Chapter 87: Echoes of Loss - Farewell to Calanthe

When the king Eist saw the reinforcements arriving, he was happy but restrained: "Crach, are you the only ones here?"

Crach helped Calanthe up. "Uncle, only our Clan an Craite's ship separated from the main force according to your suggestion, and thus we avoided the storm. We are all that remains."

Calanthe was completely unconscious at this moment. Although she had not suffered serious sword wounds or cuts, it was clear that her condition was abnormal. The anxious Eist picked up Calanthe and shouted loudly: "Guards, follow the Skellige sailors and break out!"

Skellige sailors have been climbing mountains and battling waves since they were born. Strong soldiers emerge from poor mountains and white waters, and Clan an Craite is the second most powerful clan in the Skellige Isles.

The tide of Nilfgaardians who had been fighting fiercely for a day was too weak, and for a while they could only watch a team of several hundred people march away with the king and queen.

...

That night, Cintra's forces were almost annihilated, only a dozen royal guards remaining who had escaped with the king and queen.

Eist stood worriedly outside the tent, where a druid from the fleet was healing Calanthe's wounds. After a while, the druid came out, and anxious Eist hurried forward to ask.

The Druid hesitated for a moment and said: "Prince Eist, you should... go in and spend some time with the queen..."

Eist's eyes suddenly turned red, and he grabbed the druid's clothes and shouted: "What do you mean? What happened to my love?"

The druid was unfazed by Eist's reaction, simply saying regretfully, "Your Highness, do you know...? The queen is pregnant."

Hearing this, Eist felt as if he had been struck with lightning, he staggered back and leaned against a tree, staring in disbelief at the druid. Slowly, he slid to the ground.

"I... We have not been able to have a child for so many years, and I have never thought about having a child with her. Why now, why..."

The druid looked at Crach, who was also stunned, and continued: "The queen herself probably didn't know this. Horse riding, fighting, sword wounds... are not things a pregnant woman should endure."

"She has suffered a miscarriage. The queen is strong, otherwise the bleeding would have killed her long ago, but even with all her strength, she won't be able to hold on much longer."

The Druid sympathetically stepped forward and patted Eist on the shoulder: "I'm so sorry, Your Highness. But I can't do anything for her. Maybe Mousesack can, but it's too late now. Please come in."

Eist walked into the tent with sad eyes. Crach and the other soldiers watched him off in silence.

Although the bonfire burned brightly, it could not disperse the darkness of that long night.

In the dead of night, Calanthe and Eist said their last goodbyes under the dying light, and in that last moment, she said to her beloved husband. "My love...I see Pavetta...my princess. My love, help me take care of Ciri."

These were Calanthe's last words. The lioness has passed away.

When Eist came out of the tent, the Skellige warriors seemed to see a fire burning under the sea.

They all knew that the king of Cintra had already died along with his queen, and the figure in front of them had transformed again into the 'An Skellig Hunter', the 'Knight of the Sea' sung in poetry: Eist Tuirseach

"I'm going back to Sintra, Ciri is still there."

The sailors' blood boiled, while Crach looked at his uncle with a worried expression. "You are too tired, and a lot has happened today. I will ask the druid to give you a potion so that you can sleep for one night and we will return to Cintra tomorrow."

"Nilfgaardians aren't that fast, and you wouldn't want to fall off your horse, would you?"

Eist shook his head and said: "Every minute counts, Ciri will be in more danger. Ciri is to me what Hjalmar is to you. I can't wait another moment."

In the crowd, a youthful-looking but strong young man shouted: "Father, speed is essential, let's save Ciri!"

"Shut up, Hjalmar!" Crach roared at his son, then sighed and surrendered to Eist, "Since you insist so much, let's set off overnight."

Eist nodded, turned around and stared at his wife affectionately, as if he wanted to bring this longing into the subsequent battle.

With a mighty blow, Crach knocked Eist from behind, and the newly awakened Sea Knight fell unconscious as the Skellige warriors looked on, kicking up a pile of leaves as he fell.

"Father, you..." Hjalmar looked at his father in amazement and was speechless.

Crach glared at his young son and roared: "Shut up, brat! You have no right to speak here!"

"I have seen many warriors like this. They have fire in their heads, fire in their eyes, fire in their bodies."

"This kind of fire can burn enemies, but also oneself. This is the lesson that the sea teaches us, even if it is Eist, it is no exception."

After letting East lie flat on the ground in a more comfortable position, Crach turned back to the sailors and said: "My uncle's safety cannot be compromised. He is seriously injured and needs to be brought back to Skellige urgently, along with Queen Calanthe's body. Hjalmar!"

The young man whose name was called puffed out his chest. "Yeah!"

"Lead half of the sailors, take your uncle and the queen's body back to Ard Skellig immediately. Don't do anything unnecessary!"

After giving the instructions, he turned to the remaining sailors and said solemnly. "Princess Pavetta and her husband died because of my mistake in judging the storm at sea. I thought about asking Queen Calanthe for forgiveness with my death, but she forgave me."

"Since that day, I have sworn in the name of my clan to do everything I can for their only surviving daughter, Princess Cirilla. Now, I will fulfill that promise. Are you willing to follow me?"

The sailors shouted in unison: "The sons of the Islands are not afraid of wind and waves!"

Crach laughed loudly with satisfaction.

"Um...Father?" Hjalmar suddenly said, "I also want to save Ciri..."

A rumble far more thunderous than when Eist fell echoed through the forest.

...

Jerome smashed the table in front of him with a slap, and the sharp wood chips pierced his palm, but he didn't even notice.

Toussaint, underground of Mont Crane Castle, secret laboratory.

There is a young man soaking in the culture tank placed in the center, with dense infusion tubes connected to his body, and each infusion tube is connected to a bucket of unnamed potion.

The young man in the tank was breathing weakly. Despite the respirator, he was still struggling to drink the nutrient liquid in the tank, indicating that he was still alive. Jerome had repeatedly tried to stop this act that seriously disturbed the experiment, but as long as there was an iota of consciousness, it would not stop. In the end, he had to give up and allow it. He was surprised by the vigorous vitality of this young man.

Jerome was very happy at first, feeling that this strong vitality was enough for the young man to survive the Witcher Trial. But he did not expect that now the young man looked like a living dead.

The young man now had dry hair, skin white as that of a dead person, with parts of it appearing melted like that of a burn, and deformities in his fingers and joints.

Lann, he should have died from the mutation a long time ago, but the [Gourmet] skill and his strong will to survive kept him alive.

But the Witcher Trial wasn't just about survival.

Jerome looked desperate and collapsed to the ground helplessly. "The mutation... failed, the Gryphon School..."

During this period, he watched Lann's condition decline day by day, from a handsome knight to what he is now.

He rummaged through all the test materials, read all the classics he could find, hunted countless monsters to make various potions and decoctions, and tried to reverse the process, but all failed.

The Witcher Trials must be completed in childhood, because children are more malleable. This is a rule discovered by the wizard Alzur, one of the creators of the witcher mutations. Previously, he attempted to perform mutation experiments on adults, but none survived. It was after a sudden inspiration that she decided to use children in the experiments, but even so, the success rate of the Witchers Trials was still only thirty percent.

And this 30% success rate was only achieved when Alzur, one of the most renowned mages, led a team of dozens of mages and used hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of experimental subjects.

In contrast, Jerome's mutation experiment, although it mixed a large number of unique materials, were not directly applied as in Lann's case, and the final result still rushed towards total chaos. Jerome, based on his vast knowledge, surmised that Lann had resisted until now due to his strong will and the blockage of his blood system. But there are things that cannot be achieved with effort alone; In the end, fate did not deviate towards that thirty percent.

Jerome knew this knowledge well, but he still had a sense of luck when facing Lann, but reality dealt him a heavy blow and shattered his faith.

"I'm sorry... Knight, I turned you into what you are now, so that you can't even have a decent burial." Jerome muttered, and then screamed on the ground, followed by an intense feeling of guilt.

"It was my selfishness that made you go through all this. I should not have forced my fate on you. This is not the way of chivalry."

"Perhaps, I should have freed you as soon as possible."

After clearing his mind, Jerome looked around. This small laboratory contained her nightmares for a hundred years. He even felt that his experiments with Lann in the previous period were repeating the bad deeds that his father had done to him. Which made him feel even guiltier.

Since the mutation had failed, there was no need to stay here anymore. Jerome pulled Lann out of the culture tank and out the tunnel with him.

He didn't want Lann to live in this dark underground laboratory until his death. A knight should have a knight's ending.

They came to Mont Crane Castle. The bandits who had been stationed here had long been cleared away by Jerome, and only some traces of the battle were still here.

"It should be enough to use a castle as your tombstone, right? The death of the knight should be in the castle." Jerome murmured.

The cold moonlight shone down on Lann's body, and the evening breeze blew by, making him feel the breath of the world for the first time in a long time.

In fact, Lann had always been receiving information from the outside world. Although his five senses are vague as if there is a layer of film between him and the outside world, and even part of his eyelids are stuck together and cannot be opened, he knew what was happening in his body at this moment.

He could feel himself submerged in some solution, he knew how many needles had been stuck into him, and he knew that he had been taken out of the lab.

He could hear what Jerome said. He knew that the other person was trying to save him, and he also knew that this kind of rescue method was too drastic. He had always wanted to become a witcher, but he had no solid plan, so even though he had the formula for the witcher trial in hand, he never put it into action.

By some strange combination of circumstances, he didn't expect fate to play a trick on him. He passively went through the witcher's mutation to save his life and then failed.

On countless occasions, he was tortured to the brink of mental collapse from the pain, but he still opened the respirator and drank the dirty mutation liquid to activate the [Gourmet] skill. He thought that he had already reached the limit.

'How can it be like this?!' He screamed in his mind, after so much effort, after meeting so many friends, after earning so many honors. 'How could I accept a result like that?!'

'No! I refuse!' The voiceless youth screamed in his mind, but he suddenly realized that everything around him had changed at some point.

It was as if everything around him had become clearer. Lann felt as if he had acquired some mysterious magical sense and the film covering his five senses had been lifted.

Once again, he could hear the sound of the wind, smell the aroma of flowers and feel the heat and cold. He could observe what was around him without opening his eyes, down to the smallest detail.

No, it's not so much that Lann can sense everything around him, but that someone made Lann able to do so.

The evening wind stopped flowing, and the petals falling from the air stopped moving. The insect that had been flapping its wings at a frequency of hundreds of times per second gradually decreased its speed until it remained completely still in the air.

The whole world seemed to have been pressed on the pause button and became silent. The only one who was not restricted was Lann, but he could only breathe weakly and could do nothing else.

Suddenly, Lann heard a sound of footsteps approaching from afar, and he felt as if an invisible hand was holding his head and causing his perception to move towards the direction of the sound.

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