novelraw Chapter 1053 - 1052 - Cost
Chapter 1053 - 1052 - Cost
Lind slowly came back to the world to find Jur curled up against him. She was happily sleeping in the crook of his arm while her tail was curled across his chest.
His senses carefully looked over his body but he found no issues.
He heard the sound of stone on stone and glanced to his left to see 3 women around a board of some kind.
Nana was sitting on the floor brewing tea while Chu and Katara were looming over a game board. It had black and gray pieces that looked very beautiful but the shocking thing for him was seeing they were grade 7 artifacts!
They were using artifacts like a game!
He could not grasp the rules but he saw Katara claim several gray pieces that vanished into the board!
"Tck! You are too good at this." Chu sounded frustrated but she was smiling! A real smile, not a cold sneer nor a façade to trick an opponent! She was having fun!
The layers of the woman were stunning but more so due to what she had survived.
The pure torture of what was done to her by the beast kin and the Jade Dream Sect would destroy most people.
Of course, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Katara.
She was flush with life at the moment but the fire of life he had first felt on meeting her was extremely dim.
He could only think of one reason for that.
He gently disentangled himself while letting Jur sleep as he carefully came to stand over their game. The rules still eluded him as the pieces looked the same to him but they moved each one differently.
Sometimes they would only go straight ahead but other times they would hop in patterns around the board or other pieces.
The mechanism where a piece vanished also was unknown to him. He was fascinated by it but he was examining the War Maiden's condition at the moment.
Nana bowed to him but the other 2 ignored him. He took the opportunity to more carefully examine Katara.
The more he saw, the more he frowned. Her organs were flesh and blood once more, further, they no longer seemed to be affected by either the tainted Qi nor the bloodline array.
There was something different about her blood and flesh that even his Eyes could not pick out but just barely sense. He knew instinctively that if he pushed his Law Eyes, he would likely go blind permanently.
The residual power of Dao was protecting her. Just like the Ruin could completely repel the tainted Qi, a grade 8 essence could not be even bothered by either the tainted Qi or bloodline array.
The cost, however, was very steep.
"How are you feeling, War Maiden Katara?" She smirked up at him and flexed her bicep on her right arm.
"Better than I have in ages! I thought my mind was clear before but now it is like waking from a half asleep state all that time. The array got stronger over time I think so we questioned less and less the senseless waste of resources and life." He slowly nodded as that seemed likely.
Rather than an overt takeover, the bloodline array was subtle and built strength over time. After a million years of its effects and whoever controlled it could essentially tell the population what to do.
There were still limits as exerting a shift of the array or its effects required resources but it was clear they had planned well. Fiend schemes were terrifying for that very reason.
Short term gains or losses were always minor to them but long term results were not necessary to be flashy either.
Lind was so sick of their machinations but he was a baby compared to their race as a whole. Some of those creatures were billions of years old!
He pushed his ruminations aside as he concluded his examination. Chu took Nana with her to pick up the sleeping Jur. The next part was his alone to deal with.
"You know what has happened to you?" Katara's azure eyes narrowed but she only smiled up at him.
"I am ready to fight! Let's go free my Sisters–" A slap was heard as her cheek turned red. The anger in his eyes was palpable.
"Fool! You only have a decade at best left to live!" She looked as young as ever but her vitality was flickering! Her life had been subsumed not just by his attempt to heal her but the very bloodline array they removed.
He had saved her life but also drastically shortened it.
"Why am I so young then? If I was at the end, I should be an old crone?" Lind had a very good idea why that was.
"I used a grade 8 essence to purge and restore you. It far exceeds our tolerance but because I am an elixir master, I could mitigate it a bit. Still, you were mostly crystal inside!" An Immortal's flesh was not easy to restore with that much damage!
All that vitality had been wiped out! She was not aged but simply lost it all!
"Ah, I see. So it was like a surgery in the mortal realms. A lost arm can be regrown but the lost vitality can't be recovered. I did not age, it was just wiped out." It was thought of as semantics but as an Immortal, it was not so.
A mortal losing vitality was a bit of an exaggeration. It was better to say that the energy of a lost limb could not simply be restored and vitality from the body was needed to regenerate it if a pill could be procured.
His elixirs still operated on the same principle.
What happened to War Maiden Katara was far more extreme. A human should be able to live close to 10 million years as a Crystal Tier. When he met her, she was in the prime of her life so 1 to 3 million years old at most.
The process with the Black Lotus essence has consumed almost 7 to 9 million years of life stored away in the calcified organs!
Rather than age her, it would be more appropriate to say it was simply removed. The power in the essence and his own efforts with Celestial Qi resolved the regeneration issue to an extent but he could not conjure life force out of thin air!
Her soul was also severely weakened due to the exposure to the Corruption. When her body died, so did her soul!
Delenn, in comparison, would survive since her body and soul were never affected like the rest of the natives. The demons and humans he had taught and tempered were in the same boat as Katara.
Their bodies were better but even if they achieved Immortality, they would be locked to their bodies the same as mortals.
A decade was nothing to an Immortal. It would be like telling a mortal they had a few days to live!
"You would not be so grim if it was just less life then. What else?" Katara looked up at him as if she had not just been told she had not much time to live.
He sighed as he conjured a weaving around her. A duplicate of her appeared but very fine threads were entwined between her soul and body.
Even without being an expert, Katara seemed to grasp what she was shown by the avatar he created.
"Ah, if I use my cultivation at my normal strength, I will burn the rest of my life too. I am basically crippled." The damage had just been too great. Even elixirs would only ease her pain a bit at the current state!
If she stuck to the Heaven Realm and below strength, she would be fine, but any attempt at using Laws would burn her life.
He had not seen anything happen during their game so the artifact itself was using the Qi, not her. Still, even that would be enough to lose a year from his examination!
"I am sorry." He had saved her life only to leave her helpless in the 2nd layer! Any Immortal could kill her with ease!
"Bah! You are too naïve! I am a War Maiden! If I feared death, I would have become a scholar instead! Although, you make a good argument that scholars could be terrifying warriors." He felt a vein throb on his forehead.
Spirits curse all battle maniacs!
"I can make some elixirs to give you a limited window of full power but it will be VERY limited! As in do not think you can go crazy even with them! Do I make myself clear?" She smiled up at him and he had the distinct impression she did NOT get it!
He took a breath and got to work. Chu returned with a now awakened Jur who joined the game with them.
He looked at the 4 of them playing and wondered when the world could be at that kind of peace again. The 1st layer had grasped it for a time but the Fiends broke out and things would only get worse as time went on.
Peace was a dream but you needed strength to hold on to it. He resolved himself to break the curse of the bloodline array and end the sect wars. After that, the Fiends would be next!