Born in Blood

531  Rescue

It wasn't long before he arrived at the volcano site. It resembled more of a pointy crater, with a circular hole at its peak. Instead of churning out red-hot magma, it spewed out thick filth…which just so happened to be hotter than lava. It wildly spewed out its dirty magma in intervals, like a throbbing wound which no one bothered to clean. Its peak was awash with the dirty substance, with channels and rivers leading down its surface. This place was also a magical habitat, despite the natural ugliness one saw wherever one looked. It wasn't small at all…nearly the size of Ucladd, Liam's birth place. Even from roughly 500 meters away, tiny sparks sprayed his way. A bit fell on his skin, sizzling for a second before puffing out without so much as a trace. Liam's eyes constricted with his Spirit Sight, leaving no patch of ground except that his gaze scanned it thoroughly. He circled around the crater, on the off chance that Davy and Jones might have attached the princess nearby.

'They must have done whatever they did with haste, otherwise they wouldn't have just 'a couple hours' to retrieve her.' As he finished up the outward scanning routine, he sighed and made his way towards the peak of the volcano.

PRSH!

A beam of lava shot out of its peak.

Liam dodged to the side and darkness-made scales surfaced on his skin to combat the heat. Slowly, the pillar of magma fell back down on the mountain's surface, like snowfall. As it did so, so did Liam, following just a few inches behind. Then, as it lowered into the hole, Liam lowered himself with it!

He was inside the volcano!

And it was hot!

Very, very hot!

The waters themselves were bubbling with waves of heat. In fact, his skin was sizzling and slowly burning up, which, of course, his blood worked to reform and regenerate.

Quickly, Liam looked around. The inside of a volcano was both a dreadful, and beautiful, place to be in. It stretched as far as the eye could see. Beneath, a sea of brown magma met his watery eyes, dripping off the sizzling walls and forming natural channels which resembled veins. And judging by what his danger senses were telling him, in just a few more seconds, the volcano would wildly surge once more and erupt. And burn him alive.

In the distance, a dozen or so meters away, Liam spotted an oval shape that blended in with the surroundings. It was flickering in and out, as though weakened by the heat that surrounded it.

Oddly enough, its protective encasing seemed to repel the heat… but it was getting weaker as the seconds ticked by.

The tremor shook the volcano violently. The magma was shaking again.

It was going to explode!

Liam used Shadow Blink.

The lava was rising.

Liam arrived beside the cocoon.

RSHHHHHHHH!

The lava below roared as it began surging upward.

Using his odachi, Liam slashed open the cocoon, careful not to cut too deep.

But with his mastery over the sword, he had no issue doing so.

As he slit open the cocoon, he saw the princess' form in the open. Bright pink skin shimmered in his eyes for a brief second, but his gaze didn't linger for long.

RSHHHHHHHHH!

Below, the lava was just a few inches away from devouring Liam whole.

Thankfully, Shadow Blink came in clutch once more…

And he was out.

To safety.

Liam wiped his face and used his darkness to clean off the sweat dripping from him.

'To think one could sweat underwater…' Liam threw the thought aside and gave the princess in his grasp a look, in a way that a young father would look at his newly born child.

She was unconscious, but alive.

The first thing Liam noticed was the crown on her head, which had a profoundly regal quality. It was adorned with pearls and rubies, and was attached to her scalp. She had no legs, nor any feature that distinguished her from the male gender. Instead, she had three tentacles that stretched outward. 'Eat your heart out, Kisra,' Liam thought, remembering the teensy crown the Queen of Echoria had.

Granted, the value between them was the difference between heaven and earth.

Shimmering glitter dust naturally drifted off the princess' crystalline red skin, which the murky waters washed away.

She was uninjured and safe, and he'd done a magnificent job at coming at the right time. If he said so himself. 'If her blood's a delicacy, it wouldn't hurt to have a taste, would it?' Liam thought…

But he kept his urges in check. A moment later, he was making a beeline straight to NOCL Headquarters, through the teleportation platform that he'd arrived by.

A blue hue covered him top to bottom, and a second later—

SHING!

He was back at the NOCL HQ building, with the princess flung over his shoulder. Liam's eyes fell on Bill…who was currently smoking what seemed like a thinly wrapped piece of seaweed, his eyes drooping with calm relaxation.

When Liam abruptly arrived, Bill jolted and instantly threw away seaweed.

Liam gave him a disapproving, disappointed look.

"Reap, my friend!" exclaimed Bill, laughing louder than his usual chuckle. "I wasn't expecting you to come back so fast! You've already finished the mission haven't you, you absolute mad-lad!"

Liam said nothing, continuing with his judgemental appraisal of Bill's party animal demeanor.

With a disappointed sigh, he threw over the princess' unconscious body to Bill, who tripped over himself as he gently grabbed her from the crown. He gave Liam a sour look. "She's a princess, man! Her family is Royal!"

"And? I have an entire after my head. Tell them to get in line." Silence.

Bill arched his brow slowly in confusion, then made an exasperated, almost shocked face and sighed.

"I'll call over her family," he said, snapping his fingers. SHING!

A heavily armored humanoid shark that looked like a crossbreed between a bull immediately teleported beside him. It had two white horns on top of its head. Without a word, Bill gave the beast the princess, and the bull shark teleported away. Bill looked at Liam with a honed gaze. "Run me over the details of what you accomplished, then I'll give you what you're owed."