The silence after the brutal fight was more deafening than the battle cries themselves. Amidst the ruins of the old bell tower, under the now-dimmed silver light of the dying Pillar of Purification, five figures stood panting among the three corpses of The Purifiers. Victory tasted like ashes in their mouths. The air reeked of blood, ozone from the dissipating holy energy, and the unnatural silence of the defiled forest.
Nihil stood upright, but it was a lie held up by sheer steel will. The Purifier’s silver sword had pierced his left shoulder, and though he’d pulled it out, his wound wasn’t closing. No black dust from `Void Reconstruction`. Instead, the edges of his wound glowed with a faint silver light, as if the wound itself had been blessed, refusing to heal. A burning, cold pain lanced through every nerve on that side of his body, not ordinary physical pain, but a constant conceptual assault.
*Nihil’s Thoughts: Analysis. Puncture wound, left shoulder. High-level holy energy residue. `Void Reconstruction` (Rank D) fully inhibited in affected area. Pain is a side effect of mutual annihilation between Void and Holy energies at the cellular level. Combat efficiency reduced by approximately 35%. Situation: unacceptable. Priority: retreat and gather data.*
Lyraelle was the first to move. She sheathed her bloodstained twin swords and quickly checked her rangers. Faelan, Laeron, and Erion all had scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. Her eyes then locked onto Nihil. She saw how he stood stiffly, how his left arm hung limply at his side, and the unnatural silver glow of his wound.
"You’re badly hurt," she said, her voice sharp with worry. "We need to get back immediately."
"Gideon is still out there," Faelan said, his wary eyes scanning the dark trees. "He knows we’re here. He won’t let us leave easily."
"He won’t attack head-on," Nihil said, his voice strained with suppressed pain. "He’s lost three men and his element of surprise. He’s a hunter, not a mindless brawler. He’ll observe. Wait for us to make a mistake."
"Then we won’t make one," Lyraelle stated firmly. She took full command. "Laeron, Erion, retrieve the comm crystals from the corpses. Destroy them. Leave no trace. Faelan, you take point. Get us back via the most unpredictable route. Leave no trail. We move now."
The rangers moved with trained efficiency, carrying out her orders without question. Lyraelle approached Nihil. "Can you walk?"
Nihil nodded, a small, sharp motion. "Functional."
Their retreat was a lesson in silent tension. They didn’t run. They ghosted through the silver-lit forest, every footstep placed carefully to make no sound. Nihil was in the center of the formation, each step sending a wave of burning pain from his shoulder. He used `Synch Control` to forcibly suppress his body’s pain response, turning his screaming nerves into raw data.
[Activating: Synch Control (Rank E)]
[Capacity: 38/50 -> 37/50]
*Lyraelle’s Thoughts: He doesn’t make a sound. By the stars, he doesn’t even grimace. I’ve seen the strongest Elf warriors break down from lesser wounds than that. But him... he just keeps walking. As if the pain is an inconvenience, not torture. What would it take to break a will like that?*
Several kilometers away, at the center of the now nearly extinguished Sacred Zone, Commander Gideon stood amidst the wreckage of the first skirmish. He didn’t look towards where Nihil’s team had fled. He knelt beside one of his slain men. He gently closed the dead warrior’s eyes and took the silver sword from his cold grasp. He didn’t pray. He didn’t mourn. He simply observed.
He saw the trail of the fight. Three corpses. Three holy warriors who had dedicated their lives to the Light. He saw how they were killed – one beheaded by Elf swords, the other two slain with their own blades, stabbed with brutal precision.
"He used our weapons against us," Gideon whispered to himself. The two remaining Purifiers stood behind him, awaiting orders.
"My Lord Commander," one said. "Should we pursue?"
Gideon stood, his fanatical eyes now filled with terrifying calm. His hot rage had cooled into sharp ice. "No. Blind pursuit is for fools. We have failed in this mission. But we have succeeded in something more important. We have learned."
He stared into the forest. "He fought to protect those Elves. He took a wound to buy them time. He thinks like a soldier protecting his unit. He has developed attachments. And attachments... are chains."
He turned to his men. "Our mission changes. We are no longer hunting a beast. We will set a trap for a man. Withdraw. We report to His Eminence the Grand Inquisitor. This war has only just begun."
After a journey that felt like eternity, Lyraelle’s team finally saw the warm lights of Silverwood Spire. As they passed through a hidden gate, Elara was already waiting, drawn by the silent alarm she’d set on Nihil’s life sign.
Her face paled as she saw the wound on Nihil’s shoulder. "Get him to the Healing Spire," she said, her voice urgent.
As they laid Nihil on a healing bed, Elara immediately activated her scanners. Her data slate exploded with disturbing information. "Extraordinary," she whispered in horror. "This isn’t just a wound. It’s a conceptual infection. The holy energy... it’s actively rewriting your cells, rejecting Void existence. Your regeneration isn’t just hindered; it’s warring." Newest update provided by Nove1Fire.net
Nihil stared at his wound, where his skin seemed to burn silver from within. He didn’t see an injury. He saw an immensely complex engineering problem. And he knew, with cold certainty, that no Elf magic or Elara’s technology could fix it. This was a problem he had to solve himself.
The Healing Spire, usually a place of calm and recovery, was now an emergency laboratory. Elf healers had tried and failed; their gentle life magic hissed and evaporated upon contact with Nihil’s holy wound. They had withdrawn, leaving the room to the unlikely trio: a wounded anomaly, an obsessed scientist, and an anxious warrior princess.
"The ’surgical’ method you used before won’t work," Elara said, pacing beside the bed. Her data tablet displayed a three-dimensional model of Nihil’s shoulder, the silver points of holy energy pulsing like a virulent virus. "Last time, you were clearing passive residue. This time, the energy is active. It fights back. It adapts. Trying to ’erase’ it with `Atomic Manipulation` will only trigger greater mutual annihilation and damage more tissue."
Nihil lay still, his eyes closed. He wasn’t resting. He was working.
[Activating: Internal System Analysis (Rank F)]
[Capacity: (Partially recovered) 30/50 -> 29/50 (and continually draining)]
He immersed his consciousness into the battlefield that was his shoulder. Elara was right. This wasn’t a static infection. The holy energy was mobile, spreading cell-to-cell like conceptual cancer. His `Void Reconstruction` constantly tried to rebuild damaged tissue, but each newly formed cell was instantly "infected" and corrupted by the holy energy, creating an endless cycle of agony and wasted energy.
*Nihil’s Thoughts: Analysis. Problem: active conceptual infection. Current solutions: none. Auto-regeneration ineffective. Manual ’surgery’ too risky. New approach required. Hypothesis: if I cannot delete the virus, perhaps I can isolate and ’deactivate’ it from its source. But what is the source? Faith. Concept. Not something tangible.*
While Nihil battled internally, the world’s chessboard began to shift.
In the Throne Hall, Lyraelle delivered her report to her mother, Queen Aerwyna. She hid nothing: the success of Nihil’s tactics, the brutality of the fight, the deaths of three Purifiers, and the grievous wound Nihil took protecting the team.
Queen Aerwyna listened in silence, her slender fingers pressing her temples. "So, blood has been spilled on our soil," she said softly. "Blood of Church warriors, slain by our hand and our ally’s. There is no going back now. The Inquisition will never forgive this. They will return in full force."
"Let them come," Lyraelle said, her eyes blazing. "We will be ready. The rangers saw what happened today. They saw Nihil’s sacrifice. They no longer fear him. They will fight for him, as they will fight for me."
The Queen looked at her daughter. She saw the steel in her voice, the unshakeable conviction. "You have changed, my daughter."
"War changes everyone, Mother," Lyraelle replied. "I have chosen my side. And my side is Silverwood’s survival. Right now, that survival is tightly bound to his."
The decision was made. Silverwood was no longer merely offering sanctuary. They were now active allies in Nihil’s war against the Church.
In Solara Magna, deep within the Noble Alliance safehouse, Velka Nocturne received a second message from Elara. It contained a preliminary analysis of Nihil’s wound and the nature of The Purifiers’ weapon.
[...not magic. Conceptual. Powered by faith. Highly effective against Void. Nihil severely wounded. Recovery uncertain. Need all data on high-tier holy artifacts. Highest priority...]
Velka stared at the message, a cold feeling gripping her heart. *Severely wounded*. The two words echoed in her mind. She’d been busy with her political games, and meanwhile, her brother was nearly dying in a distant forest. Guilt and anger warred within her.
Duke Alaric entered the room. "Everything is set. The bait about House Theron’s artifact has been leaked. Your father’s spies have taken it."
"Change the plan," Velka said abruptly, her voice cold and sharp.
Alaric raised an eyebrow. "Change it? Now? That would be risky."
"I don’t care," Velka countered. "Our original plan was to steal data from the Cathedral. That’s too slow. I don’t just need data now. I need weapons. Something that can counter Church artifacts." She pointed to another location on their intel map. A hidden Inquisition warehouse beneath a derelict temple. "According to your informant, that’s where they store confiscated items. Dark artifacts. Cursed objects. Things they deem too dangerous to destroy."
"You want to raid an Inquisition warehouse?" Alaric asked, incredulous. "That’s insane."
"Nihil is dying from a holy weapon," Velka said. "Maybe it’s time we fought fire with hellfire. Assemble your best team. We hit that warehouse while everyone is distracted by House Theron."
Desperation had pushed her towards a far riskier, far more dangerous move.
Back in the Healing Spire, Nihil opened his eyes. He had found a possibility. A crazy hypothesis.
"Elara," he said, his voice hoarse. "I need access to the Equilibrium Keepers Archives again. Immediately."
Elara, who had dozed off in her chair, jolted awake. "The Archives? Now? You can’t even sit up."
"I don’t need to sit," Nihil said. "I need data. The text Lyraelle provided... it spoke of ’reconciling’ opposing concepts. Not destroying them. I think... I think I know how. But I need more information on the nature of ’absolute order’ and ’pure creation’."
He stared at his silver-glowing wound. "If I can’t delete this virus, I will reprogram my system to accept it. I will turn this poison... into part of me."
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