Next chapter we fully return back to Luna.
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664 10/11 3:24 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
In an hidden emergency base, Mark screamed in pain, his Party moving around his body, his limbs being held down.
"It's okay, it's okay. Breath slowly." Rose's voice tried to ground him, her Magic Eyes working at full power to held him as still as possible, rendering the scene as clear as possible for the rest of their Party. "Joule, can you shut off completely his nerves?" She asked, her eyes glowing brightly.
[No. I need access to his nerves to stop him from inadvertently killing himself or worsening his wounds.] The Spirit commented, most of their attention concentrated on precisely controlling their lightning so that it could help stabilize his body while at the same not harming or stopping the efforts of the rest of the Party.
Said wounds being not only the way that his chest was completely charred but also the internal distortions that were wrecking his insides.
"Can I use my Karmic Connector to help him?" Their little 'Lilze' volunteered, rising her hands towards the Human, too accustomed to scenes of carnage to let the smell or sight of his body affecting her.
"Do not." Aler immediately stopped her, his temporarily feminine voice sounded out, his eyes narrowed in concentration as a layer of water surrounded the blonde's body, gradually cooling him down, deciding to teach her instead of just refusing her assistance. "If the burns would have been the only problem, it would have been the correct choice. However the problem in this case is the poison that is wrecking his body. If you use your Unique Skill, you would only spread it."
Aler continued, his eyes narrowed sharply while his water carved away layers of the Human's flesh too full of that poison to let it remain in his body any more than necessary, a form of almost gentle flaying that aimed on minimizing the amount of poison within his body as much as possible, before freezing in place to isolate it.
"Then how can I help?" The youngest one asked, her eyes focused on the writhing one.
"Wait for Grug, he should be retrieving something to allow you to help." Aler affirmed, his senses carefully mapping out the progress of the poison within his teammate, Rose herself using a little bit of her concentration to take the masses he froze into an isolating casing as quickly as possible.
Elizabeth immediately went to the Half-Dwarf, watching as he was with some effort bringing an alloyed totem into the room, moving around him and watching it carefully. "Why would this allow me to help?" The young girl asked, well aware that the metallic totem before her was just an Artifact able to absorb Vital Energy.
Grug responded, aware of the answer. "With a normal poison or wound, this would be unnecessary, your Unique Skill would have been more than enough." He answered, his Vital Energy starting to fill the totem. "However this type of poison is more similar to a desease than anything else and if you Linked us together, you would only spread it. With this one, Mark can take in our Vital Energy without bringing us too into danger."
Rose's eyes brightened further, slowly and carefully extracting the metal shards and shreds of his clothes from his flesh, briefly causing new squirts of blood to erupt before she suppressed them, forcefully simulating the absence of his wounds to let the blood flow semi-normally.
Grug hurriedly posed the metallic totem near the suffering Human, starting to fill it with his own Vital Energy and hinting at the young girl to intervene.
In response the Human ran forward, touching with one hand the mass of metal and the blocked arm of the Regressor, using her Unique Skill Karmic Connector to Link the two through touch.
The Vital Energy contained within the Artifact flowed without any interference or Resistance into the Human, helping his body deal with the Damage. "Why was he struck at all? The Emergency Recall should have been enough to prevent a blow so strong." Grug asked Aler, his lips twisted in a worried frown.
Water moved pieces of glass-like metal away from his chest under the command of the Elf. "It was made with various limitations in place from the start to immensely reduce the cost and time involved in their creation. One of those being the fact that it would become a single-use item that would activate only upon being destroyed. Normally this would not be a great obstacle as he could always just use his Time Walker to destroy it while time is stopped, assuring an instantaneous retreat. However, this time…"
"It was destroyed by her attack instead of his own." Grug nodded, his eyes closed while he continued pouring his Vital Energy in the metallic object. "This Damage is only the amount that was able to reach him while he teleported away, then?"
Amongst the Human's pained groans, they continued on their process, both ripping the remains of the destroyed Artifact from Mark's flesh and cutting away the infected parts from the rest of his body, isolating them one after another.
The little one darted between the groups, trying to see if there was anything else she could do to help the suffering one, before stopping, her eyes moving to the shreds of Mark, her eyes widening in slowly growing alarm. "Is it normal that his skin is paling?" She asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"What do you mean pa-… Oh. Oh no." Aler exclaimed, his lips twisting as he rushed towards the stored samples, watching as they gradually were turning into a pale substance, a pale substance that matched the coloration of Luna's flesh. "She is trying to turn him into a Ghoul!"
At her exclamation, a chill spread through all of the Party, their actions immediately changing. "How?! She didn't kill him yet so -!" Rose let out her confusion, her pink eyes glowing more strongly than ever, a sign of her emotional instabiliy caused by the impossibility before them.
"I have no idea how but we cannot let him Turn. If he does, as a Ghoul turned directly by a Lunarian, she would be able to take complete control over him. Not only that but his target of Regression would become the moment he is fully Turned instead of when he Awakened the Skill.
"At best this means that, even if we somehow are able to find a way to fully sever that one's ability to control him, if he were to ever Regress again all of his new and past knowledge, including how he was freed in the first place, would be completely Recorded on the Moon. Assuring this way that Luna would stop us, thing not hard considering that he would know where we are right now.
"At worst this means that she would have access to his Unique Skill and most worrying, that she could turn him into a Record of herself, acquiring this way free access to his Time Walker. And even if she doesn't, she could always just leave him far away from herself with the order to turn back time the moment either of the two would die, assuring herself an ever growing informational advantage over everyone else." Aler panicked, his waters fully engulfing Mark's body as they started to glow a soft gold, Channeling his Anti-Luna Effect into the Human.
Amongst Mark's intensified screams, wave after wave of Purification-Attribute washed over his body and painfully started to erode all traces of his body that matched the feeling of the Lunarian, slowing down in dealing directly with the poison spreading through his body to deal with the much graver matter.
At seeing his rushed state and the way that Mark was suffering, Rose did not hesitate in placing one of her hands upon the Artifact held by Grug, Channeling her own Vital Energy to try and assist the Human to deal with parts of his flesh starting to dissolve and fall apart.
Similarly the youngest one offered her own meager amount of Vital Energy to the process, actual significant assistance only happening once Grug Sealed for the next three hours his Mana completely in favor of just three minutes of vastly more powerful, in factors of Quantity, Quality and Recovery alike, Vital Energy.
With the four working together, between Aler's doing his best to purge as much of Luna's Essence from Mark as possible, the Vital Energy offered by Lilze and Grug and finally the remotion of ever more of his body, either because they were poisoned or being converted into Vampiric flesh by Rose, Joule and Flux together, this surgery took three days.
It was too bad, really, that in the time they dealt with the potential transformation in a Ghoul of the Regressor, they were too distracted to notice Rose's eyes for an instant flashing red, a minute shred of pale flesh being moved from the isolation chamber to the surface of Elizabeth's shadows.
And it was even worse the fact that they had no idea that said writhing shreds shifted briefly into a living creature before burrowing into her shadow, harmlessly hiding itself away within the shadow of the one that had absolutely no contact with the Lunarian, starting to Record everything.
It was really too sad.
After all without any doubt, despite all of their efforts, he was still inevitably doomed, his death in the future now an unknown certainty he could no longer escape.
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664 10/11 3:41 (Autumn, Day, Midrar)
A groan sounded out from the sleeping maiden, the light from the Sun above disturbing her black eyes and leading her to open them up slightly, her eyes immediately meeting the amused red eyes of Luna, turning away to meet another pair of orange eyes framed by golden hair with purple highlights.
Finally Sabel tilted her head back to try and dodge their gaze, only to smack into something soft but unyielding.
Her left hand moved to beneath her head, closing around a firm yet not particularly wide object.
Her eyes slowly turned upwards, meeting the golden and purple eyes belonging to Mafel and immediately hiding her face away against her stomach, moving on the clear motive of 'If I don't see them, they don't see me.'
In concert with the whine that escaped her mouth, her Aura flared slightly, enveloping the three of them and actualizing her Unique Skill, causing the Energy enveloping Luna caused by her Awakened Unique Arma to flicker, almost going out a couple of times before it stabilized.
"As I guessed, your Unique Skill is based on fightning not Energy but Skills. If this is the effect at E-Rank, I am really curious on what it will look like at A-Rank." Luna mused, her eyes flashing briefly while her own Aura melded with Sabel's own so that she could more directly feel her.
Sabel whined once more, doing her best to suppress her own Aura as embarassment flared brightly. "Please, don't." She pleaded, forgetting briefly how between the teasing sadist Mafel, Amber that for once wouldn't be the one teased and Luna that instinctively pounced after every weakness she could find.
"Oh my, how cute." Mafel smiled, her eyes gleaming while her right hand softly petted her Human Mate, enjoying the feeling of her hair between her fingers. "You should know by now that pleading for mercy will not help you at all." Her lips opened slightly, her narrowed eyes focusing on the black-haired one that was currently hiding her face against her stomach.
"I'm sorry I didn't win! And then fell unconscious forcing Amber and Mafel to protect me." The swordswoman blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"No need to worry. The fact that you were able to hold off that Regressor as long as you did was already marvelous. Especially considering how mid-fight you Awakened both your Aura and Unique Skill. You should be proud." Amber reassured.
"Yeah, differently from this roasted chicken that not only didn't win but was also stalled by a simple Flowing Spirit despite the fact that she should have been able to evaporate them." Mafel immediately struck at the newest target, causing an offended squawk from the Phoenix.
"Now, now, you two, there is no need to fight among us. Amber, we all know that fully Manifested Spirits are very bothersome to fight, especially if you are forced to fight them Fire against Water and you were also busy protecting our two Mates while offering Holy-Attribute Mana. Mafel, you are only instigating because you find her bothered expression entertaining." Luna intervened, her eyes glinting. "And Sabel, while your attempt to deflect attention away from yourself is very cute, I'm not sorry to say that it didn't work."
Her voice sounded out, a clear death knell for the Human that suddently found three pair of eyes focused on her and her alone.
"Shouldn't we focus on those ones? They are escaping and maybe if we run, we can still reach them in time." Sabel immediately tried to divert attention away from herself a second time, failing immediately.
"There is no need to. I do not know exactly the precise conditions about his ability to turn back time and while I am almost certain it cannot trigger on his death, spying on their actions will hint at his limitations. And there is no saying what, if anything, he set up to happen and reguarding which conditions. There is no need to cut down the tree before it bears fruit, especially if you don't know where it will fall." Luna's blood red eyes shined amused, focused entirely on the Mate before her, causing a chill to travel through her spine.
"More importantly, why don't we focus on congratulating you? It's not all days that someone grows so much." She continued amused, one of her nails pressing gently against the back of the Human's neck.
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