Chapter 72: Strange flames

Kyrie and Ian run after Maya. However, once they arrive in the forest, they lose her. 

Kyrie turns his head around, but all he can see are the trunks of ancient trees. All preventing him from looking further to the horizon as if nature is working together to cover Maya's tracks. 

Despite the sun stands high in the heavens, the dense forest has barely any sunlight that could illuminate their path. Their ears drown in the continuous sound of rustling leaves and branches coming in all directions.

Kyrie steps on the ground and then stumps at it again. The ground barely imprinted the outline of his foot. Someone as light as Maya would not leave any footprints for them to follow. Even if she did, it would barely be imprinted on the ground for them to search diligently. 

The neverending repeat of the same scenery is giving Kyrie an enormous headache. His vision starts to spiral from overthinking. He squints his eyes to focus on what is in front of him. Knowing that stopping is not a good idea, he forces his feet to move forward. He knows that the further Maya is away from them, the harder it is for them to find her. 

Ian grabs Kyrie's wrist, stopping him. Then, he leans on the protruding roots of the giant trees, pulling Kyrie towards him. He cups Kyrie's face with his hand.

"Why are you frowning?"

"My head is spinning, but we have to hurry. We need to catch up to Maya," Kyrie pulls Ian to continue moving forward. However, Kyrie gets pulled back after some steps.

"I will carry you."

"Huh?"

Ian lifts Kyrie like a feather, surprising Kyrie so much that his jaw will drop to the ground if it is not attached to his face. Flustered beyond his comfort zone, Kyrie's face begins to steam. 

Ian is carrying Kyrie bridal style.

The surprise attacks Kyrie so suddenly that his only way to defend himself is by covering his face from revealing his flustered expression. However, his curiosity about how Ian is reacting to all these gets the best of him. He opens his fingers to peek at Ian.

He sharply breaths in the air as if he forgot to breathe. Kyrie blinks several times to adjust back his sight. For some reason, Ian looks sparkly today. He gulps as he traces Ian's facial features with his eyes. Then, he gets entranced at Ian's Adam's apple. 

Although Kyrie just wants to peek at Ian for a few seconds, he cannot move his eyes away like he is hypnotized. Watching Ian carrying him, Kyrie realizes just how much strength Ian possesses. Even after walking a distance, Ian's breath is stable. Kyrie has forgotten how strong Ian is. 

In the novel, Ian is someone who can keep up with someone as crazy as Imogen. 

Stupefied by the sudden realization, Kyrie does not understand why he is protecting this mochi. Although Ian's personality is like a mochi, it does not mean that he is as soft as a mochi. People might lose their teeth if they bite into it. 

[Ahh… So cool~]

Kyrie silently fanboys. He bites on his lower lip to stop himself from voicing out his inner thoughts.

Ian lowers his eyes and smiles. This is a different Kyrie than the one he normally sees. 

Actually, he prefers seeing Kyrie flustered.

A control freak like Kyrie, who plans and calculates for every move, makes him feel anxious. He feels powerless when facing unfamiliar situations because Kyrie is a very unpredictable person. 

Kyrie knows so much about the things he doesn't. Plus, his mouth is sealed tighter than his father's treasure vault. At least he could peak at his father's vault once, but with Kyrie, not even air can get into his sealed up secrets. He is waiting for the day that Kyrie can trust him enough to tell him everything without the feeling that he needs to conceal everything.

"If you carry me like this, it would be hard for you," says Kyrie.

Kyrie takes his hands off his face, showing off his blushed cheeks.

"You are not that heavy…"

Kyrie is out of words. Not that heavy? He eats and trains like a mad man. How can he be light? 

[I am not even sure how to take it. If I were a maiden, I would be happy. But I am a swordsman who trains every day.]

"Then, I will carry you on my back."

Ian crutches down and tilts forward for Kyrie to hop on. Although his pride is greatly wounded, he gulps while looking at Ian's back. What is the use of pride anyway, right?

He circles his arms around Ian's neck, but Ian lets out a laugh. 

"Am I carrying you, or are you going to choke me to death?"

Ian places Kyrie's hands on his chest. Then, he lifts Kyrie with not much effort at all.

"You need to eat more…"

Another arrow seems to have penetrated Kyrie's pride. Kyrie's eye twitches while he lets out a forced out smile. However, a mischievous thought comes to his mind. 

After Kyrie has placed his hand on Ian's chest, he has been good and held himself from being bad. However, Ian deserves it. The nature of Kyrie's smile changes into a flirtatious one. 

Ian lets out a groan of pain. 

"Kyrie! Don't squeeze there… It hurts!"

"Where did I squeeze?"

"Shameless…" 

Ian's ears turn red. 

"You should not have provoked me…"

Ian frowns, thinking of what he could have done to provoke Kyrie.

Before Ian gets to ask, Kyrie's eyes brighten. 

"Ian, I got a great idea! I know how to track Maya."

"How?"

Kyrie murmurs a spell, and his eyes turn red. Hearing the familiar incarnations, Ian gets it. Kyrie will track Maya based on the energy that she has left behind while walking through the forest. Like how Kyrie located the evil spirit during the lantern festival, Kyrie will track Maya with the same spell.

It is just a guess since Maya lets out essence, not mana. 

Ian walks around the forest, and Kyrie finally catches the aura with his eyes.

"Walk towards your right," Kyrie points towards the direction where he sees a trail of floating flames.

Once there, Kyrie furrows his brows while looking at the flames up close. These flames that supposedly be essence energy left behind. From afar, the flames look gold like how essence should be. Nonetheless, when looking at it closely, the essence has another color. The fire has gold flames, but also deep dark blue flames. Those strange dark blue flames would appear and disappear from the fire. 

[What is this? Impure essence? Is there such a thing? Chaos energy? I don't think relics can carry chaos energy. It is not possible because it is against the laws. Essence and chaos energy cannot be combined in one. It's like fire and water.]

"What is it?" asks Ian.

"I think Maya's essence is weird, but I don't know why. This is unsettling. Let's move faster, Ian!"