Chapter 260: The Living Holy Spirit
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A part of Hilda's soul stood quietly before the tower's wreckage, which had melted into large crystals. This vague silhouette had no expression and it did not react to the rest of them. Hao Ren approached her and waved his hand in front of her, but it appeared that she could not see him.
Her soul was so weak that even her basic line of thought was lost. She was like a motionless holographic projection. Even though the appearance of her body was present with the help of Raven 12345's power, she was unable to respond to any stimuli.
"What should we do?" Vivian looked back at the medical chamber where Hilda's body lay and found that nothing happened at all. "Do we just wait?"
"We just have to wait," Hao Ren said. He then looked at the medical chamber, which was still in a closed state. "Raven said, as long as Hilda's soul fragments are close to each other, the magical 'seed' she left behind will take care of the rest."
Therefore, they waited quietly. However, Vimm did not know how much Raven 12345 could do. Looking at the familiar phantom, he looked uneasy and perturbed. "I did not expect this to happen to my mother... Is she really going to come back to life?"
In such a situation, Hao Ren had to protect Raven 12345's image. "Rest assured that the Raven we've mentioned is a powerful god. Even just by breathing on your mother, she can still save her."
Vivian and Y'zaks also tried to comfort Vimm to calm him down. After they took turns to ease his heart, he was finally relieved and he patiently waited for the results like the rest of them.
The next 10 minutes were long and difficult to endure. The wait felt like thousands of years for Vimm but finally, his waiting did not go to waste: by some mysterious force, Hilda's soul seemed to be replenished with vitality. The dim silhouette standing in front of the ruins began to grow brighter and more visible, turning from a blur to crystal clear. She shook her head as though she just woke up from a dream and turned to Hao Ren.
The glimmering, broken soul glanced at the strangers in bewilderment. She did not seem to quite understand the situation she was in: she was the part that Hilda left in her hometown so, she did not know exactly what her body and another part of her, which possessed a persistent and unchangeable mind went through in another world. At the same time, she was puzzled by her current surroundings: the memory of this part of her soul was still frozen in the time of the space-time accelerator's explosion, and she wondered why she was standing in a strange place. However, the confusion of her soul did not last long. When she recovered enough to accept the next fusion, Raven 12345's power suddenly erupted. That soul fragment was directly sucked into the medical chamber.
The MDT immediately reminded them, "Her consciousness is beginning to revive. Quickly, send her back to the ship!"
Hao Ren did not dare to delay and immediately led the team, running back to the spaceship. He found the speed of the medical chamber too slow so, he pushed it to make it move faster. If it were not for the fear of injuring Hilda, he would have allowed Y'zaks to release some Flamebursts at the back of the medical chamber to push it forward. At last, they were back in the shuttle with the chamber and eventually, they returned to the medical bay of the Petrachelys Patrol Frigate.
After reconnecting the medical chamber to the system in the medical bay, the fusing process of Hilda's soul came to an end. Everything seemed to be going well at that moment, and the system detected that Hilda's consciousness was gradually reviving. The various anomalies in the soul were being restored at an alarming rate. Finally, amid the anticipating and nervous gazes, the silvery-white chamber opened bit by bit. And the elf queen, who had been in the jaws of death for more than a month, opened her eyes slowly. This time, she was "really" resurrected.
"All of you..." Hilda looked at the circle of people strangely and asked, "Why are all of you looking at me like that?"
Before Hao Ren could utter a word, Vimm ran to Hilda and said, "Mother! I am so glad that you are safe and sound."
"Wait, wait, what is wrong with you... Behave yourself!" Hilda pushed Vimm away but, suddenly she seemed to realise something. "Wait a minute... I have a lot of things in my head. I just had a... Did something happen to me?"
"It's something serious." Now that Hao Ren got the opportunity to speak, he was finally relieved. He then laughed, spread his hands and said, "You almost scared us to death but, you were really dead at one point."
More than 10 minutes later, Hao Ren and the others rushed to explain the situation earlier. Hilda was stunned. She could not believe that such a thing actually happened to her. "What you say is true? I was once... dead?"
"Strictly speaking, you began to die a month ago and it took you one month to die thoroughly. Then, you were rescued by a goddess within two hours after you completely died..."
Vivian stomped on Hao Ren's foot, gnashed her teeth and said, "Keep your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say!"
Hao Ren bared his teeth and jumped as he spoke angrily, "I was feeling all relaxed and got a little excited! Besides, she's okay with it!"
Hilda looked at the noisy scene before her and looked at Vimm, who appeared perplexed. He wanted to speak but, he had to be serious due to his mother. She slowly began to accept reality. She jumped out of the medical chamber easily as if nothing had ever happened and said, "It seems that there are still too many things in this world that we do not know of and the road to knowledge is endless—Vimm, do not look so sad, you are the one who is going to succeed the throne."
Then she smiled with a subtle expression and said, "This is really a very rare experience, a persistent and unchangeable mind... I did not realise that I still had this strength. I should thank the goddess. Otherwise, I would have missed the greatest moment in Aerym's history... Uh, Lily, what is wrong with you?"
Lily had been staring at Hilda since the beginning with an incredulous look on her face. Then she pointed at the medical chamber and stammered, "Hil-Hilda... Don't you think you've left something behind?"
"What is...?" Hilda looked back, puzzled. The rest of them looked behind her as well, and the next second, all of them fell into dead silence.
Hao Ren remained quiet for a few minutes and finally shouted, "What the hell?!"
Hilda's body was still lying quietly in the medical chamber.
"How did this happen?" Vimm immediately exclaimed. At the same time, Hao Ren quickly discovered that something was slightly wrong with the Hilda who was standing outside the medical chamber: There seemed to be a faint glow around her. Her body had an ethereal vibe that was subtle yet, tangible. Although her "body" looked real, with careful observation, one would soon realise that the silhouette of her body was faintly translucent.
"Am I... a spirit?" Hilda was surprised at her own situation but, she was calmer than the others. The first thing she did was to make sure that her current state was different from the usual. However, she found that she was still the same as she always was: she could easily pick up an object next to her and her hand did not phase through the thing like that of a spirit would. She also touched Vivian's hand to make sure she still had her body warmth.
Hilda looked normal—except, her body was still in the medical chamber.
Hao Ren hurriedly contacted Raven 12345. As expected, the goddess was waiting on the line, probably anticipating the results of Hilda's resurrection. Hao Ren immediately heard her loud voice after he dialed her number. "Yo, Hao Ren, how is it? Did my Limited Custom Carnival Edition V2.0 of the Automatic Resurrection Kit work?"
"Bullsh*t!" Hao Ren almost choked because of Raven 12345. "Hilda is awake but, her soul has left her body and self-integrated into a separate body!"
"What?"
Hao Ren quickly explained the situation to Raven clearly. He also allowed the MDT to stream a video to Raven. Raven 12345 remained silent for a few seconds. She was probably organizing her thoughts or most likely, trying to come up with a more appropriate excuse. However, in the end, she said something useful, "Err... An unexpected situation. It seems that the spirit is quite in tune with my power or maybe the power I left in her body was a little bit too much... She has directly turned into a living holy spirit. Congratulations to Aerym. They now have an immortal guardian."