Chapter 254 - 242: Eye of Earthly Fire

Lex Cross’s eyes suddenly deepened as he looked down at Flora Bloom. "Flora, I’m not leaving tonight, okay?"

Flora Bloom immediately stiffened. "You... But I’m pregnant, you know?"

A smirk played on Lex Cross’s lips as he savored Flora Bloom’s words. He suddenly lowered his head to look at her face, widening his eyes and furrowing his brow. "What are you thinking about! I meant it’s not convenient for me to be running back and forth in the middle of the night, so I’ll just make do here for one night."

"..."

"Unless, you’re thinking..."

Lex Cross swiftly swept Flora Bloom up into his arms and carried her to the bed behind them, then smoothly lay down beside her. Seeing her intentionally shrink toward the other side of the bed, he stretched out a long arm and pulled her back into his embrace.

"Why are you getting so close to me!"

Lex Cross hooked an arm around Flora Bloom, pulling her into his arms. His slightly ragged breath washed over the top of her head as he planted a soft kiss there. "I won’t touch you. Don’t worry, just sleep."

Leaning against Lex Cross, the sound of his slightly fast heartbeat felt like a hypnotic rhythm by her ear, and she quickly and peacefully fell asleep. Having Lex Cross by her side seemed to make her feel especially safe, and she drifted into dreamland in an instant.

But Lex Cross, lying beside her, wasn’t nearly as comfortable.

’This woman is so restless when she sleeps!’ One moment she’d stick out an arm, the next a leg. If he pushed her away, his arms felt empty, but if he held her tighter, he was afraid of waking her.

A beauty in his arms, and a pregnant one at that. He couldn’t make a move. He really, really couldn’t make a move.

「All night.」

...

Just as day was breaking, Flora Bloom awoke. She saw Lex Cross still beside her, not having even changed his position, and a smile touched her lips as she planned to roll over and go back to sleep. But then, she heard the sound of a signal flare from the horizon.

Puzzled, Flora Bloom started to get up, but Lex Cross held her down. "That’s a signal flare from my subordinate, Holden Warren, and his team. They’ve probably run into some trouble. You rest here. I’ll go check it out."

Flora Bloom grabbed Lex Cross’s hand. "Holden Warren? The Earth Ability User you left on the yacht?"

"Yes."

"Cynthia and the others are there too. I’m going with you!"

Lex Cross paused, looking at Flora Bloom with concern for a long moment before finally nodding. "Five and the others have probably noticed it too. Judging by the sound, the location should be around the waterfront. Call the Healer from your team. If Holden Warren and his group are firing a signal flare, it means even they find the situation difficult to handle. We can’t delay."

"Let’s go. I’ll tell my dad so they don’t worry."

Flora Bloom and Lex Cross went downstairs together, just in time to see Caleb Bloom, already in his jacket and heading out. He saw the two of them coming down side-by-side. "Flora, Young Cross, you two..."

"Dad, there’s no time to explain. Cynthia and the others might have run into trouble on their way back. Tell everyone not to go out today no matter what happens. I’m worried something might be going on. We’re just stepping out and we’ll be back soon. Don’t worry about me."

Caleb Bloom was still reeling as he watched Flora Bloom and Lex Cross’s retreating figures, but they had already vanished from his sight.

Flora Bloom, Shauna Wallace, Lex Cross, Five, Saul Sterling, The Crown Prince, and Civet—the seven of them—arrived at the waterfront. By now, the changes there could no longer be described as merely shocking.

A colossal, pitch-black mountain had risen from the middle of the sea, blotting out the sun and covering a vast expanse of the sky. On its surface, fiery cracks snaked across the rock face like living things.

"A volcano?" Flora Bloom asked, staring dumbfounded at the bizarre mountain that had suddenly emerged from the sea. "How can a volcano come out of the sea?"

Shock also flashed in Lex Cross’s eyes. "Do you remember the volcano where we encountered that Thunderbird couple?"

"But the Golden Crow already drained that volcano of its Fire Element Energy. It shouldn’t be able to erupt, right?"

"Are you stupid? The ocean is boundless. The seafloor is enormous. If there’s one undersea volcano, there can be a second and a third," the Golden Crow, who had been sleeping in the hair behind Flora Bloom’s ear, said as it instantly woke up upon sensing the dense Fire Element Energy.

"Wow, I can feel some really dense Fire Element Energy! I’ve hit the jackpot, HAHAHAHA! I’m going to restore my true form! I’m going to recover my strength as the King and overlord of the Golden Crows!" The Golden Crow’s voice was childish, wild, and flamboyant, its arrogance making Flora Bloom frown.

Looking at the volcano before her, Flora Bloom suddenly remembered something, and her expression turned extremely grim. She remembered this volcano. It wasn’t just one; once it appeared, it would be followed by a continuous chain of them.

Flora Bloom smacked her forehead. ’How could I be so forgetful?’ The emergence of every secret realm was accompanied by a different world-altering phenomenon. Nine great secret realms meant nine great world-altering phenomena would appear. Back then, she had only seen the Glacial Realm from a distance—an entire, continuous range of icebergs, with a visible area large enough to cover an entire major city, or perhaps even more.

The icebergs were mountains formed of real, translucent, crystal-like ice. The temperature outside the Glacial Realm was so low it could instantly freeze a lively animal into an ice sculpture, cold to the very touch. Only Middle Level ability users and above could resist the cold outside the Glacial Realm.

It was said that any ability user who went inside never came out again. She didn’t know what the people who entered had encountered, what had become of them, or if they had simply died.

This volcano looked exactly like the "Earth’s Core Fire" spoken of in her past life. The flowing lines of magma on the volcano were like channels formed by countless eyes from hell. Each volcano was filled with a dense, explosive Fire Element Energy, and the crevices that looked like cracks actually seemed to be restraining the magma within from overflowing.

"Oh my god, if this volcano erupts, will anyone in the safe zone survive? Forget the people, the entire city of Morhaven will be annihilated, wiped from existence," Shauna Wallace said, trembling as she stared dumbfounded at the towering volcanic mountain before them.

She felt tiny and helpless before such a massive mountain. Once a disaster of this magnitude struck, human efforts to resist would be futile. All they could do was wait for death.

If the apocalypse had made her feel afraid and helpless, this enormous, towering black volcano filled her with a profound sense of despair.

It wasn’t just Shauna Wallace; the entire group, including Flora Bloom and Lex Cross, felt a sense of awe in the face of this volcano. The energy it produced was not something they could currently resist.

Flora Bloom searched her mind for any information about the Earth’s Core Fire, but unfortunately, her strength in her past life had been too pathetic for her to have had any contact with the core secrets of the ability users. She only knew that the Earth’s Core Fire later became a desolate land of continuous volcanoes that no one dared to trespass.

’Right now, there’s only one volcano, but the Earth’s Core Fire was a whole range of them. Could it be that this desolate land is beginning to form now, rather than suddenly appearing five years into the apocalypse?’

"Can you determine Holden Warren and the others’ location?" Flora Bloom asked, looking at Saul Sterling.

Saul Sterling’s white superpower spread out from his body, but it was blocked by a special energy magnetic field emanating from the volcano.

He looked at the others and shook his head. "I can’t pinpoint their location." The moment he finished speaking, the sound of another signal flare exploded across the sky.

This time, the location was very close—just on the other side of the volcano.

But their yacht could have easily navigated around the volcano and landed somewhere else. Why would they fire a signal flare? This point occurred to Flora Bloom, and naturally, Lex Cross had already thought of it as well.