Cloud Thinking

Helia didn't return to her nest until the next night.

The reason why she was able to come back so quickly was because she used someone else's teleportation magic circle. Otherwise, at her flying speed, it would probably take her half a day or a day to come back.

She rubbed her nose as she entered the room where the crime was committed.

I don’t know who has been talking bad about her behind her back. She sneezed from time to time on her way back. If she didn’t know that she was in good health and didn’t catch a cold easily, then she would have sneezed only because someone was talking about her behind her back.

She took a rough look around. The aura here was very mixed. Apart from the aura of the people on her side, there were probably five or six intruders, and they were most likely not powerful magicians who didn't even know how to hide their aura when they sneaked in.

In other words, they did it on purpose to provoke.

There was a large bloodstain on the carpet at the foot of the bed, and there was blood splattered on the sheets, quilts, curtains, tall lamps and the surrounding walls. It had now dried and turned dark red.

I think it must be a very cruel and brutal way of killing that resulted in so much blood, splattered everywhere.

Helia walked along the dripping bloodstains on the ground and stopped in front of her armor stand. She reached out to take off her helmet and saw the bloodstains left on it at first glance.

Damn it, you dare to use my precious dragon scale armor as a weapon, when I catch you, I will peel off your skin and use it as a rag to clean my armor...

She tried to track the scent left by the intruder, but when she went in the indicated direction, she unexpectedly found that the other party had stopped at the Tanzanite Palace.

That's Eric's palace, how could he be there?

Helia was a man of action. Since she couldn't figure out what was going on, she simply went straight to the door and asked for clarification.

If these guys did it on purpose to sow discord between her and Eric, Helia would not let them have their way.

She didn't go through the front door. After all, she was still under house arrest and couldn't run around, so just like the cosplay thief she had done before, she once again sneaked into her brother's bedroom.

The breath stopped in Eric's study. At this moment, the lights were on inside and there were occasional conversations. It was obvious that Eric had not gone to bed yet and was dealing with some things.

Helia moved closer to the window, intending to squat in the corner and eavesdrop, because she was not sure whether the thieves would commit such a cruel act because of what she or Eric were doing at the moment, so she had to understand the situation first.

"Your Highness Eric, Your Highness Stella..."

Helia couldn't hear clearly what was said afterwards. After all, there was a window between them, and the person who spoke deliberately lowered his voice. Perhaps there was some physical or magical sound insulation. Anyway, she only caught two names, two people who were closely related to her.

Starley? Didn't she go to the Abraham College in the south to study magic? Could something have happened?

But even if something happened, why report it to Eric instead of Claude?

Or was Eric investigating Stellar in private? But why was he investigating her in private?

She tried to get closer to hear more clearly, but as soon as her shadow slightly appeared on the window, she was alertly discovered by the people in the house.

As a last resort, she had to run away quickly, climbed up the stairs quickly using her hands and feet, and hid in a temporarily empty room.

But as soon as she came in, Helia found something wrong. The strong smell of blood almost undisguisedly penetrated into her nasal cavity, trying to damage her nose.

She stood up in shock and summoned her life-giving fire with a flip of her hand, lighting up the dim room. She saw a tower of corpses piled on the carpet not far in front of her. Twisted corpses lay in front of her like a pyramid, shocking her for the whole year.

She had a feeling in her heart and slowly counted from the bottom to the top. She was shocked to find that there were exactly six bodies, exactly the same number she had guessed who broke into her house.

The breath stopped here. So, after they broke into her room and tortured Idrija to death, they fled back to Eric and were tortured to death by some unknown creature in a similar way?

Or was it the so-called murder to silence them? After they completed their mission, they were brutally killed to prevent them from leaking secrets?

Helia rubbed her nose. The smell was so pungent. How could no one notice it? People downstairs were even discussing something seriously. Couldn't they smell it at all?

She suppressed her nausea and walked forward to observe the corpse on top. Unfortunately, the man's face was smashed, leaving a terrible sunken hole. His facial features were completely invisible. His hands and feet were also twisted off, and there were hideous scars under his torn clothes, as if he had been whipped or scratched by sharp claws.

Um……?

Helia tore open the dead man's clothes uncertainly, touched his chest, where there was almost no good skin left, and carefully identified the scars there.

Could it be Lydia and Little Philo who did this?

Lydia is an orc and has claws, and little Philo likes to play with a whip…

All right.

But there is no reason. If you want to kill someone, then kill him. Why throw it into Eric's room? Is it a frame-up? That's impossible...

Helia tried to sense the magical aura in the house, and was surprised to find that there was indeed the aura of Lydia and little Philo, and even Elroy. What the hell was this?

Apart from the three of them and the six dead people, she was the only one who still smelled Eric's scent. After all, this was someone else's room, and she was the latest intruder.

She raised her foot, hesitated for a moment, and finally kicked down the tower of corpses. The grotesque corpses fell to the ground, and the carpet under them had already turned red. The carpet was wet, and the marble floor underneath was a frightening dark red.

If this were a wooden floor, it would probably seep in and drip onto the heads of the people downstairs.

The noise was not small. At least since she had aroused suspicion from the people downstairs, and she was doing this upstairs, it was hard not to attract other people's attention.

The footsteps came from far away and finally stopped outside a door. With the faint light of the fire, she could see the feet of the people coming through the crack in the door. There was more than one person coming.

Helia looked at the bodies scattered on the ground, and then looked at the window behind her. She had just climbed up from here.

But if nothing unexpected happened, someone might be waiting for her outside.

Attacked from both sides, she couldn't run away, and she couldn't run away because there had to be an explanation for this pile of corpses.

She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and finally said, "Brother, it's me."

There was another noise outside the door, and then the door slowly opened, and a golden, furry head poked in. The brows, which had been relaxed due to surprise, twisted together again after smelling the undeniable smell of blood.

He glanced at the corpses on the ground, then looked at Helia who was standing there innocently and helplessly. Finally, he came in alone and closed the door, blocking out any suspicious, vigilant or uneasy eyes.

"Aya, why are you here? What happened?"

Eric walked to the lamp stand hanging on the wall, took out a matchbox from the edge, and was about to light the candle when he saw Helia raise her hand and snap her fingers, and then all the candles in the room were lit.

Helia scratched her head. Looking at the current situation, she had no idea what to do.

"I don't know what's going on."

“It’s hard to explain.”

Eric looked around and confirmed that this was indeed his dormitory. Hanging on the wall were several of his trophies - strange-looking monster heads, and on his bed, which he had not yet had time to tidy up, were the clothes he had hurriedly changed this morning.

Eric walked around the body, stepped forward, held Helia in his arms, patted her back, and comforted her: "It's okay, it's okay, don't be afraid, brother is here."

Helia: I'm not scared... I just don't know how to explain it...

But she still hugged him back generously, rubbing her head against Eric's shoulder, "Brother, I'm fine, did you miss me?"

It's been almost two months since we last met, I think I'll miss you...

"Yeah, I miss you a lot." Eric didn't hesitate to express his longing for you, "Because I don't want to believe that you would be the kind of person who would do something like that."

"Father is confused."

Helia: Brother, do you have a filter for me? Why is it that killing someone in public is not something I would do? I even blew up an entire underground castle!

She always felt something was strange, but she couldn't tell what was strange. Anyway, ever since she returned to the palace, everything made her feel that something was wrong, whether it was the room where she had committed the crime, or Eric's room which was now filled with corpses.

Helia pushed Eric away with a little force. She felt that she needed to sit down and have a good talk with him, but Eric was unwilling to let go and held her tightly, even a little hard.

"Brother! Let go!" Helia exerted her strength immediately, and no one could escape her great strength. However, Eric once again showed something weird that Helia didn't want to believe. He was not pushed away? ? ?

"Aya, why do you always want to leave your brother... why do you always push your brother away..." Eric whispered, as if he was immersed in his own nightmare and had confused the dream with reality.

"It was the same before... You were obviously very obedient before, why did you leave me alone at that time? Do you know how scared I was..."

"I've already lost you once... after that time you became abnormal... and then you sacrificed yourself again... leaving me all alone in this world..."

"Now that you've grown up... you have your own ideas... you no longer need your brother... it's hard for me to see you once a month... and there are always people who tell me... that they want me to hurt you, or you'll hurt me... I can't accept that..."

"We are the closest people in the world, but why would you rather be close to Starley and Hector than to me?"

"Obviously...Obviously before you left for the North, we were each other's only ones..."

Helia let Eric hold her and talk nonsense, but as she listened, she could tell something was wrong.

Is Eric blaming himself for not being able to protect her?

As well as complaining, he found it difficult to accept the fact that Helia was no longer close to him, and that Helia's world no longer only had him.

He attributed all the changes in Helia to his temporary neglect. It was because he did not pay enough attention to Helia that Helia became what she is now.

Claude was right, Eric was a somewhat cowardly person.

Especially when facing his relatives, he is so soft-hearted that he doesn't look like a qualified royal heir. He is used to hiding all his pain to make himself look extra strong in order to meet his father's expectations and his sense of responsibility to protect his sister.

This resulted in him blaming Helia for every injury she suffered, and this deep sense of self-blame made it difficult for him to sleep day and night, so that he was trapped in layers of nightmares and was taken advantage of by people with bad intentions.

Helia had a headache. She was not good at dealing with this kind of situation, not to mention that she was not the other person's biological sister at all. She only inherited the memories but not the emotions!

After she came here, she didn't spend much time with the other person. Cultivating feelings takes time, just like she spent a very long time with Claude, Britney, and even Watersice, so she was able to develop feelings.

But she spent too little time with Eric. Either she left or Eric was not there, and it was difficult for their schedules to overlap, so naturally there was no time for them to talk to each other.

Now the other party was obviously in a situation where it was difficult to communicate. Helia didn't understand why it turned out like this, but this was probably, perhaps, what the bugs hiding in the dark wanted to see.

They wanted to use Eric to hurt her.

"Brother!" Helia did not continue to struggle, but hugged Eric with greater strength and shouted louder, "Brother!"

"Aya is here! Aya will never leave you! I have never blamed my brother!"

Although Helia felt that what she said was very... well... but as long as she could stabilize the guy in her arms, it didn't matter.

"Because of my brother, Aya can do anything without any worries, because I know that my brother will always be there to protect me."

"Brother, a true family relies on each other and protects each other. If I always hide under your protection, how can I grow? How can I protect my brother?"

Eric was stunned for a moment, and his arms that were tightly around Helia loosened, "Is... is that so..."

Helia nodded vigorously, "Yes! Brother! The reason why I want to learn magic is that I hope to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and move forward with you. I don't want to be called a useless figure who depends on you."

"I want to be your helper and your assistant."

"I don't want to watch you take risks again and again, and I can't do anything but watch. That's too helpless."

Eric held Helia's arms and slowly pushed her out of his arms a little. His misty eyes stared straight into the sapphire blue eyes that were similar to his, and he asked uncertainly: "Is that so...?"

"For me? Because of me?"

Helia nodded vigorously again, without hesitation.

"Then why...are you always...keeping away from me..."

His voice was tinged with a hint of grievance, and his eyes were misty. It was the first time that Helia saw him look so pitiful, helpless and aggrieved.

"You are so close to Starley and that little one, but you are so distant from me..."

Helia: ,,,

"Because they need my protection. In the relationship between me and them, I am the more powerful one. I need to protect them, just like you, brother, protect me."

She smiled helplessly, "Brother, do you want me to protect you like I protect them?"

Eric thought about it, shook his head, and said slowly and solemnly: "I will protect you."

"Right." Helia pulled down the other person's hands that were holding her arms, held them in her hands, and shook them like a spoiled child, "And I'm not alienating my brother."

"Now, I am with my brother, and didn't he just hug me and say a lot of sticky and hypocritical words?"

She shrugged, a little embarrassed, "Of course, I also said a lot of hypocritical words."

"I'm already 18 years old, a grown-up girl. I would be embarrassed to talk to my brother about these things."

The light from the fire cast a shadow on her face, making it seem as if she was actually blushing.

Eric's eyes looked at her a little clearer after he said this, and the fog in his eyes gradually dissipated, which meant that his sanity was returning.

Helia struck while the iron was hot and added fuel to the fire: "Brother is the closest person to Aya in this world. No one can cut off the connection between us. Even ourselves cannot deny that we are the closest people to each other."

“Irreplaceable.”

Eric bit his little lip, looked up at the ceiling, widened his eyes, and tried hard not to let the tears in his eyes fall down.

He couldn't afford to embarrass himself in front of his sister.

In the end, he just kissed Helia on the top of her head, and his tears flowed down and hid in Helia's thick hair.

Although I still couldn't control my tears, at least Aya didn't see it, so it wasn't too embarrassing.

"Okay, now, let's discuss how to solve this damn situation."