Accidental Reaver

Chapter 215 - 214: The Hands of Fate

Two healers worked their wonders over the medical ward. Floating lights illuminated roughly thirty beds. Three assistants worked to clean the place of healing and comfort the shell-shocked, to no avail.

Lilly followed the guidance of the more experienced priest, a woman named Sonila. They stabilized Cassandra, providing her with enough relief to deal with the rank stench in the ward. Every bed filled with another defeated soul. Despair colored many. Lilly lost count of how many times she cycled through her entire mana pool in the past hours.

Always more to be treated. The inflow has drawn down, but…

A thunderous presence came into the ward, a giant of a woman, blond hair concealed the straight cut scars on her face. Low magelight glinted off the white plate she wore. Jordis expertly scanned the room, accurately pinpointing the least injured individual, someone well enough to return to the battlements, and dragged them out with one arm. The screams of protest mixed in with sobs grated on Lilly's compassion. Sonila continued to heal, a tora man who lost an arm and eye. Appalled at the forceful expulsion of a broken hunter, Lilly strode to the tent flaps, still fluttering from the wind, allowing in the hateful light.

Sonila called out to her. "That's Commander Jordis. If she threw someone out, that meant the City Lord deemed another more worthy of the medical bed they occupied. Relax, the Commander wouldn't put a puppet without strings back on the battlements."

Clutching her fists, Lilly deflated. Jordis, a tier 3 commander under City Lord Ophilia, could hardly be reasoned with while carrying out orders. Oddly, a floating tome came in, and it tilted slightly in greeting to her. Lilly's mouth opened—gobsmacked. She knew the bird the tome carried. Blood-soaked black feathers, deep cuts alongside the midsection, and a broken wing.

"Sooty! What happened to you? Where's Luke? Is he alive?" Worry gnawed at her as Lilly started to call upon dry mana reserves. Cursing the cost to healing, she grasped onto a nearby supply depot, taking a standard-issue tier 1 bandage.

By that point, Jordis came back in the medical ward. The other patient she dragged out was nowhere to be seen. Coming to the free bed, she dropped a man onto it. Afterward, she casually sat before the foot of the bed, facing away.

"Get to it, healers. The bird comes along with the man as well. My station is here now, to guard this man until he's conscious again. Refrain from speaking to me unless absolutely necessary. I need my senses on high alert."

When she came to the man, Lilly's heart rate sped up. Living ice somehow worked to seal what should be fatal wounds. His eyes were open, but glassy. A tear slipped from Lilly, landing on Luke's face, freezing instantly. Mind threatening to shut down from the guilt and shock, the healer performed emergency triage with Sonila. They prioritized Luke before giving their attention to Sooty, who was gently placed beside him on the bed.

Muttering under her breath, Sonila said, "This man isn't human. No tier I'm aware of allows you to live with injuries like these. Ice and equipment effects are keeping him together, a breathing miracle."

Crossing her arms while seated, Jordis agreed, "Even a human at tier 3 without a special physique would be dead. He's an evolved, that's all you need to know. Heal the Ninth Defier, less words, more work."

Frost patches covered over shredded muscles and sealed several gaping holes. Lilly pulsed a diagnostic light within Luke. Every organ punctured, veins burst, nerves fried, bones broken. She witnessed an incorporeal heart beat, fueling whatever power taping the gore together. What was an evolved? How did Luke command literal ice? Become it? His flesh embedded ice crystals, frost shifted with his breathing.

She shivered, bandaging Luke, remembering the searing kiss that came from a man of ice. His body was cold enough to shame a corpse. She pressed her forehead to his, "Why do you do this to yourself, Luke?"

Luke showed signs of being eaten. Jagged incisions, partial bites. Faded injuries now, but inescapable from the eyes of a seasoned healer. Many today entered this medical ward with wounds like this. She brought her lips close to his, about to give warmth, unaware of herself.

"Get a hold of yourself, Lilly," Sonila said, lightly shoving back Lilly. "Help me reserve the organ damage, he's going to be an hours long case. I mended the worst damage to the bird already for you."

Blushing, Lilly shook her head. Unable to quite articulate the somewhat ambiguous relationship, she started to heal Luke with Sonila instead. Once again, the sheer damage shocked the priest. As did the muscle fiber make up and density. More experienced, Lilly learned about thresholds and their property to drastically alter human physiology, and the ether connection link all beings in Ludus prospered from.

Without a doubt, somehow, Luke reached an incredible height in strength. She recently treated a tier 2 hunter who crossed the second threshold, and the difference was night and day. His muscles sealed themselves to stem bleeding, assist against catastrophic damage, and shore up against other failed muscles. At tier 2, healing from her and Sonila would be like putting in drips of water into a gallon tank. Possible, but painstakingly long.

"Black hair, do I need to get another healer?" Jordis called out. "Or are you going to assist an injured man?"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Breathing out long and slow, mana surfaced upon Lilly's hands. She guided the healing spells into the worst of the wounds, glancing at Luke's icy blue eyes. It could be a figment of her imagination, but they seemed hungry and unsatisfied.

Musai clamped a hand onto Yuriel's severed head.

Sword intent vaporized the arrogant Apostle's last remaining claim to the realm of the living. The tier 4 vampire was stronger than the last Apostle to lead a Tide against Sylen. Musai grew in between each one, as the god creatures never sent their better Apostles on an Edgelands Tide, the Grandmaster Swordsman found himself at a loss.

In honor of his dead wife's wishes, he stayed behind in this wasteland, defending a cradle of humanity. That hardly kept his blades from wishing for more. The summoned plane cut apart into thousands of pieces. Musai's Blade Domain did the work efficiently. When his sword howl rushed from the distance, reaching Sylen's walls miles away, he felt each Diplomat still themselves.

The banner holder performed a complex series of movements for a rapid fire ritual. Gallons of blood, innumerable corpses, and other coveted flesh entered the banner for tribute. A portal ripped open to the Midlands for less than three seconds, the Diplomats, all six remaining, including the banner holder, rushed into the salvation. The aura of Divinity kept the cursed races out.

Without the top end of the Tide's battle power to keep the remaining tier 3 hunters, and Defiers in check, the floods of lesser monsters became more clean up duty than a life threatening, nation defining, plague. Musai came to the nearest pond and meditated upon its surface. The inept lord could handle what remained. He summoned the Defier's Mark to the back of his hand. A quiet celebration gave way to mourning in the symbol. One of his own died today, another in a spirit coma, and a third pushed his body and mind to complete collapse.

He allowed the inept one to place the saplings on the western and eastern fronts, in the interest of their growth. Upon further review, the unwavering belief, while warranted, may have been too early for their youngest leaf, Luke Wallace. Sword ripples cut the wind and set off to the distant sun. At that time, the bloody red turned to a more welcoming orange pink, touching down at the end of the skyline. Night would come. This Tide extracted a heavier price than the last, despite its shorter duration. A whisper of a smile graced aged features. The troubled, prideful Aruna's fluctuations changed, clear as a washed blade's reflection.

Death of the lusted branch, Eldacar, paved the path of ascension for another. Aruna, you shattered your insecurity and gained the qualifications to become a third ascended.

As harrowing as the sacrifice of the Defier he treated as a disciple was, Musai endured many such losses over the decades. Rather than stay in a pit of regret, he rejoiced in their mark left upon the Defier's legacy. The pattern would cycle, with the threat of the Tide stemmed, the influences momentarily suppressed would crawl to this city of weary defense. All predictable to him, who had seen the currents many times over. Holy blood dried upon Musai's skin. Battles like these tempted him to settle in the Midlands as a lesser pillar for Extrema. Where all who reached tier 4 and desired for more ended up going. Bottlenecked individuals often left earlier, at tier 2 or 3, where the lifted desolation gave them a glimmer of hope to step further upon the path. The Defiling Barrier's efficiency came at the cost of reduced ether density, a ceiling to resources, and a complete seal to the fifth ascension, preventing the tribulation required to enter it.

Should he ever grow tired of the role as the Guardian of the Duchy, Musai could exit the Edgelands and immediately enter tier 5. He'd reached the understanding, technique requirements, and other stringent methods to make up for the lack of Divinity. Rebelling against the shackles in their souls and blood, the four races, through ingenuity, stole a different path, one their own, and not mandated by Ludus. The birth of the seven sinned classes came from that original period of desperation.

His Defiers at the Sylen branch had no need to leave yet. The Silver Black Tower provided the opportunities required to reach the pinnacle of the third tier. When one of the eight fully matured, they could leave this land with his blessing. Musai happily awaited such a day. The rulers of these wastes would try to convince them to stay; they always did. The High Defier ensured they failed each time. These lands needed a sole Guardian. The world required the rest to become challengers to the order set in place ever since the failed rebellion during the Sinned Era.

Fledging as he may be, Musai's expectations for Luke grew by the day. Ceridia's legacy produced a rule-breaking individual. It subverted the laws, stole from the strong, and challenged its holder. Sin would never be left alone, either he ascended through the slaughter of the blessed and veteran or died crushed by the cruelty inflicted upon his fate. Their recent contact confirmed a path in blood, both monster and man. Pale gold imitated real avarice, smiling moons tempted abyssal waters. Greed came to face the highest divines to find the source of its lowly origin.

Ultimately, Musai witnessed the drive to steal what was kept from him. Luke lacked the desire for the material, the lowest level of greed. He made up for it by coveting what Ludus denied him most, thus granting him greed of the highest order. An ice-ridden, golden plague, set to consume until it stood before what was denied.

The last to come alters the conundrum. Will he upset the balance? Destroy it? Or something else entirely? To guide one of the remaining three sin legacies, even this old blade is puzzled.

Among the many burdens that came with being a High Defier—a position usually reserved for veteran Defiers in the Midlands—this one troubled Musai the most. Killing an Apostle was simplistic, a puzzle to be solved with the right swing, technique combination, and ability manipulation while guiding the Sword Concept. To guide that which had no precedent, that was an art, not a puzzle. He resolved to temper the Sin to its greatest potential. He grasped onto a Concept perfected to his legacy, within Sylen, only he or the inept lord could dare to say they had the qualifications to teach such a rare condition. Few others in Sylen integrated Concepts into their abilities or techniques, and all of them would merely ruin or stall someone who peered at a Greater Concept.

Standing up on the water, the Grandmaster Swordsman oriented himself and began a pleasant walk back to the north wall. At some point soon, the Silver Black Tower would deem the Tide receded, and the rewards from its will gifted to the worthy, while pined for by the influential. Anything the Tower could grant failed to move the needle for him. As with the last Tide, Musai would store it in the vault, to be inherited by the next High Defier, or used by a Defier with sufficient contribution and reason.

Fitting, then, that he oversaw the process of bestowal from afar. The others experienced enough to properly use the once-a-decade boon. Moreover, he sensed it upon the etherweave. The isolated greed would stay in a haze for days at the minimum, unable to retrieve the prize until then. All the while, others witnessed the position on the stele. Prides would crack. New stars born, and others would aim to claim what was not theirs. Divine blood continued to steam off Musai's sword body.

There in the distance, teams started to recover what remained of the fallen and rebuff the last monsters in the Tide left behind. He cut space itself, rendering distance a mere inconvenience. Hundreds of higher tier beasts split apart. The tribute had been extracted, as High Defier, no other blood was allowed to be spilled under his watch this day.

God creatures may rule the Corelands, but the core of this land knelt to his long shadow in every corner. The interior stayed safe because of his existence. The nobles quarreled because he gave them the luxury. Even the City Lord breathed because it suited him. She did her job well enough to continue her existence. His voice rang throughout the Western Ridge, reaching every soul in Sylen.

"Yuriel scatters to the ashes. Once more, sacred blessed fail to shatter the Tower. The efforts of the few brings the peace of the many. I declare this wave—overcome."

The tidal rage effect wore off the last monsters. Now in control of their survival instincts, they scampered off. Returning to their usual habitat, or forming a new one. For the invasive species, other hunters would track them down another day. Enough had been asked of them for this one.