The Demon Queen's Royal Consort
Chapter 126 - Dungeon - XXXIV

Chapter 126 - 126 - Dungeon - XXXIV

The golden glow of the barrier still pulsed above the oppressive sky of the sixth mountain when Dália turned, staggering, back to the battlefield.

She was dragging her feet.

Her left arm dripped with blood.

Her face, once pale like porcelain, now bore a sickly, almost bluish white hue.

Her legs trembled. The air refused to enter her lungs, as if the world around her were a thick liquid and her nostrils too narrow a capillary to absorb it.

Her heart pounded, erratic and fast—not from adrenaline, but from circulatory imbalance. The hemorrhage was taking its toll.

A buzzing in her ears muffled the dungeon's sounds. A sharp bell ringing in her head, each chime doubling her vision.

Everything around her was a blurred, muffled haze.

But she didn't stop.

"Not now. Not yet..." she muttered, even too weak to keep her head upright.

She tripped over a rock, fell to her knees, arms stretching forward as if swimming through an invisible sea. Her nails scratched the rocky ground as she dragged herself, inch by inch, into the mountain's depths, toward the nearest body.

Aeloria.

He lay beside a pool of dark blood.

His chest rose and fell with difficulty, his face twisted into a mask of unconscious pain. Below the waist, where once proud and strong legs had been, there were now only severed stumps, blackened, with ragged, bloody edges.

Parts of the bone were still exposed.

Dália could barely lift her arms.

Her hands shook so much that her fingertips curled inward like withered claws.

"Come on, you can do this!" she whispered to herself, channeling what little energy she had left.

A golden light bloomed from her hands—but faint. Far too faint, a shadow of the once glorious aura that had radiated from her body.

The glow that once shone like the sun at its peak was now a dim flicker, like the final spark of a candle at the end of the night.

The healing energy touched Aeloria's body, and immediately something resisted.

The edges of the wounds began to writhe, as if the flesh rejected the regeneration.

Dália's eyes widened.

The serpent's corrupted bite had left remnants that clung to Aeloria's body.

Traces of dark energy still burned at the extremities, invisible yet present, like embers buried beneath the skin.

At the touch of light, the wounds smoked, releasing dark vapors.

She clenched her teeth and held her focus.

Channeling her prana, she summoned a second layer of healing, a faint golden orb that hovered over Aeloria's chest and sank into his heart, illuminating it like a lamp. It was an advanced technique, in which alternating waves of healing energy were emitted like heartbeats, pushing impurities out while forcing the tissue to stabilize.

The technique also prevented the patient's heart from stopping.

The golden light flickered rhythmically.

First in erratic spasms, then in a trembling cadence.

Aeloria began to bleed more heavily.

Black, foul, pustulent blood spilled from where his legs should have been.

It was dangerous.

Extremely dangerous.

But she continued.

Channeling healing with one hand and drawing out impurities with the other.

Sweat gathered on her forehead.

The world spun around her.

Her own body wanted to faint, to shut down, to give up.

But she sustained the magic with silent fury.

The skin around the stumps finally began to close over the bone—a crude emergency sealing.

Nothing neat. Nothing clean.

But enough to keep Aeloria alive.

'The amputation's stabilized... he won't bleed anymore...' she muttered, her breath ragged.

The mage's heartbeat began to steady.

Weak. But steady.

Dália stepped back half a pace, her legs shaking.

Her vision blurred.

Blood now dripped from her nose, a crimson trickle sliding to her lip.

She wiped it with the back of her dirty hand.

"Where's Dórian?"

And then, her body in ruins, she began to crawl again.

Each step felt like the last, each breath a trial. Her eyes burned, and her field of vision pulsed in shades of red and gray, as if the world itself was losing color.

"Glenn and Seraphine are safe... Aeloria, alive... now you, Dórian..."

She dragged herself to the far corner of the hall, guided only by the faint traces of prana she could still sense.

Then she saw him.

Dórian lay on a shallow pool of water and melted ice, his body trembling in spasms, as if hell itself were burning inside him. Sweat poured from him, mingling with the ice that had melted from his armor and the energy around him. He was completely drenched.

"No... that's not sweat... it's fever. He's burning alive from the inside..." she whispered, kneeling with effort.

The black veins spreading across his body looked like serpents beneath his skin, pulsing with rage and venom. His eyes were rolled back, pupils gone, sunk in a milky white. Thick, dark drool, like oil, spilled from his mouth, and his blackened tongue hung limp.

His chest rose and fell in erratic intervals, each breath tearing through him with the sound of fluid and pain.

"Oh my God..." she murmured. "You're drowning in your own blood."

She examined his chest. The ribs had punctured the lungs. Dália recognized the sound—a gurgling crackle of air trying to escape through the wrong holes. But what struck her most was the blade embedded in his abdomen.

Dórian's own sword.

"He... fell on it?" she whispered.

She saw cauterization marks within, the burned edges of tissue around the wounds.

The blade had, by luck—or irony—sealed the wounds when it pierced his internal organs.

"If it had been cold... he'd be dead already."

But it wasn't luck. It was a cruel joke from the gods.

Dália brought her trembling hands close. The golden magic emerged—weak, hesitant. She began to channel the same process she had used on Aeloria, hoping it would at least be enough to halt the necrosis.

The energy struck Dórian's body.

And bounced off.

As if something fiercely repelled the healing.

"No... no, no, no... please..." she whimpered, forcing even more energy. "Let me help you!"

The golden light clashed against his skin again—and was repelled. Dália saw the glow shatter in the air like glass, fragments floating before dissolving into smoke.

"It's the serpent... her cursed energy is still inside..."

She tried another beam. Then another. And another.

Nothing.

Frustration mixed with despair. Dália could feel her strength slipping away, blood still pouring from an open wound on her hip. Each failed attempt drained more of her. Her body barely responded now.

"I need to get this out of you... I have to cleanse it before the healing can work."

She closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

And then she shaped it.

With curved fingers, red prana began to materialize, growing more solid and tangible as she channeled a technique she didn't fully master—but knew. It was dangerous. It wasn't hers. But the moment demanded more than she could give.

A scarlet needle formed between her fingers, pulsing like a heart.

"I'm sorry, Dórian..." she murmured. "This is going to hurt."

She drove the needle into his jugular. The warrior's body jolted violently—but didn't wake.

Black blood began to pour.

Thick, dense, viscous. Like old ink forgotten in a bottle.

"Come on... come on, get it all out. This damn poison!" she shouted, pressing the syringe with one hand while the other steadied Dórian's neck.

Minutes passed.

The black blood continued to flow—until its color began to change, from oil to dark wine. From wine, to ruby.

She felt it.

The barrier weakened. The darkness inside him had yielded.

Wasting no time, she conjured another golden orb and pressed it to the warrior's chest. This time, the energy entered. Slowly. Like honey dripping in a harsh winter.

But it entered.

Dórian stopped moving.

"No... not now!" Dália's eyes widened as she placed his head on her lap. His pupils had vanished. His chest... no longer moved.

She pressed her ear to his chest.

Silence.

"Stopped..." she whispered.

With tears in her eyes, she brought her hands together in prayer, channeling vital prana, shaping a compact, shimmering sphere. It was the same invasive, draining magic she had used on Aeloria—but it was necessary.

She held the small golden orb over his heart and let it fall.

The sphere was absorbed instantly.

And the body trembled.

One beat.

Another.

And another.

The magic forced the heart's muscles to contract in an artificial rhythm. A magical pulse, keeping Dórian's body functioning even without his own energy.

"Stay with me... please, just hang on a little longer..."

The stabilization procedure began. It was painful. Exhausting. Dália could barely keep her eyes open. She trembled. Cried. Channeled her magic for superficial regeneration, toxin purification, and heart function support—all with less than half the blood she needed to stay on her feet.

When, at last, Dórian's body stabilized—barely—an hour had passed.

He was unconscious. Pale as wax. But alive.

Dália collapsed sideways beside him, her face pressed against the soaked floor.

"One... two... three... alive..."

She tried to count.

But at "four," her eyes closed on their own.

And darkness embraced her without warning.

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