mtl008 Chapter 4638 A Deadly Escape ( )
Chapter 4638 A Deadly Escape ( )
Chapter 4638 A Desperate Escape (Part 10)
In an instant, Anatoly and Lucifer were submerged. To be precise, Anatoly was swept into the passage by the water, but Lucifer was slammed against the door. Because if he hadn't adjusted his angle, there would have been no way he could have been swept through the door with his wings; instead, he ended up lying sideways against the door.
His wings greatly reduced the force of the water flow, preventing the channel from filling immediately. This not only left breathing space above the channel but also prevented Anatoly from being swept too far away. He could even swim back on the surface. Although the water was still rising, his speed was more than enough to get him back.
But Lucifer was in a much worse situation. His wings were already injured, and the impact caused him to instinctively open his mouth and scream in pain. However, he forgot that he was now a mortal and needed to breathe, and he choked on the water as soon as he opened his mouth.
When Anatoly swam back as fast as he could, he found Lucifer struggling in the water. He took a deep breath, held it, and sank to the bottom. He then swam back through the other side of the door and came to Lucifer.
He grabbed Lucifer's neck again, trying to pull him over. But due to the water flow and pressure, Lucifer was pressed against the door, and his movements didn't achieve the desired effect. Anatoly glanced at Lucifer's condition in the murky water and figured he probably wouldn't last much longer.
Anatoly held his breath as he pulled out the steel needle. Just then, the flooding finally stopped, and the current lessened. Anatoly embraced Lucifer, reached behind him, and pricked the base of Lucifer's wing with the steel needle.
By this time, Lucifer was nearly unconscious from drowning. His instinctive pain reflex caused him to retract his wings. After his wings retracted, the water finally rushed into the passage. Once the water pressure was balanced, Anatoly swam with Lucifer toward the ceiling where the water had entered.
By this time, Anatoly was also nearing his limit, but he still struggled to hold onto Lucifer and swim forward to the door. Lucifer, with his wings spread, couldn't get in, and Anatoly had to figure out how to adjust his body position.
However, the sharp pain from the stab brought Lucifer back to his senses. He began to realize their predicament—his consciousness was hazy, with only a few seconds of lucidity remaining. Anatoly was nearing his limit at holding his breath, and could only manage a dozen seconds at most. It seemed impossible for the two of them to go up together.
The best course of action now is to abandon Lucifer and let Anatoly go up alone. A dozen seconds should be enough for him to surface. But Lucifer knows very well that Anatoly would never give up, even at the cost of his life. If he were the kind of person who would give up under these circumstances, their relationship would never have come to this.
Perhaps it was the transformation into human form that gave Lucifer an adrenaline rush. At this moment, his mind was clearer than ever before, and even the burning sensation in his trachea and the excruciating pain in his lungs from drowning were temporarily forgotten.
He first followed Anatoly's lead, hugging his waist, then retracted his wings and slipped through the doorway. Once inside, he fully spread his wings and flapped them forcefully—far more powerful than human flippers. The wings' enormous surface area played a crucial role at this moment, generating powerful thrust in the water. With just this one flap, the two of them were directly in the center of the room.
Anatoly realized what Lucifer was trying to do. His gas was gone, so he opened his mouth and swallowed a large mouthful of water, which did help delay drowning, though it could potentially rupture his stomach. But it was this mouthful of water that bought him two more seconds.
He used his waist to pull Lucifer down, so that the two of them went from standing upright to being parallel to the floor. Anatoly was on top, Lucifer on the bottom. In the murky, yellowish water, their two blue eyes, like stars or the sea, seemed to float in the silent universe.
Lucifer retracted its wings again, then suddenly spread them wide. The downward thrust propelled the two of them to the surface. Anatoli surfaced first, taking a deep breath.
But by then, Lucifer had begun to sink. Anatoly quickly grabbed his arm, but because of his wings, Lucifer was far too heavy. With no support, Anatoly couldn't hold on.
So Anatoly took a breath and then held his breath and submerged again. He adjusted Lucifer's position in the water so that his head was facing upwards, supporting him from below and bringing his head above the surface.
Upon regaining contact with air, Lucifer immediately exhaled a large mouthful of water, but his breathing was too weak to move. Anatoly adjusted his position, letting Lucifer lean on his shoulder to float to the surface. He then slowly swam forward, dragging Lucifer along.
They soon reached the edge of the ceiling. Anatoly put one arm up there, but his broken collarbone caused him to groan in pain.
Although the two were temporarily out of the water, getting out was still a problem. Lucifer was nearly unconscious, and Anatoly had only one arm intact. The whole process was as long as a death struggle.
Anatoly had to soak in the water to regain his strength. He put his hand down his throat to induce a reflexive vomiting, expelling the water from his stomach. Then, he kicked his legs forcefully, using his intact arms to propel himself upwards with the buoyancy of the water, managing to place half of his body on the platform.
Holding this position, I rested for several minutes, then moved little by little, placing most of my body on the platform, and then tried to pull Lucifer up.
This step didn't go smoothly. Lucifer was very heavy, and his feathers weren't waterproof, making him even heavier once they got wet. Anatoly struggled for over ten minutes before finally managing to pull him out.
But they couldn't stop there. Anatoly quickly laid him flat on the ground and began CPR. Fortunately, Lucifer's water inhalation wasn't too severe; he had mostly swallowed water, and after expelling it from his body, he regained spontaneous breathing, though he was still not fully conscious. Anatoly could only wait for him to wake up.
After a few more minutes, Lucifer finally slowly regained consciousness. His eyes were somewhat dazed, as if he didn't know where he was. After a long while, he spoke in a hoarse voice, "I had a very long dream..."
"A sweet dream?" Anatoly asked, wringing out his clothes.
"No...it was all nightmares..."
“This is what happens when you bullied the God of Dreams back then,” Anatoli laughed. “He won’t even give you a good memory.”
“I dreamt of God…” Lucifer said slowly, “Back then, we were still in the Garden of Eden…”
"Isn't this a fond memory for you?"
Lucifer didn't continue speaking, and Anatoly said, "Expressing love is not a sign of weakness. It's not contradictory to dislike God controlling your life or to love Him."
“I haven’t realized how important he is to me in a long time,” Lucifer said, panting. “Do people think of the most important people in their lives when they are on the verge of death?”
“Perhaps,” Anatoly said, “but at least it’s the most unforgettable.”
Lucifer shifted his body, managed to roll over, and sat up from the ground. He leaned against the wall and turned to Anatoly, asking, "Who were you thinking of back then?"
"My last death."
This answer was exactly what Lucifer had expected. He simply lowered his head, smiled, paused for a moment, and then said, "That's important to you, isn't it?"
"Yes, so I didn't expect you to throw away that shell casing."
“I thought you gave it to me just because you didn’t want to face it anymore,” Lucifer said with a soft sigh. “I thought you thought it was shameful.”
"If I said that's the real me, would you be disappointed?"
"I thought you were the kind of person who would never give up."
Anatoly shook his head and said, "The same feelings you had when you left Heaven are the same feelings I had when I left this world. Don't you have a better way to break God's heart?"
“Of course I do,” Lucifer said, “but I don’t want to do it.”
“Me too,” Anatoly said, looking at him. “When I realized that the gap between me and the world was irreconcilable, and that I had loved it so passionately that I couldn’t possibly take revenge, leaving was the best option. Wasn’t it?”
Lucifer knew he was referring to his first death. It had haunted Lucifer for a long time. Anatoly didn't seem like the type to commit suicide; he was always full of fighting spirit and never gave up. It was hard to imagine what kind of despair would drive him to choose to shoot himself.
But now he seemed to understand. Anatoly's love for his country and the world made him incapable of any act of revenge. He simply chose the most restrained and dignified way to leave, just as Lucifer had left Heaven.
Lucifer was furious at God's control over him, yet he still couldn't destroy the Garden of Eden, smash the temple and the holy spring, for those were the places where he had spent many happy times with God, places where his love was concentrated. He could only choose to leave.
In Hell, there are no such constraints. He can be a wicked Satan without restraint because he doesn't love it there and doesn't care about anyone or anything there. He can do whatever he wants, and he wouldn't care even if he destroyed the entire Hell.
In this light, Anatoly probably did love this world after it came to be. After all, considering the power level of this world, what Anatoly did was relatively restrained. He didn't destroy the cosmic structure, nor did he attack the cosmic administrators; he simply resolved the problem and then turned and left.
“So you…” Lucifer’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t continue.
“I always think the worst,” Anatoly said. “I lack the natural ability to appreciate the good and the joyful. At the end of a lively event, I think it will never come again. That’s why I cherish those good times so much and always treat them as if it were the last time.”
Lucifer felt a chill run through him, perhaps because he was soaked. He heard Anatoly continue, “When I bid farewell to the flames, I was prepared for an endless snowfield ahead, and for me to die in the snow. The more warm and joyful the steps until death, the less cold and pain there will be. So no matter how long it has warmed me, I am grateful.”
"Damn it, I shouldn't have lost them." Lucifer curled up against the wall, hugging his knees. "I want my wine glass and shell casings back."
“You’d better have only lost the glass and the spent cartridge,” Anatoly said, a hint of threat in his voice. “You are, aren’t you?”
Lucifer then wrapped himself up with his wings again.