30 Healing The Wounds

"Great Devil? Is she talking to me?" thought Darkscale, looking at the kneeling humans. This was the first time that someone voluntarily treated him with such respect.

Usually, humans laughed at him or tried to shoo him away, like if he was some kind of pest. Which, in a certain sense, he was. Even Winter Leaf, the human he first enslaved, didn't act that submissive until he made it clear that he had her life in his hands. Only then she started to comply and use that obedient tone.

The green haired woman, seeing that the violet-eyed creature was responsive to their plea, got back up on her feet and started moving towards the serpent.

"Great Devil, these Fire Earth despicable cowards attacked our peaceful Forest Will convoy! Help us and we will forever serve you in gratitude!" she exclaimed with a graceful voice.

The Forest Will Tribe hunters that helped her before were all looking at her dumbfounded. They didn't know that this was her plan from all along. They did what she asked because she was a member of the Leaf family and she said that she had a plan to save them from the Fire Earth warriors. However, none of the archers ever thought that that plan would imply becoming the servant of a Devil.

"What? The hairless monkey want to become my servant?" Darkscale's eyes widened in shock. He really didn't know what was happening. The change in the situation was so great that he remained there stunned, allowing the green haired woman to continue submerging him with coaxing words.

"I'm Star Leaf, of the Leaf clan! I hereby declare to forever serve you, Great Devil. Help us beat our enemy! Now they're your enemies as well!"

"Not bad, not bad at all..." suddenly interjected the calm voice of Carelia.

"Uh, what are you saying?" asked the reptile, curious about the Artificial Intelligence opinion on the matter.

"Uhm... I think she... I think that you can use this human, master Darkscale!" said firmly the MAID after a moment of hesitation.

"Use her? Like Winter Leaf?" asked again Darkscale, dubious.

"No, this one is way better... you should really be careful to not damage her in any way" responded the Artificial Intelligence, but didn't explain why this human was better than the one that he already captured. Nor why he shouldn't damage her in any way.

In the meantime, Godermo was still fighting against the light that kept him immobile on the ground. He growled with rage, using all his strength to resist the binding spell and the same time he was losing his mind trying to understand how could he be led to such a trap.

"How did he do it?"

He didn't believe that the trap had been there from the beginning. It wasn't possible! He couldn't have known that the fight would have brought them towards that zone. How did he have the time to prepare a complex system of runes like those in the exact place that the fight led them to?

Plus he was the one that led the attack, the serpent only defended. If someone was to blame for choosing the ground of the battle, that was him. He led himself right into the trap. This could only mean two things: the damned snaked was clairvoyant or he created the runes while he was fighting with him.

"Impossible! I refuse to believe this" screamed loudly the man. The screaming and growling of their leader was also the center of the attention of the remaining marauders. They obviously panicked, seeing their boss being beaten and imprisoned by what seemed solid light.

The raider had also assisted in the battle and saw the prowess of their leader, but in the end he was defeated nonetheless. None of them had the audacity to think that they could save him or defeat the creature that had imprisoned him.

In fact, it was the complete contrary: many warriors started to run away, preferring returning to their land with the little that they already took from the cadavers of their enemies and the broken wagons to remaining there and hope for the best. They came for getting rich not to fight to the death. While for some moments the leader of their party managed to make them go completely crazy and even against their own interests by attacking without caring for their injuries, now their berserker rage was over. Godermo had been defeated. They all saw him get beaten and trapped. That made his magic break, bringing them back to reality.

Soon even the more loyal member of the raiding party could do nothing but to turn and leave: they were too few to engage in a fight against the remaining Forest Will Tribe Hunters.

They ran away to the edge of the forest, and after giving a last look to their dear commander for the last time they fled towards the Fire Earth Region, followed by the sniping fire of the Forest Will Tribe Hunters.

"Dammit! How did you do it!" continuously screamed Godermo, attracting Darkscale attention back to him.

"Uh, he still can move?" murmured the snake, surprised by the persistence of the red clothed marauder. "But the seal is working, why he isn't already under my control?" questioned the reptile when he tried to sense the bond between himself and the raider and found none present.

"He's too strong" said an echo inside his mind. "He has a very high level of Tempering for a simple mortal, meaning that his flesh is full of energy" continued Carelia, with a plain voice.

"Then how do I make him my servant?" asked Darkscale.

"You can't, not with a technique of this level" revealed the MAID. Then after a small silence, she gave her suggestion on the merit "... you need to kill him, and fast!"

"What? then why on earth I took this beating to seal him?" Darkscale was pissed off! He used his own blood to create the runes! His own blood!

The whole system of runes that was allowing the creation of the many chains of binding light was drawn with his vital essence using Will Manipulation. Even if the pain that the whole ordeal caused him could be ignored, the concentration that he had to use to drawn those symbol while also fighting with the chieftain without making him notice his actions was otherworldly.

And now they were telling him that all that had been for naught? That he could have simply attacked him and killed him like another of those Fire Earth warriors? No! Darkscale refused to believe that.

"It wasn't for nothing!" immediately reassured him Carelia. " Now you can bring him inside the Blue Cave and sacrifice him to the Ghost Pond. While he isn't a cultivator, he is worth dozens of souls!" said gently the MAID, explaining why she didn't say nothing when Darkscale decided to implement such a bizarre attack method.

"Oh well, at least I did gain more energy for the Blue Cave...." considered the snake trying to encourage himself. He then looked at his lower body, and the terrible wound that was still bleeding.

"I guess it's time to work on that..."

He flashed toward the rune that he had created a while ago, the one that he had to leave because of the sneak attack of the Fire Earth Tribe chief warrior. When he arrived on top of it he didn't try to activate it directly: he knew that it wouldn't work without repairing. So he did just that: he repaired it with his own blood on the zones ruined by the blade of his enemy.

His red liquid essence poured out from his wound and started to move around the air, almost as it was kept inside an invisible flask. Then from this flasks, a thin thread of blood started to move towards the ground, repairing the already existing rune on the ground.

At the center of the array, sat Darkscale, concentrating completely on his Will Manipulation. Being the only thing he had to focus his whole attention on, the array was ready in almost no time.

"Activate!"

He was there, sitting in the very middle of the arcane marks, and started to operate the Pretorian's Breath at its max. This time he wasn't trying to reinforce his cultivation base using the Heavenly Battleground Technique. He was simply using the technique to only replenish his energy and cure his wounds.

As had happened before, gran part of the energy he absorbed went first into his body. The wound on his black scales started to heal pretty fast and in a few dozen minutes there was only a scar where before there was a horrendous opening.

"Done" said with satisfaction the snake, stopping temporarily the technique and looking around at the desolate battleground around him.

He examined first Goderno, who was still bound to the ground without any way to save himself and then Winter Leaf that was still unmoved in the same position of before, bowing deeply in his direction. He then turned towards Star Leaf, a slick smile appearing on his face.