Eclipse Hunter

Chapter Eight – Besides correct judgment, there is also compa.s.sion

Note: We now have a translator for Eclipse Hunter, whose work you will see in the next volume. Thank you for your patience!

Translators: Laridae, Rednut

Proofreaders: Sora, Zephynel

Elian was frustrated to the max. They had originally eaten quite heartily: the food was fresh and delicious, the waiter was cute and friendly, and the restaurant was beautifully decorated. Even though the price was a bit high, just looking at Daren’s food portions, it made one feel the price was worth it!

The person paying isn’t even you, Eli responded silently in his heart, having heard his thoughts.

Who knew that as he was peeling the shrimp, Eloise was chewing the lobster, Eli was quietly cutting the steak, Ezart was gnawing on a drumstick, and Daren was currently bringing back two big platefuls of food back to his seat...

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rang out and a crowd of people rushed in. One of them yelled loudly, “No one is allowed to move! Everyone get down on the floor, both hands up in the air!”

The people in the restaurant all froze. Everyone, holding various kinds of food, had their eyes fixed on the same place – the gun-bearing criminals at the door. Then, another burst of gunfire rang out. The guests in the restaurant began to scream and attempted to flee. However, the only door was blocked by the terrorists. In the end, they could only cram into the depths of the restaurant.

At this time, five guests still sat at their table. In the midst of the chaos, they stood out in particular.

Elian shoved the peeled shrimp inside his mouth and slurred to the people, “Now, now, let’s not act rashly and scare them off...Dar, hurry up and eat what you want.”

Daren finished the two large plates of food at an alarming speed. Upon hearing Elian’s words, he nodded his head and simultaneously finished some more food.

Eloise simply held her lobster and squatted down on the floor to continue eating. Anyway, didn’t those criminals want her to obediently get down on the floor?

Eli set down his fork and knife, used a napkin to wipe his mouth, and then squatted next to Eloise.

Ezart impatiently grabbed a few drumsticks, and then sat on the floor and continued to eat.

At this time, about a dozen more criminals walked in, firing machine guns randomly. It did not take long until they got the situation under their control, and everyone was forced to crouch in the empty area in the center of the restaurant.

It all happened too fast, and even for someone who eats as fast as Daren, it was impossible to finish all the food on his plate. Since there were a few people who had not crouched yet, he had to hold his two large plates in his hands and hide his body among his friends as he worked hard to finish his food.

Although the atmosphere was tense and a lot of people began to sob quietly, there were still five people who didn’t show the slightest bit of anxiety, lowering their heads to eat in bitter silence.

“Maybe we won’t have to pay now,” Eli said wistfully.

“Oh!” Elian’s eyes suddenly shone. That meant he didn’t have to repay Eli either.

“Dar, give me some.”

Eloise finished her own lobster and finding herself still unsatisfied, turned to the side to ask for more from Daren, who was still holding two huge plates of food.

“Okay.” Daren readily tossed a crab over.

“I want some too.” Ezart reached out and unceremoniously took a piece of cake.

Eloise immediately glared at him, saying, “What’s a man eating cake for?”

“Strange, so only women can eat cake?” Ezart took a bite of cake, replying peevishly, “Then are you saying that Dar isn’t a man? He’s the one who got the cake.”

“That’s different! Dar’s so cute, he’s naturally suited to eating cate! You big porcupine-head, why are you eating cake?”

“You…”

“Silence!” the gun-bearing thugs roared.

Despite the warning, these five weren’t concerned one bit, but the people squatting next to them were afraid of being dragged down with them and thus glared at them. They also scolded, “Youths don’t know what’s good for them,” “Hurry and shut up,” etc. They were simply so fierce it was impossible to reconcile this with the previous image of them pitifully sobbing, so the five could only obediently close their mouths.

“What exactly do they want to do?” Elian secretly asked Eli.

“Terrorists only take hostages for money,” Eli responded lightly.

Elian laughed bitterly for a moment. “Then forget it, of course we’re not scared of them-- but there are too many bystanders here. If we start fighting now, some people might be hurt. Therefore, this situation should be left to the government to take care of. Let’s just be obedient hostages. I think they only want money and won’t kill the people here to get it.”

Eli nodded, saying lowly, “They just want to get the money and leave. They probably have no intention to kill.”

Upon hearing this, Elian felt even more rea.s.sured. He even had a “Terrorists, you did well, helping save me from such a large bill and even conveniently preventing Dar from going on a toy shopping spree” sentiment.

Daren ate about a plateful and felt a bit full, so he stopped eating. He gave the remaining half of the plate to Eli and Ezart to fight over.

“Waah! Wah…”

“Don’t cry, child, don’t cry! Don’t be afraid, Mom’s here.”

Daren turned around curiously. Crouching not far from him was a mother comforting the child holding her hand. Although tears still hung in from the corners of her eyes, she used a gentle voice to tell the child not to be afraid.

So this was...a mother? Daren examined the two curiously.

Perhaps the baby was able to sense the abnormal atmosphere, and cried on and on despite the cooing of the mother. It cried so hard that the once smiley face had turned red from all the effort.

One of the terrorists anxiously stared at the baby at first. Then as the baby cried and shouted louder and louder, he actually pointed his gun at the mother and her baby and screamed, “So darn annoying! Tell him to shut up, you hear me? Or I’ll shoot the both of you!”

In a panic, the mother hugged her child, her comforting turning to urging, “Child, darling, don’t cry, quickly stop crying!”

Don’t cry! Or else you will cause your mother’s death! Daren clenched his fist, desperately shouting in his heart.

The infant, however, only cried more loudly.

“b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” The agitated terrorist carried his gun and walked towards them, with a fierce look on his face.

Elian and her friends became alert with stern looks in their eyes.

“What are you doing? Don’t cause trouble!” Other thugs saw that something was wrong and hurriedly tried to stop him.

“It’s all right.”

Suddenly, one of the thugs opened his mouth, and all the other thugs quieted.

This was their leader, Daren decided.

The leader walked steadily towards the mother and the baby with a gentle smile on his face. He mildly scolded his confederates when he pa.s.sed them.“What’s with all this rage? This infant is quite cute!”

The leader walked in front of the mother and reached out his hand to tease the little infant. The infant actually stopped crying, curiously looking at this stranger.

The leader reached out and tried to cuddle the baby. Confused, the mother was not sure what to do at first, but she seemed a little bit more relieved when she saw the smile on his face. Without her realizing, the child was in the terrorist leader’s arm. Holding the baby, he leader cooed and rocked the baby as he walked towards the window.

Daren didn’t relax one bit. He thought, to become the leader of these vicious thugs, this person definitely isn’t some infant-loving good guy.

“Isn’t the sky outside pretty?” the leader asked the infant, smiling. The infant giggled.

Danger! Daren’s mental alarms went off, and he instinctively positioned himself to react to the slightest sign of danger.

The leader broke the window in one shot, grabbed the baby with one hand, and stuck it outside...

The mother froze, stunned, seeming to not understand what had just happened.

Even the criminals were speechless at their leader’s confusing actions.

“Time’s almost up, so I’m taking this chance to remind the people below that the things should be ready.”

The infant!

Daren watched as the infant was about to be dropped out the window. At this time, however, the microchip warned him not to move. Going to save the infant would alarm all the criminals and lead to greater casualties. Sacrificing the infant to wait for the best time to intercede would save a lot more people.

Besides, at this alt.i.tude, he would have to reveal his steel wings to save the infant. At this moment there were too many reporters outside and he would be photographed, thus violating the master’s orders.

The microchip reasoned it out very completely. Not saving the infant was the best choice.

At this point, the leader let go. The infant cried out “waah” once.

“My child!” the mother shouted hoa.r.s.ely.

Daren moved. He quickly rushed to the window, so quickly that the leader didn’t even have time to react before he’d already jumped out to follow.

After Daren hugged the baby, they began to feel the power of gravity. The steel wings’ activation would still take a few seconds. He needed to buy some time. He immediately inserted his right hand into the department store’s wall.

However, he was too heavy. This bit of support wasn’t enough to allow him to stop and couldn’t even decrease the speed by much. He also had to adhere his soles to the wall, and then, finally the rate of falling began to decrease.

Gunfire!

Daren heard it suddenly. Although there was only one shot, he heard the gunfire from the place he was before. Surely it wasn’t because of his reckless behaviour, right?

Ezart, Elian-ge, and the others were still upstairs!

He was very anxious, feeling that even the Steel Wing’s flight was too slow, so he simply began to run up the wall, instantly returning to the roof.

From the transparent window he could see Elian in front of the infant’s mother, waving his light sabres to block the terrorist’s bullets. Standing next to Elian, Ezart and Eloise also had weapons raised. Eli supported the heartbroken mother.

However, the terrorists had a lot of hostages in their hands. They pointed their guns at the other people, wanting to stop Elian and the others.

Seeing this, Daren’s heart jolted. Placing the infant under his tight shirt and protecting its life securely, he shattered the window.

At this time, all of the gunshots were concentrated on Daren Solaris, but he used the copper steel wings to block most of the bullets and dodged some of the others. Only a few grazed his body, but the harm caused was not substantial.

“Daren says,  ‘Quick! Take the opportunity to defeat them,’” Eli whispered to the others.

Elian immediately said, “Ezart, the five on the left; Eloise and Eli, the three on the right.”

Once Ezart heard “five on the left,” he promptly charged toward them. Eloise and Eli had rushed out at the same time as Ezart. Although Elian’s directions hadn’t left his mouth yet, it didn’t matter. Without a doubt, thoughts are faster than words, and Eli had long been “listening” to Elian’s instructions the whole time.

Their speed was so fast that by the time the terrorists reacted, the three had already taken out two of the enemy.

Elian was a dual-wielder, a blade in both his left hand and his right, cutting off two enemies’ right hands. As they were injured, their guns naturally fell to the ground, and they also collapsed and wailed incessantly.

Ezart used his fist to send a guy flying, who then knocked into one of his comrades and sent him flying as well.

Because Eloise had come out to go shopping and hadn’t brought her meteor mallet, she could only mimic Ezart and use her fists to resolve everything. With one blow, she made one person crash through the restaurant’s gla.s.s screen and continue to fly back through the restaurant’s gla.s.s door. He then fell to the floor, unable to make a single sound.

Eli silently appeared behind a terrorist, and then silently stabbed a knife into his body and just as noiselessly returned to Eloise’s side.

Although the terrorists were able to realize what was happening when their companions were pummeled down one after another, they still directed their attention to these more-terrible-than-terrorists guys.

Even though they had machine guns in their hands, they were not able to do anything about the team. One by one, the terrorists were defeated.

“Attack the hostages!” The leader, seeing that the situation had gone wrong, immediately shouted.

The terrorists immediately pointed their guns at the crowd, who panicked and screamed at once. Rounds of gunshot echoed in the restaurant, and everyone in the crowd thought they were dead for sure… However, they did not feel any pain after the gun had fired.

They raised their heads and looked up.

A huge silver wing covered them all. Under the wing, a young boy with his face hidden faced them, and blocked all the attacks for them.

“Waah!” The baby was startled by the gunshot and started crying.

“My baby!” exclaimed the mother. She ran to the silver-haired youth and faced him, both terrified and with hope in her eyes.

Daren took the baby out from his clothes, and handed it to the mother. On seeing its mother the baby stopped crying, and crawled eagerly into her embrace.

“Child! Oh, my child!”

The mother looked at her child, unharmed, with teary eyes. Then she looked up at the young boy. The fear in her eyes had vanished, and grat.i.tude and tenderness was all that was left. She spoke softly, “Thank you! Thank you…angel.”

Her voice was all too soft and gentle, nearly inaudible in this mess of a gunfight. Yet Daren heard her particularly well. That “angel”...did that referr to him? To think a mother would actually call him an angel...

“Dark Sun!”

Elian’s frustrated voice finally snapped him out of his trance. Only then did he realize that Elian was standing behind him and blocking bullets for him using his light sabres.

Daren turned around and looked at the situation. The terrorists should not have been a match for them, but they were constantly forced to stop their a.s.saults and protect the hostages to keep them safe.

Seeing this, Daren retracted his wings. Although the wings were good for blocking all the bullets, its gigantic size would make him clumsy. Also since the liquid metal that formed the wings was coming from his limbs, his bones would become weaker when he had his wings out.

“Elian-ge, hang in there.”

“Huh?” Elian fell dumb for a moment, his twin light sabres still spinning to parry the bullets shot at him, scattering them everywhere.

“Plasma strands, activate!”

On hearing Daren’s shout, Elian paused for a moment and, out of curiosity, looked over his shoulder… Daren’s short hair suddenly lengthened and became more silvery. There was even a white glow emanating from it.

Elian knew what that was. It was Dar’s special ability, Plasma Strands. He himself had suffered from this move before, yet… this time it was so long! A little surprised, he stared at Dar’s hair as it became longer and longer, and even flailing wildly in mid-air. It seemed as though he was a demon who came straight from h.e.l.l!

The terrorists noticed him too. They looked terrified for one instant, and wildly shot a round of bullets...

At this time the plasma strands were even longer than Daren’s body. He covered himself with the hair, and as the bullets. .h.i.t the strands, they instantly vaporized into a plume of smoke.

Target one, locked on; target two, locked on; target three...

Plasma strands, activate!

Daren’s strands of hair suddenly grouped into several beams, thin and sharp as daggers. Then, the hair-daggers swiftly rushed out and accurately cut off the right hand of the targeted terrorists. The cuts were almost the same as the ones cut by Elian’s double sword.

Some terrorists dodged the first round of the hair strand a.s.sault and crazily shot at the strands, yet their attack was in vain. Still, the hair-daggers made some dodging maneuvers and accurately cut down their right hands.

The hair strands were like Daren’s clones, extremely fast and mortally dangerous.

A few terrorists who had narrowly escaped from being amputated tried to flee, but when they turned to run they were met with a fist and were sent flying to a wall. They crashed into it and slipped onto the floor unconscious. Some terrorists were seeing two spinning blue circles, and just when they were feeling dizzy, they would feel a pain in their hands. Only when they looked down did they find out that their right hands were gone.

Soon nearly all the terrorists had lost their ability to fight. The leader sensed that the situation was off and tried to escape through the door, but...

A girl blocked his way and crashed her hands into each other to make a cracking noise. And behind her stood an intimidating, fight-happy big guy, and the forever-silent a.s.sa.s.sin.

The girl screamed, “You wouldn’t even leave a baby alone, you monster!”

The a.s.sa.s.sin said coldly, “He says, ‘What’s a baby worth? That baby is nothing but an annoying and useless piece of junk.’”

The leader’s eyes widened. He… he did not even open his mouth! How did that guy know what he was thinking?

“Hmph!”

The three showed extremely dangerous, cold smiles and slowly approached the terrorist leader. The leader was so scared he almost wet his pants.

Seeing the three beat up the leader, Elian felt a bit of sympathy for him. As the leader of a group of terrorists, he made all those efforts to take the department store hostage, and was this close to being able to brag about his accomplishments. In the end, he ran into some students who were even more terrible than the terrorists themselves...

Seeing him as pitiful as this, Elian could not join in beating him up again. Instead, he left to walk around the place and kick the guns dropped by the terrorists into a corner, in case someone who had not yet fallen unconscious picked them up and caused trouble.

Suddenly, he noticed that Daren’s long silver strands were beginning to slowly shorten and shorten, and finally Daren became short-haired again. He stood still for a moment, and then suddenly fell straight to the floor with a thud.

“Dar! What happened to you?”

Elian anxiously stepped up and helped Daren up.

“I used up all the energy… I feel so tired! Elian-ge, the rest is left to you. Good night.”

With that said, Daren simply turned his head sideways and fell asleep.

Elian did not know whether to be happy or sad...this...this happened surprisingly fast.

“The police are here! Let’s run!”

Eli rushed to them and warned in a low voice, “Daren’s ident.i.ty can’t be exposed.”

Oh no! Elian hurriedly threw Daren to the strong Ezart, and turned to read the escape map on the wall. Frowning, he asked Eli, “Which direction are the police coming from?”

“They are coming from the elevator,” answered Eli briefly.

“We’ll use the emergency ladder then!” Just as Elian finished, faint yet hurried footsteps could be heard not far away. He immediately turned to crowd and said, “Hurry, let’s go!”

They followed Elian and fled at once. Eloise complained while running, “We saved a whole bunch of people! Why are we running away like some outlaws?”

“Imagine the face of the Solaris Emperor when he knows Dar’s real ident.i.ty was brought to light. What expression will he make then?”

Eloise ran faster than Elian.

The group arrived at the entrance, only to see that it was already blockaded by the police. Just as they were worrying about how they could get out of there, Daren came to. Knowing that it was a transportation issue, he made a call to the driver at once.

Everyone smiled bitterly. “Dar, even if it was the driver, he wouldn’t be able to make it here…”

A sports car rammed into the door, and the gla.s.s shattered and fell everywhere. The sports car made a long braking noise and stopped right in front of Daren.

At this time, the driver got out of the car, and in a neat suit with white gloves on his hands, he opened the door respectfully for Daren.

“...” Everyone stared at the driver. He looked completely a professional safe driver, and nothing like someone who’d just broken through the entrance of a department store.

　　＊＊＊

Back at the Solaris home, the people who’d just beaten up the terrorists did not look that different from their usual selves that had just eaten a midnight snack. They were also not too worried that the matter about them beating up the terrorists would spread.

In any case, the Solaris Emperor would always keep things on the down-low.

“Dar, good night then, see you at school tomorrow!” With a slight smile, Elian bid farewell.

“Elian-ge…” Daren suddenly stopped him.

Everyone stilled.

Daren bowed his head and asked softly, “Did you guys...already find out I was Dark Sun?”

Everyone was surprised for a moment. This...was finding out so bad? He was still Elian-ge!

“It wasn’t me who said it,” Eli immediately spoke out to deny it.

Daren looked at Eli, the latter retreated behind Elian, his face wary. Daren snorted and said, “Even if Eli said it, I still wouldn’t do anything to you!”

Eli slowly stepped out from behind his companion, expression relieved. He knew Daren spoke the truth. His mind was too straight of a line, very easy to read.

Eli is so dumb, actually thinking I would do something to him, Daren thought with a chuckle.

This brat...Eli revealed a strange expression and unconsciously called Daren by the term Ezart used.

Daren looked at everyone and suddenly performed a huge bow, saying, “I, I recently made a lot of trouble for everyone. I’m really sorry.”

All of them froze, then said one after the other, “Dar, it’s okay…”

Only Ezart hmphed once and said huffily, “You’ve been an annoyance since the first day.”

Eloise immediately retorted, “Even if Dar is a little annoyance, he’s a super cute little annoyance!”

Ezart glanced at her peevishly.

A bit sheepishly, Daren asked, “Ezart, will you wait for me so we can go to school together tomorrow?”

Ezart glanced at him. The latter bowed his head, this extremely pitiful appearance...this puppy! He rolled his eyes, tone rushed as he said, “I have to go through here to get to school! If there’s an annoying brat who follows, what can I do?”

Pu! Elian and the two others heard this and could not resist laughing.

“All right! I’m going back now.”

Ezart’s face was a bit stiff. After he finished speaking, he turned away.

“Bye-bye! Ezart.” Daren hurriedly and energetically waved good-bye.

Ezart didn’t even turn around, only waving back.

Elian said warmly, “Then let’s go, Dar.”

“Bye-bye, Elian-ge, Eloise, Eli.” Daren also waved to the three others.

　　＊＊＊

“Dar looks to be very happy.”

Looking at the image from the monitor camera at the door, Theodore Avery could not help but talk to himself. There was another person in the study, but he was now stiff in the face and stiff in the body, not unlike a dead body, and therefore obviously not for conversation.

“I’ll return to my research then.”

Theodore pondered for a while. This was an issue between brothers, so he had better not interfere, and should instead get out of the way as soon as possible.

And Devon did not stop him either.

When Theodore came to the living room, he saw Daren coming in too. Hurriedly he told him in a low voice, “Your brother has already known that you are not Dark Sun, and saw what happened at the department store. He’s now in the study room sulking. I think you should hurry and apologize, and try to coax him out.”

Upon hearing this, Daren also tensed. “Is...is Gege really mad?”

Theodore Avery scratched his face and made an example, “Probably like when you got injured in the past, about that mad!”

Then that was very angry indeed! Daren began to get nervous.

“I’m going to perform experiments first. You go comfort your brother!”

Theodore ran away really quickly. After saying this, he swiftly jumped onto the sofa and sank into the bas.e.m.e.nt.

“Ah! Papa Avery is so sly!”

Daren felt a bit wronged. He looked up at the study and walked upstairs worriedly. He hesitated for a moment when pa.s.sing the study.

“Oh...if I apologize to Gege tomorrow, it’ll be fine.”

In the end he cowardly ran back to his own room, and even fetched his clothes and jumped into the bathroom to take a shower – completely an escapist action.

When he finished his shower and got out, wiping his damp hair...

There was someone inside the room!

Just as Daren became alert, he saw a person sitting at the edge of his bed. Although he was back facing Daren, his back was impossible to not recognize for him.

Gege…

“Did you have fun today?”

Devon didn’t turn around to face him.

Daren was taken off guard. His brother did not scold him; instead, the first thing he did was ask if he was happy. His anxiety for being chided was immediately gone. He said excitedly, “Gege, I saved a really cute baby today, and the baby’s mother even called me an angel!”

Devon turned around.

Daren smiled happily like an angel. “The mother called me an angel!”

Dar…so it was like this? Even though you never met Mom, you still wanted the affection of a mother. Devon could not help but smile. He walked around the bed and came to his brother. Caressing his head, he said mildly, “You were always an angel.”

Hearing this, Daren whispered, “But I was only Dad and brother’s angel before, I… I…”

Devon fell silent for one second. Then he said determinedly, “As long as you take care of yourself, do not seek to get hurt, and do not see yourself as some robot that doesn’t know pain. Gege has no problem if you want to be other people’s angel too.”

Hearing this, Daren looked up, a little surprised. He shouted timidly, “Gege, i-if you don’t like me fighting, I’ll be a good boy and stop...”

Devon smiled bitterly. Even if Dar listened to him, it seemed that there would still be many accidents that would force Daren to fight. What kind of joke of fate was it that Dar encountered some terrorists even when shopping at a department store? …If he continued banning Dar from combat, he might run into even greater danger.

Seeing the skeptical expression of his younger brother, Devon felt he had to defend himself. “Dar, your brother set up so many restrictions only because he was concerned about you…”

“I know.” Daren nodded.

Devon said very emphatically, “But promise Gege, you’ll definitely protect yourself. If something happened to you, I, I…”

This time, he was unable to say even half a phrase. If something really did happen to Dar, what would he do?

He could not imagine. Devon could only guess from last time on the island when he was heartbroken and nearly went insane when he thought Dar was killed in the explosion. He would not fare well in the slightest sense.

Daren immediately nodded and said, “Ge, I’ll be careful, absolutely very careful!”

Devon patted his little brother’s head. In his heart, he suddenly felt a kind of “Didi has grown up” sadness, but there was also inexplicable pride. His little brother had heroically saved an infant today!

Heart filled with proud sentiments, Devon smiled. This feeling wasn’t bad!