"...Did you just see his eyes twitch?" Edward suddenly asked, squinting his eyes as he stared at Liam.
Hearing that, Liam's body stiffened instantly, his heart pounding as he felt a chill running down his spine.
"No, not really," Mark answered, waving his hand dismissively.
"I think he is listening to us…" Edward whispered, his eyes still focused on Liam.
"Just because his eyes twitched? Have you never seen someone asleep before?" Mark questioned as he stared at Edward with a confused look.
"...Yeah, you're right. I'm just paranoid." Edward nodded slightly as he scratched the back of his head.
Liam breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, then went back to listening to them.
"As I was saying, if we report him, we will get rewarded," Edward noted.
"Rewarded? Don't make me laugh! The only reward we will receive is not getting executed for letting a mere slave touch crystalized marrow this pure." Mark replied with a scoff.
"You know how the fifth prince is when it comes to slaves," Mark remarked, "Better to kill him here and say nothing."
Liam's breath hitched in his throat the moment he heard the word kill.
"Kill me? What do you mean? I didn't do anything! Why would you kill me? I don't wanna die!" Endless thoughts flooded Liam's mind as panic began to overtake him.
"I need to get out of here! I can't die here!" His thoughts were so loud in his mind that the rest of the conversation between those two was just a blur to him.
He tried calming himself, but no matter what he did, the word kill would instantly resurface in his mind.
"Well, there is no need to rush. Let's just keep him here and we'll see what to do with him later," Mark stated and gestured for Edward to follow him outside.
Before Edward stepped out of the tent, he turned his head to take one last look at Liam, staring at him with squinted eyes.
His suspicion seemed not to have settled from earlier, but alas, he quickly followed Mark, leaving the boy alone again.
Liam made sure they were no longer in the tent with him before immediately sitting up.
He swiftly turned his head around as he mumbled, "I need to find a way out of here. I've suffered long enough, I can't just die here."
His gaze kept shifting, scanning the tent for any place from where he could escape other than the main entrance.
Soon enough, a small opening in one of the rear corners of the tent caught his attention.
It wasn't even big enough for his body to pass through, but the desperation drove Liam to at least try.
After making his way towards it, Liam slowly pushed his body through the opening, ripping the fabric of the tent as quietly as he could to avoid getting caught.
Shortly after, he stood beneath the night sky, showered by the light of the two moons that were clearly visible up above.
The moons illuminated the floating archipelago that extended for kilometers into the horizon.
However, he didn't pay much attention to them, as he faced another problem almost immediately.
The tent was set up on the edge of the sky island that they were on, with part of the dragon's skeleton being his only way forward.
These exposed parts of the dragon skeleton served as a bridge between all the islands, as they were wide enough for multiple wagons to pass on them at the same time.
"What should I do?" Liam thought, weighing his options as he peeked down at the clouds beneath the islands.
For hundreds of years, no one had even dared to consider going beneath the clouds, and now, no one knows what's underneath them or if there is anything, really.
After thinking for a few moments, Liam took a deep breath before jumping on the skeleton.
His landing was slightly off, leading him to lose his balance for a moment before he quickly clung tightly to the skeleton.
"Okay… Okay… I'm safe…" He mumbled, calming himself as he took slow and deep breaths.
Once he was back on his feet, Liam started picking up speed, running as fast as possible while occasionally glancing back to make sure no one had caught on to him.
But before he could even reach a quarter of the way to the next island, his ears pinched in fear as he heard a loud siren sound coming from the camp.
Edward's paranoia had gotten the best of him, and he couldn't fight the urge to turn back and return to check on the boy one more time.
But once he found out that he was nowhere to be found inside the tent, he quickly went to turn the alarm on to warn the others.
Once Liam realized what was happening, he instantly increased his speed, pushing his body to its limit while hoping to get a distance advantage over the guards.
"I've found him! He is escaping towards the next island!" Just a few moments later, Liam heard one guard shouting from behind him.
Even with the distance that Liam left between him and the guards, they seemed to catch up to him rather quickly, making him more and more nervous as he heard their footsteps get closer.
"Return here, you filthy thief!" Mark, who was next to Edward at the front of the group chasing him, yelled loudly, his face red as he gritted his teeth in anger.
He then lifted his revolver, aiming it at the boy's back before firing a bullet.
The shot barely missed Liam, landing a few centimeters away from him and breaking a small shard from the skeleton.
A small dust cloud emerged from the impact, temporarily obscuring Liam's vision.
More bullets quickly followed, each one getting closer and closer to hitting their target.
"This is bad! This is bad!! They are really trying to kill me!" Liam's breath became ragged as he thought.
Tears flooded his eyes as he anxiously whispered to himself, "Someone, help me! I don't wanna die here!"
Amidst the increasingly frantic and chaotic thoughts that ran through Liam's mind, Edward asked Mark in a voice mixed with confusion and concern, "Why shoot? Didn't you say—"
"If that brat is already running like this, it means that his awakening has already been completed," Mark answered in a sharp tone as he reloaded the revolver.
"His body is still weak, though. A bullet will wound him severely, " Edward insisted.
"That's exactly what I want. I don't want him to be able to move until I figure out what I should do with him," Mark explained.
Just a few moments later, Liam came to a stop as he stood in front of an enormous gap in the skeleton.
He tried to catch his breath as he thought of what to do next, his hands shaking while the rest of his body stiffened.
A wide grin formed on Mark's face as he exclaimed, "There is nowhere to go now, you little rat!"
"What do you mean?" Edward looked at him, puzzled.
"Part of the skeleton collapsed just a few days ago, and no repair job has been done on it, so it's just a huge gap that leads directly into your doom if you try to cross it on leg," Mark explained, "Let's pick up the pace, we're so close to catching that brat."
Liam turned his head to check on the guards chasing after him, only to see that they were getting closer, really fast.
He quickly faced forward again, taking a peek down as he tried to think of a way to escape.
"Jump!..." Suddenly, the same voice he heard in the pit started whispering inside his mind once again.
"What do you mean, jump? Do you want me to fall and die?" Liam mumbled as sweat dropped down his forehead, "How exactly can I jump over this?"
Yet, the voice kept repeating over and over again, as if dismissing his concerns.
Liam hesitated; however, he also didn't wish to be caught again by the guards, and trusting the voice was what originally led him to this, so he took a few steps back and inhaled deeply.
"Wait, there is no way he is going to…" Mark exclaimed as he watched the boy stand still for a bit, just breathing.
Mark's suspicions were quickly confirmed as Liam started running with all his might before taking a leap of faith.