Chapter 1620 – Healers On Call

The healers were around me before I even knew that they were coming. After my twenty defenders were dragged into the tree root and, I presume, shuffled back to the fortress, they came back for me, grumbling all the while.

“Having a nice nap, Eldest?”

“You know this is a war zone, right?”

“Serves you right for jumping off the platform.”

Look, I’ll tolerate a lot from the healers, I know how badly they get overworked, and the futility of trying to keep ants from getting injured, but that’s a bit much.

“Excuse me? ‘Jumped off the platform’? What sort of revisionist history is that?! I heroically and nobly fell from the platform.”

“You’re really going to bother replying to that when you should be using all of your mental energy to keep yourself alive?”

“You just expect us to do it for you, don’t you? Typical.”

“Hey, I’m working very hard to keep myself alive!”

“Then why isn’t it working?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because the virulent toxin of a literal Ancient is eating through my insides?”

“Sounds like you’re slacking.”

Honestly, I would like to reply to that, but I do actually have to spend almost all of my energy on containing the slowly unfolding disaster within me. Protectant and the others really helped me by pulling some of it away, but even a single drop is enough to be dangerous, and I’ve still got way more than that inside me.

To be honest, it’s awful. I can feel myself mutating inside. The mana isn’t just destroying, it’s changing me as it goes, twisting and warping everything it touches on its way through. I’ve already tried to flush the regeneration gland through my body, but it doesn’t attack the morphed tissue like it should, as if it recognises it as belonging to my body.

“I… I could use a little help,” I tell the healers. I just don’t have the strength to argue with them.

“What do you think we came here for?” one of them huffs, already poking and prodding at my carapace with her antennae. “Well, we came here for a few reasons, but you’re one of them.”

If the heart keeps filling up at this pace, I’m going to be underwater soon, condensed liquid mana putting everything except my antennae below the surface. Just how much of this stuff did we make?!

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Overhead, the battle has been joined. I’m vaguely aware of it, but I truly can’t spare the energy to see how it’s going. Tiny, Crinis and Invidia are there, I’m sure of it. They’ll take care of everything.

I have to believe that.

“Oh, what else did you come here for?” I ask the healers. “Complaining to me directly? You could have just sent me some mail.”