his lips as he exhaled the tension in him. He broke his stillness and took slow steps forward, never letting his gaze slip from the boy.

He closed the distance, placed a heavy hand on Leon’s right shoulder, then smiled. "How come you’re still alive?" he asked in a voice engulfed with emotion.

Leon didn’t answer. He turned his head slowly to the still, pale body lying on the bed beside him. He swallowed hard while the scene of the golden sword piercing the man’s chest burned behind his eyes.

"Lieutenant Prince..." Leon said, tilting his head back toward Mr. Lee. Tears fell freely from his eyes the moment his mouth closed.

He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face with his palms. Instantly, faces flashed in the darkness that dwelled behind his eyelids: Prince’s bloody smile, the lizard-lady’s molten golden eyes, the impassive visages of the Sentinels, and the grey-skinned beings on the dream shore.

Their voices merged into a single, deafening chorus that vibrated in the marrow of his bones: Creator.

Leon’s eyes flew open with a gasp. His body—from head to toe—jerked as if struck by a live wire, a cold liquid snaking down his spine.

For the next hour, the mortuary became a tableau of shock and murmured disbelief.

"Did he really survive that part of the Shattered Land?"

"How come the C-ranked lieutenant died while he, an E-ranked, survived?"

"...Are you guys sure he was even dead when we lifted him from that crazy-looking cave?"

"...See how distilled the lieutenant’s body was when we first saw him beside the boy? Did you even see how he stood in that kneeling posture as if protecting the lieutenant?"

"...Guys, are you sure he’s really an E-rank? The pulse and energy signature I sensed said otherwise."

"Jude, cut the crap. How do you wish to feel when you enter a devil’s pit?"

A short laughter hummed in the air, followed by a serene silence that made Jude’s bones rack against each other.