EG Book 7 Chapter 32 (Patreon)

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

Sorry about yesterday, life got the best of me. All of the rest of the book will be going up tonight!

Chapter 1/5 today!

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

“Aiden, you have to let go of the staff!” Vaya screamed.

I don’t have a staff, I thought, but was unable to speak. I hurt too much. A moan was the only sound I could make.

“Just cut his hand off,” Ming said, “He is dying. Hold it straight!” A sharp pain cleared my mind.

I opened my eyes to find Vaya and Jamila both kneeling by my head. I lifted my right arm up to see that it now ended just below my elbow. The area above my elbow didn’t look good either, with muscle and bone visible. A stream of soothing Aether shot into me, wrapping my arm in Wood and Water while Life and Healing Aether searched through my internals.

“What happened?” Vaya asked, looking to where Sia, in his smallest form, stood near my head.

“There was an aware undead that was nearing Constructed Core in strength,” Sia said. “They used Disease and Corruption Aether, I think. To make it back, Aiden took a full powered blow from them.”

“Corruption and Disease, that is what that feeling is,” Jamila whispered to herself.

I tried to speak, but Vaya just shushed me. “We need to concentrate,” she said. “The enemy’s Aether is fighting back. Rest, gather if you can, but rest.”

I nodded, a tiny movement that was the most I could do, then dropped into my center. “Wow, no wonder I’m not very functional,” I said with a gasp. My center and Core were empty of Aether, and the only Essence left was the corrupted stuff from the Gallu.

Aether was starting to pour in, though it only came in fits and starts rather than a steady stream like it should. “Gather, if you can,” Jamila’s voice echoed through her Aether as it wrapped around my center. Tinges of pain flared through me as she fixed tiny pieces of my center where the Corruption Aether had, well, corrupted my physical and metaphysical flesh.

I couldn’t form any runes, so I was limited to gathering like I had when I first started, before I had any technique. My mind reached out to the space around me, visualizing the Aether as motes. I reached out and grabbed every mote that was within my body and pulled.

Every drop of Aether that wasn’t mine, the atmospheric or natural Aether that permeated the world and drove life here, within my grasp was sucked into my Core with no discernible effort. “Huh,” I said, then reached beyond me, mentally enlarging the net I’d imagined to cover a meter in all directions. With a jerk, my Core received all of it again. That felt like the first time I’d ever gathered, the tiny strain of grabbing only a few motes, only for a result unimaginably greater.

I spent a few minutes just grabbing the Aether in that meter radius sphere, letting my system get used to it, before I finally had enough Aether to create the Spiral Gathering Technique. The Aether structures formed, and immediately my gathering meridians screamed in pain. I grunted and strained, Vaya’s han pressing on my head as she tried to soothe me.

I shattered my technique, then rebuilt it with only three spirals, vastly reducing the speed. It was enough to create a tiny strain, pain that was barely noticeable among the other aches and pains that covered me. I moved my mind along the gathering meridians, and found dozens of spots where Corruption, Disease, and Death had damaged my body that impacted them.

Each second, the damage was healed a miniscule amount as the environmental Aether became my own, flowing into the meridians and cleansing them of the injury. At the rate it was going, though, I wouldn’t be fully healed for months. And that’s why we do not rely only on natural healing, I thought as I pulled a stream of Aether out of my Core. It wasn’t much, as I was basically just redirecting the input of my gathering technique into healing.

I formed the runes of my self-healing technique around the first spot of Diseased flesh, and let the Aether crush the infection created. “He is Diseased,” Vaya said. “Light, Jon, Ming, I need you to hold his legs! Keep him still!”

Confused, I let my perspective move to my full body, only to discover it was mid-seizure. The joining left me confused, my brain suddenly affecting my consciousness exponentially more than it had been only seconds ago. I struggled for a second, then separated them again. “Light and Darkness, I’m way more hurt than I expected,” I sighed. “Sia, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Sia answered, “You idiot. You were supposed to share the damage with me, leaving us both injured but not crippled. Instead, you took it on yourself, and now Jamila is panicking that you are going to die on her.”

“Can you tell her I’ll be fine please? I can’t talk right now,” I asked.

“If you cannot talk, why do you think you will be fine? Hold on,” he said, and I felt a push on my stomach, vaguely connecting my mental body with my physical one. Sia’s Aether jumped into me, connecting through my meridians and flooding into my center. “Now, heal and recover. We will talk later about your idiocy.”

“Fine,” I told him, dragging out the middle syllable, then laughed at the exasperation I felt through our Bond. The massive influx of Aether was hugely beneficial, though. I immediately grabbed a massive handful and fueled my healing technique more, trying to fix my gathering meridians.

After a few minutes, I scanned my body again, and found Jamila was working on fixing my arm, or what was left of it, while Vaya continued to support my heart, lungs, and center. “Wow,” I told myself after I scanned my body, “how am I alive?”

“Your ridiculous amount of tempering, the strength of a Seed Core gatherer, our Bond, and two miraculous healers,” Sia said, appearing in my center as a bird made of pure Fire.

“Hey, welcome to, uh, me,” I said.

He shook his head, mirroring one of my mannerisms, then sighed. “Come on. Show me the healing technique you use, and I will direct some of our Aether.”

“Thanks, really,” I said.

His projection flapped over to mine, landing on my shoulder, then he slapped my head with his wing. “We are Bonded, now and forever. I will not lose you to stupidity.”

“Fine, fine,” I said, fending off his wing with a laugh. I grabbed Aether and flew up my lower gathering meridian. “So, I’ve been focusing more on the Disease than the Corruption and Death injuries. It seems like they are more aggressive at trying to spread, and fixing them is giving Vaya some breathing room.”

“Got it,” Sia said.

I demonstrated the healing technique, talking through each rune and how they connected along with the process of applying the Aether to the damaged sections. After two injured spots, skipping another three of the other two types, Sia hopped off my shoulder and pecked my ear. “I will work on your upper gathering meridian, and will inform you when I finish cleansing it.”

“Thanks,” I said, nearly tearing up at the fact that three people, no more, since Jon and Ming were both holding my body still so that Vaya and Jamila could work. I vaguely felt Aleks hovering nearby as well, powders and pills sitting in a neatly organized pile next to her. Vaya was directing Aleks and she would grab a healing powder and pour it gently onto my chest. I realized that I was barely decent, a cloth over my waist the only clothing I wore.

The blush that I felt internally was aparatenly visible on my physical body, as I heard Vaya laugh. “He is awake enough to realize he is not wearing anything,” she said, a smile in her voice.

“He will make it,” Jamila said, the relief audible. I felt Aleks lose some of the tension that was keeping her up. “We still have a lot of work to do to make sure he is not crippled. Come on.”

Crippled! I thought. My embarrassment was gone in an instant, and I dove into clearing away the Disease in my meridians with a renewed will. Nope, no, no way, I will be fine. I will fix everything. I will not be weak! A series of thoughts seems to explode through me like a mantra.

“Aiden, take your time,” Sia told me, his mental projection appearing before mine to stop me from throwing a surge of Aether into another Disease spot.

“I cannot be crippled,” I said. “I have to be able to protect everyone.”

“Aiden,” Sia yelled, and I stopped, shocked by his tone. “You are incredible, smart, talented, and strong. You are not indispensable, however, and if you died we would move on. We would be sad, but you have taught me much, and I will continue your crusade to have everyone in Craesti grow stronger. Even if you were unable to fight, your knowledge and drive would infect everyone around you to get better. Stop flagellating yourself, and take your time, Fire burn it! If you make a mistake healing yourself, it would take ten times longer to fix it.”

My projection took a deep breath, symbolic though it was. “Thanks Sia,” I said. “I was locking in a panic spiral there.”

“Good. Now I do not have to slap you silly,” he said. “Work on healing, it do not lose yourself in it.”

“Hold on,” I said, then brought myself back into contact with my body. I found that I could move, a bit at least, and extended my right hand. The Skysurfer formed under it, just past Vaya, and then I put the Portable Home on top of it. “Get home,” I ground out. “Don’t touch the staff or crystal with bare flesh.”

“Rest,” Vaya said. She turned away from me. “Okay, put the poles under him. We can bring Xiao, Lilianna, and Aiden in comfort to (City).”

“I will speak with the City Lord and get a detachment of the army to investigate these ruins further,” Aleks said.

I felt myself jerk upwards, and found myself resting on a stretcher formed of stone and wood, manipulated with Aether to carry me without bouncing. I floated forward and Vaya guided me into my bed. Good thing I gave all of my girls permission to enter my room without me, I thought. I’d hate to be relegated to bean bag cushions for now.

“On three,” Jamila said, then she counted. I was floated off the stretcher with Air Aether, and laid gently into my bed. Vaya lay next to me, keeping her focus on my center and organs and maintaining my life by doing so. Jamila pulled a chair over, leaning over the back and holding my arm. I felt her continuing to block off the Disease and Corruption that was trying to spread up my arm and infect the rest of my body. My arm still ended just below my elbow. I knew she needed to cleanse it from the evil Aether before she could work on regrowing it.

I dove back into my gathering meridian. I knew that increasing how much Aether I had inside me would make both of their jobs easier. “Sia, where is Hanna?” I asked.

“Tending to Xiao and Lilianna,” he answered from my upper gathering meridian. I found that we could talk even though I couldn’t see his projection. “They were both severely injured by the Ghouls, and have a similar Corruption trying to spread throughout their bodies. She knows that she can scream for assistance and Jamila will help her, but so far they are much less needy than you are.”

“Were we not fast enough?” I asked, my face falling.

“If we had taken longer, more of our friends might have been injured,” Sia said. “As it stands, no one died, so yes, we were fast enough. Everyone’s injuries can be healed. You do not have to beat yourself up over your perceived failures. No one else could have returned the staff and the crystal attached to it, not unless Knight Kaminski herself abandoned protecting Craesti. You were the right choice, you succeeded, now move on. If you must berate yourself, do so by growing stronger, so you do not have to make this choice again.”

“So, like I keep saying, I gotta get stronger,” I said then I sighed. “Light, its easier when I’m the one hurt.”

“We will be going to war soon,” Sia said, “Others are already on their way. In war, people die … Beasts die … Bonds die. If you cannot deal with that, you will be a weakness instead of a strength. Now, focus on healing. Knight Kaminski said it will be two days before we reach (city).”

“Aye aye, captain,” I said, snapping into a facsimile of attention and throwing his a sloppy salute. I turned back to the meridian I had been working on, took a chunk of Aether that Sia had given me, and got back to work.