The air was thick with the stench of scorched metal and the bitter tang of divine judgment. Narsiz knelt in a pool of blood, Mathilda’s head cradled against the wadded remains of his uniform. His white shirt, once crisp and pristine, now clung to him like a second skin, soaked through with crimson and sweat from chest to knees.
“Everything will be fine.” The lie scraped his throat like ash, each word a struggle against the panic clawing at his chest. His lips quivered as he shaped them into what he hoped was a reassuring smile, sweat burning his eyes while his ears pinned flat against his skull and his tail lay frozen with terror. Beneath the brittle facade, his breath came in shallow, uneven pulls—the rhythm of someone barely keeping themselves together.
Blood surged from the wound in Mathilda’s chest in a slow, taunting rhythm, each pulse a cruel reminder of how little time remained. Residual [Holy Energy] twined around the injury like gilded barbs, consuming Styx’s healing potions the instant they met flesh. On this battlefield, traditional medicine was laughable—even the talisman’s [Nature Energy], forced directly into the wound, hissed and recoiled as if scalded, unable to root against the invasive divine corruption.
‘Think,’ Narsiz ordered himself, shoving his mind into a cold, analytical state—an imitation of others he once considered worth emulating. ‘Resources, time, limitations’—what can truly be salvaged?
All they could manage was to chip away at the invasive [Energy] while patching the most critical damage. “Head and torso only,” Narsiz ordered sharply when he noticed Styx wasting ever dwindling resources on a necrotic arm. “The rest just drains what little we have left.”
Without hesitation, Narsiz drew his ink-coated dagger and, with swift, precise strokes, severed Mathilda’s limbs one by one, simultaneously siphoning the blood from each extremity into a hovering sphere that shimmered like one of Alexander’s mana constructs. The orb pulsed above them, thin threads of crimson weaving back into her body to provide the vital supply she so desperately needed.
Narsiz needed to conserve every resource. The blood spilling from her wounds remained beyond his grasp at first—his [Mana Manipulation] too weak to pierce the natural [Energy] barrier. Only once the limbs were severed and cut off from the [Energy Core] could he draw it in, and even then the task was grueling.
‘I need a [Skill] to manage all this at once… urgh.’ His head pounded as the blade hissed after each cut, cauterizing and enchanting while his [Mana Hands] pressed talismans into place. None of the tasks was difficult alone, but together it was like controlling a dozen arms at once, each demanding precision, the strain threatening to tear his mind apart.
Still, it had to be worth it—or so he told himself, clinging to the cold logic. Limbs could be regrown; her survival was the only priority. Leaving the extremities intact would only bleed away their dwindling potions and talismans, the precious [Nature Energy] diluted through useless flesh. The less wasted, the stronger her chances.
“Are you crazy?! Why are you—” Styx’s voice cracked with horror and disbelief.
Mathilda’s voice cut through the haze of Styx’s panic, thin and brittle like wind threading through dead leaves as she watched her limbs being severed. “I… don’t understand.” Blood seeped from the corner of her mouth, trailing in a slow line down her cheek. “Why doesn’t it hurt?”
“Don’t worry, you’re just feeling a bit drowsy,” Narsiz murmured, his tone shaky yet steady as enchantments shimmered around the severed limbs. They weren’t healing spells at all, but assassination enchantments, meant to dull nerves against poison darts and venomous cuts, crafted so victims never realized they’d been struck until it was too late—akin to mosquito bites.
By altering the enchantments—making them bluntly obvious instead of hidden—he could strip away every trace of pain from catastrophic wounds. Once designed to lull enemies into false confidence until their bodies collapsed, the technique now twisted into something almost merciful. Combined with a sleep spell, the whole situation was very similar to what Alexander described as a surgery.
Narsiz brushed his fingers gently over Mathilda’s eyelids before turning to Styx. “Head and heart only—don’t let her slip under any circumstance.” His expression shifted, part sheepish, part grimly determined. “And… ignore me for a while. What I’m about to attempt is reckless in the extreme.”
Styx swallowed hard but obeyed, his hands moving with strained precision as he continued feeding potions and pressing talismans onto Mathilda’s limbless form.
‘Madness to even attempt this,’ Narsiz admitted as he drew in a sharp breath, ‘but what other choice do I have?’
With a crooked smile worthy of Sarusos himself, Narsiz conjured multiple compact constructs—like a fireball, but much smaller and far more focused—manifesting it inside his own body at key points: ear drums, optic nerves, tongue, and alongside the olfactory nerve. To push past his limits, to hone every shred of mana skill into razor precision, he had to silence four of his five senses, killing them one by one.
‘Urgh!’ The backlash struck at once—a brutal torrent of agony ripping through bone and sinew, blood flooding in thin, merciless streams from his nose, ears, lips, and eyes.
The agony threatened to drag him under, but he clung stubbornly to consciousness, forcing himself to remain kneeling at Mathilda’s side. His [Mana Sense] now burned with a clarity tenfold sharper than before, every other distraction scoured away to nothing.
‘I’m no Alexander,’ he admitted grimly—his mana skills nowhere near the spectacle the so?called ‘Archmage Puppy’ could conjure. ‘But even I can pull it off with a touch of madness. All it takes is crippling myself to forge a heart,’ he added with biting sarcasm.
It worked. Through raw [Mana Sense], the world unfolded as a vast symphony of energy. Mathilda’s mana veins pulsed and contracted in delicate rhythm, Styx’s efforts traced steady and sure, while the alien corruption of [Holy Energy] writhed like a discordant note. The divine residue revealed itself as a malignant cancer, golden threads burrowing deep into tissue, freezing the wound in lethal perfection.
‘Around fifty potions left… a hundred talismans at best… maybe ten minutes,’ he tallied with clinical detachment. Time itself was the real enemy. In ideal conditions, with endless stockpiles of high?grade supplies, even a severed head could be kept breathing. But here, amid the wreckage of battle, the arithmetic spelled out a brutal, unmovable deadline.
Narsiz shoved his sleeves past his elbows, ink-stained fingers trembling as mana ink streamed toward him in serpentine ribbons. Hundreds of uncorked vials in his spatial pouch bled their contents into the air, the black currents coiling tight around his forearms before plunging—unyielding and deliberate—into the yawning wound in Mathilda’s chest.
‘[Medicine], [Biology], [Anatomy], and [Surgery],’ he called upon his most basic [Skills]—arts once honed for studying victims and inflicting precise torment, now pressed into service to save a life. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on him: the same techniques once meant for suffering were now his only chance of preservation.
Through his heightened perception, the mana ink slid into the divine residue like a living shadow, coiling around the corruption to quarantine it while carving narrow channels for blood to flow. The [Holy Energy] loomed like a void that devoured light, but the ink pressed it back, containing it and denying it the chance to spread while suffocating it like a fire that needed to burn through.
At first, healing seemed possible. Why not simply restore an entire heart once the [Holy Energy] was isolated? But nothing could be conjured from thin air. He had to rebuild with talismans from the outer edges inward. Every single vein and artery—restoration could only begin at living tissue, growing outward from what still endured.
‘Okay… time to begin.’ Once the first outer layer was restored, the ink followed his will, threading deeper as he drove it into the work of reconstruction. Each droplet spread thin, shaping itself into tissue, valves, arteries—invisible details that strained his [Mana Sense] to its breaking point as he struggled to summon every nuance of a heart from memory.
Fortunately, he wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he wouldn’t make mistakes. Each time he sensed a new talisman being applied, he deliberately left small gaps in the reconstructed heart, allowing its energy to seep in, close the breach, and give him guidance on what to adjust next.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
It wasn’t enough.
All of Narsiz’s backup plans collapsed into nothing—each one exposed as wishful overreach, the result of him gravely overestimating himself.
‘What is wrong here?!’ Frustration tore at him as Mathilda’s body convulsed violently. The heart was anatomically sound in its fundamentals, yet it refused to function properly. With every beat, blood coursed incorrectly, each misstep turning circulation into chaos—painful, unstable, and maddeningly beyond Narsiz’s understanding.
Even the surge from his rapidly growing [Skills] offered no salvation. If anything, it made things worse—new fragments of knowledge and instinct crashing into him, forcing him to alter his plan again and again until the chaos threatened to unravel everything.
He broke down the construction and rebuilt it.
Not enough.
Again.
Still not enough.
Again.
He rebuilt the heart half a dozen times in less than two minutes, each attempt edging closer to perfection yet still failing. Something essential remained missing—an elusive element no textbook could ever provide.
‘Wait…’ As the mana ink unraveled once more, and he readied himself to try again, a sudden spark flared—a memory of Alexander’s manic grin during one of his so?called ‘impossible’ projects.
He remembered standing at the far end of the monorail project, watching Alexander rally the exhausted artisans and engineers who hadn’t seen sunlight in weeks. His brother promised them fortunes for their toil, wealth enough to make barons of common men if they endured a few more months.
But during one of those rousing speeches—so effective on outsiders, so ineffective on his own crew—Alexander proved, in the most idiotic way possible, why a strong brake system was essential. The train slithered into the hall, and as he strode before it with the carefree confidence of a puppy, it failed to stop in time and sheared his foot clean off.
Alexander could’ve avoided it—he could have simply used [Flash]. But no. He stood his ground and took it head?on.
It healed quickly enough, but to Narsiz it remained a searing example of reckless brilliance. His brother was a fool, yes—but that very foolishness carried its own kind of inspiration. Not only for the artisans who finally grasped the importance of brakes, but for Narsiz himself. Now, staring at Mathilda’s failing heart, the memory flared like a spark: the seed of an idea, the glimpse of what had to be done.
‘I understand now.’ His smile widened as comprehension struck like lightning. This was about Alexander’s brand of beautiful madness—the unbridled arrogance to reach for the impossible, to risk everything for the intoxicating high of creating something that brushed against divinity itself.
‘Haven’t I already been carrying the perfect blueprint all along?’
A portion of the ink ceased its attempts at reconstruction and instead burrowed into his own skin like parasitic worms, flowing through his bloodstream to map every detail of his functioning cardiovascular system. Each pulse, each branching vessel became a template.
‘No need for gods or divinity,’ Narsiz thought with growing arrogance, the pain becoming secondary to the intoxicating rush of creation. ‘Just the genius of mortals. Just a Leonandra’s pride refusing to accept limitations.’
The ink began to weave not a mere replacement, but a living masterpiece—an organ where function and artistry fused seamlessly. Multiple chambers coiled in a spiral design, each able to shift pressure on its own. Valves unfurled like flower petals, their rhythm a hypnotic dance. The core rotated with deliberate grace, drawing blood through intricate spirals that promised circulation beyond anything nature itself had conceived.
Replication? No. Narsiz could forge something greater—an organ not merely restored, but reborn in beauty and power.
‘A little more… just a bit.’ The taste of iron faded from his mouth, replaced by the bitter tang of ink as his vision collapsed into darkness. The soft bubbling in his ears gave way to sharp, oppressive silence, as though he were drowning in nothingness. Every fiber of his being became a living conduit for [Masterful Writing], each motion deliberate and exact even as agony gnawed at him without pause.
His own heart felt clamped in an unyielding fist, lungs constricting with fluid, every physical sensation stripped away until only pure, absolute awareness of mana remained. Through that enhanced perception, he watched his creation take shape—layer by meticulous layer, each enchantment settling over the last until the mana ink became something unprecedented.
‘Perfect,’ he thought with savage satisfaction as the artificial heart synchronized with Mathilda’s circulatory system. The [Holy Energy] found itself not expelled, but contained—wrapped in cocoons of ink that denied it room to spread while allowing the new organ to function flawlessly.
The creation radiated a beauty that defied the boundaries of medicine and divinity. Chambers gleamed like polished obsidian, valves unfurled with the grace of morning blossoms, and every ink-forged vessel pulsed with an inner light. It didn’t merely function—it surpassed the original, a design born greater than what nature had given her.
‘She’ll be stronger than before,’ Narsiz realized with growing excitement. ‘Faster circulation, better pressure regulation, enhanced endurance—’
A sudden shove sent him sprawling; his concentration shattered. Through fading [Mana Sense], he felt Styx’s steady presence and, more importantly, the flawless rhythm of Mathilda’s new heart beating in perfect synchronization with her body.
‘It’s done,’ he thought with exhausted triumph as consciousness began to slip away.
The voice belonged unmistakably to Milo, who now stood beside them with disarming casualness despite the brutal evidence of Sarusos’s assault. One arm was completely gone, his small frame battered, and a single wing dragged limply in the dirt. Yet his smile radiated forced cheer, a poor mask for obvious exhaustion.
Styx’s hand flared briefly with flames before pain made him flinch and the [Energy] guttered out. Even so, he forced himself upright, posture braced for combat despite his injuries.
As Milo turned to leave, Narsiz’s voice cut through the tension, raspy but carrying measured curiosity—hoping to still talk correctly.
Milo halted mid-stride, shoulders sagging as exhaustion finally showed through his facade. His gaze swept over their battered group, lingering on Mathilda’s strange new heart and the dark pools of blood soaking the stone.
He turned back, each step deliberate.
Narsiz studied the angel carefully, his [Mystic Skill] probing for deception and finding none. Milo genuinely wanted nothing more than to escape this mess. Here was someone with respectable talent who’d been dragged unwillingly into chaos—making an ally was infinitely wiser than making an enemy. Especially as he was ready to help them.
“I wish you safe travels—” Narsiz began, only to pause as his nose twitched, catching a familiar scent carried on the stale underground air, able to break through his missing sense of smell. A mixture of ozone and barely contained fury that made his hackles rise. “I apologize in advance for the upcoming inconvenience.”
The words died in Milo’s throat as [Wild Demonic Energy] erupted from the opening they’d fallen through. A colossal, canine-shaped maelstrom of scarlet power descended like divine judgment, condensing into a snarling beast of pure [Energy] that positioned itself protectively over Narsiz.
The construct’s presence was overwhelming—raw power that made the air shimmer with heat while its burning eyes fixed on Milo with predatory focus. Yet despite the threatening posture, Narsiz managed to rein it in with a subtle gesture.
“Stand down,” he commanded quietly. “The angel is under my protection.” His smile at Milo was thin but genuine. “I’m afraid you’ll need to remain with us temporarily. My mother—Lady Marisia of the eastern Leonandra territory—is involved in this situation. But you have my word as a noble of Moorgrel that you’ll be treated with appropriate courtesy.”
The implications were clear: refusal wasn’t truly an option, but cooperation would be rewarded.
Milo stared up at the looming [Energy] construct, recognition flickering across his features as the pieces fell into place. As a scout and spy, he understood political realities better than most. His remaining hand trembled slightly before he forced a crooked smile.
Despite everything—the pain, exhaustion, and lingering taste of blood—Narsiz found himself chuckling. “Of course, Milo. I’ll make sure the kitchens are notified.”
The absurdity of the moment wasn’t lost on any of them: surrounded by devastation from their battle with a divine beast, Mathilda sporting an artificial heart that resembled abstract art more than anatomy, and here they were discussing an enemy angel’s breakfast preferences as if he were merely a troublesome houseguest.
Patreon—30 and more advanced chapters for 5$
RoyalRoad—please rate, follow, and fav!
Discord—feel free to debate me. I am ready to go for it!