Chapter 62 — The Burning Ashes of Failure
“Laiya!” Emina yelled from where she had been drawing water, stumbling in her haste to close the distance.
Toren moved to intercept, raising his free hand in a calming gesture. “Emina, she’ll be okay.”
“Don’t you dare stop me from seeing my baby, Toren!” Emina growled at him then her eyes found the jungle stalker half-dragging from the cord slung over his shoulder, and she froze. “What is THAT?!”
Toren was relieved that Warnel’s wife had been successfully distracted. “A level 21 jungle stalker. There’s at least one more out there.”
“Jungle stalkers? That strong? What will we do?” Emina’s anger was heading back toward panic.
“Mom, ’m fine,” Laiya mumbled.
“Of course you are, dear,” Emina assured Laiya, sending accusing eyes Toren’s way.
Warnel was looking like he didn’t want to meet his wife’s eyes.
“Warnel’s the one who killed it. This pair could hide from [Mana Sensing]. I got overconfident, and it caught us by surprise,” Toren offered, grimacing. “Let’s focus on getting Laiya healed first, and then we can talk of hunting them down. If you could help Warnel, we need to get her prone so any broken bones can be set before administering a bone-mending potion.”
Emina took a deep breath. “Alright, I can do that.”
“Is Laiya going to be alright?” Falma quietly asked from the farmhouse door.
“Cou’le po’ons ’ll be gain,” Laiya insisted.
“Help clear the way, Falma dear.” The words were clearly an attempt to stay calm, but Emina’s voice was tense.
Toren dropped the dead stalker’s body and head by the well while Warnel and Emina got Laiya into the house.
The potion Warnel had already given Laiya helped enough that about halfway back to the stead she had started groaning with every particularly jostling step and regained enough lucidity to respond to her father. Worryingly, she was slurring her words and having difficulty moving, saying there was something wrong with her left arm. Likely more was wrong than just her left arm.
Toren stopped himself from spiraling into self-blame again. On the way back, he had plenty of time to think about why [Danger Sensing] hadn’t warned him either. The clear answer was unpleasant: he hadn’t been the stalker’s target. It was just another piece of the complacency he had allowed to set in because things were going too well.
Toren had a suspicion about what had gone wrong to cause Laiya's condition, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they got her bones aligned and gave her larger doses of bruise and flesh mending potions.
As Toren had feared, the treatment failed.
[Control Blood] let him manipulate Laiya’s blood within her marrow to hold her bones aligned while the bone-mending potion worked its miracle, and he had also moved along the excess blood in her head. They had given Laiya the other mending potions, and he had watched with [Mana Sensing] as the concoction worked to promote healing.
Laiya’s speech improved, but her arm was still not working right, and he didn’t want her to try moving anything else until her still healing rib and neck bones hardened.
After suffering through the terrible itching of the bone-mending and everything else, Laiya had been exhausted and was sleeping now. Emina was clinging to Warnel’s arm as if it was the only thing keeping her standing. Falma had left to finish preparing lunch, unable to watch her parents’ anguish.
Toren ground his teeth in impotence. This wasn’t his first time seeing this kind of injury. He knew it was a risk for all [Monster Hunters]. With potions and sometimes with magic, things healed wrong. [Holy Sister] Junes had explained it as like a scar but on the inside. That must’ve been what had happened with Laiya when her father gave her the potion. If bones could heal wrong when not properly aligned, why not other things within the body?
Toren had thought hard about solving the same sort of problem after his tendon injury—for his injuries, his burning blood should be able to burn away damaged tissue and bone in the same way Horevi’s fire could burn away impurities like disease and infection. How to impart that intent to the mana in his blood, he still hadn’t…
Intent?
Could he…?
Was this something he could use Warrior’s Spirit for? Was there such a thing as ‘healing intent’?
Even if there wasn’t, solving how to remove the ‘scars inside’ was all he needed to do—to ‘burn away the damage’ then Laiya could heal properly. It wasn’t the same as an ‘intent to cut’ or an ‘intent to crush’ but it wasn’t that different either.
Toren clenched a fist and tried to use the Warrior’s Spirit technique to [Empower] his blood.
“Toren?” Warnel asked, mirroring his wife’s look of concern.
“I need to step out to test something. I have an idea that may help the potions work better.”
Toren grabbed Laiya’s spear on the way out of the farmhouse.
He was getting close to the next threshold for [Burning Blood], close enough that he could force the increase in proficiency… but he didn’t have any accumulation of experience or knowledge from actually using the Ability to burn away impurities and improperly healed tissue to direct the evolution in that direction. There was also the risk that forcing such an evolution wouldn’t even bring the change to make the Ability heal others—such a fundamental change would surely require a rank-up to achieve.
Though… with the right combination of additional ingredients, improved purifying properties of his blood might still be possible to imbue into a potion. That was why he had been giving Emina vials of his blood to use as a potency intensifier in the potions.
Toren froze.
Was the potion Warnel had given Laiya one of the ones made using his blood? Had his blood being in the potion caused her to heal wrong?
The thought made the blood flowing through Toren's veins burn with anger at himself.
How much had he put them all at risk?
They couldn’t afford to gamble further on experimenting with risky potions. If anything else went wrong in the remaining time they had before the beast tide…
No, he would have to solve this with intent. He would not let their chance for survival slip away so close to the start, not when they were making so much progress!
Sliding his hands along Laiya’s spear, he made his choice.
There was only one way to test it. He would have to try ‘burning away the damage’ within his own body, to burn away the scars left inside by old wounds and broken bones.
Toren moved through the spear forms of his [Berserker Weapon Arts] with fury and focus until his spear was wreathed in flame. He knew the flame he was trying to recreate. His [Hunter] party had paid the [Priests] of the Church of the Faithful to grant the miracle many times: Horevi’s cleansing flames.
Whether he could achieve it on his own was another question.
Not a flame to cut. Not a flame to destroy. A cleansing flame. A flame to burn away impurities while leaving everything else.
He swung and swung, thrust and lunged, swept and spun. There was just him, the spear’s dance, and fire.
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As he focused on each cut, each slash, each piercing strike, slowly the flame was less and less flickering from the wind, existing apart from it and leaving glowing trails like tiny embers behind as it passed.
Still, he didn’t stop. The flames weren’t pure enough.
His body burned with the effort and worries of failure began to gnaw at his will. Determined not to fail, he turned his effort inward.
Just as he had filled the spear with his will, he now filled his blood with mana imbued with his martial will. His blood was his weapon. His heart and his veins were the hands that wielded this weapon.
His blood burned.
His heart burned.
His veins burned.
The agony fueled his rage.
Rage at himself. His failure to protect Yana. His failure to protect Avril. His failure to protect Owen.
And now, he was facing his failure to protect Laiya, facing the cold casualness with which he had gambled the lives of all of the Hatterwicks.
The burning spread through his body, spread to his bones.
His world was fire and agony. A deserved agony.
He continued to perform the spear forms, the motions of his body reinforcing the meaning of the fire with every step and reach, every coiling twist and extension, all further circulating his blood.
With each breath, he drew in mana from around him, added it to the fire, and with each exhale, he breathed out cleansing flames.
Swing, thrust, step. Twist, sweep, step, thrust.
Breathe in.
Step, thrust low, up swing, step, pull, lunge!
Breath out.
He lost track of how many times he completed the forms. Gradually, the agony eased. The flames still filled his body, but nothing remained to burn. As awareness returned to Toren, he blinked in surprise, faced with a slew of notification shards.
~~~
Toren's status:
Name: Toren of Theravos
Race: Human
Age: 20
Profession 1: Level 8 Burningblood Berserker (1800/16000)
Mana: 16/115
Strength: 16
Constitution: 14 → 15
Dexterity: 15
Agility: 13
Wisdom: 12
Intellect: 8
Will Power: 18
Perception 15
Appearance: 8 → 9
Charisma: 8
Luck: 10
Attribute Upgrade Points: 6 → 7
Traits:
Sacrificial Guardian
Abilities:
Burning Blood (Rank 1) Proficiency: Mid
Control Blood (Rank 1) Proficiency: Low
Flurry of Blows (Rank 1) Proficiency: Low
Ability Upgrade Points: 6 → 7
Profession Skills:
Severe Wound Recovery 6 → 8
Empower 4 → 6
Focus Rage 6 → 8
Bone Strengthening 4 → 6
Combat Awareness 6
Berserker Weapon Arts 3 → 5
Physical Conditioning 8 → 10
Pain Tolerance 6 → 8
Intimidate 5
Skills:
Danger Sensing 3
Stealth 18
Mana Sensing 14
Wilderness Harvesting 12
Theravos Language 11
Religion 10
Divided Focus 6 → 7
Meditation 5 → 6
Hunting 20
Archery 19
Running 15
Wound Binding 8
Arithmetic 4
