Chapter 21: Removing The Poison
"Then let's get started", Lorthic said as he walked into the magic formation and stood next to the stone slab.
Zazi stood to the side and remained quiet refraining from making even the smallest sound in fear that it might distract Lorthic from healing her mistress. The rest of the group remained outside to guard the room under the minuscule cause that somebody might try and disturbed Lorthic.
Noticing their movements it was clear to Lorthic how much they valued this mistress of theirs. Looking down in front of him Lorthic couldn't help but have a bit of respect towards this little woman in front of him, to have subordinates that would risk life and limb for her even when she had a foot in the grave instead of abandoning her.
Having experienced betrayal before on countless occasions, Lorthic knew well how fickle the hearts of people were, to be able to gather a group with such a strong bond was very hard in the world where Lorthic came from. Just take him as an example, he has protected his kingdom as its guardian for countless centuries, and yet he was betrayed by one of the kings for fear of him trying to someday usurp the throne.
Even now Lorthic found it difficult to determine whether he should laugh at this ridiculous reason or be furious. What was worst is that he is originally part of the royal family, being the elder brother of the current king's great ancestor. Because he was chosen to be the guardian of the kingdom he relinquished his title of crown prince and surname and Glorica and accepted the title and surname of Aegis.
Lorthic vanquished his unnecessary thoughts with a sigh before placing one hand on the woman's forehead and the other on her abdomen. Pouring a small amount of mana into her body he had the mana split into many microscopic bits before letting them fuse one by one with the woman's red blood cells. As those cells moved throught her body, Lorthic started getting a clearer picture of her body's inner workings, thus forming a map of autonomy specifically moduled to her particular body.
Blood had a very important function within the body as it was the carrier of a person's life force, moving it from the heart, where it was produced, all over the body to give it strength and bolster life. Knowing this Lorthic decided it would be best to fuse his mana with the blood cells to find the poison as the poison had hidden deep within the woman's body, but it still had to be in a place where it could devour her life force.
As Lorthic predicted it didn't take long before he sensed the poison hidden at an obscure location next to the woman's liver where it was stealthily trying to devour her blood cells and in turn her life force. At the moment the poison was struggling since the cells it was trying to devour at the moment contained faint wisps of Lorthics mana, and even though it was just a minuscule amount it was of such purity that it could overpower the entirety of a champions mana supply.
Having found the poison Lorthic was of course not going to allow it to continue to do as it pleases and devour more of the woman's life force, with unimaginable control he had the wisps of mana spread into many spider-like strings and interconnect with each other trapping the poison in a blue spiderweb.
The poison couldn't even try to exit the web throught the holes since the aura of the mana that formed the web alone pressured the poison. As time went on more and more wisps of mana made their way to the poison further strengthening the net and shrinking the size of the holes. In the end, the poison had nowhere to go and was completely trapped and restricted by these microscopic webs.
With a sigh, Lorthic relaxed as he had trapped the poison disabling it from doing further harm to the woman. The sigh also caused Zazi who was standing at the side to tense up.
With a bit of hesitation, she asked, "How is she?", worry prevalent in her voice. Her beautiful face marred with worry.
"I have trapped the poison within her body preventing it from doing any further harm, all that is left is to pull it out of her body.", Lorthic said with a calm voice.
Furrowing her brows, Zazi couldn't help but ask. "How are you going to do that?".
"I'll show you now", Lorthic said as he snapped his fingers causing the two magic formations to stop operating under Zazi's surprise. It was only natural for her to be surprised since it was very hard to control and others formation unless you had already seen through all its mysteries, thought she knew Lorthic had gleaned many of the mysteries of the formation that still didn't mean he could control it but right now she finally raised that he didn't just figure out some mysteries of the formation he had seen through the whole thing and his understanding of the formation was no worst than hers and rei's, maybe even greater.
Lorthic paid no mind the Zazi's surprised reaction as he rolled up his right sleeve showing his bone pale skin that was rather haunting than beautiful, looking like the arm of a corpse.
[Ghost arm]
Lorthic silently chanted as his skin became incorporeal exposing his blood vessels underneath and his flesh that also slowly fading then lastly his bones, leaving the harrowing sight of skin flesh, and bone all in one.
Before Zazi could even ask, Lorthic plunged his [Ghost Arm] not the woman's abdomen under her horror-stricken gaze. Before she could even yell she saw the bizarre scene of Lorthic hand and arm fazing into her mistress body.
Lorthic plunged his arm into the woman's body and grabbed the mana net that restricted the poison. The spell was something that was specifically created for interacting with incorporeal things such as energy and ghosts, but it could also be used to harm corporeal beings via incorporeal means, for example, if Lorthic were to use this arm and plunge it into a being's heart and pull out said beings life force origin he would kill the being immediately. There would be no chance of recovery unless the life force origin was returned. Doing this also did great damage to the being astral body insuring that until the damage to the astral body was healed or healed over a few thousand times, no matter how many times it reincarnated the body of this astral body would suffer from health issues.
With a slight pull, the net and poison followed and Lorthic easily pulled the poison out of the woman's body. Holding it in front of him, Lorthic and Zazi could finally see what it was that was harming the woman. Underneath what seemed like a faint blue glow was a green liquid-like substance.
Looking at the substance Zazi couldn't help but ask, "I have never seen anything like this before, do you know anything about it?", Zazi had already considered Lorthic a very knowledgeable person so she immediately asked him to help her identify the poison that had Aflickted her mistress for so many years.
Lorthic stared at the poison for a while before speaking as if asking "Ghoul Venom?", Furrowing his brows he stared intently at the poison for a while before taking his free hand and plunging a finger into the poison and pulling out a drop.
When the poison came into contact with his skin it immediately tried to penetrate throught it but was unable to merely flowing around his finger as it was helpless to stop him from pulling out a drop.
Looking closely at the drop of poison before concluding, "This is indeed Ghoul Venom", Lorthic said.
"I have never heard of such potent ghoul venom", Zazi couldn't help but be skeptical, true ghoul venom had the properties of corroding the body and devouring life force but she had never even heard of such a powerful form of ghoul venom.
"That is because this venom is made from mixing venom from different ghouls that are around a hundred years old and then concentrating it throught some art or formation. In the end, this must have been quite the prize of the person who used it, his heart must have been broken into pieces after using it because of grief. Well, that is the end of it, your mistress will be waking up within the next week so there is no need for further worry, though I will instruct you to ensure she consumes a lot of beast meat, to help strengthen her life force.
"Thank you", Zazi said with an ecstatic face.
"I was merely doing my job", Lorthic said as he stored the venom within a vile that he got from Braska.
"If you don't mind I will be taking my prize now", Lorthic said as he turned to the creatures that were part of the formation, now lying sprawled out on the floor. It was time to collect his reward.