Chapter 64: Chapter: 64 Vehemoth pair?
Cutting off the grizzle’s head, Vivian flicked his blade to shake off the blood before sliding it back into its sheath.
He walked toward Charlotte, his expression calm. "Should we head to the last floor, or would it be better to rest for a bit?"
It hadn’t been long since they started moving again, but after that fight with the half-evolved grizzle, Vivian noticed Charlotte had used a great deal of power.
She looked slightly worn out, so he left the choice to her.
Charlotte thought for a moment, then checked herself.
Mages didn’t usually have to worry about mana, but that last combination spell had drained her more than she expected.
A faint weariness lingered in her limbs.
Besides, once they crossed the gate to the next floor, they would have to face the boss monster, the Vehemoth.
If it were just about killing it, things would’ve been easier, but their goal was to subdue it, which made the task far more difficult.
Taking all that into account, Charlotte nodded and said, "We’ll rest here for a while."
"Alright," Vivian replied. " Stabilise your body and mana core. I’ll stand guard."
Charlotte gave a small nod, then sat down in a lotus position and began cultivating,
her breathing gradually slowed as the faint glow of mana surrounded her.
They stayed there for a while, Charlotte in deep cultivation, and Vivian standing guard, silent and alert.
After some time, Charlotte’s eyes snapped open, a refreshed light gleaming in them.
She rose to her feet, stretched her arms, and turned toward Vivian. "Let’s go."
Vivian nodded without hesitation and started running toward the gate, with Charlotte flying close behind him.
After moving for about twenty minutes, they reached the massive door.
Charlotte stepped forward, raised her hand, and channeled her mana into the gate.
The chants carved into it flickered to life as the door slowly began to open.
Before they entered, Vivian called out, "Charlotte, don’t use any destructive spells. It might hurt it more than we want. Just focus on restraining it, understood?"
Charlotte glanced at him, her tone calm. "Yes."
After exchanging one last look, they stepped into the third floor.
They had managed to make it this far and would probably face the Vehemoth soon, but both Vivian and Charlotte looked slightly tense.
Their nervousness didn’t come from the thought of fighting the Vehemoth itself, it came from wondering whether the Vehemoth theory would actually work on it or not.
Vivian and Charlotte sighed at the same time and stepped onto the third floor.
The moment they entered, both of them noticed something strange.
Unlike the first and second floors that stretched endlessly into the distance, this one felt... small.
"Why is the third floor so small?" Vivian muttered, glancing at Charlotte with uncertain eyes.
Charlotte, however, stayed calm. She already knew the reason. "The floors where the boss resides are usually smaller,"
She explained softly. "That’s because the boss lives alone here, it governs the monsters on the lower floors."
Hearing her explanation, Vivian’s expression eased as he looked ahead.
The boss floor might have been smaller than the others, but it wasn’t tiny, it stretched at least a kilometer across.
Vivian spread his senses outward, scanning the area, and Charlotte did the same. Then—
A sharp gasp escaped both of them.
Charlotte frowned, confused by what she sensed.
But when she turned to look at Vivian, she saw his eyes gleaming, a faint smile spreading across his lips.
Her confusion deepened. "Why are you smiling?" she asked, her brow furrowed.
Vivian’s expression suddenly shifted into one of pure ecstasy.
His eyes gleamed with excitement as he said, "There are two!"
Charlotte’s frown deepened. "So?"
Vivian stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"I didn’t tell you before because it seemed unnecessary. Getting even one was close to impossible... but it looks like heaven is favoring us!"
Charlotte blinked, caught between confusion and surprise, but soon her lips curved into a small smile.
She wasn’t smiling because of what he said, but because it was the first time she’d seen him truly happy since their regression.
Back then, when they first met after so long apart, they’d cried together, clinging to each other in relief.
But this joy was different. Since that day, Vivian had carried a gloom around him, as if something heavy was weighing on his heart.
His smiles since then had always felt... forced, just to keep her from worrying.
Now, seeing him genuinely laugh again, she couldn’t help but smile too.
Her eyes lit up as she asked, her voice tinged with excitement, "Why? Is having two... a good thing?"
"Of course!" Vivian replied, his voice brimming with joy.
"Normally, a Vehemoth lives alone, they hate being in groups. But that only applies before they’ve formed a pair."
He continued, his tone growing more animated as he explained, "When a Vehemoth gives birth, it raises its offspring for a short while."
"After that, the parents leave, and the young one has to survive on its own. They usually hunt and live in solitude, never approaching another Vehemoth of the same gender."
Vivian’s eyes gleamed as he went on, "But when a Vehemoth meets another of the opposite gender, something changes. They form a pair, and that bond doesn’t just make them partners. It strengthens them. Their abilities evolve together."
At this point, Charlotte’s eyes grew even more puzzled.
She couldn’t understand why facing not one but two stronger Vehemoths would be considered lucky.
"So what’s the luck in it?" she asked."Wouldn’t it be more difficult?"
Vivian looked at her and nodded slightly.
"Well, of course it’ll be difficult," he admitted, "but there’s a far greater opportunity hidden in it."
He took a breath, his tone calm but his excitement rising with each word. "When two Vehemoths form a pair, they share their life essence. That means if one dies, the other loses its will to live and dies soon after."
Charlotte frowned again. "So?"
Vivian’s eyes glimmered as he went on, "That shared life essence connects them deeper than blood. It’s a bond of pure energy."
"And if someone were to slay both and refine their hearts together... the effectiveness of that essence would multiply. If I use their hearts to refine mine, my chances of survival, and evolution, would greatly increase."
He smiled, his voice trembling slightly with excitement. "Now do you understand why I’m so happy?"
Charlotte’s eyes widened in shock as she stared into the distance, the same look of ecstasy spreading across her face. "If we refine their hearts together with yours... the chances would increase?"
Vivian nodded, smiling.
Charlotte fell silent, thinking deeply, then asked suddenly, "Is the information reliable? If it’s false, we’ll be in trouble, we can’t afford to kill even one of the two by mistake."
Vivian’s smile turned confident. "It’s true," he said firmly.
His confidence wasn’t baseless. The mention of this had appeared in his own book, "The Order of Love."
In the book, Kafrik’s comrade had been fatally wounded by the villainess Charlotte.
And when they escaped, someone had suggested that only the heart of a Vehemoth could save him.
But not just any Vehemoth, a paired one.
The story claimed that if they could obtain the hearts of a bonded pair, the success rate of survival would rise to eighty percent.
But in the end, they hadn’t found a paired Vehemoth. They had to make do with a single one, yet, even so, it had worked.
At the time, Vivian had written that detail as nothing more than a plot device.
Yet now, standing here in this world, that very invention might be the key he needed.
Originally, he wouldn’t have considered something so uncertain.
After all, almost nothing here matched what he had written, Charlotte was no longer the ruthless villainess of his book.
And that bastard Kafrik wasn’t the righteous hero he’d imagined.
In truth, they were as different as heaven and earth from the characters he’d once created.
But after returning, when he began searching for a way to break the curse, the idea of using a Vehemoth came to him.
At first, he hadn’t wanted to rely on that method, his own writing was far too unreliable to trust.
Yet, the more he researched, the more he realized there was some truth hidden in it.
And besides, he had no other choice. So, in the end, he decided to go along with it.
And now that he had found not one, but two Vehemoths that had formed a pair, the chances had risen to an unimaginable level.
Unable to contain his excitement, Vivian stepped closer to Charlotte and pulled her into a firm embrace, wanting to share the rush of joy that surged through him.
The sudden hug caught Charlotte completely off guard. Her face flushed a deep red, and for a moment, she froze.
After a while, Vivian let her go, still smiling. "Let’s go get the hearts," he said.