Chapter 990: Monstrous on the Inside

Delia looked up at the alien eyes looking down at her from within the dark hood. He held his hand out to her as his uncanny cloak vanished to reveal his face. His eyes dimmed, turning from strange nebulae to dark brown. She clasped his hand and he helped her to his feet. That she needed the assistance was startling, not having felt weak in years.

“Drink this,” he said, holding out a glass vial containing purple liquid. “It might taste a bit funny — my friend Jory has been experimenting with local ingredients — but it’s good.”

Delia pulled out the cork and swigged it down without hesitation. The taste was awful, like cheap salami coated in sugar, but the effect was immediate. She felt magic flood through her body, stronger than her own. The lacerations scoring her body closed, and her battered muscles were soothed.

“Was that a gold-rank potion?”

“Told you it was good. How are you holding up?”

She looked herself over. Through the rents in her clothes, she could see scars left behind where her wound had been.

“I don’t think it healed me right,” she said.

“It healed you right. We can talk about that after, though. We need to go get your people.”

“Are they alright?”

“No. I’m afraid they’re not.”

***

Eleven vampires dangled in the air over the cathedral’s carpark, held aloft by Jason’s aura. Four of them were snarling and thrashing like animals, flailing at the air. The others were calmer, their expressions ranging from fearful to calculating. Standing under them was a clone of Asano, but with solid red orbs for eyes.

“They’ve turned them,” Delia said, her voice shuddering as she stared at her team.

“The four are yours?” Jason asked.

“Yes.”

“The good news is, they’re not too far gone. Feed me your sins.”

Red light started shining from within the feral vampires, the representation of their life force. What should have been a bright, clean light was dim and murky. The taint immediately started to flow out of the feral vampires, floating through the air like smoke on a breeze. As the stain left the vampires, their life force regained the normal, healthy red glow. Their wild thrashing turned to confusion, then exhaustion, until they finally passed out. Jason gently lowered the four to the ground, leaving the others dangling in the air. Delia dashed over to check them over.

“You turned them back?”

“Forcible turnings usually result in a ghoul or a feral vampire. There’s a window, before the change fully sets in, where the vampiric curse can be purged. Anyone with a sufficiently powerful curse removal power can do the same. They’ll take time to fully recover, though. Healing magic doesn’t work on spiritual damage.”

“Spiritual damage?”

Rather than answer, Jason floated the four recovering bronze-rankers over to the grass.

“Colin, ask the vampires why they’re here. Take them somewhere that Delia won’t see or hear what happens to them.”

Delia finally looked at the copy of Jason. Although their features were identical, it was clear they were different people. The copy was looking at the vampires with a hunger that sent a chill down her spine.

Jason sat on the grass next to her unconscious subordinates and she did the same.

“You feel weak, right?” he asked her. “Like the energy that’s always been there, ever since you became an essence user, is suddenly gone?”

“What happened to me?” she asked.

“The same thing that happened to me a long time ago. There’s a village in the other world, at the foot of a small mountain, out in the desert. It has a waterfall that shoots out from a portal inside the mountain. Gorgeous little place, and the first one I ever visited in that world. Well, there was this English-style manor house in the middle of the desert where a bunch of cannibals lived, but doesn’t really count.”

“I would love to hear every story you have.”

“There’s some crazy stuff. More than one about this village, in fact, but let’s stick to this one for the moment. I ended up going back to the village later, while passing through the area with my companions. We were on a training tour, preparing to rank up. A monster spawned, far too much to handle. I took it on anyway, distracting it from the villagers scrambling to evacuate. I couldn’t win, of course, but every moment I could buy meant lives saved. I had a desperate hope that someone would come and save me, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t. I imagine the story is sounding familiar.”

“Too familiar,” Delia said with a shudder.

“Like you, I ended up passing out, thinking it was the end. Then I woke up, not quite the same. That was how I got my first and, to this day, still largest scar.”

Delia looked down at her arms and torso, seeing the scar tissue revealed by the rents in her clothes.

Stolen novel; please report.

“It wasn’t that the potion didn’t heal properly, is it?”

“No.”

“Scars. I didn’t think we could get those anymore.”

Jason pointed to the small scars on his face, bisecting one eyebrow and leaving a thin hairless line in his beard.

“I thought they were from before you had magic. That’s the general opinion online.”

“I can see why that would be a surprise, then. I haven’t used the internet much over the last couple of decades, but I assume it’s still a place where people are painstakingly careful about the integrity of information they put out.”

He waggled his eyebrows comically and she couldn’t help but laugh. Then, like a dam bursting, all the emotion came flooding out. Laughter turned to tears, her body shaking as she sobbed out the fear and panic, desperation and relief. Jason waited patiently for it to pass.

“I’m sorry,” she said after settling down.

“Don’t be. It’s better than bottling it up, trust me.”

She leaned back in the grass, looking over at her people.

“Are they really going to be alright?”

“They’re going to need a lot of therapy, but yes. You will too.”

“I’m fine.”

“I just watched you have an emotional breakdown.”

“I… have nothing to say to that.”