Chapter 49

I asked, my voice betraying the desperation that clung to each word. The air seemed to thicken with anticipation as his weary eyes met mine, a silent exchange of sorrow and the unspoken acknowledgment of a fate slipping away.

His response, a mere whisper in the quiet room, carried the weight of inevitability. "I'm late, Drax," he murmured, his voice a fragile melody of resignation. The reality of his words hung in the air, a heavy shroud that wrapped around us. I felt a lump in my throat, the bitter taste of helplessness threatening to overwhelm me.

"If I had found the Celestial one sooner," he continued, his words punctuated by coughs that echoed the fragility of his fading vitality, "their blood would have cured me. But it's not too late for you, Draxler."

Confusion gripped my mind like a vice as I struggled to make sense of his cryptic revelation. The Celestial one? Cure through blood? My father's words, uttered in the delicate dance between life and death, left me grasping at the t