Chapter 489 - The Han Civil War XV

I was familiar with Wang Jian’s army and capabilities. We’d marched near them for months now, and I knew Optio Henrietta’s lines of [Medics] were all at full strength and mana still, and that this was the perfect chance to gain a number of levels and improve our reputation. Katerina would deploy them to Wang Jian’s army, they had their own medics, great. Their need for additional medical attention existed, but it wasn’t nearly as great as Meng Ao’s.

His army had been defeated and routed. Soldiers running on broken ankles, trying to staunch the bleeding from an arm that no longer existed, the works. They were fleeing, hoping to outpace Wang Jian’s riders, unable to stop, organize, and perform triage on their troops.

I flew up high to get a good view of what was going on, to see where they were. No sense in chasing after a small detachment that was going the wrong way. I wanted to hit the bulk of the army, then maybe see about chasing down anyone who’d fled in a different direction.

While up in the sky I spotted Fenrir circling, neither Iona nor Nina on his back. I hesitated a moment, then darted over to the wyvern. I landed on his snout, balancing perfectly in a way only insane dexterity could manage.

“Everything okay? Everyone alright?” I asked.

“Tracking.” Fenrir nodded down, and I twisted my neck all the way around to see what he was pointing at.

A number of wolf riders were bounding away from the battle, Iona bounding after some of them. They were splitting and scattering, and while Iona was far faster than even a System-boosted wolf, she wasn’t so fast she could catch all the scattering ones. Fenrir being eyes in the sky - literally - suggested that The Lady of Death was going to have an unpleasant evening. Nina was trailing behind, unable to keep up with Iona, instead making sure the people left behind were dead dead - not that Iona would make a mistake with notifications - looting them, and vaguely straightening out limbs for a slightly more respectful end.

I studied the woods and mountains for a minute, before deciding that Iona had things well in hand. She was a juggernaut, an unstoppable force of righteous wrath. A few fleeing jumped-up bandits weren’t going to pose a threat to her, although I was slightly concerned about Yang Duan He’s title.

“Good job.” I patted Fenrir’s snout, then let myself fall off his nose, snapping my wings open and continuing to follow the traces of Meng Ao’s army.

I found them quickly enough, and I didn’t bother carefully analyzing every detail. Checking out every formation, seeing what was where. I just dove right into the thick of it. Heck, I still had on my Ironside Brigade armor!

I was tired. Tired of soldiering, tired of blood and death, tired of carefully hiding every capability I had just to sneak around a little better. I’d shown my hand already. The existence of a powerful healer in the Ironside Brigade had to be known by the powers that be. I was going to openly, quickly, and with my full powers heal the remnants of Meng Ao’s army.

It was a minor point, but it helped justify it to myself - the added difficulty would be worth a number of levels. [The Dawn Sentinel] was skyrocketing at the moment, and I was determined to squeeze every last bit of power out of it.

I was fast. I dropped in like a meteor strike, [The World Around Me] giving a perfect picture of what was going on. I dropped, hitting the ground and tagging three people before the first cry of alarm went up. Stabbed in the arm. Broken wrist. Torn tendon. Bam bam bam. Three high speed pokes of my finger, three injuries cured, and I slipped under a hand trying to grab me, continuing to run through the camp, looking for more people who needed my help.

I sensed a double amputee in the tent next to me. I ripped through the side as a dozen soldiers converged on my position and tagged the poor soldier.

“Sorry about the tent!” I yelled as I ran through the front, the chasing soldiers in hot pursuit. A great hue and cry went up, and three more soldiers tried to corner me.

“Not today!” I cheekily yelled as they stabbed at me, jumping gracefully over the spears.

I’d always wanted to do this. I ran up the spear, then springboarded off the soldier’s head, fixing his ruined eye in the process.

I couldn’t get everyone, and I needed to liberally apply [Wheel of Sun and Moon] to ‘catch’ a number of bad injuries that I didn’t quite see an easy path to.

My blood was pumping, and I found myself grinning. I was enjoying this. Testing my abilities to the max, while also healing people? Only thing that could make this better was Auri and a mango. There was a certain joy, a thrill in being very, very good at what I did, and executing it to the best of my abilities.

The soldiers were a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, I was clearly an invader, and they were good at following orders, chasing me with fervor. On the other, they’d just come from a devastating battle they’d lost, and I wasn’t hurting anyone - quite the opposite. The hue and cry had soldiers from different parts chase me for a short time, then quickly give up as I moved far out of reach, and their injuries were suddenly cured.

The triage tents were poorly guarded, although the command tent had a heavy presence. Mages started coming out of the woodworks, enough time having passed that they had some serious power they could fire my way.

I wasn’t particularly efficient. My madcap streaking through the camp wasn’t good for methodically finding everyone who was hurt and rendering aid to them. I noticed a few runners heading towards the command structures before I continued on, feet pounding in the dirt and the wind whistling in my ear as I ran down another makeshift street.

“Halt in the name of the emperor!” Another soldier shouted - why did they think that would work when I’d ignored the last dozen requests? I stuck my tongue out at him, only for my entire body to spasm as some jerk hit me with a [Lightning Bolt].

“Fuck you too!” I shouted back, mentally flicking out [Dance with the Heavens] to someone with a nasty cough.

“Halt.” A voice cut through the din, the entire army going quiet. A single black lotus leaf drifted with uncanny speed towards my neck. I bent backwards, trying to dodge it, but it continued towards me, forcing me to do a backwards cartwheel to avoid it. I turned towards the familiar voice.

Meng Ao stood imperiously on top a golden chariot, a dozen burly [Bodyguards] surrounding him. I cheekily waved.

“Hi! Don’t mind me, just healing your troops. Bye!” I started to dash away from the [Great General], but froze.

He’d taken his sword, the infamous black lotus blade, and slashed down, cutting the arm of one of his guards. The guard didn’t even flinch. It wasn’t a deep cut, but he’d twisted the blade in a way that meant [Cosmic Presence] couldn’t just fix him.

I scowled at him.

“That was rude.” I said, healing the man with a thought and trying to leave again. Meng Ao cut his arm once more.

“I insist you stay.” He held his hand out, one of his subordinates handing him a cloth. He wiped the blood off his blade, then repositioned it next to another one of his bodyguard’s arms. I scowled at the general and his troops, and the [Bodyguards] lifted their shields and leveled their spears. I wasn’t exactly being subtle about my dislike for the dude.

All around me I could sense more troops moving into position, the presence of their general emboldening them. That, and I was no longer constantly moving around.

Movement is life. Old lessons from Ranger Academy and SERE training. Staying still like this was a death sentence. I started to slowly pace in a circle around the general, not even looking at the soldiers. I don’t know what it was - low morale from the earlier fight? - but none of them wanted to engage with me, and parted ways to let me pace.

“Why?” I asked, trying to think of a way out of the situation, splitting my mind into five different [Parallel Thoughts] to search for an answer. My options rapidly narrowing down to one obvious solution. One I’d rather not do, but I would if I had to.

Meng Ao stepped down off his chariot, and his guards parted without a word. He boldly stepped forward, presenting himself and not hiding behind a mountain of flesh and steel.

“You are indeed [Oathbound]. Trapped by a bleeding heart.” He softly mocked. “The little [Healer] that deflected hēi lián dāo, now visiting us. Why? To mock me?”

I healed the bodyguard again, and with a flourish, Meng Ao cut down one of his attendants, leaving a second one with a gaping stomach wound.

“Each troop you heal to escape is another one I will cut down.” He informed me with a cold, almost clinical tone. “Each of their deaths will be on your head, your conscience.”

I wanted to snort in disbelief. Did he really think - yes, yes he did really think that would work on me.

I didn’t take responsibility for other people’s actions - mostly. Things like Osengard made me rethink a few aspects, but ‘do this or else I’ll murder people’ was firmly on the murderer’s head, not mine.

He wasn’t entirely wrong about one part though. As long as he kept hurting people, I would be forced to stick around and save them. A trap that only really worked on [Oathbound] healers.

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to find other solutions.

“For you to join us, and at the end of this war, a merciful death. It is the only way you can atone for all the bodies left behind on the fields today.” He answered. “Else, you are already in my power. A slow, tortuous existence until we have squeezed every last bit of utility out of your body, then you will die without an intact body. Come, make your choice.”

I had quite a few more choices, but I was forced into the Artemis solution.

Artemis was twitchy as hell for a reason. Mages were delicate, fragile. Most of their stats were loaded into the magical stats, and most of their abilities were offensive. It varied, of course, but Artemis was still alive because she was on a hair trigger. Defensively, they tended to not have terribly much going for them.

Mages often had various defenses. Not being near attacks was one of them. Meng Ao had demonstrated a fantastically strong Brilliance barrier, although no telling if it was him or one of his subordinates. Radiance had some weaknesses - Mirror was hilariously effective against it - but it had strengths. The ability to straight up ignore Brilliance barriers was one of them, although in the elemental tiering list, the range was only medium.

Speaking of bodyguards - he’d put himself in front of them. Probably something about negotiations and power? Hard to take someone seriously when all you could hear was a muffled voice behind a dozen [Honor Guards]. Iona would’ve been able to interpret it better.

Speaking of, they probably had various skills to protect him, even like this. Worth thinking about.

There was a tyranny of stats. An inescapable gap that occurred due to level quality. A single level in a black-quality class could be worth hundreds of levels in a red-quality class. Thousands in a pink-quality class. I was sitting on 128 levels in a black class, which punched far above their weight.

Radiance was fast. Close enough to instant that it didn’t matter, it tied with Light and Brilliance for speed. I never needed to anticipate where someone would be. I could just point and shoot.

Over 250,000 points of magic power, and [Solar Corona] was a six-figure passive that didn’t get enough time used.

I had sworn to protect my patients, and Meng Ao was actively harming my patients as quickly as I healed them up.

I was Dawn, War Sentinel of the Sixth Legion of Exterreri. Healing was my cause and calling, but I knew I needed to defend myself and my patients.

I didn’t do any big, dramatic moves to tip off the [Bodyguards]. My hands were constantly moving, just part of walking, and it was trivial to adjust a single moving finger a hair to aim it towards Meng Ao’s eye, and unleashed a full-power [Nova Lance] at his eye.

Automatic barriers instantly sprang up, bodies, spears, and shields all started to move.

Seven [Bodyguards] slumped over dead - probably a protective skill for them to take a blow instead of the general - as the lance went through Meng Ao’s head, bursting out the other side in blazing light and the faint stench of burning pork. My [Oath] rebelled - the [Bodyguards] were on the darker side of a grey zone, and I’d sort of killed them - in a minor way, causing a wave of nausea and vertigo so bad that I stumbled, but it didn’t matter.

[*ding!* You have slain a [Great General of the Han (Mantle, 904)]//[Voidheart Lotus Sage (Forest, 920)]//[The Boundless Holder of Li Ji] (Spatial, 673)]]