Chapter 22: Not a cliffhanger (2/2)

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 45. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 46. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 47. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 48. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 49. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Fire Enhancer has reached level 50. 5 Stat points awarded.’

‘ding’ ‘Reconstruction reaches 2nd lvl 14’

‘ding’ ‘Body of Flame reaches lvl 9’

‘ding’ ‘Body of Flame reaches lvl 10’

‘ding’ ‘New skills available for Fire Enhancer’

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Walter looked on as the girl punched into the Demon Mind Weaver, his heart sinking as the Demon pierced her side. The girl however simply grappled it and kept on punching, sending a shock wave of air and sound through the room and another shock wave of raw mana through the Demon.

‘What horrifying power… and her class is below level 72…,’ He still couldn’t move as the girl kept on punching. The pressure on his body and mind lessened quickly.

The fight was over. Their guest had saved them from an untimely demise. He looked on as she completely obliterated the corpse below her, only a little disappointed as this likely rendered it unusable for resurrection.

‘She’s gonna hear that from Indra…,’ able to move again, he breathed out and nearly buckled. Catching himself, he looked up to see Ilea a fair distance away from the beast, clutching the spikes in her eyes and ripping them out with a sickening crunch.

She crushed the spikes in her hands while her eye sockets and eyes rebuilt at an insane speed. ‘What on Elos are that girl’s classes?’ Walter thought as he noticed Harthome advancing on the corpse, completely ignoring Ilea. Raising his hammer, he finished what the healer had begun. ‘Poor Indra…,’

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Ilea blinked her eyes as light entered them again. Double checking for any left damage, she reactivated her perception of pain and buckled down at the throbbing through her whole body. Dry heaving on the ground, she waited until the pain recedes.

‘ding’ ‘Pain Tolerance reaches 2nd lvl 2’

Nearly two minutes later, the pain faded completely. She tried to turn off pain completely twice but it only continued at the same intensity as soon as she activated its perception again.

‘Seems like I had to go through that…,’ relaxing on her back, she stared into Walter’s black eyes above her. He nodded and turned around. ‘How can anything hurt more than being burned alive?’

She sat up to that puzzling question in her head and saw Walter crouching over Celene. Heavy impacts of a hammer hitting flesh and stone reverberated through the room as Walter turned to Ilea and motioned her towards him.

“Can you help her?” he asked in his ethereal voice again. Touching the woman, Ilea didn’t notice anything wrong with her. Her breathing was a bit erratic and her eyes seemed lifeless but nothing looked to be damaged. Still, she started to circle Reconstruction through Celene, focusing mostly on her brain… or mind as seemed to be more accurate.

After a minute of this, she noticed that the woman’s breathing calmed a little. Another two minutes and some life returned to her eyes. “What power…,” an echoing whisper left Walter’s mouth as he looked at her with a newfound respect. Destroying is one thing, healing not just the body but the mind? That was a completely different feat.

Ilea kept healing Celene and after five more minutes, Harthome stopped his hammering and joined them silently. Celene slowly looked at Ilea and mouthed a thank you before closing her eyes. Harthome moved towards her but was stopped by Walter.

“She is asleep…,” He looked towards Ilea “...and no longer in immediate danger. Please look after Indra first. And then Harthome. I will care for my own mind.”

Looking towards him, she nodded and quickly moved out of the room to heal the knocked out necromancer, stabilizing him more but saving some of her mana. ‘Just in case…,’

Going back into the room, she locked eyes with Walter’s. ‘Unnerving...that darkness…,’

“Is he healed? And tell me what that was. That power you used on the Demon.”

“So it was a Demon… interesting.” she answered ‘It seems Celene got something a bit different than expected. Certainly not a romantic…,’ Glancing at the pieces of flesh remaining of the Demon “Indra is stabilized, I ran out of mana. I’ll continue later.”

“You lie. But it is no matter. It is only natural not to trust us. Him being stabilized is enough as of yet. Again, what was that power… what second class do you wield? Are you some sort of Pyro Enhancer? Or something more rare?”

His ethereal voice and black eyes bore down on her. ‘Maybe I should lie… but he has a way of telling, I’m sure of it…,’ Looking at his eyes, she had a feeling of it to be true. ‘...but this might be the time to gain their trust. All I’ve seen of them so far makes them a bunch of perhaps misguided but not evil scientists. And it’s certainly time to do some exploring outside again some time in the future… I’ve only left these caves a couple times since the elves attacked after all…,’

“My second class is Fire Enhancer. My main class is a sort of offensive healer class. Sending both destructive and healing waves of mana through someone by touch. What you saw of my fight was just that, combined with the Body of Flame skill.”

Walter’s posture relaxed visibly. It was certainly not poised for a fight but nevertheless tense. “Ahh…,” his eyes returned to normal but somehow his piercing glare didn’t lessen in intensity. “An interesting class then. Something I’ve never seen before. Certainly something unexpected. Powerful and unique. I’ve read about something like that at the Foundation of Glass… Would you tell me its name?”

“For the price of letting me travel freely, in this cave and outside. As an equal to your Brotherhood.” She smiled at him and he smiled back.

“With what you’ve done today, what you wish for is already granted. I’ll call you my equal and friend to the Vultures. My name is Ethinu Skorn, often called Walter. Bard and Dark Sorcerer. Combined level of 384 and Elder of the Vultures Brotherhood.”

Ilea smiled “Ilea Spears, people call me all kinds of names. Combined level of 125 Fire Enhancer and Azarinth Healer.”

Harthome laughed from the side “And I’m the mighty Harthome! You two should get a room!”

She chuckled at that but Ethinu’s eyes never left hers. “As much as I wanted to right now, he’s already hopelessly lost to another.” Ilea teased to which Walter finally averted his gaze.

“Let’s check on the others. And let’s move Celene and Indra to the common room. It’s the warmest.” Walter said after he regained his composure.

Before they could move though, an unsettling rattling sound could be heard from the now splintered door. A skeleton entered with its Falchion drawn and yellow sparkling crystals in its eye sockets. They all looked at the creature before Ilea let loose a chuckle and Walter facepalmed while Harthome was outright laughing.