385: SACRIFICE

SACRIFICE

Raine's question made Aeon turn his head and he found that all the four people behind him were gone. He just chased after Raine because he noticed that she walked away while Calleb didn't even stop her.1

It had only been a few seconds but they were already gone.

"Where are they?!" Raine felt panicked and bit her lip harshly while trying to catch a glimpse of Raphael or Calleb, or even the two Alphas.

"We have to find the book soon," Aeon grumbled under his breath. "Or something bad will happen to them."

Aeon knew this place quite well, thus he assumed the other people had seen similar things to what Raine was seeing when she walked away from the group.

"Where is the book?" Raine asked agitatedly. Torak was yet to be found and now, more people were in danger. This kind of situation made Raine's spirit turn sour as anxiety crept in her heart.

"Let's go. This way." Aeon grabbed Raine's wrist and tugged her in the direction that they were heading before.

This room was getting colder because Aeon's body couldn't provide the warmth like Calleb's did.

Aeon did tried to make Raine feel a little bit warm by taking off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders, but it didn't help much as her body was still shivering.

"Just a moment and we will be there." Aeon encouraged Raine to take the last few steps toward the book.

Out of coldness, Raine snuggled into Aeon's embrace as she tried to keep the little bird warm. Rather than herself, Raine was more concerned about the bird.

The bird was already very weak to begin with, she didn't want this coldness to worsen the bird's condition even further.

Aeon then wrapped his arm around her body, though he understood why Raine did that and why she moved closer to him, still he couldn't deny that he was happy at her little gesture.

Though it was only a fleeting moment, he wanted to cherish it. The time when Raine depended on him.

"Here is the place." They reached another door after crossing the room.

On second thought, actually this room was very big, almost like a grand ballroom with crystal chandelier hanging very high above their heads.

Aeon pushed open the door with both of his hands, revealed before their eyes was another room. An empty room to be exact.

There was nothing that was worth to be seen except an opened book on top of a translucent podium.

"Is that the book?" Raine didn't even realize when she asked in a whisper, because this room was very quiet. She acted as if she was afraid of attracting unwanted attention from someone or something.

"Yes, it is." Aeon nodded and grabbed Raine's hand to approach the book.

The podium was a little bit high for Raine's petite stature, thus she needed to tiptoe to read the opened book, yet she was only greeted with blank pages inside of any useful script.

"There is nothing here." Raine stated as she tilted her head to look at Aeon, who was still flipping through the empty sheets. "What should we do now?"

Raine began to panic again, because she was running out of time and now if the book turned out to be a useless thing for them, they had wasted so much time. Not to mention Calleb and Raphael were also missing.

"Aeon, what should we do?" Raine urged him to talk, yet Aeon only stared deeply into the empty book with a furrow between his eyebrows.

"Sacrifice." Aeon muttered as he shifted his gaze from the book toward a strange word, which was written on the podium, right atop of the book.

It was a small word that was engraved beautifully there.

"What?" Raine didn't catch what Aeon said, she tried to look at the same spot where Aeon was staring at, but she couldn't understand a thing.

There was nothing there that was interesting enough to see.

"Step back Raine…" Aeon said in a low voice as he traced his long fingers on the edge of the book. "Step back for a moment, I think I know how to read this."

Raine wanted to know how Aeon managed to read the blank sheets, yet the seriousness on Aeon's face forced her to comply and not ask anything again.

Raine took three steps back from him, holding the bird closer to her heart, she was waiting with anticipation while staring at Aeon's back.

She hoped whatever he tried to do now would succeed.

And before Aeon could do anything, he looked over his shoulder at Raine and smiled ever so tenderly.

And then the next thing that happened before her eyes, turned Raine utterly thunderstruck.

Because when Aeon put his hands with his palms facing the empty sheets, something happened and this wasn't something that Raine could ever imagine, not even in her wildest dreams.

Raine stood there in shock as she watched the supposed to be floor, was now engulfed in fire. Flames licked the air.

In an instant, the coldness that Raine felt before, disappeared as she felt the heat of the fire warming up her whole body.

"Aeon, what is this!?" Raine stuttered. She moved closer toward Aeon, yet the flame only lasted for a few seconds before it disappeared, as if the thing that Raine had seen before was only in her mind.

Raine clutched Aeon's clothes and gritted her teeth, staring in disbelief at the empty room before her eyes, which was on fire just a few seconds ago.

"It's done now." Aeon heaved a deep sigh. "We will find the Alpha."

Raine was about to reply to him when she saw Calleb, Raphael, Alpha Romulus and Alpha Chris reappear near them, sitting on the floor with shocked expressions.

"They are back!" Raine ran toward Calleb and Raphael with Aeon following behind her. "Calleb, are you alright?"

Raine helped Calleb to stand up, but his legs were very weak as he fell on the floor again with a pale face.

Not only him, the other three people were also in the same state.

Raphael and the two Alphas apparently regained their consciousness much faster as they were now busy skimming their surroundings in alert.

"What happened to them?" Raine asked Aeon.

"They had encountered something from their past or future. Something very bad."

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