Chapter 107: Chapter 95: It’ll Be Too Late to Leave

The unconscious Caleb was running a constant fever. Flora Bloom was at his side, feeding him a bit of Space Spirit Water from time to time, but his temperature wouldn’t go down.

"Flora, you go sleep for a while. I’ll take care of Caleb." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Everyone else was asleep. Caleb Bloom brought a blanket for Flora Bloom, draping it over her shoulders before sitting on the other side of Caleb’s bed.

"No need, Dad. Caleb’s superpower is very strange; it has a peculiar magnetic field that expands and contracts unpredictably. When I tried to probe it with my spiritual power, my spiritual power was devoured, so I have no way of knowing what kind of superpower he’s awakening. I’m worried something dangerous might happen during the process. It’s best if I watch over him."

Caleb Bloom nodded, his gaze filled with heartache as he looked at his daughter. He had been deeply shaken and terrified when he’d killed Mindy Quincy earlier. ’To have been a father for nearly twenty years, to have decades of experience in civilized society... the psychological trauma of killing someone is just too much to bear.’

He couldn’t imagine what state of mind his daughter had to be in to kill someone. ’But as her father, I can’t let her carry this burden alone anymore. She may no longer be the innocent, meek girl she once was, but she is still my daughter.’

Caleb Bloom looked at Flora Bloom, his eyes full of heartache and fatherly love. ’If this apocalypse is really never going to end, then I must become strong enough to protect the ones I love.’

Early the next morning, Cynthia Grant burst into the room in a sorry state. She was covered in wounds, and her military uniform was soaked in blood. A trickle of blood stained the corner of her delicate face.

"Flora! Mr. Bloom! Hurry and come with me. We have to go now, or it’ll be too late!"

Seeing Cynthia Grant’s injuries, Flora Bloom’s expression quickly turned serious.

"What happened? How did you get so badly injured inside the base?"

"Hugh Warren... he injured Milton Adler, and now he’s coming here with a squad. General Lynch’s disappearance is also his fault. We have to go, quickly! His whole squad is made up of superpower users, more than twenty of them. You’re no match for them."

Flora Bloom frowned. "Hugh Warren? Isn’t he Sherman Lynch’s trusted subordinate? And I thought you two were on good terms. Why would he hurt you?"

"I... I saved Milton Adler." Cynthia Grant’s tears fell in anguish. She took the bottle of water Flora Bloom handed her and immediately drank it down. The moment she drank the water, the pain in her body subsided, and even her wounds stopped bleeding.

She took another sip, and many of her smaller wounds began to scab over and fall away.

"This water...?"

Cynthia Grant looked at Flora Bloom in astonishment. Seeing Flora’s silent smile, she didn’t ask any more questions and immediately tilted her head back to drain the bottle. Sure enough, she looked at a gash on the back of her hand caused by a Wind Ability and watched as the wound scabbed over and vanished before her very eyes.

She touched the wounds on her face. Now, aside from some dried blood, the cuts themselves were gone.

But Cynthia Grant immediately grabbed Flora Bloom again, her voice urgent. "Listen to me, you have to leave with me, now. I was so wrong about him. I never thought he would do something like this."

Cynthia Grant had left with Hugh Warren’s convoy last night. Flora Bloom had never had a strong opinion of the man, good or bad; she only knew he’d been demoted by Milton Adler after Sherman Lynch’s disappearance. If his only grievance was against Milton Adler’s usurpation of power, she could understand.

But, as Cynthia Grant said, if General Lynch’s disappearance was also his doing, then this whole affair might have been his plan all along.

And now he was coming for them with a whole team of superpower users.

’All of this,’ Flora Bloom thought, ’is definitely not something a mere chief of staff could pull off on his own.’

"Cynthia, this squad of superpower users—have you ever seen them before?"

Cynthia Grant thought for a moment. "No. They’re soldiers, but I’ve never seen them on the base before. Flora, are you even listening to me? If we don’t leave now, Hugh Warren and his men will be here!"

Morning at the Naval Base, especially here by the lighthouse on the coast, came with a slow-rising temperature, but it was the first place to see the sun rise.

The glittering moonlight on the sea’s surface from the night before slowly faded as the sun awoke, replaced by the refracted, shimmering colors of dawn.

Small waves lapped at the shore, soaking the base of the lighthouse in seawater. The post-apocalyptic ocean was exceptionally clear, and the territories between its creatures were sharply defined. Now, in the waters outside Azuregard City’s Naval Base, aside from seawater and some marine plants, there were only schools of saury darting through the shallows, reefs, and nearby waters.

The corners of Flora Bloom’s mouth turned up slightly. She called for everyone to pack their things, handed each person a loaf of bread and a bottle of water, then had Cynthia Grant carry the unconscious Caleb. The group then descended to the base of the lighthouse.

Flora Bloom patted Cynthia Grant’s shoulder. "Let’s go. We’ll go down and wait for them."

The ground at the base of the lighthouse was poured concrete, not sand. The group stood with their feet half-submerged in the shallow seawater, feeling the cool, damp sea breeze as they watched Hugh Warren and his squad of over twenty people hurrying toward them from a distance.

"I told you we should have left earlier! They’re here! What do we do now?!"

Flora Bloom just smiled faintly, unfazed. "Cynthia Grant, are you being silly? Don’t you know how far it is from the lighthouse to the base entrance? Could we really have made it?"

It was a run of more than ten minutes at top speed from here to the nearest gate on Navy Avenue. With the non-powered Jade and the unconscious Caleb in their group, their movements were already hindered.

If Hugh Warren had planned this in advance, there was no way they could have escaped smoothly.

There were seven of them in total: Flora Bloom’s group, plus Cynthia Grant and the unconscious Caleb. Aside from Cynthia Grant and Caleb, everyone carried a travel backpack and was eating bread and drinking water. Caleb Bloom, for his part, had stuffed an entire loaf of bread in his mouth and was still chewing as he shielded Jade behind him.

Neal Wallace and Ethan Monroe saw that there were only about twenty-odd people approaching. Seeing how confident Flora Bloom looked, they continued to eat their breakfast without any rush.

Cynthia Grant’s heart was pounding with anxiety. ’I barely managed to escape and came to get them out, but how can these people be so calm?’

But she also understood that, just as Flora Bloom had said, it was already too late to run.

The squad advanced rapidly on Flora Bloom’s group. Surprisingly, the one in the lead wasn’t Hugh Warren, but a young man in casual clothes and sneakers. He was remarkably handsome, and he even bore a slight resemblance to Flora Bloom’s memory of Lex Cross.

But Lex Cross had tanned skin, a tall frame, well-defined muscles, and an upright posture. The man before her had eyes that were extremely similar to Lex Cross’s, only they were dark and hollow. ’For a man to have such fair skin, he must be used to a pampered and privileged life.’

’Besides his fair complexion, his steps are unsteady and his build is frail. He looks like a rich kid whose body has been hollowed out by wine and women. To be connected to the military, he must be the second or third generation of some warlord’s family. A man like this is a disgrace to his lineage.’

The group stepped onto the concrete ground by the lighthouse, where the water level had risen slightly. Their footsteps made SPLASHING sounds as they trampled through the water.

Everyone except Flora Bloom thought it was just the morning’s small tide, a common fluctuation in the sea level that often caused the tide to rise around the lighthouse.

When Mason Adler arrived beside the lighthouse with Hugh Warren and the twenty-three members of the superpower squad, his eyes, which had been hollow and vacant, instantly focused on Flora Bloom’s face—and he couldn’t look away.

Long, straight black hair. A face that was simultaneously pure and alluring, a combination of two completely different charms that looked so perfectly natural. Her frame was delicate, but her eyes were bright and seemed to see right through a person’s heart.

This girl was the perfect image of the pure, idealized goddess he had in his mind. Even back in Argent, he couldn’t find a second girl with such looks and temperament.