Kyrion had hopped through the portal Lin had opened a minute later and found himself surrounded by individuals wearing black tactical armor, with helmets that covered their faces and eyes.
“Who are you?” Kyrion asked the individuals in the nicest tone he could muster,
“Target at 11 O’clock! Only E tier.”
“E? Hmmm?” Kyrion watched as devices resembling guns were turned towards him all at once.
Various blasts of raw condensed mana were fired, creating mist and smoke as they impacted walls and flesh alike. The damaged hospital had begun to collapse. Yet the screams from various warriors confused me.
“Is that all?” Kyrion asked with a raised eyebrow.
“How di–.”
“Saving windblade.” Kyrion slid his hand in an arc casting their helmets and various neck protectors to fly off. No one died, but everyone who was hit fainted instantly.
Kyrion walked out of the room and into a hall where he could hear a crashing noise.
“You're all dead!” While Volain was going on the attack.
Kyrioin heard breaking, crushing, and screaming, and while Volain, the slaughter was no more or less one-sided than Kyrion’s nonlethal assault. Kyrion didn’t mind. As a healer, killing someone in a hospital was taboo. Kyrion also didn’t enjoy taking sentient lives, but again, these people attacked a hospital. Volain was letting them off easy.
Kyrion paused and fixed the broken building around him then reinforced the supports before he continued on his path. Stopping only to watch Volain rammed figures in a red suit through two walls and reduced them to paste before the third. The dark-skinned young man’s eyes turned an eerie red as he went on a frenzied rampage.
“Maybe I’m the one letting them off easy.” Kyrion watched as a man who’d lost both legs and yet stayed conscious tried to escape only for Volain to turn around.
Deciding to stop it here. Kyrion flung a needle into the neck of the fleeing man causing their heart to slow to a crawl as they passed out.
“Volain, there are more people to fight. Leave these weaklings along.”
For a long moment, Volain looked as though he’d attack Kyrion, then seemed to gain a resolute expression as his eyes fell on a stuffed orca covered in blood, a small hand the only thing attached to it.
“I don’t care if you choose to spare these bastards. Every single one of them deserves death.” Volain grabbed the unconscious soldier's neck and snapped it with ease.
“Are you sure…”
“I heard his heart stop. What took you so long!” Volain turned to push Kyrion into a wall.
Kyrion however moved to the debris and carefully moved everything out of the way before the body of a girl missing a hand and riddled with holes could be found. Her hair was platinum blood her expression was vacant and her heart had stopped but that wasn’t enough for someone to die if their will was strong enough, and the doctor was skilled enough. In a hospital like this, it was very hard for someone to die, due to various enchantments that preserved life and kept one’s soul close for a few minutes.
“Well you're right her heart was destroyed, can you pass me that hand? And the living body of one of my prisoners?” Kyrion pointed to the severed hand and then to the room he just come from.
Volain did so, though he didn’t like it. “Why did you leave them alive?”
“Organs. If they are going to come here and hurt civilians then I’ll use them to fix what they broke. A heart for a heart… Do you know anyone who needs a new kidney or two? This one has a decent liver as well. Not a smoker either, good choice Volain.”
“So your forcing them to live on in others?”
“Yes, and I’m removing organs while they're still alive because I can regrow them later. This is very inhumane and very painful. Also a taboo outside of war, does this feel like war.” Kyrion cut the soldier open removed a heart and examined it before removing the child’s heart.
“Organ replication.” Kyrion cast a spell that did more than what he’d said. The heart he’d created for the child would be accepted without issue, and be a perfect match to her own with some adjustments Kyrion put in every heart he made to increase longevity.
In moments the new heart was in its new home and the old heart was carefully discarded. The remaining useful bits gathered into a stasis chest Kyrion found for time-sensitive medicine though the brain was put in a jar which he’d give to either his mother or Curella depending on who he found first.
Kyrion then applied a bit of healing magic to the unconscious child and reattached her hand.
“Times like this remind me that your skill in combat is laughable when compared to your ability to heal. Then it irritates me that I couldn’t beat you, while you were tricking me.”
“To be fair, if I’m fighting someone head on, there are likely to be quite a few contingencies. Or they are much weaker. Had I not been injured I might have risked fighting you head on. So far the people in our tier who can beat me in a head to head fight are you, Ander, and Damian. I am fighting none of you monsters head on. Now then, the girl should wake up, either take her through the portal or get her somewhere safe.”
“What portal.”
Isaiah came running down the stairs, his right arm in a sling and a hole in his left shoulder the size of a baseball carved straight through. His expression pained as he spotted Kyrion and Volain. “Two experts are in the building. Asela is in danger, I'm supposed to be finding the others and getting back up.”
“Is that so?” Volain asked as he approached Iseah.
Kyrion passed by on the other side and squeezed his right shoulder while sneakily fixing the whole and broken limb.
“Get the kid out of here. She dies, you die. Get it? Good.”
“You can’t just. Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t remember the names of side characters.” Kyrion let go and led Volain up a flight of stairs.
Isaiah sighed then got to work escorting as many civilians out of the wreckage as he could.
“Who was that?” Volain asked.
“No idea, but his face was very punchable.” Kyion used a hint of sarcasm in his tone while leading Volian where Asela should have been
“Right?” Volain said seriously.
“Left actually.” Kyrion jumped to the left.
Volain saw the movement and hugged the left wall as a beam of purple mana cleft the building in half from above narrowly missing the duo and leaving the hospital in two.
“Another one. We’ll need to work together again.” Kyrion bent down and focused his earth around him to find anyone he recognized.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I heard eight people die, some of them were participants in the tournament. Others were unrecognizable.” Volain stated as he picked up speed.
Kyrion turned around a corner and held out a hand for Volain to stop. Continuing forward Kyrion placed both hands in his pockets as an old man with his white hair braided in pigtails stood over an injured Uriel.
“I’m just a healer! I can–” Uriel started and Kyrion raised an eyebrow as she tried to use mental magic to dissuade her assailant.
“Ha! In war, enemy healers are the first to be targeted. You are no different.” The soldier attempted to attack
Kyrion continued forward undetected as he walked past the old man and looked him in the eyes for a long moment. Scowling he realized that he wasn’t being noticed. Sighing Kyrion tapped the man on the side of the head causing his brain to begin a dangerous process of self-destruction as though icepicks were being slowly but forcefully pushed through his skull. In moments the figure was lying unconscious, and brain dead as the organ began to cannibalize itself.
“Just a healer. Well, you do seem dumb for a healer. You don’t even know how to use all your affinities properly.”
To Uriel Kyrion had suddenly popped into existence right in front of her, the large man a bit too close.
“How did you do that?”
Kyrion sighed, “If I teach you the trick, you better swear not to use it to harm anyone I care about.”
“I so swear.”
“Damn it.” Kyrion tapped the side of her head and transferred a reasonable amount of information all at once causing her to seize up before quickly regaining control.
“That much in just a tap? Information overload.”
“Correct, doing so is risky but you’re a healer so most are negated if you know what you're doing.”
“I see.”
“Also, don’t use that technique in front of anyone. Finally, it's about to get chaotic. Volain, I’m moving up two floors, you get the next!!” Kyrion ran through a window and while in mid-air, pushed off an invisible platform and flew into the hall two stories up. As he landed he poked his head out the window and squinted. “I hope they are allies.
Looking around the pale white walls and carefully maintained floors Kyrion knew he’d surrounded himself with practitioners. Suddenly walls of wood partitioned them as Kyrion looked around for someone he knew, seeing no one he recognized as a participant in the tournament. He approached the wall and sat down, his expression bored as he watched eyes grow from the various walls and confirmed that everyone save him had been driven into madness.
Pulling out a teleplant, Kyrion activated it. “Noah, are you with Asela at the moment?”
“Yes and no. I am currently chasing Milo. He came to finish the job along with some help.The other figure is a man who looks alot like you and Asela, only a bit older, with darker hair.”
“Damn it! Noah, that's the Beast Blood Emperor, do not engage.”
“A bit late for that don’t you think?” Volain cracked his knuckles.
“Volain. Do not go up and fight that expert. It’s tantamount to suicide. He is the face of an Empire, just because he's younger than most of the walking fossiles doesn’t mean he’s weak.”
“Was that before or after you got back? Prior to that bonding adventure we went on, I probably could have wiped the floor with you.”
“It was closer to fifty fifty and we both know I don’t play fair so 40/60.”
“He smells weak.” Volain grumbled as Noah slammed a shield into the large man doing little to no damage.
“Parasite possession. Not sure how or why, but that's what I managed to put together with what I know of their empire of tapeworms.”
The Beastblood Emperor's eyes looked onto Kyrion in rage. “What do you know, welp? Before you weak mortals came we were the first species. The originators of all life you have no right to call me a tapeworm!”
“Must be that paper thin ego. If that’s what it took to get your attention. Guess it’s payback time. Where’s your brat?”
“A loss is a loss. I’ve prepared for one of my children to consume him then take over.”
“Huh. Ruthless, can’t say I’d do the same, especially when he managed to take out four people simultaneously and injure the person you came to capture. So who did you sacrifice to Charles?”
“Sacrifice? Our lord Yat has graced our side with a being of neigh immeasurable power. No one is being sacrificed.”
Kyrion reached into a pocket pulled out a flask instinctively and downed a sip of a clear almost crystalline liquid that looked as though it belonged in a lake in some old fairy tale. Though for the briefest of moments the world shook as it left the bottle. Something was watching him very carefully and he knew instinctively that if he showed too much of a power increase, the world would treat him like an expert and send him into the incursion Which is why he only took a sip and tossed it to Volain.
“Toss that back, and do it quickly, if we’re fighting someone like that we need to be beyond our known peaks. You may want a new liver and stomach in 12 hours and it begins to wear off in 4.” Kyrion partially lied, a small sip, a taste, would wear off in four hours and thirteen minutes, and the stomach pain was either instant or nonexistent during the next day.
“A potion?”
“LSP.” Kyrion stated blandly.
“Is that a drug or something?”
“No, it's a performance enhancer. Now down as much as you want, I only have one flask though so try to be frugal.”
Volain’s muscles bulged then suddenly he gained another two inches in height but his muscle mass greatly diminished as something replaced all his muscle fibers with something else.
For the briefest of moments, Kyrion cracked an evil smile. It faded soon after as the world shook much harder. The liquid Kyrion had given Volain was Liquid Soul Power or Liquid Divine Essence. When drunk in a reasonable amount the effects were permanent and the downsides minor in the long term. For someone who already had pathways for their D.E. the consumption allowed for the user to reach the next tier and evolve their magic. Volain had jumped straight from peak practitioner to middle expert in a matter of seconds.
“What the abyss did you give me?” Volain asked.
“An experiment involving my own energy. You have about thirty minuets until you get forced to leave this world.”
“You forced me to reach the expert tier!”
“Well, you were already stronger than most, such a jump is hardly an inconvenience in your case.”
“I still would have liked a choice!”
“Would you rather die, also I didn’t expect you to drink that much after you saw me take a sip? If not, hurry up and pass the flask back.”
Volain did so with a sheepish expression.
Kyrion shook his flask and scowled. How Volain managed to down so much in seconds was beyond him. Volain had jumped into the middle-upper tier of experts and would likely sleep for a month with a horrendous hangover when he came down from the power detoxification.
“How much did you down? Do you know what it takes to make this? Do you know many orphanages I had to go through to collect the required tears? The virgin gods I had to seduce for the ingredients, or the baby seals I had to skin alive for their skin, multiple times as I couldn’t kill them one at a time. Had to regenerate the skin to thet the perfect leather grip.”
“Tell me you're joking?”
“Do you know?”
“Hello?” Asked an irritated emperor he’d stopped his charge and attempted to get their attention as he didn’t feel right… “Feel right? The.”
“Couldn’t have played dumb another ten or so seconds? It was just getting good.” Kyrion said as he thrust a spear into the Emperor's back only for it to barely cause him to bleed a little, only barely piercing his defenses though that enough was for Volain to charge in faster than anything Kyrion had tracked previously forcing him to accept that the movements were surpassing sound and steadily increasing as invisible clashes could be heard around him. As though caught in the eye of a storm.
Kyrion diverted the energy he absorbed into his senses and enhanced them to a degree where he could see Volain fight the ruler of the beast's blood empire to a standstill. The fight was close to equal, but Volain was using his energy too fast and wasting it with unnecessary movements a flaw he’d move past with time.
“I will make sure he has the time.” Kyrion moved forward through the fray of unseen speed and towards an exhausted Noah.
“Hey. So you're back as you?”
“Not for long. Where did they take Asela?”
“Milo grabbed her and is currently flying east of here.”
“And Eden?”
“The headmaster picked her up right before the matches ended.”
Kyrio placed a hand on Noah’s shoulder, restored some of his stamina, and healed all his wounds.
Kyrion focused on the trackers he’d planted on his friends. Max had been taken miles away sometime during the finals.
“Great, I suggest you get out of here as soon as you can. If Asela isn’t here then I need to catch up now.”
“Right I’ll get to the others. See you in the finals.” Noah stood and stomped on the ground opening up a path to the floor below where he repeated the maneuver.
“You better hope not.” Kyrion smirked as he closed the holes and sighed, pulling out another bottle of what he called Vigor. To a regular human, it could destroy and remake a liver seven times. To a fledgling maybe two or three times. A regular practitioner would feel sick for a brief moment due to not being able to handle concentrated divine essence. To Kyrion and anyone else who underwent that training. It was power in a bottle, a kind of elixir of power that didn’t wear off.
“All is one, under my control, from the raging ocean to the quakes of the land, the winds that tear cities asunder, the trees and grasses I have raised, the flames from beneath the land.” Kyrion began to chant as massive amounts of power stuck to every word.
The emperor hesitated the briefest of moments as it tried to kill Kyrion before he could finish the spell. Breaking forward for a moment, only for a knee from Kyra to hit him in the jaw, while her forehead slammed into his. Which would have cracked a skull had it been a practitioner or early expert.
“We are a force of nature. Unbending power. Our might enough to erase. ” Kyrie moved back, drawing the dazed experts' attention.
“No!” A pincer belonging to a familiar creature appeared and disappeared in a brief moment as the power he drew on falter.”
“What? But–”
Kyrion resisted the urge to drool despite seeing the massive crustacean he’d fought. Somewhat, the predatory gaze of a puma stalking prey wasn’t hard to miss when they were not hidden.
The opening gave Volain the chance to grab the experts from under their shoulders and suplex them into the roof. The building shook for the briefest of moments.
“You shouldn’t be this strong! You are but ants!” The Emperor spoke and his skin began to go from sickly pale to a deep purple as his sclera turned black and his irises faded. With a kick Volain was sent flying to the edge of the roof and arm broken by the blow but no other injuries aside from that.
“Transformation! Second form. You should run.” Cackled Ari from behind, their presence unnoticeable as they plunged two wooden chopsticks into both of the Emporer’s inner ear canals, slightly deafening him with deadly ease. Black blood trickled as the transformation halted.
Volain set his arm as bloodlust filled him and spectral armor surrounded his body and condensed. “More! More, more, more more more more!”
“How are we just figuring out he’s a berserker type?” Ari said from safety, having flipped onto a platform of air, right at the edge of the building.
Kyra, focused her energy while her opponent was occupied and began her part. “Our magic enough to alter space and time. To bend the powers of Order and Chaos. To set the boundaries of life and death. We offer up a sacrifice.”
The Emperor didn’t manage to catch the last point due to limited senses and a maddened Volain relentlessly attacking him with no regard for his injuries. Chucks of Volain had been torn off and yet each attack seemed to only increase his power. Based on blood loss alone the young man should have gone down.
“We offer up this contract a life for a life, a soul for a soul to bring one home to their own body. Take our power and the soul of the offering in the center! Spell chain, Grand Exorcism!”
A pillar of light engulfed the rooftop as the Beastblood Emperor was engulfed. Then a dragon of pitch black scales blotted out the sky and the attack with its body causing the attack to fail. Though the damage the colossal creature took was significant the fight wasn’t over yet.
The light didn’t stop as Tiffany arrived moments later, her powers active as she flew towards the dragon, her sword glowing. She embedded a blade of light the size of a ballista into the creature's ribs.
Kyrion’s shock at the sudden attack surprised him. He knew she was motivated by vengeance but she hadn’t known the target of such ire.
The black dragon brought a claw down to cut Tiffany in two when a much smaller but still giant prismatic serpent intercepted the blow and contented with a breath attack so white it overcame the darkness that the scales created and pierced through.
“You traitor! Bloodline command, die.” The giant dragon stated.