Apocalypse Healer - B3 Chapter 26

Healing someone reckless enough to tamper with his Body, Mind, and Soul was far from easy. Preserving his life was already a challenge—especially when the patient’s very being was working against him, sabotaging all progress at every turn.
But David liked it. He wasn’t the one suffering, after all.

After removing the hidden traces of the Void and nothingness clinging to Zachariah, the first thing he did was flood him with pure Blood. David cast [Greater Restoration] and attached several bulbs of [Healing Sphere] to the Regressor, but the energy within the Skills was drained almost instantly. Pushing raw Blood into him was more efficient, fanning the ember of life within Zachariah.

The ember of life ignited and transformed into a small flame after consuming more than half of David’s Blood, but that wasn’t enough to solve all problems. Zachariah’s body demanded more energy, which he provided by retrieving the diced Fragment from his spatial storage. He had to summon one of the Maelstroms to devour the remnants of Void leaking from the diced parts of the bipedal Fragment, but that was hardly an issue. As long as he didn’t use the first Maelstrom—the one that called upon him whenever he retrieved it—preventing future problems should be doable.

At least, that was what David hoped as he drained the diced Fragment’s lifeforce. He removed chunks of its body, swiftly drained and stored them. More diced chunks were retrieved whenever needed, but he was unwilling to leave anything belonging to the Fragment out in the open for too long. That might not matter in the wastelands, but not in the prehistoric valley.

Actively using [Aether Breath], modifying it now and then to increase its efficiency, combined with the lifeforce drained from the Fragment, was enough to fan the flame of life. It blazed brightly after a day of experimentation—the exact result David had been working toward.

Once ablaze, Zachariah’s life signal recovered slowly. [Greater Restoration] and [Healing Sphere] could be cast on the Regressor, mending his broken body little by little. However, as it turned out, Zachariah’s body required ample attention and time to rest, so it could gradually adapt to the changes through natural recovery.

David couldn’t quite grasp why Zachariah’s body required rest while still in critical condition, but neither [Greater Restoration] nor [Healing Sphere] seemed to work at a certain point. Not even [Vital Weaving] or pure Blood made any difference.

Several hours of constant monitoring transformed into a tiresome ordeal. It was boring beyond belief once nothing changed any longer. Taking Zachariah’s condition and the need for rest into account, David chose to focus on training.

Not even an hour into training, Zachariah’s condition worsened. The blazing fire of life flickered relentlessly, demanding more energy.

David stopped training right away and tried to stabilize the situation, but the damage was already done. His work from the last few hours was undone, forcing him to start from scratch.

That he did. He started from scratch and watched Zachariah silently, focusing on the subtle changes in the information provided by [Healing Link]. However, no matter how much attention he paid to the Regressor, his condition worsened again after just a few hours of rest.

Annoyed to no end, David modified [Healing Link] slightly. At the same time, he called upon the Mythical Electra to monitor Zachariah and infuse pure Blood into him the moment his body’s natural recovery began to fail.

With enough precautions taken, Zachariah’s condition did not worsen again the next time. Electra—since it hadn’t bothered leaving the Sanctuary when it had the chance—supported them. It infused enough pure Blood into Zachariah to prevent a sudden decline in his condition the instant something shifted, giving David all the time he needed to analyze what Zachariah’s body was doing and why.

Hours turned into days until the diced Fragment was drained of lifeforce, and they moved to the dwarven fortress in the prehistoric valley. David received odd looks for carrying Zachariah on a crimson shield, but their prying eyes hardly mattered.

He flashed everyone a vibrant smile and created a massive suctioning force that drained one-third of the Origin Essence that had gathered in the fortress. The prying eyes turned into deadly glares, which David ignored all the same as he modified [Aether Breath] once more to extract the purest tendrils of ambient Aether from the air.

He retrieved the first of the three monster corpses, which emitted a heavy mixture of pressure and aura. That earned him scornful gazes and several complaints. Some dwarves walked up to him, and several prehistoric monsters roared at him, their anger and killing intent clear.

David responded kindly, unleashing Bloodlust at full power.

“If you have a problem with what I’m doing, go to Torb and ask him if he wishes to see Zachariah dead. Please tell him that he won’t be able to handle the consequences if Zachariah dies. If Torb’s clueless, tell him to have a chat with Fortress. He might fill your boss in on the situation… or not. I have no idea.”

The dwarves slowed, hesitant to do anything that might anger the Primal Champion. David was sure they could tell the difference in strength as well—just as the prehistoric monsters could. They growled and roared, but their hostility no longer reached him. A tyrannosaur near him backed away and crashed into another prehistoric monster.

Pathetic.

He shook his head and focused back on Zachariah’s treatment plan. His understanding of Zachariah’s condition was finally profound enough to devise a proper plan to restore him to full health. Unfortunately, treating him properly required precise work, a shitload of raw energy, powerful healing abilities, and time. Lots of the latter.

The last part frustrated David a little, as he’d love to do other things, but his impatience pushed him to move near the Rift Core—to occupy most of it and train whenever Zachariah’s body required time to rest naturally. Electra would jump into the fray and help the instant Zachariah’s body decided that it had rested long enough. That solved most of David’s timing issues and improved his impression of the Sacred Beast once again.

Electra would inform him of the situation at hand if the modification of [Healing Link] failed to do so. It would pull him out of training, allowing a seamless transition to resume the healing process until the Regressor was no longer responsive to [Greater Restoration] and David’s other healing abilities. At that point, the cycle would repeat itself, and David would return to train until Electra or the link to Zachariah pulled him out again.

That was the plan, and it worked decently. However, as his research of the oddly powerful monster corpses started, David found himself caught up in what he found. It was difficult to divert his attention from the first corpse to tend to Zachariah when he was busy unraveling the secrets of the powerful carcass—all while draining its lifeforce, of course.

As time went on, splitting his attention became easier. It took a while, but by circulating pure Blood through his brain, working on multiple tasks simultaneously became less of an ordeal. In fact, by tinkering with the effect pure Blood had on his brain, David managed to create a new Spark.

[Two of a Mind] – [Tier-1 V]

The Spark worked passively and created a circulation system of pure Blood in his head using the Energy Pathways formed in his brain and the remaining parts of his skull. It was a little tricky to finish the Spark’s creation—let alone modify it—but David made it work, using the natural Aether within the Energy Pathways to form an independent, infinite loop that prevented severe strain when working on multiple tasks at the same time.

[Two of a Mind] consumed more energy when David was caught up in too many tasks, but that couldn’t be considered an issue. [Aether Breath] replenished the used-up Aether near-instantaneously, transforming [Two of a Mind]’s energy consumption into a negligible factor even when used at full power.

The creation of [Two of a Mind] changed everything. It transformed the strain of multitasking into a simple task. Draining a corpse’s lifeforce was barely worth mentioning at this point, and David barely noticed a difference when he shifted from solely researching to doing that while tending to Zachariah.

Maybe it would have been a little bit more complicated if he hadn’t fleshed out Zachariah’s treatment plan, but it was as simple as the production of pure Blood now.

Finally! David exhaled deeply.

At last, he had the time, energy, and mental power to focus on training, studying, and modifying. Doing everything while tending to Zachariah had been too difficult before. Not anymore!

Now he had weeks to study and do whatever he wanted… as long as Zachariah survived, of course.

***

A month must have passed after the encounter with the Voidre when the Regressor stirred for the first time. He didn’t wake up yet, but Body, Mind, and Soul had been tended to the best of David’s capabilities. At this point, all he could do was wait for Zachariah.

Although Zachariah’s being had been fully restored, he did not wake up for another week.

David hadn’t been particularly worried about the Regressor’s long slumber. Despite that, he sighed in relief when Zachariah’s eyes opened at last.

“It’s time to rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” David teased Zachariah, which earned him a deadly glare as the Regressor sat up.

Zachariah jumped to his feet and looked around, eyes sharp and doubtful of everything that entered his sight. A wave of silver energy washed through his body, yet the tension didn’t leave him. Quite the contrary, it felt like Zachariah tensed up more.

“Roughly five weeks. Give or take,” David shrugged. Zachariah looked sharply at him, but David could only shrug again. “I’ve been tending to you the whole time, so I don’t know for sure. But as long as the dwarves didn’t change their schedules and rotations, five weeks should have passed.”

The Regressor’s features turned a little bit softer at that. He winced and looked to the ground, trying to hide the conflict flashing through his eyes.

“What a mess.” Zachariah grimaced, forcing a thin smile upon his lips when he looked up again. “But thanks for taking care of me. Saying this out loud probably makes me look stupid, but I was certain I died. And… for a moment, I wondered if someone played a trick on me. Or if I regressed again.”

David listened in silence.

“I shouldn’t have survived this. This vessel is not yet strong enough to contain that much power, no matter how short it was. Not that I expected I’d need to unseal part of my Divinity in the first place. The encounter with the Voi... the wolfish creature — that was outside my expectations…”

That much was apparent, but it wasn’t like Zachariah had been good at predicting… anything, really. David may believe Zachariah to be some sort of Regressor, but his knowledge and experience were far less helpful than they should have been. Especially for someone who claimed to have ascended to godhood.

Not that I don’t believe him. The power he released while fighting the Voidre was beyond anything a mortal could handle. And if it was truly only a portion of his Divinity, Zachariah was most definitely a god.

David believed Zachariah, but that didn’t make things easier. Being friends with a Regressor should have been a lot more beneficial than it was. If anything, it felt like Zachariah relied more on David than the other way around.

“Whatever. You’re alive.” He shrugged, which earned him a rare smile.

Zachariah nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I guess so. Thanks for healing me.”

David responded with a thumbs up. “Tending to you helped me progress a lot.”

“Either way.” He continued, not waiting until the Regressor would point out the elephant in the room, “How about you tell me about that black Rift? Their power — highly condensed and much stronger than I felt from any Fragment, or even the Wolf — was within the Rift.”

The Rift was clearly an abomination. An irregularity that shouldn’t exist.

However, it did not look like Zachariah could help him a lot. A downcast expression distorted the Regressor’s thin smile, and a conflicted look crossed his features.

“I don’t want to lie to you, but I doubt you will like what I have to say,” Zachariah started, and David could tell right away that things were about to go downhill.

“I… don’t really know what that was. I have never seen anything like the Black Rift. It’s something that wasn’t there last time.”

David could only frown at that. Was Zachariah actually clueless about the Rift? How could that be?

“What’s so special about the capital? I have never seen that many Saplings and Fragments huddled together before. Even if we ignore the Rift… there were too many of them in one place, weren’t there?” he asked with the intention to change the topic, but a single look in the Regressor’s eyes was enough to tell that Zachariah was clueless.

What does he know in the first place?! He didn’t strike me as a brawn with no brain before. David cursed inwardly, all control of his emotions slipping away. Why did he spend several weeks taking care of Zachariah when that guy had no idea what was going on either?

Calm down. I’ve grown a lot in the last few weeks.

“I can only share my guesses with you. Both about the Rift and the capital’s importance,” Zachariah sighed but continued, “First, I think They were able to alter a Rift by infusing enough of their power. While I don’t know the specifics, let alone where the Black Rift leads to, I am fairly confident in my assessment; creating beings with the same power as the Wolf had is… difficult, to say the least. I only fought a few of them in the past, and they were always — always — the product of an aberrant Fragment destroying entire nations.”

David frowned deeply at that. Several smaller nations across the Earthen Union may have fallen victim to the integration’s dangers, and the schemes of godly entities like the Poisonous Beast God, but they would have heard if entire nations had been annihilated by the Void… right?

“I’m suspicious of that as well. However, what confuses me the most are the monster corpses the Fragments and the Wolf carried through the Black Rift. They were clearly Variant Bosses at the Platinum Rank. My calculations may have been wrong in the past, but I am certain Platinum Ranked creatures cannot step into the Earthen Union just yet. Especially not Variant Bosses.”

Zachariah radiated raw confidence. Clearly, he did not think the Variant Bosses were mutants who’d risen through the ranks in the Earthen Union, since that would mean they’d surpass the Regressor’s growth. David was also confident in Zachariah’s growth rate. He couldn’t imagine anyone growing faster than a god of the past.

But it was not like he was all-knowing.

“So what do you think?” he asked, waiting for Zachariah to clarify what he was hinting at.

“One, I think they used the capital as a breeding ground for Fragments. While I do not have any hard proof, the situation we were pulled into points in that direction.” The Regressor lifted a finger, and a second joined a moment later as he continued, “Second, I think the Black Rift leads to a place far away from the Earthen Union. Probably a large, isolated dimension of a Fallen, or a world in a disputed sector nobody pays much attention to.”

Zachariah hesitated for a moment. His expression soured, and the vigor in his eyes dimmed a little.

“I think our enemies are aware of the regression. They remember, just like the Pantheon, Pandemonium, and everyone else remembers. There is no way to prove that point, but my gut is telling me that they remember. And that they knew about it beforehand.”

“So they prepared for the regression,” David completed.

Some of the things Zachariah had said aligned with the things David had seen and concluded. The Black Rift’s appearance had already been weird, but there had been several spots that could be considered feeding stations. The Sapling he found feasting on bones in the hospital was one of them.

However, what had confused him the most was not the existence of the stronger bipedal Fragments or the Voidre. He didn’t know enough about either to judge the logic of their existence or how they came to be, given that the Earthen Union restricted others. But the massive corpses the Voidlings had carried had attracted his interest. Clearly, they had been stronger than the Mythical Electra had been when they fought.

Electra disagreed vehemently, flooding him with images and emotions, trying to show him that it had been much stronger in its prime. But that was not what David had been focused on. He never compared the Variant Bosses’ corpses with the Mythical Electra’s prowess at its peak.

“So, to summarize, you think they found a way to prepare for the regression. They found a way to bypass the Earthen Union’s restrictions and can bring beings like the Wolf and nutritious meals such as the Variant Bosses to the Earthen Union without anyone noticing.” David tried to stay calm, but his heart was beating wildly as the words escaped his lips.
“But if that were to be the case, why wouldn’t they bring more beings like the Wolf to the Earthen Union to annihilate us—you, to be precise—before anyone can accumulate enough power to stop them?”

Zachariah’s lips parted, but they sealed shut after a few seconds.

A minute of silence filled the atmosphere with tension until the Regressor shrugged.

“I have no idea. Maybe they have to sacrifice too much energy to stay in the Earthen Union for prolonged periods.”

It was a possibility. One way or another, there was no way to tell the truth. At least, David wasn’t able to tell.

Something told him the future held all the answers. And even if it didn’t… so be it. As long as the Voidre didn’t roam the Earthen Union in the dozens, he would be fine. But to achieve that, they would either have to find the Black Rift and close it—he would have to leave the “how” for Zachariah to solve—and ensure the Void’s breeding places would be destroyed as soon as possible.

“Whatever.” Zachariah clapped his hands, forcing a smile. “We survived without any losses.”

“And we are stronger than ever,” David agreed.

“Of course.” Zachariah’s forced smile transformed into what appeared to be a genuine grin as tension left his body.

“On another note.” He turned to look at David. “You burned the Fragments’ bodies and made sure they—”

Before the Regressor could finish the sentence, David intercepted. He didn’t think twice as he said, “I destroyed everything.”

Zachariah might be a Regressor. He might have been a god as well. David no longer doubted that. However, it was also a hard fact that Zachariah was no longer a god and that he had failed miserably in the last Cycle. The exact details were still unclear, but it was apparent that Zachariah, the Pantheon, and many other divine beings had a lot of time preparing for the final Cycle. And they had failed to predict so many things.

Relying on Zachariah and the Pantheon would have been great and all, but was that really what would bring peace to the Earthen Union and the cosmos?

David started to doubt that the longer he researched the Maelstrom and the power it could provide in the fight against the Fissure and its creations.