Lugh came over to help immediately, but this time, he could not do a thing either.

“I’ve used third tiered Panacea on them, but it’s not working. They must have eaten a ranked poison… We need to find out what they took, and quickly.”

“There’s some blue dust on their fingers. I think I recognise this…,” Lugh went forward and rubbed some dust on a gleaming silver needle, and his eyes widened when the metal turned purple. He took a sniff on the powder, and his face paled visibly.

“As I thought… This is one of the top ten Ranked Poisons: Rank seven, Life Taker. Those that consumed it would be drained of their life, and from their bodies, a great big flower will blossom. How did such a wicked thing appear in this place?”

Just as Lugh deduced, it was a dangerous thing that shouldn’t be here. Alan and Jim finally found the oddest looking spirit herb in this entire place. A rodent-shaped, cobalt flower. They gleefully took up the plant and without a word, ate it.

However, they did not know that the spirit herb was not shaped like an animal, but was actually a rodent-like animal that was infected by the Life Taker.

The others stiffened from hearing that they ate a ranked seven poison. If a Ranked Poison can be cured, would it still be ranked?

It is only a matter of time before the two would die. Even Edward who was brooding and glum over his family’s tragedy started panicking.

“How long do they have?” asked Kairos urgently, but unfortunately, their best healer in the group, Lugh, do not have an answer.

“Honestly, they should be dead already. The Life Taker, like its namesake, devours the vitality of its victim in order to grow. Within minutes they will be paralysed, and shortly afterwards, death from the internal organs ceasing to function.”

Kairos placed a finger on their wrist, pretending to measure their pulse. Having done this in front of others before, his classmates already know of his ability to tell very small aliments accurately, however, what he is truly doing is far from their expectations.

He sent a strand of Origin Energy into them, and within a minute he lifted his fingers and shook his head. They are only alive because of their cultivation method. Internally, they are struggling for control over their life force, but the Life Taker is much too potent, and they barely have minutes left.

Lugh who was watching nearby to learn what unique techniques Kairos used, frowned because he couldn’t see anything different.

“Such a quick diagnosis? Does he have the God’s Touch talent to feel the slightest vibrations through his fingertips?

If that is so, it is truly an envious talent. Not even a handful of my ancestors had this ability, and each of them was highly respected doctors.”

Kairos breathed a sigh of relief knowing that his technique had not raised any doubts after seeing Lugh’s expression, but there is little to celebrate about.

He motioned for Edward to take care of the two then told the rest, “My father once told me that poisonous things in the wild often grows alongside their cure, let’s quickly search around. There may be a way to help!”

It was a baseless proposal, but the words of an experienced ranger aren’t something he would take lightly. Kairos also knows that if the cure to such a poison is so easily found, it wouldn’t be ranked. Nevertheless, the others nodded their heads and kept looking around.

“Well, it’s better than to sit around doing nothing. Let’s go!”

The seconds ticked by quickly, and in a short while the two already looked mummified even with Edward trying to sustain them with his life force. In fact, the poison gobbled up the new source of life energy and grew stronger, forcing him to stop in horror.

If not because they are still grasping for air, anyone would have believed they are already gone.

It was at this eleventh hour that they finally spotted what they believe to be the growing spot of the Life Taker.

Granted, it is not far from the two and thus was easy to find. However, it still took the extensive knowledge that Luge had of herbs to find a hidden spot where the sun never touched, and has the same blue dust found on Alan and Jim.

He hurriedly called the others over, though, in his heart, the healer already felt that it is too late. Even if they find the birthplace of the poison, by now, there is no difference in their actions than just investigating the murder weapon.

However, when Kairos heard it, he had a glimmer of hope blossom in his chest.

Ever since he entered the gorge, he had been hearing the spirit plants whisper to him, not unlike how the spirit ores did. However, it was far more difficult for him to understand. It wasn’t that the plants used a different language, but the noise that assaulted him was much too overwhelming.

All he could tell was that they are trying to call to him, yet now, this unreliable talent is the only thing he could depend on to save his friends.

“It must work!”

The other spirit plants might not know, but those around where the Life Taker was born, might be able to tell him of a cure.

Now, the only way left for him to learn to understand more than just incoherent mumbles.

He closed his eyes in full concentration, trying to pick out the tiniest whispers from the spirit herbs.

To be honest, Kairos like he was grasping at straw, but for these two who had stuck to him through thick and thin, he cannot afford to fail.

He listened with his heart in his throat.

… Siii…

…..Siiii …

Kair…osss

As precious seconds passed, even he could not hold back his anxiousness any long.

“Why give me an ability if I can’t use it when I need it? WHY!”

Kairos shouting suddenly caused everyone to jump. They had never seen him lose his cool before, but when they noticed the tears flowing down his eyes, they understood. The one deemed to be the top prodigy of their age had found no reprieve, no solution, as his friends were quickly dying.

“A…aisa…”

He pleaded, but instead of words, he felt a deep sadness from the dragon.

“Wait… Can… can I put them into stasis like Enki before?”

Kai... It… it’s no use *sob*… They are just too different from a godling and cannot survive what we did for the mad one.

The words those spirit herbs whispered are confusing and repetitive, but he could tell they are trying to speak to him. These are not a random jumble of noises, yet no matter how he tried, he could not make the head out of tails from them.

As the life seeped out of both Alan and Jim, their organs started shutting down. Surrounded by friends who watch with regrets at their final moments.

“We shouldn’t have let them…”

“It’s not your fault, this place shouldn’t have any dangerous herbs,” Luciette said, but there was little indication that Edward and Kairos heard her.

At this moment, when everyone has given up, a woman suddenly appeared before them. She seemed to have stepped out from thin air and manifested before the group when no one noticed.

Her hair glistered in a perfect tone of brown, her skin flawlessly fair like winter snow, and her eyes are the colours of glowing embers.

She wore clothes alike that found from the scattered tribes to the east, made of fur and leather, twines, and leaves.

Her features are no doubt the perfect womanly shape, giving off a vibe of a matured mistress of the house.

They could tell from her clothing that she is a vain but beautiful person, and at the same time both motherly yet savage.

But there is something more about her that caused them to pause. Her visage, though attractive, appeared inhuman.

“My apologies, my Lord,” she spoke, and together with her voice, time froze for everyone except for Kairos, leaving him as the only person who can still talk and move.

“I did not wish to interfere as you had commanded, yet I cannot bear to let such lovely children die.”

She tried to kneel, not unlike how the Spirit King prostrated itself before Kairos, but this time, he was prepared, and he halted her with a hand on her arm. The woman stood back to her full height, but her eyes and lips still trembled as she made a decision.

“My Lord,” she cried, “you may punish me, but I must speed things up for Kairos.”

As she said this, a pair of eyes, each as large as an eagle in flight, appeared above Kairos. They are golden as blazing suns, brighter and more radiant than Kairos’ Veritable Sight, yet they seem one and the same.

The eyes closed then disappeared without saying a word, but the woman became overjoyed.

She smiled then held Kairos’ hands and repeatedly whispered, “Thank you… thank you…!”

“My friends… are they alright?” he asked. Though he did not understand anything that just happened, his first concern is still his friends.

“My lord, rest assured. They will be.”

“Who are you, and why do you call me your lord?”

The woman shook her head slightly.

“I may be able to tell you that I am Gaia, the Earth Mother, but you have commanded me not to interfere. I am already breaking your instructions now by appearing, and I dare not transgress a second time. Please forgive me…”

“You are the spirit of this realm? But, how can I even command you?”

“You are my lord, of course, I am yours to command.”

“… When did I do that?”

“It was back in the Orc forest, my lord.”

“Was it that time when the Orc Masters became paralysed on the ground with fright?”

She nodded and added, “That was because of you, my lord.”

“Me? I couldn’t defeat any of them at that time.”

He had charged into the forest in an attempt to talk to the Orcs but found himself surrounded with no way out. In that desperate situation, he saw a strange spherical rune appear behind the back of his hand and soon after the Orc Masters he could not defeat had flattened themselves on the ground in fright.

Back then, he noticed a lapse in his memory, because no matter how fast, it is impossible for those Orcs to change from a standing position to be laying down in an instant.

He looked at the Earth Mother again, and this time seemed to recognise her scent on the technique before.

“Gaia, that spherical rune was your doing?”

“Yes, my lord.”

He quickly concluded that when he was nearly facing defeat, the Earth Mother had appeared and given him a powerful rune that could decimate his enemies, but somehow, without him remembering, he had commanded her to cease and not interfere. Since then, she had not appeared until now.

Because of the blanks in his memory, and how the otherworldly beings had given him titles like ‘Great One’ and ‘Lord’, he guessed that there might be another entity within him.

Kairos asked at once, trying to get more answers with this chance, “Have I got a powerful being within me that I do not know of?”

“No, my lord. There is none who dare attempt such.”

“… is another personality within myself?”

Though it sounded impossible, even for his own ears, and he knows no example of anyone with a split personality, he had heard of such cases before.

With so many lapses in his memory, Kairos had tried to find out the possible causes a few times before, and such an ailment was the most likely reason.

But the Earth Mother after pondering a while about the meaning of having ‘another personality’ shook her head.

“My Lord, I know not of having multiple personalities in one body, but you are you.”

“You said, I can give you orders, then can you save my friends?” he asked hopefully.

But his heart sunk when Gaia shook her head.

“My lord, you have told me not to interfere, I dare not take actions directly.”

“Gah! When did I tell her such a damned thing…? I can’t even remember, but it looks like I cannot overwrite my own words on her…”

“However,” she continued, raising hopes in him once again, “my lord you can easily save them. Like you had guessed, the plants are trying to speak to you, though they are mainly singing praises of you. But, should you learn to communicate with them, they have the answers you are looking for.”

“And, you are here to help me learn how to communicate with them?” Kairos asked with a frown, “I do not understand why you are trying to save Alan and Jim. What is in it for you?”

The Earth Mother, feeling the power behind his words, seemed frightened and stepped back like a surprised rabbit. She quickly bowed humbly like a courtier before her king and said in a small voice, “Because… my lord… I love you. And, if these lovely children die, you will be heartbroken.”

Kairos, thirteen years of age, and not yet fully grown, received his first confession from the opposite gender.

He completely became devoid of thought for a second in stunned surprise, but quickly recovered his composure with a few coughs.

The Earth Mother, although looked like a human, did not understand his emotions.

“That… that aside… I’ve heard the words from the spirit ores, yet I couldn’t understand anything from these herbs, why?”

“My lord, these children are of a higher lifeform, and thus it strains your heart to listen to them. Perhaps, it would be easier if there are voices that could overpower the noise.”

She quickly assisted Kairos to hear the voices of the spirit herbs in this time-locked space. Taking out a few of her children, all of them unimaginable and beautiful treasured spirit herbs, she let him ‘listen’ to them as practice.

Like him, they are not frozen in time, and each of them is far stronger than the ones in the medical gorge.

“These are the oldest of my children. Even older than any spirit beast that ever lived. I have protected them from all harm and nurtured them carefully. They should have the clearest voices.”

At first, the words Kairos picked out were similar to what he heard before. But soon, he can tell that they truly have stronger and clearer voices than the herbs in the gorge. Even the most powerful Spirit Ore in his possession, the Origin of the Land, did not send such distinct words into his heart.

It took him a while, but he finally understood. Their words were simple and of pure joy.

“Lord Kairos, you are here! We thank you~.”

“Lord~ carry me!”

“Lord Kairos~ Lord Kairos~.”

They were like children, excited, pure, and innocent and each of them seemed eager to meet him.

When the Earth Mother saw the recognition on his face, she leaned forward and kissed his cheeks, then, just like how she appeared, she stepped into thin air and became no longer visible to sight.

As he felt her departing, her voice flowed into him.

“My lord, I wish to give you my heart. You will find it soon, and when you do, please, take care of it.”

An image of a rock appeared in his mind. It is shaped like a ball of frozen flames and gave off the same feelings as the Earth Mother.

After burning that image into his memory, time is once again unlocked, and everyone looked at Kairos with weeping.

They had forgotten about the strange woman they saw, as though a lost memory.

Instead, they only lamented that if even Kairos and Lugh could not find a way out, then there is truly no more hope.

Ignoring them, Kairos spoke to the plants around them with a commanding voice, “The Life Taker that lived here, tell me, how do I neutralise its poison.”

The others thought he had gone mad, but Kairos spoke again.

“So… it did not come from this place? Did it speak of something that would counter it? I see, thank you.”

Without another word, Kairos rushed back to Alan, Jim and Edward’s side. The archer watched in horror as he took out a vial and poured into their mouths.

“Eeeh… isn’t that the water from the poison mire?”