The demon jumped away and flew up as the flying chunks of stone impacted with heavy, dull thuds all across the courtyard. Stood still in the gaping hole now present in the high enchanted stone wall of the keep was Hildebrandt. She was still Gold rank, yet her presence gave off the feeling of someone so close to Emerald rank that you could practically taste it in the air.

The demon and the two Astar immediately panicked.

Zalia didn’t blame them, watching the demon fly towards the Astar as they began to perform some kind of ritual.

Hildebrandt didn’t bother chasing after them, simply swinging her mace at one of the Astar. It didn’t have time to react as a bolt of energy impacted it.

The bolt turned half the Astar’s body to dust. The other Astar continued its spell, the normally neutral and controlled aura of the being showing fear to Zalia’s sense.

Zalia stood up groggily from the ground and cast Hunter’s Mark on the Astar, watching as Hildebrandt pulled back her arm to swing again. The bolt flashed out, the two remaining enemies vanishing a moment before it hit.

Leaning against the remains of the tree trunk, Zalia closed her eyes and let out a deep, exhausted sigh. She had survived.

“So those were Astar, hey?”

Hildebrandt stepped over a piece of rubble on her way towards Zalia. She didn’t sound particularly impressed. The woman was also looking at Zalia in an odd way.

“A few Silver rank ones, yeah.”

“And that was a demon with them.”

Hildebrandt said it matter of factly, though there was confusion and not a small amount of worry evident in her voice.

“An enemy from the other world. One I hoped I had left behind.”

Hildebrandt nodded a few times, absorbing the information.

“Alright, we can get to all of that in a minute. I gotta ask though, what in the worlds is happening with your aura ability?”

Zalia jumped a little. She had forgotten to check out what upgrade it had received.

Passive 1 - Healing presence - passive - aura

Tin - Your very presence grants life to all around you. You, nearby allies and any flora and fauna you so choose within your aura are affected by a heal over time effect. The heal over time effect heals for low health every second.

Iron - Healing presence now heals the most grave injuries first and you may focus it onto a single target, increasing that targets healing while reducing the healing other targets receive

Bronze - Healing Presence now attunes to the specific needs of each individual target within your aura. It adjusts its healing output based on the severity of injuries or ailments, offering targeted healing to each person or creature accordingly. You may still change this manually if wished. Additionally, once every twenty four hours, when you or an ally would die you are instead cocooned in a protective barrier as made by Protection of the Wilds and made invulnerable to most things for six seconds.

Silver - Healing Presence expands its reach to the flora and fauna beyond your immediate surroundings. A second layer of aura with only the Tin rank effect of this ability now extends to a wider area, encompassing large swaths of ecosystems, granting them a gentle and sustained healing effect. All other effects of Healing presence are still limited to their previous range. This does not interrupt the natural cycle of life within an ecosystem.

Her eyes widened as she read it over, then read it over again. She could feel it, spreading out into the far distance, healing the world farther than she could properly sense. It was promoting growth, causing the spread of nature yet she could also feel it was not disrupting the balance of it.

“I… appear to be healing a chunk of the world.”

As she said it, Zalia could see that nature was reclaiming the courtyard around them. She would need to be very careful about this ability. It could probably be pushed aside easily by anyone with an aura ability that had some kind of strength, yet the damage it could accidentally do by causing nature to reclaim cities might be an issue.

The grass in the courtyard grew tall and wild, the chunks of tree around her winding and curling to form an odd tree that was almost a sculpture incorporating the obsidian chunks around it. Vines began winding their way up the walls and within a few minutes of them watching, the keep had been entirely reclaimed by nature. She wasn’t sure if this was a result of her subconscious feelings about the place or the nature of the ability, but she rather liked how it looked now.

The odd, jagged and hard angles of the walls were calmed and smoothed out by the plants growing all over them, turning her place of torture into an artful display of nature.

“Well.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Hildebrandt nodded a few times, looking about.

“Well indeed.”

“So my aura ability ranked up.”

“I can see that.”

Zalia scratched the back of her head.

“It seems a little bit… powerful for its rank, doesn’t it?”

Since the Astar had left, she had felt the direction Hunter’s Mark pointed her towards jump multiple times. It was obvious to her that they were teleporting constantly. It was also obvious that they wouldn’t be able to catch up to that kind of speed.

Hildebrandt looked around at the overgrown keep.

“I admit, it seems a little bit powerful, yeah. Abilities usually evolve around what we use them for the most. What exactly have you been using this one for?”

Zalia stood up from her little seat in the artful tree.

“Eliminating the corruption, resisting the corruption, healing damage done by the corruption.”

Hildebrandt didn’t say anything but Zalia got her meaning anyways.

“So the ability evolved to do exactly those things as well as it could.”

Hildebrandt clicked her fingers.

“Exactly. The ability doesn’t really help you any more in fights than it already did, but when it comes to removing the corruption from Endaria? Unrivalled. Sure, it is stronger because it is Silver now but that’s not the main part of it.”

Her expression softened.

“Sorry, I should have asked how you are. Are you alright? What did they want from you?”

Zalia almost broke down then, memories of her torture coming to the fore of her mind.

“How… how long was I gone?” she asked instead.

That must have put together a few key pieces of information for Hildebrandt. Her healing ability having reached Silver already, much quicker than it should have, her loss of time, the situation she had found Zalia in and the absent look on her face.

“A month and a half,” Hildebrandt said softly.

“A month…. Ember, Boreal, Aylie? Are they alright?”

She could feel from their bond that they were, but wanted to hear it anyways.

“They’re fine. They were coming with me to find you but a wolf made of starlight found us and told me I needed to hurry. I left them behind and came here as quickly as I could.”

“A month and a half.”

“I.. see.”

Almost as if on cue, the stars above shone a little brighter. A shimmering form apparated, stepping down from the glittering dots of molten light.

“Hello again, young Druid. It is good to see you alive.”

Zalia bowed her head in reverence, grateful to the wolf for what it had done.

“Thank you. I’m more grateful than I can explain for your help.”

“Do not worry yourself with thanks, child. I heard your pleas.”

Zalia heard the unstated message in the words. It heard all of her pleas, each and every desperate word. It knew what she had been through.

She raised her head and looked into the depthless starry eyes and couldn’t help but be reminded of the similar eyes of the Astar. Questions pushed to the back of her mind during her time in the prison came to the surface then.

“Why do the Astar work with the demons?”

“I do not know.”

The wolf sounded disturbed and Zalia couldn’t help but feel the same. How could it be that the ancient starlight wolf didn’t know? From what she knew it could see and hear everything that the stars could on this world. Had it not known that the Astar worked with the demons?

“What do we do now?” Hildebrandt asked.

She’d been silent, but the weight of what to do obviously weighed on her as much as it did Zalia.

“Something that I did not dare try until now.”

That got Zalia’s attention, and curiosity.

“What? What haven’t you tried?”

The wolf sat, staring into the sky above.

“There are forces beyond even us spirits of nature. They do not wake without being disturbed, neither do they often intervene. They see things on a… different scale to even I. I may be able to petition Balance for help. They will not intervene directly, but we may find that Balance can convince one of the other nature spirits where I can not. I have not tried this because Balance does not tip the weights of fate lightly. It will require a sacrifice.”

Zalia felt dread at the words. The way in which the wolf spoke of petitioning Balance gave a weight that didn’t quite translate in the words.

“A… sacrifice?”

“Do not worry, young Druid. The sacrifice will not be yours to make, nor any of you who live in this world. That, shall be my honour.”

She stared up at the starlight wolf, concern filling her. What did it mean by sacrifice?

“We must go now. Come, I shall bring you to meet them. Hildebrandt, you have done well in this task. Go and take care of our young Druid’s friends, we shall meet you soon.”

The wolf knelt down, angling itself in a way that would allow Zalia to easily climb on top of it.

“Zalia, are you sure about this?”

Hildebrandt was looking equally worried, eyes flicking between her and the starlight wolf.

“I trust them, go. I’ll see you after.”

She hurriedly climbed up the wolf's leg and up onto its back, holding on tight. With a slight run up and a jump into the air, the wolf began stepping on sparkling stars on a journey up into the sky. Despite the beautiful sight of the world lit below by the cold light of the stars, only one thing echoed in Zalia’s mind

The sacrifice will not be yours to make, nor any of you who live in this world. That, shall be my honour.