The journey back was a bit rocky since Juliet was not a great driver. But they made it all the same. The car drive was pure hell for Jacob’s wounds, which kept reopening; they had to stop two times so that Juliet could feed him more blood.

Helena was surprised since a bit of Juliet’s blood had apparently been able to close her huge wound with no problems. But it seemed like Jacob’s wounds was much worse.

Helena did not know what had happened after she passed out. She just knew that Jacob had said that they had to tell everyone that Frederick killed the Mantis realm Charybdis. But, after hearing him say that, she was sure that Frederick hadn’t done it and had pieced together the rest by herself.

Jacob had killed the monster. Frederick had tried and died, failing.

“Jake, we are in St. Peter,” Juliet nudged Jacob.

“Mh,” he nodded.

Helena dismounted from the backseat and opened the front seat for Jacob, helping him get out of the car. For some reason, she could not help feel a little hate for him. If Jacob had killed the Mantis realm Charybdis, why hadn’t he done it before Frederick could die?

Resentment was brewing in her chest, but she pushed it down. She would confront Jacob in another moment. Now, it was time to give everyone the good news and the bad one.

Helena left Frederick’s body in the car for the moment. It would be better to tell Luis Albert the news before bringing his dead son's corpse in front of him.

But Jacob stopped them both in their tracks and pointed toward the car.

“Frederick… He comes with us…” he rasped.

“Jacob, I don’t think—” Helena was angry with him but got interrupted.

“He comes!” Jacob had a fit of cough after raising his voice. “Heroes first…” he added in a low tone after finishing his cough.

And Helena saw it. It wasn’t malice nor bad taste; Jacob just wanted Frederick to be at the front of the victory parade, not rotting alone in a car. She apologized softly and got Frederick's body, putting his arm around her shoulder and keeping his body upright by clutching his side.

It was weird to touch a dead body like that, but she had just gone through hell and back. This was probably the most normal thing she had done in the past thirty hours.

After a minute, they got onto St. Peter's main street, and people started shouting for others to come. In less than five minutes, a huge crowd was all around them.

“We won!” Juliet shouted.

They were covered in blood and grime, Jacob was barely standing with clothes torn on him, and everyone could now tell that Frederick wasn’t just unconscious.

“We won!” Juliet shouted again.

However, people recognized the importance of celebrating, even without completely understanding what had been going on.

People started shouting, and Juliet shot a huge jet of fire over their head, making everyone jubilant.

Helena talked in low voices with people asking her questions on their expedition when Luis Albert finally appeared among the crowd.

On his face, Helena saw a huge proud smile first, looking at his son. But the crowd had just gone silent after noticing him, and he must have felt something was wrong. Luis Albert looked left and right, trying to understand what was going on; then, after taking a longer look at his child, he tried to avoid reality.

There were things a parent was never supposed to witness, and the death of a child was without a single doubt the worst one. A wife could lose husbands, and husbands could lose their wives even though with more diffulty than the former. People could see friends die and go on with their lives. One could lose brothers and sisters or even their parents.

But when a parent lost a child, they lost the biggest piece of themselves.

Nothing would ever compare with it. And you could tell not by the screams, not by their body posture. Simply, by their eyes. They would dim a little; not too much, beware. Just a little. But it was off enough to be noticed, to make other people understand that a part of their soul had just gone away. Not enough to be completely lost, but just enough to be the most miserable person on Earth.

Even the principal, the coldest man in St. Peter, was now just a parent who had lost his child.

Luis Albert ran toward the body, and his face twisted in an expression of despair.

“Freddie! Freddie! Wake up!”

Luis Albert had always been the most rational person on Earth. He had never acted emotional – proud, at most. But never emotional, never breaking the façade. Now, however, he had aged twenty years in a few seconds, and his face was just the old grimace of a parent who had just lost a child.

Jacob stumbled forward, intruding on the moment because this was the best moment. Then, among the silence of the crowd and the desperate shouts of Luis Albert, he spoke.

“Frederick…” blood came down his lips, but he refused to cough, simply stopping to catch his breath. “Frederick killed the strongest monster… saved our life…”

Jacob inhaled deeply before balling his fist up in the air and shouting with all his might, even adding some Qi to his voice.

“HERO!”

He felt his throat burn and his wounds open, but he continued.

“HERO!”

The crowd all around caught on to what he was doing and balled their fists in the air, too, chanting with him.

“HERO!”

“HERO!”

“HERO!”

F*ck’s sake, you fu**ing idiot, Jacob had tears in his eyes, I hope this made it worth it for you.

A light breeze prickled Jacob’s skin, like one of the jabs Frederick had used to poke him with while he was still alive. Jacob imagined that that must have been his friend nodding to him, making fun of him for one last time, and saying his goodbye.