That ice-cold palm pressed directly against Kaelus' chest.
Miraculously, the touch did not hurt him.
Instead, Kaelus felt a soothing chill seep into his veins.
The five elements that had been raging and colliding seemed to find their tamer, instantly becoming docile and retreating back into the depths of his energy core.
Kaelus gasped for breath, his body weak, yet his consciousness fully restored.
His eyes widened as he stared at the figure before him. He wondered inwardly.
What kind of expert existed in this forsaken place who could suppress such power with just one hand?
The figure slowly lowered her hand from Kaelus' chest, then with a graceful motion, she lifted the hood of the dark robe covering her head.
Kaelus' breath caught for a moment.
Under the dim moonlight stood a woman whose beauty felt out of place in somewhere as filthy as Deadlands.
Her blonde hair cascaded in perfect waves past her shoulders, framing a porcelain white face without flaw.
But the most captivating part was her pair of eyes, bright violet eyes that seemed to radiate countless emotions.
Her beauty seemed capable of overturning heaven and earth.
If compared, Celine, the girl long considered the most beautiful in all of Deadlands, would not even be worthy to clean her shoes.
However, Kaelus' eyes quickly turned cold again.
The betrayal that had torn his heart apart an hour ago had killed something inside him.
He would never again be swayed by a beautiful face. To him now, beauty was merely another mask of lies.
Kaelus stepped back, staring at the girl warily. "Who are you?" he asked sharply.
"I am Seraphine," the girl replied. Her voice was melodious, fitting her graceful appearance.
That was all.
Seraphine looked into Kaelus' golden eyes. "My task is to take you out of this place."
Kaelus snorted softly, a cynical smile forming on his lips. "Take me out? Do you think this is a tavern whose door you can open whenever you please? Deadlands is locked by the magic of the gods."
Seraphine nodded. She knew that.
"The only way to leave this damned place is that bloody tournament," Kaelus continued, his hands clenching tightly. "The first-place winner earns the right to leave this hell, and bring one person along."
Seraphine gave a small nod. "Then win the tournament."
"You want me to take you out?"
Seraphine chuckled mysteriously, shaking her head. "I do not need to. I can leave whenever I wish."
Kaelus studied Seraphine carefully.
This girl, she was clearly no ordinary person.
But he could not guess anything about her identity.
"In one week, I will train you to control that savage energy," Seraphine said, folding her arms. "During that time, hide your power. And before you are truly strong, do not let anyone know that you possess five elements."
Kaelus did not know why, but he nodded.
He felt that he truly had to follow whatever this girl said.
***
Half an hour later, Kaelus returned to the elite residential area in the center of the Inner Wall, heading toward the Mayor's residence.
The atmosphere in the front yard of the grand house was chaotic. Torches were lit. Servants and guards ran about in panic.
In the middle of the crowd, Elian lay helpless on a stretcher with a pale face.
Several healers were busy treating his severely bruised chest, while Celine stood in a corner, biting her lip with a trembling body.
The people gathered there cursed angrily. Who dared to assault the beloved prince of the city?
However, when Kaelus stepped through the iron gate, everyone's gaze immediately turned to him.
Seeing Kaelus' face, Elian's chest heaved. He almost spat out another mouthful of blood from anger and overwhelming humiliation.
But Elian kept his mouth tightly shut.
He did not dare say that he had been beaten nearly to death by the loser Kaelus.
If people knew, his pride would be utterly destroyed.
Celine also lowered her head, not daring to meet Kaelus' eyes even for a second.
The Mayor, a stout man in luxurious clothing, walked toward Kaelus with his wife.
Their faces were flushed red.
"Where have you been, you damned bastard?" the Mayor's wife cursed, spitting right in front of Kaelus' shoes. "Your brother was attacked by an unknown assailant and nearly died, while you wandered off who knows where! You are truly a bringer of misfortune!"
Several neighbors and townsfolk watching sneered as well.
"Truly ungrateful."
"He is indeed a curse. Ever since he was born, our harvests have worsened."
"The Mayor's family is too kind to still shelter the bastard child of a prostitute like him!"
Kaelus stood in silence.
His face expressionless.
These insults had been his daily bread for nineteen years.
He was used to being the city's trash bin for anger.
He only needed to endure one more week.
However, on the rooftop of the residence, hidden in the shadows of the night, Seraphine quietly followed Kaelus.
The girl's violet eyes narrowed.
She snorted in irritation at the hypocrisy of the mortals below.
Without a sound, Seraphine flicked her finger.
An invisible wave of magic, the Spell of Truth, shot downward and struck the minds of the Mayor and his wife.
Below, the Mayor's eyes suddenly turned blank for a split second.
His mouth moved beyond his control.
"Silence, all of you!" the Mayor suddenly shouted, making the entire yard fall silent.
The Mayor pointed at Kaelus, yet the words that came out of his mouth were nothing like the usual insults he hurled.
"He is not my bastard child! He is not even the child of a prostitute!" the Mayor roared, his face contorting between panic at losing control of his mouth and the magic forcing him to speak.
Everyone gasped, including Kaelus who suddenly looked up.
"Nineteen years ago, on the night when the Divine Revelation last descended upon the sky of Deadlands... we found him in the middle of a crater of light!" the Mayor continued speaking, cold sweat soaking his forehead.
His wife tried to cover her husband's mouth, but her own hand moved instead and her mouth opened.
"Yes!" the Mayor's wife shrieked. "At first we thought you were a bearer of blessing!"
"We took you in so our family would be blessed by the gods! But in truth? Ever since you arrived, the Void monster anomalies have grown increasingly insane!"
"Disasters kept happening! You are not a bearer of blessing... you are a baby cast away by the gods! You are sky trash!"
A suffocating silence enveloped the entire yard.
So all the stories about a bastard child, about his mother being a prostitute... all of it was fabricated by the Mayor's family to conceal Kaelus' true origin.
The silence did not last long. The townspeople's fear of a "god's curse" only made them more vicious.
"He is truly a demon!"
"No wonder he did not receive a god's element! Even the gods cast him away!"
"Just kill him! Throw him beyond the wall!"
The anger Kaelus had tried to suppress now surged back to the top of his head.
His eyes reddened.
His teeth clenched so tightly that his jaw jutted out.
For nineteen years, he had endured insults, humiliation, and beatings simply because he yearned for the love of a family.
He had always felt guilty for tarnishing his father's reputation with his existence.
It turned out, it was all a filthy lie.
They were merely greedy humans who abandoned him and made him a scapegoat when their hopes were not fulfilled.
Kaelus lifted his face, staring directly at the Mayor, his wife, and all the townspeople who cursed him.
There was no more hesitation in his eyes.
There was no longer Kaelus the obedient boy who accepted his fate.
"One week..." Kaelus' voice was not loud, yet somehow it rang clearly in everyone's ears, cutting through all their insults.
Kaelus pointed toward the city center, where the battle arena stood.
"One week from now, I will win that tournament. I will trample every person who dares stand in my way, and I will leave this cursed place, leaving all of you to rot together with those monsters!"
That oath echoed through the night air.
For several seconds, no one spoke. But a second later, mocking laughter erupted from the crowd.
"Win? You?"
"Hahahaha! The cripple without a blessing dreams of winning the tournament!"
"He must have gone mad after learning the truth!"
Everyone laughed in disdain.
What could a loser without a single magic element possibly do?
He would probably die in the first round.
Yet amid the deafening roar of laughter, there were two people who did not laugh at all.
On the stretcher, Elian's face grew paler, cold sweat dampening his temples.
In the corner, Celine swallowed hard, clutching the edge of her dress with trembling hands.
Both of them stared at Kaelus' back as he walked away from the crowd.