Sona's Oripathy was not optimistic.
Based on experience, her somatic cell-Originium fusion rate was probably close to ten percent, and the lesion's location was also in a very dangerous area. If left uncontrolled, the consequences would be extremely dangerous.
Even though Sona had fainted, the pain caused by Oripathy continued to stimulate her body, causing her little face to remain scrunched up even in unconsciousness. It was clear this pain was not something an ordinary person could endure.
Lucas Reeve activated his Rules. Golden runic chains intertwined and flowed within his translucent soul. The runic chains wrapped around Lucas Reeve's arm, turning his entire right hand and forearm golden. Lucas Reeve gently pressed his hand onto Sona's body. As his ability activated, a steady stream of crimson Originium energy was extracted from Sona's body, condensing above Lucas Reeve's palm.
The Originium crystals on her skin's surface also shrank at a visible rate as the Originium energy was extracted, until finally, the crystals on her body disappeared completely.
Above Lucas Reeve's palm, a sphere of concentrated, compressed Originium energy swirled. With a light squeeze, another crystal of high-concentration Originium energy was formed. It looked like a dark red gemstone and fell to the ground. Lucas Reeve was currently in a soul state and didn't know where to put it, but throwing it away seemed wasteful. He simply found a hidden corner in a drawer in the room and put it there.
It's no wonder that many Infected, after contracting Oripathy, find their own Originium Arts enhanced to a considerable degree. After all, once infected with Oripathy, they *are* the staff. They don't need to rely on an external staff to cast Originium Arts, and using oneself as a staff basically ensures a 100% energy conversion rate.
Sona's physical injuries were no big deal. They looked severe, but this little girl's physical constitution was quite good. They would basically heal on their own after a while. Lucas Reeve saw that nothing else was wrong and slipped back into Sona's body.
Sona didn't know how long she had slept this time. Little Ella seemed to guess that her Sister Sona was tired, so she didn't disturb her, only opening the door to check on her every once in a while. Seeing Sona sleeping in bed, she would close the door, relieved.
When Sona reawakened from her sleep, she felt incredibly refreshed. Her whole body felt much more relaxed and comfortable. If, before, her body felt like it was carrying a heavy burden, now that burden had been lifted. Every cell in her body seemed to have been liberated.
*Mmm~~~
Sona stretched comfortably. She almost suspected she was dreaming. She hadn't felt this relaxed in a long, long time, not since she contracted Oripathy. Even when her Oripathy wasn't flaring up, her body often felt exhausted.
She got out of bed and stretched. The pain from her injuries had already subsided by 70-80%. As Sona recalled, she seemed to have fainted again due to an Oripathy flare-up.
Wait a minute?
Sona had endured Oripathy flare-ups twice before, but every time after a flare-up, her body felt like it had been fighting continuously for days and nights. Forget getting up; even moving was extremely difficult. Why was it that this time, after an Oripathy flare-up, she felt as if she had been reborn, her body so much lighter?
Strange...
Sona pouted, completely baffled.
She walked to the mirror in the room's private bathroom and looked at herself. Sona noticed that her face seemed much rosier than before, not the terrifying pale it usually was after an Oripathy flare-up.
Facing the mirror, Sona lifted the slightly loose inner shirt she was wearing. Her stomach was white and flat. Due to long-term lack of food combined with exercise, her perfectly defined abs were clearly visible.
Underneath was a pure white sports bra.
Unfortunately, her chest wasn't very developed, likely related to her lack of nutrition.
The next second.
Sona was so shocked she almost cried out.
Ah!
After shouting, Sona immediately covered her mouth, afraid of alarming her 'family' outside. However, through the mirror's reflection, Sona could clearly see her pupils trembling as if in an earthquake.
The Originium crystals on her body had actually disappeared!!
How is this possible!!
Disbelief, complete and utter disbelief.
Why would the Originium crystals disappear??
Sona repeatedly checked her side and waist, confirming over and over that there were no Originium crystals there, and her skin felt completely smooth.
This...
Why??
Sona wondered if she was dreaming, or perhaps the Originium crystals on her waist had moved somewhere else. Sona simply checked every corner of her body. Even her back was checked using the mirror. Only after confirming that there were really no Originium crystals did she sit on the bed, stunned and confused.
If this happened to a normal person.
If one day their Oripathy symptoms suddenly disappeared, they would probably be too excited to speak, thinking that heaven was blessing them.
But Sona wouldn't.
This was too strange!!
Completely impossible.
As an Infected, Sona clearly knew the dangers of Oripathy. Since ancient times, there had never been a case of self-healing. Therefore, Sona didn't believe for a second that she was just uniquely gifted or had a super constitution that was healing her.
If she really had a super-strong healing ability or a super constitution that couldn't be infected by Oripathy, why was her Oripathy progressing normally at the beginning, only to mysteriously disappear now?
Sitting on the bed, Sona hugged her knees and curled up in the corner, deep in thought.
Everything was too bizarre.
If it were just the Oripathy healing, Sona might not have overthought it. But this whole absurd series of events was linked.
In the arena, she mysteriously heard a voice, and then her body moved uncontrollably and easily slew that monstrous enemy. She finally escaped, only to faint in an alley. And that night, it was negative ten-plus degrees and snowing, but when she woke up, her body wasn't cold in the slightest. And the observant Sona noticed that where she had been sitting, there wasn't a single speck of snow.
Even when she woke up, although there was finger-deep snow everywhere else, there was no snow on her body or around her at all, as if the snow had intentionally avoided her. Was that possible?
How could it be.
The third time was when she fainted due to an Oripathy flare-up, and her Oripathy actually healed significantly.
No matter how she thought about it, it was impossible.
All of this...
It seemed like someone was secretly helping her.
But...
How were they helping?
Perhaps they could help in the snowy weather, but how to explain the first time? How to explain the Oripathy? On Terra, Oripathy was basically an incurable disease, impossible to cure. If someone could really suppress Oripathy, then that person wouldn't be a person, but a god!
A god?!
It was ridiculous.
How could there be gods in this world?
And even if there were gods, why would a god cast its gaze on her?
Sigh...
Sona thought about it but found she couldn't make sense of it, so she simply stopped thinking. Now that she had money, she had to go eat something good.
Because she had one million all at once.
Sona splurged the next day at noon, getting takeout from a nearby food stall—a whole table full of dishes to improve their diet and try something new. In this warehouse, besides the elderly and disabled middle-aged people, there were also many children suffering from Oripathy. They couldn't do anything before, but now that they had some money, they definitely had to improve the children's meals. After all, the children were all at a growing age.
According to her plan.
Sona was going to buy a house.
But after checking the housing prices, Sona was speechless. Although the city Sona lived in wasn't one of Kazimierz's Grand Knight Territories, it was still a large mobile city. And today, it had been named one of the four cities to host the Knight Major in six months.
Originally, Sona thought one million would be enough to buy a small, tens-of-square-meters apartment in a cheap part of the city. She didn't expect that she was thinking too simply. Even the cheapest houses Sona inquired about cost at least 1.5 million....
This price directly shattered Sona's initial wish.
A house..... definitely unaffordable.
Since she couldn't afford a house, she could only continue to live in this remote warehouse. When she earned enough money in the future, she would buy a small house for everyone to live in.
As for Lucas Reeve, he felt a sense of empathy.
Damn it... Houses on Terra were still absurdly expensive. If the Grand Knight Territories were first-tier cities, then this city was probably second-tier. And due to the limited land in a mobile city, the housing prices here would only get more and more expensive. Right now, the cheapest houses in this mobile city were already 15,000 per square meter. Buying a 50-square-meter place definitely wasn't enough; after all, Sona had so many people here, 50 square meters wouldn't fit them. They would need at least 100-plus square meters.
Sona's expression while looking at houses these past two days was exactly like Lucas Reeve's expression when looking at houses in his previous life. Of course, in his previous life, Lucas Reeve was relatively well-off. His parents' combined annual income was substantial, so buying a house in a second-tier city was easy. However, if Lucas Reeve had to buy it himself, he'd probably be just like Sona right now: *Why is it so expensive?*
Lucas Reeve didn't take the initiative to come out this time. Instead, he lurked in Sona's necklace, observing quietly. As for why the soul fragment was in the necklace, Lucas Reeve couldn't be bothered to think about it anymore.
Through these days of observation, Lucas Reeve discovered that Sona was a sunny, energetic, and optimistic girl who was quite talkative and always had a smile on her face. A bit like Sora + Exusiai.
Sona could tell stories to the kids all morning, pull the disabled uncles outside for activities, or play chess with the old men. To this group of Infected huddled in the small, crowded warehouse, Sona was both their pillar and their ray of sunshine.
However, Lucas Reeve understood very well that no matter how happily Sona smiled on the outside, at night, when she was alone in her room, she would occasionally cry silently.
She left her smiles and strength for others, and kept the sorrow and pressure for herself.
Since she had money on hand, Sona didn't go out for the next few days, spending all her time with her 'family'. However, one thing weighed on Sona's mind like a dark cloud.
When she left that artificial forest, the words that came from the drone.
*Next time...*
*These people... they would come looking for her....*
Therefore, these past few days, after spending time with her little brothers and sisters, Sona would throw herself into training her knightly swordsmanship. Sona didn't have a skilled teacher; what she practiced was only the most basic of basic knightly swordsmanship.
And a week later.
"Sister Sona!! There's someone outside looking for you!"
Little Ella ran up to Sona and said hurriedly.
Sona's heart couldn't help but tremble slightly. A bad feeling welled up in her heart. When she went outside, a man in a black suit was standing outside the hidden warehouse. The man maintained a smile on his face.
"Dear Ms. Sona, it's a pleasure to see you. It's been a week, and our chairman has missed you dearly. So, he has specially organized another underground survival knight competition and would like to invite you to participate. This time, the prize money for the survivor is three million... Three million, enough for you to buy a house in this city for all of you. Please be prepared to arrive at the previous venue tomorrow. If you don't go, well..."
After speaking, the man turned and left.
Sona squinted, her expression extremely grim and ugly. She had held onto some hope that her residence was hidden enough that these people wouldn't be able to find her. However, she had underestimated the power of capital. Not only could these people find her, but they also clearly knew she had been looking at houses.
Run...
Sona didn't think she could escape.
And if she left without permission, then... her family would...
Right now, Sona had only one choice...
Participate.
...
The next day.
Sona didn't tell anyone else. She left early, trying to get her body into peak condition, and arrived on time at the huge underground venue from before.
When she arrived, the attendant from before was already waiting. When he saw Sona arrive, the attendant himself breathed a sigh of relief. After all, he was the one who invited her. If she didn't show up, half the blame would probably fall on him. And while he looked glamorous on the outside, he was, in reality, just a worker.
The venue was still the same venue, a massive artificial forest, surrounded by hard metal walls. Above the walls were the viewing rooms for the audience.
In the audience stands.
"How about we make another bet? What do you guys guess, will this little squirrel survive to the end this time?"
"I'll bet fifty million she doesn't survive."
"Fifty million, she won't."
"Fifty million, she won't."
"....."
The vast majority of the masked figures didn't think Sona would survive to the end. After all, the preparations this time were different from last time. What they had prepared this time was much stronger and more vicious than the werewolf monster from the last match.
"One hundred million, she survives to the end."
A young capitalist merchant in the corner smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth turning up in an arc, seeming very confident.
In the artificial forest.
Although her previous knight armor was shattered, Sona had bought a new, relatively decent set a few days ago.
This time, there were ten independent knights in the same batch as her. There were Infected, and non-Infected. There were even three formal knights who had earned their titles. They were all here for the championship. Three million was no small sum. It might not be much to a Grand Knight, but for ordinary knights, it was quite a lot.
"The rule this time is... cat and mouse."
"We will send out one powerful knight. The ten of you can team up to fight, or you can flee individually. The condition for victory is to survive for three hours, or to kill the knight together. There can be multiple winners. However, the prerequisite for multiple winners is that the three million prize money must be split evenly."
The competition rules were read out, word by word, from the drone. After it finished, the drone ascended. From a cage, a burly knight, over two meters tall and shrouded in darkness, appeared before everyone. This knight exuded a hostile aura. Just the aura alone was enough to make everyone present turn pale. It was clear how many people he had killed.
And under the knight's visor, his scarlet eyes seemed devoid of humanity, filled only with a beast-like madness.
"Let's the ten of us team up! There's only one of him. If we team up and kill him, it's three million total. We'll split it among the ten of us based on our effort at the end. Surviving is what matters!"
However, the moment he finished speaking.
The knight, shrouded in dense black energy, was like a wild bull. He instantly charged at the person who had just spoken. He slammed his shoulder into him. The person was instantly sent flying. Even with the protection of his knight armor, his entire body felt like it had fallen apart. When he landed on the ground, his body was a puddle of mush, deader than dead.
"!!!"
Everyone present was too shocked to speak.
This monster... when did it move? Just one blow, and that knight was.... And that knight was a formal knight with a title! How could this be!!!
Lucas Reeve, hiding in the necklace, narrowed his eyes.
Another fusion warrior from a lab? Why does Kazimierz also like playing with the same toys as Columbia?
Well, it's normal to learn. After all, Columbian capital was also transmitted from Columbia. Although Kazimierz's history is much longer than Columbia's, in terms of capital, Kazimierz is a little brother compared to Columbia.
After all, Columbia has a mega-corporation, Raythean Industries, while Kazimierz does not. Kazimierz's current scale doesn't quite support the emergence of a mega-corporation. Or perhaps, the Kazimierz Supervisory Commission wouldn't allow it to appear. No one wants the Chamber of Commerce to become a mouthpiece for a single capitalist.
In the audience stands.
The group of masked figures was extremely satisfied with the black knight's performance on camera. Compared to the boring struggles between these knights, these bosses preferred a one-sided slaughter. This despair between life and death was what they most wanted to see. The smiles on everyone's faces grew wider.