Chapter 828

Even though it was not summer, Africa blazed under a scorching sun today, and in temperatures of over twenty degrees, Gilderoy Lockhart panted as he trudged forward with Patricia on his back.

The carefully groomed blond wig on Lockhart's head and his usual handsome bearing had vanished during their desperate flight. Sweat covered his bare scalp, his eyes were dull and lifeless, and his stiff body moved mechanically. Little Patricia lay on his back as if all her strength had left her too, staring blankly at the ground.

The clothes on Lockhart and Patricia had long since been torn to rags by shrubs and hooks during the earlier fight and escape. Lockhart had ripped off the sleeves of his shirt and used the tattered fabric to secure Patricia to his back.

After a long trek, Lockhart could finally see scenery different from the unchanging grassland. In the distance, peaks rose in clusters, mountain passes lay everywhere among the great mountains, and canyons threaded through dense forest—cloud and mist coiled around the mountains. This was an equatorial snow mountain beneath the blazing equatorial sun, a sight exceedingly rare in the equatorial regions.

This was the first time Lockhart had walked such a long distance in one stretch, without resting halfway, not to mention that Patricia had been lying across his shoulders the entire way. He was exhausted; physical fatigue and mental trauma had drained him dry. At last, after entering the dense mountain forest, he lowered Patricia from his back with trembling arms, then collapsed onto the ground.

"Will someone still catch up?" Patricia asked, parting her cracked lips.

Lockhart caught his breath, and a smile tugged at his face, which had been scratched with thin bloody marks by leaves. "Yes, which is why we still have to keep going. Don't