Damned Healer
Chapter 152: New Doors

Chapter 152: New Doors

Niara moved to a back area and broke through another secret door. The internal structure was really similar to the one on the other planet. When they reached the most important spot, Darian destroyed half the runes in the inscription and infected the rest.

This time, no surprises. Only two more members of the inscription were left, plus the Kings and their vassals.

They returned, and Darian stored another Stellar Ore. This was the third of the same type, made from life energy. In the first two, he had to extract the energy from within; this new one still had a lot of power left, and he managed to preserve it.

They left the underground chamber. Up in the tower, the battle was still going. The Mannaz didn’t even realize the King and everything else had already been destroyed.

Niara and Darian focused on the twins fighting.

They had been fighting for almost an hour non-stop and were now close to running out of energy. Their Summoners had been well trained; the twins just needed to focus on using their Blessings quickly and efficiently in the key moments.

Now, after such a bloody fight, they were visibly more confident and accurate.

Even though they were inexperienced, they were still Summoners. Against regular Mannaz, they were pretty much unstoppable — they just needed to learn how to use their power properly. With the two of them at the center, the three Elders and the solo Summoner were able to fight and guide them without much risk.

"Time to end this," Darian said flatly. "Anyone still fighting can be wiped out."

Niara let out a cold snort. Her body was instantly covered by the Black Dragon Armor.

...

It didn’t even take ten minutes. Niara turned into the most brutal, bloodthirsty demon imaginable. She took out all her rage on those people without holding back.

They couldn’t even think about running. Darian used his daggers and made sure Niara reached anyone trying to get away. Even if he let them run, he could still feel all of them through karma and hunt them anywhere on the planet — but that would just be a waste of time.

At the end of it all, Darian took a deep breath, devouring all the karma...

"!"

His white ring vibrated hard.

It didn’t break, but it was way closer to evolving now.

With everything done, Darian quickly introduced Endi, and together they used the artifacts to return to base.

Everyone was more or less uninjured. They hadn’t even used many of the resources Darian had given them. The twins had adapted to real combat really fast, which made things way easier.

Because of that, Darian gave them just 24 hours to rest.

The Summoners and Elders slept like rocks. Lucius and Lucy didn’t need sleep, so Niara spent the whole time with them, talking and helping them absorb everything they’d learned from the battles.

Endi stayed in the village with the woman, waiting for the next orders and checking out what was on the planet, including the beasts.

The next day, they launched the attack on the King of the canine tribe.

Everything went down smoothly and clean. The twins were way sharper and better prepared. This kind of training was basically divine — by the time they had to face the Risen, they’d be able to use their powers to the fullest.

In the underground chamber, Niara and Darian found three very young Mannaz. They couldn’t have been more than five years old, all born and modified through experiments. There were no signs of their parents... probably dead a long time ago.

Everyone involved had been taken out, but Niara and Darian weren’t about to leave three little kids alone with no one. Even though they were healed, the physical modifications and whatever else had been done to them could cause serious issues if the other Mannaz weren’t prepared.

If they were adults, maybe they could adjust to a different life. With effort, they might even overcome it all. But young kids were a whole other story, especially with no family to support them. So, they took them along.

After another day of rest, the final attack happened — the King of the feline tribe.

By now, the twins and their Summoners could already fight on their own. Lucy and Lucius, with all the light they’d gained to fight evil, had become unbreakable walls... or really, whatever they wanted to be. The scariest part of their Blessing was that it let them take on any role in battle, and change it up completely at any time.

In the underground chamber this time, there were half a dozen adults suffering from the experiments. Darian healed and freed them.

Once it was all over, Darian devoured the karma with high expectations.

*Crack!*

After devouring the karma of four entire kingdoms... his white ring finally advanced. Now both rings could break through together!

Back when he met Meru and used the dark rune a second time, inside that Primitive Beast, the black ring had already reached its peak. But only with both together could he level up. Both rings had to be ready to step up, or neither would.

His master had explained everything about his rings in detail. When she created the two rings in his soul, she used the full power of the ancestral awakening without causing any major disturbance. That was the reason the Empire hadn’t noticed the nature of Darian’s awakening.

But she made one thing clear: the rings she initially created were at a basic and unstable level — basically level zero. Darian could use some of the abilities from her technique, but the more advanced functions — like creating the light and shadow runes — were impossible.

After Darian pushed the rings to help his siblings awaken, he broke through to true level 1. That was the only reason he managed to create both full runes on his own afterward.

Now...

Niara stopped, surprised, sensing a big change in Darian.

The two rings basically disintegrated into particles of energy. Then, they started to rebuild themselves, reorganizing with the new power they had gathered.

The process was slow.

There were only two ways to evolve the rings. The first was obvious: devour karma and convert it into white and black power. The second was creating shadow and light runes and using them on people.

With the black ring, when Darian devoured karma, only 1% of it would convert into black power. So just devouring wasn’t enough to evolve it. The most effective way was creating shadow runes and applying them. Darian had used that method on Raon, and later, on the Primitive Beast; just with those two cases, plus some of the karma he’d devoured before, he managed to evolve the ring.

The white ring, on the other hand, had a different issue: using the light rune was super difficult, since people with pure karma were insanely rare. But the devouring method worked fine.

Luckily, Darian met Rhea, which sped up the white ring’s progress a lot. Still, the amount of karma he had to consume to trigger the upgrade was... concerning. If he wanted to evolve the rings again, he’d need to devour way more powerful beings — or risk it taking years.

A few minutes later...

Darian felt the two rings on his spiritual wrists and lit up.

They were way bigger than before. It was like a second, larger ring had formed around the first ones and merged with them.

Darian took a deep breath, then turned to his allies, who were waiting silently behind him.

He tested it out to be sure. He moved a tiny bit of white power toward Lanalia. She had a nasty shoulder wound — nothing life-threatening.

The energy was so small you could barely see its glow. But the moment it touched the wound, it healed instantly.

’Perfect. That would’ve taken three times as much white power before. Efficiency and density have gone way up. The black power probably evolved the same way... I’ll be able to use way less to do the same damage... and when I go all out, it’ll hit way harder.’

Niara heard the thought in her mind, and her eyes lit up.

After confirming that, Darian tested his biggest upgrade.

He moved some of the power from the ring on his forehead into the other two, then tried manipulating the natural elements of the planet.

A few seconds later...

’Hmm... don’t feel much of a difference. I might be able to mess with slightly higher-level elements... wait!’

If level two didn’t improve his basic elemental control that much, maybe it boosted more advanced stuff. He decided to try.

He tried to move the planet’s pure Yin and Yang... no luck.

’If I still can’t move those, then space and other higher forces are probably off-limits too.’

Technically, Darian could try to force control over any element or energy. If they were completely unowned, like in the case of a Stellar Ore, it was simple. No resistance, no problem.

But aside from that, forcing it took a massive amount of energy — and effort — just to move it a little.

And even then, it wasn’t real control. It was like having a car and only being able to tell it to go forward — no control over direction, speed, nothing else. Training and practice could help a bit, but that was about it.

With the five natural elements, though, he had real control. As long as he had a clear image in mind and could connect with the element in the environment or the planet, he could do anything. That’s the only reason he’d been able to create those techniques. Doing the same with other energies just wasn’t possible.

Darian thought for a second, then opened his inventory and pulled out a Stellar Ore. Inside were the three life energies. They weren’t stronger than the natural elements — just different in purpose.

He tried...

"Success!"

He tested it on himself — and found out he could use his own soul’s power too.

If he practiced and studied a bit more... combined with these Stellar Ores... a lot of new doors were starting to open.