Chapter 122: Chapter 122

Sylph brought Damien over to her bed and laid him out in it, propping him upright against the wall. He looked down at himself for the first time since he’d awoken, realizing that his coat, shirt, and pants were gone. The only thing he was wearing was his underwear.

“They all got soaked with blood,” Sylph explained as he flushed red. She tossed a blanket over him, which Damien gratefully accepted. “And you probably shouldn’t blush right now. You’ve got little enough blood as it is.”

“Noted,” Damien said, laughing. “Did my coat survive at least?”

“Haven’t checked yet,” Sylph said. “It wasn’t a priority.”

“Right,” Damien said. “Thanks, by the way. I don’t think I’d said that yet.”

“You’re welcome,” Sylph replied. She gave him a grin. “Just try not to get blood over my bed as well.”

“I’ll do my best,” Damien said, laughing. The runes on his chest twinged and he ran a finger across them, grimacing. The gouges from the knife he’d used in Herald’s world were far from clean, but at least they were precise.

Luckily, they were no longer glowing. Less luckily, the dark tendrils had carried over. As Damien examined them, he was pretty sure he saw several of them move. They could almost have been mistaken for a very tasteless tattoo.

“What is that?” Sylph breathed, sitting down beside Damien and peering at his scarred chest. “Seriously, Damien. Are you okay? This doesn’t look good.”

“I’m not sure,” Damien replied honestly. “I think that, all things considered, I’m as good as I can be. Just a progression in my power. Probably.”

“Reassuring,” Sylph said, touching one of the inky tendrils. It shifted slightly and she pulled her hand back. “It’s alive?”

“I’m not sure alive is the right term,” Damien said. “But it’s not dead.”

“As long as you’ve got it under control,” Sylph said. “I’m going to get you some food. Are you going to be okay?”

“I think I can avoid killing myself over the span of the next few minutes,” Damien said.

Sylph cocked an eyebrow and glanced back at his bed. “Sure. Don’t get out of bed. I’m going to be pissed if you crack your skull standing up or something equally dumb.”

“I’ll sit right here,” Damien promised.

Sylph nodded and grabbed a few coins from her bag before striding out of the room, taking care to open the door as little as possible as she left. The moment she walked out of the door, Henry prodded Damien with a probe of mental energy.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked. “Herald managed to catch me off guard. He kept me out of his domain, so I couldn’t see what was going on. There was a flaw in my defenses that I’ve fixed, so he won’t be able to break in like that again.”

I’m mostly fine. He broke the bindings you put on the half of your soul, though. I managed to contain it… I think.

“I can tell,” Henry said angrily. “Your runes look good, if a little rushed. They’re not the most optimal choices, but I think they should work to contain most of it, at least until you get stronger.”

Most of it? So these tendril things… they’re the soul escaping?

“Essentially. They’re interacting with the Ether somehow, so we’ll have to keep a very close eye on this. It looks like your core has been seriously affected as well, but it doesn’t seem to be damaged. This is likely going to affect your magic, but it might actually be good. You’ll need to figure out just how much it changed you.”

Better stronger than dead, I suppose. Do you know how much time I’ve got before it breaks out?

“No more than two or three years,” Henry said. “And, at your current strength, it’ll do damage when it does. A lot of it. If I try to contain it by fighting, your body will be damaged. Your best bet is to get significantly stronger to the point where your own soul is either equally as strong or stronger than it. Then you’ll be able to absorb the power and knowledge within it. It’ll still affect you, but it doesn’t have a true will like a human soul does. It’s just information and energy, so you should still be yourself.”

Damien lapsed into silence, mulling over Henry’s words. He was still sitting there when Sylph walked back into the room carrying a canvas bag. She sat down on the bed beside Damien and revealed a platter of meat, cheese, and fruit.

“I bothered the clerk until he gave it to me,” Sylph said with a wry smile.

“Thank you,” Damien said. His stomach was knotted in pain, although he couldn’t tell if it was from his healing scars or hunger. There was only one of those problems he could solve at the moment, though.

He eagerly dug into the food, eating as quickly as he could without turning into a complete animal. Damien polished off the entire platter in record time and let out a relieved sigh. The pain had faded down to a much more controllable ache.

“Are you feeling better?”

“I think so,” Damien said. “Thanks again, Sylph.”

“You’re welcome. Are you sure this isn’t going to happen again? I can’t imagine it’s good for your body to constantly lose this much blood.”

“No idea,” Damien said. “Honestly, it’ll probably happen again, especially given who my contract is with.”

Sylph tilted her head. “It’s not really Henry, is it?”

“It is and it isn’t,” Damien replied, waggling his hand from side to side. “For all intents and purposes, I consider him my real companion. There’s just an unwanted tagalong with very set beliefs that I can’t get rid of along for the ride.”

“A sadistic one?”

“Not intentionally. I don’t think it is, at least. It’s hard to explain, and I really don’t understand it myself.”

“Fair enough,” Sylph replied. She nodded at his chest. “But what now? You can’t let Delph see that.”

“Nothing. We just keep moving on as if nothing happened,” Damien said. “If anything, we need to be worried about you. Your magic is half green now. Do you think you’ll be able to control that? All I do is bleed in my sleep. Delph doesn’t watch me do that. At least, I hope he doesn’t.”

“If you’re sure,” Sylph said, frowning. “And I think I should be able to get it more under control by the end of the week.”

She held up a hand. Dark energy condensed into it, forming into a small blade. It looked mostly black, although when Damien peered closer at it he could make out flickers of green within it.

“Not bad. I can barely tell the difference. What about the big increase in magical energy, though?”

“Breakthrough on the mission,” Sylph replied. “My core’s been broken enough times that I’ve basically had one. I’ll drop by the library to make sure, but I don’t think a huge boost in power is that uncommon from a breakthrough.”

“I’ve got to go to the library as well,” Damien said, carefully pushing the blanket back and slowly rising to his feet. “I owe Henry a trip.”

Sylph stood as well, keeping a close eye on Damien to make sure he didn’t fall over. He felt dizzy for a moment, but the feeling passed. When they got outside, the blood from the panther’s corpse was gone.

“First the guts, now the blood,” Damien observed as they walked past it. “Does the school employ cleaners?”

“I guess so. Maybe Reena and Nolan cleaned it because it was messing up their view,” Sylph suggested, smirking.

Damien laughed. It hurt his chest a little, but he didn’t let it show on his face. The walk to the library felt more arduous than it ever had before. Every few minutes, what felt like slimy, cold fingers traced across his chest near the rune circle as the design shifted.

He desperately wanted to look at it, but Damien didn’t dare reveal it in public. They reached the library and headed inside, nodding to the librarians as they walked past them.

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What books do you want?

“The question is what books you can get,” Henry replied. “If Herald is playing dirty, it’s got to be worried about something. As much as I’m starting to hate it, we might be wise to acknowledge it. I want to see if there’s any information on the corruption that your mortal compatriots might have gathered. We need a history of disasters. The more recent it is, the better. I don’t know if such things exist in a library like this.”

Only one way to find out.

Damien approached a librarian tending to one of the bookshelves with Sylph close behind him.

“Excuse me,” Damien said, getting the tall woman’s attention. “Is there a section with recent history? Something that covers natural disasters and similar topics.”

The librarian blinked. “That’s not a common question. It’s always nice to see students interested in the world’s current affairs, but I don’t know if the Blackmist Library would have anything like that. I can certainly check, though.”

Her fingers danced across the air in front of her, simultaneously drawing ten runes in faint blue light. Damien’s eyes widened as beams of light shot out from her, vanishing through the bookshelves.

A few moments later, a book sailed through the air and landed in her outstretched hands. It was thin and covered with a faint layer of dust. She brushed the cover clean with a faint, disapproving frown.

“What appalling condition,” the librarian said. “However, this book does seem to cover a period up to about five years ago. It doesn’t seem to be particularly thorough, though. You may have better luck at a major city rather than Blackmist, as our books are more focused on combat and the research of magic.”

“Thank you,” Damien said, taking the book from her. There wasn’t even a title on it – the cover was just blank. It was more of a binder than a book.

“Do you have anything about breakthroughs?” Sylph asked. “Core breakthroughs.”

“Certainly. We have an entire section dedicated to it. Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”

“The circumstances for a breakthrough,” Sylph said, scrunching her nose as she thought. “And maybe prerequisites for it.”

“A frequent question,” the librarian said, looking slightly apologetic. “There’s a very common book that will answer your questions. I do feel compelled to warn you that breakthroughs difficult to achieve, even if you meet all the requirements. Don’t base your future on one. Even if you aren’t strong, you can improve in other ways.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sylph said, inclining her head. “Thank you for your kind words. Where can I find the book?”

The librarian drew a single rune. The air popped as a large blue book snapped into her hand, faint energy shimmering around it and fading rapidly. A title in large, bold letters declared its name to be the Core Primer.

Sylph took the book from the librarian. “Thanks for your help.”

“Of course. Is there anything else the two of you need?”

Henry stirred again. “I finished the last novel. Ask her if she’s got anything with raunchier scenes. The other stuff was too tame.”

“We’re good,” Damien said, giving Henry a mental flick to the forehead. “Thanks again.”

The librarian waved them farewell as the two headed to the front desk, checking out their books before walking back towards their room in the mountain. On the way back, they stopped by the General Store so Damien could buy two new pairs of bedsheets, a new pillow, and some cleaner. When they got back to their room, Mark and the Grays were sitting outside.

Nolan held a paper aloft in the air before him with a victorious expression. He turned as they arrived, lowering it with an embarrassed grin.

“Hello,” Nolan said, nodding in greeting. “How did your quest go?”

“As good as could be expected,” Damien replied with a noncommittal shrug. “We survived. That’s what matters, right?”

They all laughed, although Mark seemed to catch onto the note of seriousness in Damien’s tone.

“What do you have there?” Damien asked, nodding at the paper.

“It’s homework for my Rune Carving class. I’m late on it, but the teacher let me have an extension, and this is my fifty eighth attempt. I think it looks good.”

Damien squinted at it. The runes were blocky, but the strokes were mostly clean. “It’s good progress for sure, but this rune is wrong. You’ve got an extra dot of ink that’ll interfere with its function.”

Nolan followed Damien’s finger to the rune in question. He groaned and tossed the paper onto the ground, pinning it there with his foot before the wind could steal it. “Damn it. Why is this so hard?”

“It’s still magic,” Damien pointed out. “Just a very different kind. If it was easy, everyone could do it.”

“Maybe you should have practiced more interesting hobbies at home,” Reena said, smirking at Nolan. “Father will be disappointed if you fail Rune Carving when I pass Magic Theory.”

“Bah. I’ll pass. You just focus on yourself,” Nolan replied, rolling his eyes. “You’ve had what, like one assignment? I’m trying to learn a whole new language. Say, Mark, what are you learning in your class?”

“Meditation, mostly,” Mark replied with a disinterested shrug. “It’s not very engaging. We just sit there. The quest was a welcome change of pace, but it was done too fast. I’m honestly starting to get restless.”

“Maybe we should try sparring again,” Reena suggested. Everyone winced at the thought of what had happened the last time they’d gone to the arena, but she crossed her arms. “We can’t avoid it forever, guys. Besides, I heard that the bully ran away from school after getting demolished by that healer.”

“Our quest was more grueling than expected,” Damien said, adjusting the bundle of bedding under his arm. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to spar today, although I might be tomorrow or the day after.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Mark said. “And Sylph in particular. I’m curious to see how I stand against her.”

“It hasn’t been that long since the tournament,” Reena pointed out. “What do you think changed since then?”

“A few weeks can change much,” Mark replied, shrugging. “We’ll find out.”

“I never even said I could spar anytime soon,” Sylph said.

“But Damien said he’d be able to,” Nolan said. “You two do everything together, don’t you?”

“No! Well, yes. But that’s not the point,” Sylph said. She quickly realized that this wasn’t an argument she was going to win, so she just rolled her eyes and strode over to their room, pushing the door open and heading inside.

“See you guys soon,” Damien said, nodding in farewell before following after her.

He set his new bedding down on top of Sylph’s bed and sighed. His bed was so soaked in blood that it looked like a giant, disgusting raisin. It didn’t smell particularly good either.

With a grimace, Damien started prying the ruined sheets off. The bed itself had been spared the brunt of the surprise redecoration and only had a few stains. Damien deemed them acceptable and bundled his sheets into a ball. He cast Devour and tossed them inside. The portal closed behind them with a snap, but it did little to clean the blood staining the ground.

Luckily, stone was relatively easy to clean. The cleaner he’d bought from the clerk had come in a small brown bottle. He’d been skeptical of it initially, but the man had sworn up and down that it would clean anything and anything within seconds.

Damien twisted the top of the bottle off and jerked his head back as the sharp, acidic smell of the cleaner nearly singed his nostril hairs. He tipped a few droplets of the liquid onto the bloody stone. It sizzled and started to bubble. One quick wipe of a towel later, the blood in that area of the floor was gone.

The cleaner was so effective that it only took a few minutes to bring his half of the room back to looking almost normal. It smelled slightly of cleaning fluid, but at least it wasn’t a nightmare scene.

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