Chapter 75 Return
A silver moon hung in the night sky, its light falling like laurel blossoms across the wilderness.
The stars, surrounding the moonlight, twinkled with a few points of brilliance.
Like torches carried by a crowd walking in the night.
After realizing Isaac and Perseus were missing, the adults immediately gathered men, torches in hand, to search.
After searching the entire village without finding the two children,
they realized the seriousness of the situation.
Yara and the others, drunk, returned home and seemed to have glimpsed little Isaac...
At the time, he didn't think much of it.
He assumed the mischievous little fellow had found something fun again.
But when his wife repeatedly and anxiously reminded him, he was jolted awake from his drunken stupor, as was Dicttis...
They had been drinking so much, so thoroughly enjoying themselves, that they only now realized the children hadn't returned.
In an instant, cold sweat soaked his clothes.
Unlike a few years ago, although there were still mercenary warriors from the Hall of Heroes, strangely, the number of wild beasts in the Eastern Forest hadn't decreased but increased.
In fact, it seemed that similar phenomena were occurring throughout the rest of Central Plains, not just in the Eastern Forest, but in various other places. Beasts containing magic crystals were also gradually appearing in the forests surrounding other city-states...
Therefore, going out at night was extremely dangerous.
You never know which dark corner might be lurking with inhuman eyes watching you.
So...
After failing to find the children in the villages, Yara simply used his precognitive abilities...
He closed his eyes, his soul slowly radiating light.
He opened his eyes again.
He saw a horrifying scene.
Hesitantly, Yara told Dicttis what she had seen—
"Dick…listen, don't panic…"
"I saw Perseus, covered in wounds, lying on the grass…"
"And Isaac was crying beside him…"
Dick's pupils trembled; he lost all composure as a king.
Like an anxious, ordinary, and unassuming father…
"Where is he? Tell me…where is he?!"
"Follow me."
Yara took a deep breath and walked in one direction.
The others followed closely behind Yara…
They left the village and headed for the wilderness of Canaan.
Carrying torches, Yara's torch pierced the mist and darkness in the night, and the others followed behind…
Finally, as the bright moon hung high in the sky…
Yara and the others arrived at the location of Isaac and Perseus...
...
"Perseus!"
Dictis rushed forward, taking three steps at a time, and picked up the still-weak Perseus lying on the ground...
He was covered in blood.
But he was alive, not dead, his azure eyes reflecting the starry sky, looking at his father...
Dictis carefully examined Perseus's body again, finding only a few scars, but no bleeding wounds...
He slowly breathed a sigh of relief.
As a father, he had already failed once... He could not fail a second time.
Isaac, upon seeing Yara, seemed to finally shed all his forced strength, running to his father crying like an ordinary child…
Yara, heartbroken at the sight, picked up little Isaac, comforting him while wiping the bloodstains from his cheek. He was about to anxiously ask what had happened.
But Perseus spoke first:
"I…ran away…and was attacked by wolves…"
"Isaac saved me…"
Dicttis, still shaken by his son's encounter with the wolves, was also relieved by Isaac's timely rescue…
Yara saved Dicttis.
And once again, the son of Ara saved the son of Dicttis...
Like fate repeating itself...
Before Dicttis could even process this, he suddenly realized a crucial question. He asked Perseus, whom he held in his arms:
"Running away? Why did you run away... Don't you know it's dangerous out there?"
Perseus hesitated upon hearing this...
He remained silent.
He held the exhausted Perseus in his arms, gestured to Ara, and together they returned to Canaan.
No matter what, he had to get the children back first.
On the road, the moonlight illuminated the return journey, making the bloodstains on Perseus appear somewhat purplish...
Just as they were about to reach Canaan...
Perseus, who had been silent all along, spoke:
"Father, will I...always be your son?"
The moonlight illuminated his still somewhat childish face, his eyes filled with melancholy and a hint of longing, as if he feared being abandoned, like abandoning a kitten or puppy...
Hearing this, Dicttis was stunned.
Only then did he realize the vulnerability in Perseus's heart...
The blood of his enemy flowed in his veins—Zeus, or perhaps the former king of Argos.
And he was still just a child, only thirteen or fourteen years old.
Unable to process these emotions, he feared abandonment...
Dictis was silent for a moment, then solemnly said:
"Of course, as I said, you will always be my son..."
"The eldest son of the Dicttis family... the eldest prince of Argos!"
"Unless Zeus steps over my dead body..."
"Otherwise, he can never take you from me!"
"Perseus, remember..."
"The strongest bond in this world is not blood..."
"But love..."
...
Seeing the children return safe and sound,
Sarah's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally relaxed.
"Look at them, covered in blood..."
"Hiakka, go boil some water, you need to give the children a good wash."
Ara also learned from Isaac the whole story, and about the Breath of the Purple Robe...
If it weren't for good luck, Isaac and Perseus would have perished in the wolf's jaws. And if it weren't for that voice prompting Isaac,
Perseus, even if he escaped being devoured by the wolves, might still have met his end.
"The voice was kind and comforting, like the sun shining warmly, but I didn't know what it was..." Isaac recalled, describing the voice when his father asked about it.
Ara smiled; he probably knew everything:
"It was the Lord...it must have been the angel, responding to the Lord's will, coming to reveal himself to you."
Isaac was startled. He knew the Lord; the adults had told him about Him since he was a child.
He was the only God in the world, possessing incredible power.
All glory and power belong to Him...
"You're too young. When you're older, you'll understand…"
The father said something no one could understand:
"The Messiah is the Messiah…"
"Not by blood, but by covenant…"
"The covenant with God."
"…"
Isaac's little head was completely confused, but before he could figure it out,
the two children were tossed into a basin of water like kittens by Hiaga, splashing everywhere.
Then, their mistress Sarah, carrying a brush and a bar of soap made of olive oil and salt,
marched aggressively towards them…
After the children had settled down,
Ara, Dicttis, Pan, and old Tyr
exchanged glances…
and then, they all tacitly understood each other's meaning.
Immediately afterward, the group, armed, set out under cover of darkness...
Some sleepless people that night vaguely heard the howls and roars of wild beasts, believing they were being haunted by ghosts, and prayed incessantly to God...
Then, at dawn the next day...
A small hill made of wild beast carcasses appeared at the village entrance.
The Canaanites ate meat for half a month, to the point of vomiting, before they finally managed to consume all the wild beasts.
For the next year...
Neither the Canaanites, nor passing caravans and travelers...
never again saw any wild beasts in the vicinity of Canaan.
...