"Whew.. that was close, I thought the villagers might storm in and kill me or something, glad I ran out of there the moment I got the chance."
Damon clutched his chest, and felt the drumming of his beating heart. What he just did was new to him, he isn't the kind of person to actually stand up for himself, let alone others.
Even though he doesn't want to admit it, his actually a coward, and what he did for Isolyn, no, what he did for himself was the first in his entire existence. It goes to show that power, even the little he possesses can get into your head if you're not careful.
'I shouldn't do that again, what if I had killed her, that would be really bad.'
After doing that to Isolyn's potentially frenemy of sorts, he had been embarrassed to face her so he took the chance to runaway with the excuse of leaving Isolyn to handle her own business.
'But something is weird with this people, when I tried to manipulate the heat within that woman's body, nothing happened, does that mean they don't emit any warmth at all, like nothing? That's both intriguing and a little scary.'
As Damon was mulling over his thoughts, a kid about twelve years of age, came up to him and just creepily stared. He became so self-conscious he cleared his throat and asked, "um.. kid, what do you want?"
The kid cocked his head with a blank expression, "are you also an abomination like that woman you came here with?"
Damon was taken aback, but he didn't let it show on his face, "Yes, I am, and when you go to sleep tonight, I'll be there to eat you alive, not just you kid, but your mother and father, your siblings if you have one, and I won't stop there, I'll make sure you suffer before you die, and—"
Before he could finish his threat, the kid started sobbing and running away in fear. Damon stood there for a moment before he started laughing his ass off. He didn't think of himself as a petty person but that was funny as hell.
'I can cancel that off my bucket list,' he amusingly thought.
About thirty minutes since he scared the hell out of the kid from before, Isolyn finally showed after finishing her talk with that arrogant woman. She approached him, and at the same time, she had a fleeting thought of asking herself why it seemed Damon was in a better mood than when he left the temple.
Damon was happy to see Isolyn and almost went to embrace her and only stopped when he saw who she came with, the arrogant woman.
The woman didn't show any signs she was scared of him, but her beating heart told him the opposite. The woman came forward with her infuriating smile and said, "my name is Solyra of the Island name Aquorine. As the Island Ancestor, I am the only one recognised by the First Ancestor to perform the marriage ceremony and officiate this binding between two soulmates, will you have me?"
"That depends, will you apologize to my soon to be wife, for looking down on her, even though you're inferior in every way possible?"
The woman's eyes flared, and she balled her fists to fight back. Damon became vigilant and he immediately circulated mana through his veins, the moment a thin blueish membrane wrapped around Solyra, and her void eyes gained a flicker of blue light.
Damon was ready to say something, when he heard Isolyn's voice, "Solyra, if you do something to my soulmate, not even the sleeping Ocean masters will be able to stop my wrath upon this small island."
Isolyn's voice came with barely a whisper, sweet and calm as always, light-hearted despite the threat. But her words carried so much weight that Solyra bit down on her lower lip to calm down her quivering soul.
She let go of her mana, and the blueish membrane disappeared and her eyes went back to normal. She sneakily exhaled a deep breath and fixed a fake smile on her face.
She nodded at Isolyn, which Damon translated to mean she understood and won't do anything again. She went ahead, expecting them to follow.
Isolyn went up to him, and this time she was the one who took his hand, and they followed behind the arrogant woman. Along the way, Damon asked Isolyn where Solyra was taking them, and Isolyn said the ocean.
They reached the ocean in an hour and thirty minutes. There, Solyra went to the ocean until the water touched her feet. She made a weird noise, and showed a content expression.
'With the hydra dragons having taken over this world, which I assume is mostly the ocean and many such small scattered islands, I guess it must be unusual and rare for this people to come near the ocean, and be free. If my guess is right no wonder they seem to have a stick up their ass.'
"Isolyn we don't have long, come here so that we can begin?" Solyra called out to them.
Damon was about move when Isolyn pulled him to stop. He looked down at her, and saw the eyes of a frightened young woman Lazer focused on the ocean.
Damon was about to say something when he heard a system alert.
[Ding! Sacrifice one of your skill from your S-rank Element and be protected by the system or die by target's future self that will rip through time and space to stop the marriage as this marriage will alter it's fate and she will technically be enslaved to you.]
[Ding! No rewards for either choice.]
Damon furrowed his brows, as he read the system notification. This was basically cheating, taking away his well deserved skills was just wrong, but ultimately, he didn't want to die.
'I will sacrifice the whispering flame skill,' he told the system.
[Sacrifice accepted.]
After hearing the system, he could finally focus on Isolyn, not caring much about a single skill over his own life.
"Isolyn, is something wrong?"
Isolyn broke away from her stupor and shook her head. She dragged Damon towards the water, even though Damon could tell every part of her wanted nothing to do with the ocean.
Damon knew he barely knows her well enough to strike up a meaningful conversation about her fears. He consoled himself with the fact that he has a lifetime to get to know Isolyn better after this marriage thing.
They sank their feet into the ocean water, and Damon could swear he could hear faint pleading cries of a woman or perhaps the ocean itself was crying out for help, he couldn't tell.
All he knew for certain was that whatever it was, Isolyn felt it more intensely. Isolyn faced him with tears dripping down her face, yet a smile was still plastered on her expression.
She reached out and took both Damon's hands to hers after she wiped off the tears. Then she gave Solyra a quick nod, which signalled something Damon didn't yet understand.
Solyra stepped up and faced both of them, her infuriating smile fell apart and she adopted a serious expression. She took a deep breath, and started to sing.
It was a song not even Damon's system could translate, sung with a beautiful tone that made Damon feel a sense of loss, a sense of peace and a sense of a new beginning.
He felt all range of emotions he couldn't quite place where they came from, so he focused on the only thing at this moment that seemed constant, Isolyn.
He felt the ocean change, and it's power creeping and seeping into them to form a connection Damon could quite yet explain. This power flowed through them like the ocean's waves.
The ocean started to rise up, and circle the both of them, before enveloping them with its embrace. Damon didn't panic, because the only thing that mattered at that moment was Isolyn and nothing else.
Damon felt both their souls being imprinted with a powerful thread that was as fluid as the ocean, and tough as the strongest steel. A connection formed, and Damon could finally see what he hadn't been able to see before and that was the true Isolyn.
Isolyn smiled brightly at him, and with the rising beat of his heart pulsing with the synchronised love he now shared with Isolyn. He knew, as sure as he was that he was smiling back at Isolyn right at this moment, he knew that he was the happiest his ever been, in his entire life.