Damned Healer
Chapter 161: Go On The Attack

Chapter 161: Go On The Attack

The duo went up to the surface and moved straight toward the Academy’s central building. No need to search around: everyone at the Academy knew the top five floors of that massive building were where all the Academy Leaders lived.

That’s where the Academy’s most restricted knowledge was kept, left behind by former leaders; a sort of guide with secret info that only the current Leader was supposed to know.

When they reached the entrance, they found a huge door covered in defensive inscription runes. Only the Leader’s emblem could open it, and the whole place was linked to the central inscription to prevent any chance of intruders. But Darian had left his black power at the core.

He focused on canceling the runes connected to that spot, and soon the door had no power left to stop them.

As soon as they walked in, they were met with a massive room covered in Jade Slips. This was the Leader’s library. Darian needed that knowledge, since there could be crucial information there about past Academies. That could be vital for his survival.

They split the tasks: Darian went straight for the Jade Slips, while Niara searched the other floors for anything useful.

Darian started reading nonstop. Luckily, unlike reading books, Jade Slips dumped the knowledge directly into his mind. Everything was organized into detailed topics, and Darian just had to search for exactly what he wanted; fully reading each one only took a few hours.

In two days, that mini dragon finished the last important Jade Slip. When he opened his eyes, he saw Niara calmly waiting for him.

She picked him up carefully and wrapped him around her body. Once they were fitted together again, besides the pleasant feeling, Darian’s senses multiplied several times.

Niara smiled. "Oh? Looks like you’re really enjoying this, huh? Just don’t squeeze too much, or I might get excited too..."

"I’m not squeezing anything! Stop teasing me! Did you find something?" Darian shot back, trying to hide how flustered he was.

She mumbled, "Teasing? Hmmm... this little form of yours is pretty convenient for a lot of fun stuff... you sure you don’t want to..."

"Have some limits with your jokes! What did you find on the other floors?"

She huffed and gave him a serious look. Jokes? Didn’t he realize she was actually flirting for real? Well... little by little he was definitely getting more comfortable with her.

Niara didn’t like overthinking, but she was really pushing herself this time. It was fun to provoke him, sure, but was he really gonna play dumb forever?

And she, who rarely overthought anything, ended up mumbling her thoughts out loud: "Probably ’cause he doesn’t have that thing between your legs... but still, the way he formed this, ah, it’s not exactly firm, but it feels so surprisingly right..."

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Darian shouted, clearly very ’annoyed’.

She put a hand over her mouth, realizing what she’d just said. But then gave him a teasing look and felt the chaos inside Darian surge even more.

With a very sweet laugh, she just went along with it and carried him upstairs.

On the third floor of the Leader’s quarters, there was a common area with hundreds of small floating orbs. Each one was linked to a place in the Academy, allowing the Leader to secretly monitor and control everything.

Niara pointed to a corner of the wall. Nothing visible there; it looked just like any other wall. Not even Darian felt anything, which left him confused.

He trusted her instincts though, so he activated his ring power, and a thin thread of orange energy moved, touching the wall.

*Click*

A spatial rune suddenly appeared on the wall.

Darian took a deep breath. It was space power, subtly distorting and hiding something. For him, who couldn’t control that, and not even a Spiritual Guardian with several rings... no one would’ve noticed anything. But Niara instinctively sensed something there.

Now that the rune had appeared, Darian could force some subtle control with the rings. It was rough—he could only do simple things and had no real mastery over his powers.

The rune trembled and pulsed until a small opening, about the size of a window, appeared. Inside was a tiny space, around a square meter.

Both Niara’s and Darian’s eyes lit up: there were dozens of spatial rings inside.

They grabbed everything and started checking the contents one by one. This was the Academy Leader’s personal treasure stash. Now, it all belonged to them.

"Besides items and weapons, there’s tons of original Jade Slips with alchemy, forging, and secret inscription knowledge. And also..." Darian said, his eyes gleaming with a shadowy light, "All the main hidden locations of the Bloodkill Claw."

Niara nodded. She’d already killed the Elder responsible for the beast killings, but these secret assassins were still left.

"We’ll wipe them out too. That clan’s connected to the traitors, so they probably know what was going on." Darian added, then went back to checking the rest of the rings.

Until Niara found one that made her eyes pop wide open.

"Found it! Two spatial pearls."

She showed them to Darian, who got excited. That was exactly what they desperately needed to find. There were two, and they had to be identical and connected to the same place. That’s because after using one, it took time for the pearl to recharge before it could be used again. According to the legends, if someone had two identical ones, they could use one to jump to another galaxy, while the other could lock onto the current location. That way, he could go there and come back.

If the Academy Leader didn’t have something like this, they’d be screwed and would have to escape the galaxy flying through open space. They’d definitely be detected by enemies right away and hunted down.

The Academy Leader was a traitor with contact with a Risen Lord. That pearl probably led somewhere important... possibly just as dangerous as leaving the galaxy the normal way. But just running around like scared rats wasn’t an option. When you can’t run or defend, the only choice left is to go on the attack and catch them off guard.

Darian’s goal had been clear from the start. He could only survive outside this galaxy if he reached a lost Academy and recovered its core. Once that happened, the Academy’s inscription would activate on the main planet, kicking all the Risen out.

A powerful barrier would rise... temporarily, of course. That would give him time to figure out his next move, safely inside the planet.

Back to the pearl. It was only logical to assume that the Risen Lords’ homes would be near the lost Academies, since those were on the best planets, in the best galaxies.

Yeah... to recover an Academy, he’d have to find a way to do it without getting noticed by that terrifying enemy. Something that, normally, had a 0% chance of working. But right now, a lot of Risen Lords were wounded after the big internal battle they had fought.

Darian was counting on the chance that he’d get sent close to an Academy... and also hoping that the owner of the place was injured enough that he wouldn’t get noticed. Of course, he had his own tricks to help with that. After all, his black power came from the same source as the Risen’s.

The other Spiritual Guardians were going head-on against the enemy, trying to reclaim an Academy by taking advantage of this temporary weakness. But Darian... he was gonna try sneaking in quietly through the back door.

"Let’s go."

After grabbing everything he wanted, Darian couldn’t waste any more time and left. He had just over 13 days left to get it all done before he had to return to Earth.

At the building’s door, on the inside, the twins and Endi were already waiting for him.

"Everyone’s already on the planet, waiting," Endi said quickly. "As for the other Elders..."

Darian just nodded and walked out of the building. Outside, there were hundreds of Elders who had been captured and saved by the twins. They would’ve been turned into Risen if the Leader had had more time.

Darian took a deep breath and activated his senses, pushing Niara’s spiritual root to the max.

That made her draconic bloodline pulse in sync.

All the Mannaz with dragon blood felt like a hammer had smashed into their chests. They looked at the two of them and, trembling, immediately dropped to their knees.

The others felt an immense suppression too, though not as overwhelming as the first group. Still, they also knelt down calmly.

In the end, Darian confirmed: "The whole planet’s clean."

"Yeah, I guarantee no one slipped out during this time. My inscription’s been active the whole time," Endi added.

Niara sighed. There were still a few High Elders helping with the attack on the other galaxy, and maybe some of them were traitors too. But at least 90% of the normal Mannaz traitors had already been taken care of.

Darian then turned to the Elders and activated his curse.

"You five."

He pointed at three women and two men. Among them, three had dragon bloodlines; Darian picked them because their karma was a little more gray than black, compared to the others.

"You’re gonna be the five top powers of the Academy from now on. From today on, for any big decision, at least three of you have to agree. No more single Leader. That way, it’ll take longer for traitors to sneak into the Academy and cause problems again."

Darian tossed five emblems to them. Those had been among the Leader’s stuff. With those emblems, they’d be able to control the inscription, and even if traitors came back and tried to take one of them out, the others could kill the traitor instantly.

"Your mission is to stop new traitors as much as possible. Be as strict and watchful as you can. I’m not anyone’s savior, and I’m not your babysitter. If you screw up again, this galaxy’s gonna fall and I’m not coming back to help."

Everyone listened and took a deep breath, clenching their fists.

Darian then turned to the twins. "Let’s take one last trip. We need to st... I mean, settle some outstanding debts."

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