UL1 - Book 11 - Chapter 101

Batrire stood in the stone chamber, rolling her shoulders as she waited for Sog to arrive. The training arena beneath Max and Tanila's tower had become her second home over the past few months—or was it years now? Time moved differently when you were immortal, when a decade could pass while perfecting a single technique.

The door opened, and the eight-foot demon stepped through, his red eyes glowing with what she'd learned to recognize as barely contained enthusiasm.

"You're late," she said, not bothering to hide her irritation.

"By three minutes," Sog replied, grinning as his black skin seemed to absorb the light around him. "I was finishing my breakfast. Unlike some dwarves, I actually enjoy food instead of just ale."

"Bah, you take too long to chew." She gestured at the center of the arena. "Same as last time? No holding back on the poison this time."

Sog's grin faltered. "Batrire, you vomited for an hour after—"

"I said no holding back." She moved to her position, summoning her staff from her dimensional storage. The wood felt warm in her hands, familiar and comforting. "If a god poisons me in a real fight, they won't care about my comfort level. Neither should you."

The demon sighed, moving to stand fifty feet away from her. "Fowl  is going to murder me if I actually kill you during training."

"Then I'd better not die." Batrire closed her eyes, taking three slow breaths. Her awareness expanded outward, feeling for the gentle pulse of mana that permeated everything. It was always there, like a current beneath still water, but learning to sense it clearly had taken months of practice.

"Ready?" Sog called out.

"Go."

The demon moved fast. She had learned early on that size didn’t matter. What mattered was power, and she needed to acquire more of it. Batrire kept her eyes closed, forcing herself to rely on what she'd been training. Her mana sense reached out, and she felt the spike of energy as Sog began to cast.

There.

Dark green magic gathered in his palm, the signature distinct and oily against her awareness. Poison magic had a particular feel to it, like something rotten trying to pass itself off as whole.

She shifted left two steps, her eyes still closed.

The bolt of toxic energy hissed past her right shoulder, missing by less than a foot.

"Lucky," Sog said, but his voice carried a hint of surprise.

"Again."

Three more poison bolts came in rapid succession. Batrire moved through them like she was dancing, each step precise. Her eyes remained closed. She didn't need to see the attacks—she could feel them forming, sense the buildup of mana before Sog even released the spells.

This was the first part of what she'd been learning. Echo Listening, she'd started calling it, though the name felt pretentious. Every spell cast created ripples in the ambient mana. If you trained yourself to feel those ripples, to understand their patterns, you could anticipate attacks before they fully manifested.

"Impressive," Sog admitted. "But you can't keep your eyes closed in a real fight."

"Watch me."

She opened her eyes, and immediately Sog was on her. He'd closed the distance while she'd been focused on dodging his ranged attacks—a tactic they'd practiced before. His fist came at her face with enough force to shatter stone.

Batrire's staff came up, but not to block. Instead, she channeled mana through the wood, creating a thin barrier of healing energy between her face and his fist.

The impact drove her back three feet, her boots scraping against the white stone floor. Her arms screamed in protest from absorbing the shock, but the barrier had converted half the kinetic energy into healing magic that now coursed through her body.

Her bruised forearms mended themselves instantly.

"What the—" Sog pulled back, staring at his fist, then at her. "Did you just heal yourself from me hitting you?"

"Counter Through Restoration," Batrire said, allowing herself a small smile. "Healing and damage are both forms of forced change. If I time it right, I can meet your destructive change with restorative change at the point of impact. They neutralize each other."

"That's..." The demon shook his head. "That's insane. How much mana does it cost?"

"Too much." Her smile faded. "I can maybe do it three times before I'm drained. That's why we're training."

Sog's expression shifted to something more serious. "Again?"

"Again."

They resumed, and this time Batrire kept her eyes open, trying to maintain her mana sense while also tracking Sog's physical movements. It was like trying to listen to two conversations at once—possible, but exhausting.

The demon launched a combination attack: two poison bolts followed immediately by a charge. Batrire dodged the first bolt, countered the second with a healing barrier, then had to desperately roll aside as Sog's shoulder moved through the spot where she'd been standing.

She came up breathing hard. "Hold."

Sog stopped immediately. "You alright?"

"Just... need a second." Batrire leaned on her staff, her heart hammering. "I'm trying to maintain the mana sense while fighting, but it's like my brain can't do both at the same time."

"Maybe you're pushing too hard?"

"Maybe I'm not pushing hard enough." She straightened, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Every god we'll face after protection ends will be trying to kill us. They won't give me time to 'maintain my mana sense' or take breaks. I need to do this without thinking about it."

"It's only been a little while since you started this crazy training," Sog said, his tone gentler than usual. "You can't expect to master it overnight."

"We don't have time for slow progress." Batrire gestured at the walls around them. "Seventy years sounds like forever, but Max is going to hit tier six and then what? The rest of us will be tier four, maybe tier five if we're lucky. When a tier six or seven god decides our world looks tasty, we need to be able to survive long enough for Max to save us."

"Or," Sog said slowly, "we need to be strong enough to save ourselves."

"Exactly." She rolled her shoulders again, feeling the tension there. "Which is why I need you to stop holding back. Use the Nightmare Toxin."

Sog's red eyes widened. "That's not poison, Batrire. That's a curse. It'll make you live your worst fears while your body shuts down. Last time I used it on someone, they were catatonic for a week."

"Then I'd better learn to counter it now, while we have Tanila and Max nearby to fix me if it goes wrong." She planted her staff and met his gaze. "I'm not asking, Sog. I'm telling you. Use it."

The demon studied her for a long moment, then sighed. "Fine. But when Jazzjak lectures me about this, you're taking the blame."

"Deal."

Sog backed up to his starting position, and Batrire felt the shift in the air immediately. His mana signature changed, darkening from the oily green of poison to something that felt like cold fingers running down her spine. The Nightmare Toxin wasn't just physical—it attacked the mind as well as the body.

She closed her eyes again, expanding her awareness. If she could sense the curse coming, maybe she could prepare a counter-heal before it struck. Healing magic could purge toxins, but curses required something more—they required understanding the specific magical frequency of the attack and matching it with an opposing force.

"Ready?" Sog's voice sounded distant.

"Do it."

The curse came at her like a living shadow, and her mana sense screamed a warning. Batrire's hands moved on instinct, weaving healing magic into a pattern she'd been practicing for weeks. The golden light of her spell met the black tendrils of Sog's curse three feet from her body.

For a heartbeat, they struggled against each other—restoration versus corruption.

Then the curse punched through her defense like it was paper.

Batrire's eyes snapped open as the Nightmare Toxin hit her nervous system. The training room vanished, replaced by a scene she'd hoped to never see again.

The dungeon. A giant scorpion boss. The moment she’d almost died.

She was back in her younger body, watching helplessly as the boss monster tore through her friends. She could hear their screams, smell the blood, feel her own desperate healing magic failing to keep them alive.

Not real, she told herself. It's the curse. It's not real.

But her body didn't care. Her lungs seized. Her heart rate spiked. The curse was shutting down her organs one by one, and the nightmare kept her from being able to focus enough to counter it.

Then, cutting through the horror, she felt something.

A pulse of mana. Familiar. Desperate.

Sog is trying to dispel his own curse.

The demon's magic felt panicked, sloppy, but it gave her something to focus on. Batrire latched onto that external mana signature like a drowning person grabbing a rope. She used it to anchor herself, to remember where she really was.

Training room. Not the tower. Training room.

Her own healing magic surged, finally finding a place to hold onto. She sent it flooding through her nervous system, not trying to overpower the curse but to understand it. Every spell had a structure, a rhythm. If she could match that rhythm with her healing magic, she could dispel it from within.

The nightmare flickered. Her friends' screams faded. The boss monster dissolved into shadow.

Batrire gasped as she found herself on her knees in the training room, Sog kneeling beside her with his hands glowing green as he tried to pull the curse back out of her.

"Stop," she managed. "I've got it."

"Like hell you do! Your lips were turning blue and—"

"Sog. Stop."

The demon froze, staring at her. Then slowly, he pulled his magic back.

Batrire closed her eyes and focused inward. The curse was still there, coiled around her spine like a parasite, but now she could feel its structure. It pulsed at a specific frequency, designed to resonate with fear and pain.

She wove her healing magic to match that frequency, then inverted it. Light against dark. Hope against fear. Life against death.

The Nightmare Toxin shuddered, its grip loosening. Then, thread by thread, it unraveled.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt weak but whole. No lingering damage. No after-effects.

"Holy Ockrim," Sog breathed. "You actually purged it yourself."

Batrire tried to stand, failed, then settled for sitting back against her staff. "How long was I under?"

"Maybe twenty seconds? Felt like forever."

"Twenty seconds." She laughed, though it came out shakier than she'd intended. "In a real fight, that's an eternity."

"But you survived it. And you broke free." Sog sat down beside her, his massive frame making her feel tiny by comparison. "That's something."

"It's not enough." Batrire stared at her hands, which were still trembling slightly. "I need to be able to counter it instantly. No delay. No nightmare. Just... immunity."

"You're insane."

"Probably." She finally managed to stand, using her staff for support. "Again."

"What?! No! You need to rest, recover your mana—"

"Sog." She met his eyes. "Again. While my body still remembers what the curse feels like. That's when I'll learn fastest."

The demon stood slowly, his expression torn between admiration and concern. "You really are the scariest healer I've ever met."

"Good." Batrire squared her shoulders, ignoring the way her legs still felt like jelly. "That's exactly what I'm going for."

They moved back to their positions. This time, Batrire didn't close her eyes. She kept them open, maintaining her awareness of both the physical world and the mana currents flowing through it.

When Sog's curse came at her again, she was ready.

Not ready enough—it still hit her, still dragged her into the nightmare.

But this time, she broke free in fifteen seconds.

They went again.

Twelve seconds.

Again.

Nine seconds.

By the twentieth attempt, Batrire was countering the Nightmare Toxin in under five seconds, her healing magic almost instinctively finding and neutralizing the curse's frequency.

"That's it," Sog finally said, holding up both hands. "I'm out of mana, and you look like you're about to collapse."

He was right. Batrire could barely stand, her mana reserves completely drained. But she was also smiling.

"I did it," she said softly. "Not perfectly, but I did it."

"You did." Sog moved to support her as her legs finally gave out. "Come on, let's get you to a chair before you pass out."

As he helped her toward the exit, Batrire's mind was already racing ahead to tomorrow's training session. Nightmare Toxin was just one type of curse. There were dozens of others she'd need to learn to counter. Paralysis. Petrification. Soul shatter. Mind control.

And beyond curses, there were the physical attacks. She needed to perfect her Counter Through Restoration technique, to make it cost less mana, to make it work against multiple hits in rapid succession.

The door opened, and Fowl stood there, a mug of ale in one hand.

"Heard screaming," the dwarf said, eyeing them both. "You two having fun without me?"

"Batrire is trying to kill herself through training," Sog explained. "Want to help?"

"Bah, finally someone with sense." Fowl grinned. "I've been sitting in dragon fire for three hours a day. We should compare notes."

Despite her exhaustion, Batrire found herself laughing. They were all insane, really. But if insanity was what it took to survive the coming centuries, she'd embrace it.

"Tomorrow," she told Fowl. "We'll train together tomorrow."

"Looking forward to it." The dwarf raised his mug in salute. "To healers who refuse to die."

"To healers who refuse to die," she echoed, and she meant it.