Wild Dragon of Rome 18 (Patreon)

I woke up. 

It came as a surprise, particularly the memories of my failed breakthrough were vivid in my mind. I should be dead. Just the failed breakthrough should have killed me. The damage to my body, the dragon heart invading my body to destroy my heart, out of control elemental vitae… 

Even if they didn’t kill me, they should have put me in a coma that lasted months, which should have ended the same. 

Yet, not only I wasn’t dead, but also I was feeling good. Excellent, even… I opened my eyes, and saw Lillian’s beautiful presence over me, her blood dripping down from her many wounds as she tried to defend me, staining my naked chest. 

She had a blade of water in her right hand, swinging desperately while she used her left hand to continuously send water blades, each taking down a beast. 

She was at the edge of collapse, yet she was doing her best to defend me, despite escaping being the easier option. The beasts — mostly earth-natured first-order moles, with a few second-order ones mixed in, all probably from the same colony — spilled out of the tunnels they had dug, desperately attacking me. She could have easily circled around. 

I realized that she had undersold her abilities as a healer. She must have somehow healed me from the effects of my failed breakthrough and brought me back to peak condition. 

I rolled back slightly before alerting her to my presence. Surprising someone in combat was never a good idea, and I wanted a chance to dodge if she tried to attack me reflexively. As I rolled back, I was surprised at just how bright the cave was. Every single detail was visible, including the expression of the wild beasts. 

“I’m awake,” I said once I stood up, tensing as I prepared to roll away. My preparation came useful, but not the way I expected. 

Lillian turned back, her shock palpable as she looked at me, like she had just seen someone rise from death. Well, considering the circumstances, I didn’t blame her. 

What I blamed was the way she froze, leaving herself vulnerable to a rushing beast. An elementary mistake, reminding me that while she was a mage, she had never been trained for combat, and didn’t even consider how deadly the mistake was. 

I threw myself forward, ready to put myself between her and the attack, lacking time to even properly reach my cores to empower myself. The attacking beast was a first-order one, and it wouldn’t kill me even without the physical boost. And, since she was such an excellent healer, she could heal me later. 

But, as I dashed, expecting to barely put myself between Lillian and the attacking beast, I realized that I somehow overshot my target a great amount. The only good thing, I had been aiming at the beast, so we collided halfway. The collusion should have put me down, but instead, I continued moving. 

When I stopped — somehow still on my feet — I found myself in the middle of a larger group of moles, surrounding me as they attacked. I reached for my daggers even as I prepared myself. I shouldn’t have been able to react to that attack, not without activating all four elements …

Somehow, I did. Just as I pulled my bone daggers, I dodged two attacks, and delivered a kick to the third attacking beast, a second-order earth mole, risking a broken leg. Earth beasts often had bones stronger than metal. 

Still, a broken leg was better than one bitten clean off. 

However, rather than shattering my bone, however, the kick sent my attacker flying. Something was wrong … very wrong. Still, the analysis of what was wrong could wait until I dealt with all the attackers. I looked at Lillian, still losing blood while she watched me, shocked. I didn’t blame her. I wanted to find a mirror so I could look at myself the same way. However, that could wait. 

“Heal yourself, and stay in a defensive stance,” I said as I crouched down, two bone daggers ready, and attacked. With the several tunnels spilling earth-natured beasts, I could see at least a dozen second-order beasts, and more than a hundred first-order beasts. 

It was a shocking number, enough to give a group of mages pause, and threaten a small town. Yet, I danced among them, cutting, stabbing, slicing. And, once a quarter of them had been slain, the rest started to escape. 

My breath didn’t even speed up. 

“Well, that was fun,” I said, then I realized the blood on my skin was disappearing, being absorbed. Lillian was still healing her wounds, but nowhere near as efficient as I expected. She was a novice healer as she had said. Which was not a problem, except a novice healer couldn’t have saved me after my breakthrough had gone awry. 

Interesting. I looked at Lillian and noticed that there was a thick cut in her left hand, right in her palm, one that was far too smooth to be done by a beast, yet refused to heal completely. 

I doubted that it was an accidental cut. 

My mind immediately went in a new direction. Blood magic. The fabled lost art of druids disappeared after the Republic had killed most of the high-ranking members during the initial invasion or subsequent rebellions, their mysterious abilities of blood and forests lost … or so everyone thought. 

Suddenly, I had a better idea why they had gone all that trouble kidnapping Lillian. 

“How long have I been unconscious?” I asked, not giving her any indication that I realized her use of blood magic. She clearly wanted to keep it a secret, and I understood her rationale. I would have done the same with the dragon heart if the situation hadn’t forced my hand. 

She used to help me. That was all I needed to know for the moment. 

“I don’t know. A few minutes,” she said, which surprised me. Even with her healing, I expected it to be longer. It was good news, though it required a change of plans. My plan, before a dozen unexpected factors had ruined it, was to defend the place with the power of a four-element mage, and once opportunity presented itself, use earth magic to dig a tunnel to escape. 

But, the new situation was better than I had any right to hope. We could actually evacuate the cave before the mages or the third-order beasts could arrive to discover our location. 

While she continued healing herself, I patted my body, still unable to believe my performance. Her healing spell must have been even more incredible than I expected. No wonder legions had hunted every druid they could find. They wouldn’t allow the power of such entities to spread. 

“You can stop radiating mana now. I have enough to heal myself. We don’t need any more beasts finding us,” Lillian warned me. 

I froze, realizing that it was the case. I was radiating mana, but I didn’t realize it because I had been too distracted by … well, still being alive. 

I closed my eyes, focusing inward, not sure what to find. I wanted to believe that the sequence with the dragon heart was merely a wild dream, but it was not. 

Instead, it had turned into a hollow, misshapen sphere that had expanded and contracted with every heartbeat, radiating mana to fill my body. No wonder I had been leaking mana. 

I didn’t pay much attention to it, because I didn’t know where to begin. Dragon hearts were supposed to be unique pieces of crystals with the ability to radiate mana whenever they had contact with blood, and nothing else. 

They weren’t supposed to encase a mage’s heart. 

It was a mystery, one that required months, maybe years to solve, so I stopped paying attention to it. There was nothing I could do. Instead, I turned my attention to my elemental cores. They were supposed to be spheres, and the single puncture I had dealt with to extract vitae was supposed to be recovered. 

They looked more like punctured water skins: dried, misshapen, and most importantly, empty. There was no evidence of where the vitae they had been supposed to be holding had gone … but I didn’t need evidence to guess that the mystical crystal around my heart was responsible for it. 

After all, only after I had merged the four elemental vitae into one, did the dragon heart react to settle around my heart. 

Another mystery that I lacked time to control. Instead, I focused on the mana that I had been radiating, and focused on keeping it in my body. It worked, but the dragon heart continued to spill mana, far more intense than its usual 

Luckily, whatever happened to my body to make me faster and stronger also increased the amount of mana I could hold in my body significantly, or I would have exploded in minutes. After those improvements, I could probably suppress it for several hours, maybe even a day if I was lucky… 

When I opened my eyes again, Lillian was free of her wounds, except the one in her palm that refused to heal, and looked at me with no small amount of shock, clearly struggling to understand how I was alive. 

I didn’t blame her. I thought the same way. Unfortunately, the situation was far too dangerous to have a talk about it. 

We needed to move, or we would get caught in a fight between third-order beasts and a considerable number of mages.