Chương 158: 71 - SPOILS OF WAR

One by one and little by little, the presence of Corlander's army dwindled from the city of Graceland. Without the strongest of their force put down or discarded, many of the intruders began losing the battle of attrition. The mist was gone. The beasts were gone. Corlander was gone.

"Attention!" German's voice resonated in the minds of all their enemies, anyone who still stood in opposition to Graceland.

"To any intruder still within Graceland's walls. All of your leaders are gone. Your mission has failed. You are alone. Surrender peacefully now, and your lives will be spared. I repeat, to any intruder still within Graceland's walls…" The hunters and the mercenaries, the few of them still left, stopped fighting when they heard his message. Some used their loot to flee the island. Many just dropped to their knees and calmly surrendered.

Without anyone to direct them, they knew the battle was lost, and so they gave themselves up to the Gracelandians, who were already rejoicing in their victory today. Many were cheering. Uriel looked down on them. There was a pained frown on his face as he watched David yell in triumph like an ancient war hero and those surrounding him join in his celebration. Tyene flashed down to the basement room where T'balt's body still laid flat on the concrete. However, she wasn't alone this time.

Lila Bloom leaned against the wall, trying not to vomit. It was her first time having her reality bent by the Wanderer, and teleportation was a mind-melting experience for the usually squeamish. Once she had her moment, Tyene prompted her to use her new power. Lila prayed, and it didn't take long for T'balt's eyes to drift awake. The first thing he did was start to spit up chunks of bile, like the prayer had summoned all the poison right out of his mouth.

He coughed before using the thinker's loot to realize where he was.

"Tyene… we haven't been reset. Is everything okay?" Both she and Lila were incredibly relaxed-looking, considering the war he remembered. Tyene shrugged.

"Looks like we won." However, her tone seemed more disappointed than relieved.

"Seriously? But I was out the whole time. How did we…" He was still shooing away his disorientation but realized that his body's aches were going away on their own. Then he noticed Lila's hands clasped next to him. Her warm smile halted him.

"We are safe now. Thanks to you and the Bestower above… for giving us the power to protect ourselves." Tyene scoffed.

"Don't give them all the credit. I was the only one actually doing anything." She noticed T'balt gazing at her curiously.

"Don't look at me like that. Most of the time, we have to try things over and over to get them right. But sometimes we still get lucky. Things just happened to work out for you this time."

"I'm just relieved, I guess. I thought you might've gone… like Monan had." Tyene tried to look surprised at the accusation.

"Me? I would never." That teasing voice was back. T'balt took it as a sign that things really were okay. He and Lila had to help him off the ground as his body needed a moment to shed the feeling of his extended paralysis.

"German, is it true? Is the fight over?"

"It appears so. Most of Corlander's forces have surrendered or fled. I'm directing the remaining cleanup now."

"What about casualties?" There was a long pause, German having to survey the city for bodies.

"It isn't light. But considering what could've been, a death toll of 60 is a decent number."

"60?" T'balt scratched his head, the number not feeling right. He knew if he hadn't gotten knocked out, that number could've been way lower. He could've saved more. He could've done better if he were given a second chance, but he supposed that didn't matter now.

"You still living on with this one?" Tyene said, noticing the frustration in his eyes. He nodded.

"For once, I'll just have to live with it."

"Whatever you say," she folded her arms, veering around the small grey box of the room.

"Now I know you have a thing for the sex dungeon, but I think it's time we ditch this place."

"Agreed." They walked out of the building, giving T'balt a fresh view of the destruction outside. Lila politely excused herself, saying that she was going to use the Bestower's gift to heal anyone who needed it.

"German, where's Vienna? I wanna see her," Tyene said. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. After German answered, she took T'balt by the hand, and they both appeared on the northern side of the island. First, they were greeted by a trail of dead mercenaries. It was eerily quiet on this side of the island, with the brunt of the battle having happened on the east. They wouldn't have even found Vienna if it weren't for German directing them.

She was sitting on the ground with Cannon's head in her lap, lightly brushing his blonde hair with her fingers. But both of them looked horrible. Vienna was missing a finger. Half her ear was gone, and there was a rush of scars on her where she had been quickly healed. Dried blood painted her track jacket. Cannon looked far worse. He was unconscious, his body broken to the point where it looked like he could die at any moment. There was a hole in his chest, right where his lungs should have been.

It looked like it had deteriorated and shed from his body rather than anything having been done to him. But the whole, pulsing up and down, breathing as if it weren't there. It was like the skin around the hole was healing itself, but every time new skin formed, it would rot away seconds later.

"Tyene…" Vienna looked at her solemnly. T'balt and Tyene ran to them.

"Are you alright?" Tyene asked.

"He saved me… and then he said I was gorgeous. What do you think he meant by that?" Vienna looked down at the fallen man.

"Saved you from what? What happened?" Vienna told her what happened, and moments later Tyene was fuming at the nose.

"German, why didn't you tell me what was happening to Vienna? If she would've died, then—""I had to prioritize the safety of the Redeemers," German said.

"Well, guess what? If something would've happened to her, then none of this would've mattered anyway." T'balt calmed her with a hand on her shoulder.

"It's fine. It's over now." She calmed down, seeing that T'balt was looking at his own friend.

"I had to put a fourth loot in him… to keep him alive," Vienna said.

"The loot thief should help him." Tyene knelt over Cannon, using the loot thief equipped in her neck to take the rage loot from his neck. She handed it to T'balt, who immediately understood exactly what Cannon had done. He felt guilty, knowing Cannon's affinity for self-sacrifice was exactly why he gave the man the loot in the first place. He should've expected something like this to happen. But despite the overload no longer being an issue, Cannon didn't spring back to life.

He didn't even look any better than he had before.

"That other loot, you said it was a regenerator loot," T'balt mentioned.

"So why isn't it… regenerating him?" They all looked at the hole in his chest. It wasn't even bleeding at this point despite it being the size of his fist.

"I don't know," Vienna said. Tyene shrugged to mirror the sentiment.

"Try healing him," German suggested.

"Dr. Sharon should be nearby. He's banged up, but his healing loot should help." They found the young doctor, bleeding out of his head. Thankfully, it only took a few shakes to bring him back. And he was able to heal his own concussion and run over to help Cannon.

"It's not working." The doctor said.

"What do you mean it isn't working?" T'balt chided.

"It's like his body is rejecting the healing. It just keeps breaking itself down every time I gain any ground. Like it's fighting a virus."

"But that isn't right," T'balt said.

"He's half dead. I've never heard of healing loot being rejected by someone."

"I have a theory." German told them all.

"The loot is not an intelligent creature. What if it didn't know what form it was supposed to be regenerating?" T'balt sensed his train of thought, using the thinker's loot to map it out before he could finish.

"You mean when Vienna put it in him, it thought his current state was his normal, and so when it regenerates, instead of healing him, it takes him back to near death like how it first found him."

"So what would happen if we took the regenerator out?" T'balt asked.

"He'd likely die instantly." Dr. Sharon answered, observing the wound like it was simultaneously horrified and curious that he was able to look inside a live human body outside of a planned surgery. At the realization, Vienna's eyes turned downward. Though her face was hard to read, Tyene had known her long enough to know that she felt like shit for something.

"It's alright," she patted her friend on the shoulder.

"You didn't know." T'balt started searching his pockets.

"That's good to know for the future, but it'll be okay. I haven't used my second chance loot yet. I'll just give it to him before we take that loot out of him. Should be fine." Vienna quietly nodded. There was a sudden flashing light above them. The entire sky, once dark and cloudy, dimly lit by the full moon, was now surging with a blinding yellow light. Every soul in Graceland had to shield their eyes from it as their bodies began to suddenly warm.

"What the hell is that!?" T'balt shouted.

"German… can you see anything?" There was no answer. Not the first time and not the second or third time he asked. He just had to wait for the flare to die down enough for him to see. But when he could open his eyes again, it wasn't the sky that he saw first. It was Tyene. There was a grim smirk on her face as she looked back at T'balt.

"Looks like you weren't so lucky after all." When it was dim enough to see, he saw a meteor the size of the moon blazing in the sky. But this one was different than before. Instead of fire, it was surrounded by godly light, cracking and bursting as if that light was magma ready to burst out of the ground. It was held in place by a figure. It was clad in golden armor, radiating just as brightly as the meteor it held.

There were two sets of white stone wings extending wide out of its back, decorated with moving eyeballs, each one violently shifting to observe all parts of the world around them. But the figure just held the meteor there with no intention of dropping it down on the city. It just used it as a display of power. For it quickly disappeared, or rather it moved so fast that it looked like it disappeared. But it left a trail of light, indicating where it had gone. Right in front of T'balt. Mitas Corlander smiled at him.

His shirt was ripped off under his armor, indicating the fight that he'd been through. But his arms were exposed, showing the eyeballs of the Seraph's wings infecting them. There were ten on each arm, the loot stamps blackening the whites of the eyes as they all looked directly into T'balt's own.

"I feel the need to thank you," Corlander said, his old corroded voice replaced with something deeper, almost echoing.

"Your little trick exposed me to power that even I didn't know could exist." T'balt stood still. His worst fear realized.

"You killed the Seraphs?" Corlander flashed his teeth underneath his glowing red eyes.

"All of them."