Chương 83: Chapter 82: Strange Eyes, New Boy

Lio limped forward, his bloodied boots echoing against the metal floor as he rounded the corner, adjusting his grip around Ophila's limp form. She had stopped trembling, and though she was still breathing, it was barely noticeable. Her time was running out. Just past the bend, a pair of thick, reinforced metal doors blocked the path forward. Stationed outside were two guards, clad in armor, tightly gripping heavy iron spears, with short swords attached at their hips.

The moment Lio stepped into view, both men stiffened, snapping up their weapons to point them directly at Lio's chest.

"Hold it right there!" the guard on the left yelled, his eyes widening in shock.

"What the hell is that? Look at its eyes!" The second guard was much less composed, his hand and spear tip trembling violently.

"Luna! What did you do? Why did you let a mutated freak in?" Luna flinched, her back pressed against her wall and her hands raised defensively.

"I—I didn't mean to!" she stammered.

"But he brought a kid! The girl's dying, she needs a practitioner right now!"

"I don't care about the kid, look at him!" the first guard shouted back, his gaze entirely focused on Lio's strange, alien eyes.

"He looks like a monster! Step away from the door, kid, or we're cutting you down!" Lio didn't back down, his expression cold and unreadable.

"Out of the way," he rasped. Even Lio himself was surprised at the tone of his voice. Sure, he normally sounded cold, but this was on a whole another level. It was like a physical weight had descended upon the room, a suffocating pressure crushing everybody who heard those four words. The guards shivered, the spears in their hands shaking violently.

Lio's voice pierced past their mental sense and training, reaching deep and wrenching out their very primal instincts, the instincts a prey feels when in front of an apex predator.

"I said," Lio repeated, his glowing cyan pupils locked onto the first guard.

"Out of the way." The guards were visibly terrified, but they still held their ground. It wasn't like Lio didn't understand them. He did. They probably had families inside, and were willing to put down their lives to save them. But Lio had someone he needed to save as well. He sighed. He simply didn't have the time for a standoff, nor did he have the patience. He prepared to drop Ophila to draw his Adamantine blade and sever both of their throats before they could scream.

But before he could take a step, the reinforced metal door opened, its metal hinges shrieking.

"Lower your weapons," a new voice commanded. Lio glanced up as the Mayor stepped out into the dim corridor, his coat slung over his shoulders. He was surrounded by his bodyguards—Briar, Demetri, Grandmother. The powerful rune users formed a semicircle around the old man, their postures tense and ready. The Mayor's eyes swept across the blood-slicked floor, the trail of red leading up to the door, and finally landed directly on Lio.

He stared at the alien eyes for a moment, then shook his head, his expression one of exhaustion, not of surprise.

"Sir, he's a—" the first guard started.

"I said lower them," the Mayor repeated coldly, not even looking at the guard. The two men hastily dropped their spear tips. Lio spoke up, not bothering to lie, and he certainly didn't intend to perform any fake humility.

"I need access to medical equipment. Right now." The Mayor scoffed.

"I should have you thrown into chains for your crimes, boy." Lio's expression remained an unreadable mask.

"Try in, then." At the retort, the Mayor chuckled weakly and shook his head, waving a hand toward the guards to step aside.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm in your debt for saving my people. Get the girl inside before she bleeds out on my floors." He turned to the guards.

"Move," he ordered. The two men scrambled away from the doors like the metal was burning. Lio didn't offer a word of thanks. He immediately strode past the Mayor, carrying Ophila through the doors and directly into the bunker. The stench of death slammed into him. The air was sweltering, thick, and suffocatingly damp, smelling heavily of unwashed bodies, stale sweat, and of metallic blood. The walls were made of the same grey metal as the corridor, but these weren't clean at all.

Grime and rust dripped down, leaving dark streaks that looked like they wouldn't go away even after a thorough washing. Lio quickly calculated the refugees inside the bunker. Trestfall had been a bustling town, but only a fraction—maybe five percent of the total population—was packed into the small room. The other ninety-five percent were almost certainly dead, torn apart by the monsters. And the ones who had made it inside weren't exactly lucky either.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Everywhere Lio looked, people were huddled together on the cold floor, clutching each other in shock. Children were bawling, while their traumatized parents could only stare blankly at the ceiling. Armored guards stood near them, but even their faces were pale, their eyes darting nervously around. Lio didn't waste time to pity them.

He kept moving, until he spotted the medical wing almost at the end of the central corridor. It wasn't hard to find, as the entrance was packed with rows of makeshift cots on the floor, filled with the wounded. Blood-soaked bandages were piled in corners, and the air here was even worse, absolutely putrid with the stench of infected wounds. Medics rushed between patients, completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of casualties.

Lio pushed his way straight into the ward, brushing past a blood-stained curtain, and navigating through the rows of makeshift cots. The practitioners inside were in a state of frenzied panic, frantically operating with limited tools as they patched up cut limbs and cauterized deep gashes.

"I need a doctor," Lio called out, raising his voice to be heard through the groans of the wounded. A weary-eyed man in a soiled apron looked up from a patient at the call. The man took one look at Lio's blood-red eyes and glowing pupils, stiffened, and opened his mouth—perhaps to call for guards—until he noticed the frail girl in Lio's arms and quickly hurried over.

"Lay her on the cot," the practitioner instructed, making sure to keep a reasonable distance away from Lio.

"What happened to her?" Lio carefully deposited Ophila onto the wooden surface.

"Cuts, bruises. Either way, she lost a lot of blood." The practitioner nodded, and didn't waste any more time. He immediately tore open her shirt, exposing her undergarments and the failed makeshift medical work. He pressed two fingers against her neck, then opened her eyelids to check her reflexes. His expression hardened, and he raised a hand, motioning for support. An assistant rushed over, and with a careful eye, studied the shallow rise and fall of Ophila's chest.

"The internal bleeding is too severe. We only have basic healing salves. We can't treat this."

"Then fetch the King Cabbage extract and the high-grade poultices," the first practitioner ordered, though his tone lacked conviction. He looked back at Lio, shaking his head.

"Look at her skin. She has already lost too much blood. No amount of potions or brews will be able to save her." Lio's expression remained cold even after the diagnosis. He wasn't surprised. He knew Ophila was far beyond the reach of conventional medicine. But Lio himself was far from conventional. He stared down at her pale face, already knowing what he had to do.

"I need three jars of crushed Embermarrow seeds, a flask of pure Devil Rose sap, and whatever dried Pin Lotus you have in storage," Lio demanded.

"I need them now." The practitioner blinked, looking bewildered.

"Son, give it up. Those aren't healing herbs. Embermarrow seeds will scorch her stomach, and pure Devil Rose sap is a lethal toxin. Do you want to put the girl out of her misery or something?" Lio didn't waste breath explaining his plan. Instead, he fixed the medical practitioner in place with an unerring stare. Then, he drew his Adamantine knife. The practitioner stiffened.

"Look closely at me," Lio rasped. He gestured down at his bloodied, soaked clothes.

"None of the blood on my body is mine. Now, are you sure you want to question me, or are you going to get me my ingredients?"

"I—I'll get them," the doctor stammered, his face turning entirely pale. He scrambled backward, and frantically gestured to his trembling assistant.

"Bring everything he asked for. Quickly!" The assistant ran off, and returned seconds later, their hands shaking as they dropped the jars and the glass flask onto a small wooden tray beside the cot. Lio didn't waste a single moment. Instead of using the mortar and pestle that the assistant had provided, he uncorked the flask of the Devil Rose sap and poured the pitch-black, highly poisonous sludge directly into his palm.

He then grabbed a handful of the dried Pin Lotus, crushing the fragile petals between his fingers, grinding them straight into the venomous sap. Lio closed his fist tightly, grinding the mixture down into a thin paste. Then, he dumped the crushed Embermarrow seeds straight into the palm of his hand. The very moment the Embermarrow seeds made contact with the toxic sap, a sharp hiss sounded. A thick violet smoke curled up from between his fingers, smelling intensely of burnt sugar.

Lio squeezed harder, forcing the chemical bonds to fuse, until, within seconds, the lethal elements neutralized one another, melting down into a thick violet syrup. He leaned over the cot, gently prying Ophila's jaw open, and poured the paste straight down her throat. For a moment, nothing happened as Ophila lay perfectly still, her face pale and blue-tinted, looking entirely dead. Then, her chest began to convulse as she coughed harshly, until her lips blew open, taking a deep gasp of air.

The deathly blue tint vanished from her skin almost instantly, replaced by an intense rush of life flooding back into her cheeks. Satisfied, Lio wiped his stained palm against his trousers. It was basic alchemy, even if the methods looked crude. Pin Lotus stopped the bleeding by accelerating natural regeneration. Devil Rose sap was a lethal poison, but also could act as a powerful neurovascular stimulant when activated by extreme heat.

By crushing the Embermarrow seeds right into it with his bare hand, the pure heat had squeezed the poison out, leaving only the stimulant.

"She's stable," Lio muttered, glancing up at the practitioner.

"Clean her up and don't—" He paused, as he noticed something weird. He'd expected the practitioner to flinch away or maybe scramble back a little. But when Lio looked up, he realized that the previous fear that had been occupying the practitioner's eyes had all but disappeared. Instead, the man's eyes were wide, filled with shock and awe. He was looking at Lio the way a desperate man would look at a god.

"I-I'm Benny," the practitioner stammered, stepping over clumsily.

"H-how did you just do that?" Benny practically threw himself forward, his hands clasped together in a desperate plea.

"Please, we can't do this! We're running out of everything. If you can do this with basic ingredients. you can save them! Please, I beg you, save the rest of the wounded!" Lio's expression hardened into an icy glare. He opened his mouth to refuse. He wasn't a hero, and he certainly didn't care about the lives of strangers when he was unsure when his own body would give up and drop dead. He had saved Ophila, so his job here was done.

"Oh, really?" Lio glanced toward the entryway at the new voice, to see the Mayor leaning against a wall, smirking faintly.

"Well, you will do it, right?" the Mayor said, turning his gaze toward the boy. Lio scowled. What was this man trying to pull? The Mayor simply shrugged, looking around the chaotic ward.

"Consider it part of the transaction, kid. You're using my bunker, my medical staff, and my supplies. It's only fair that you pay your rent in labor. Besides..." He looked back at Lio, raising an eyebrow.

"... it's not like you have anything else to do right now, do you? You're stuck down here just like the rest of us." Lio stared at him. The Mayor was, unfortunately, right. Letting out an irritated sigh, Lio turned back to the bewildered Benny.

"Bring me more Embermarrow. And stay out of my way."