Damned Healer

Everyone in the Wilding Kin Sect was nervously waiting for Darian's call for help. They were ready to burn through a good chunk of the resources they had gotten from him, moving the entire sect to his location… but that call never came.

On the plains, the small army of a thousand was frighteningly strong. That was because Eleri's power, controlling the surrounding mist, weakened their enemies, while Tir's Earth power gave everyone insane defense. It was just a clone rune of theirs, tweaking the power in the area a bit, but even that was already super useful.

Darian quickly killed the third High Elder and half a dozen Elders… all within just a few minutes. Seeing that, the rest of the two sects started running away in a panic. Who could blame them? After all, if even the elders and high elders couldn't do anything, let alone the rest.

*Buzz*

When the last vibration echoed, the ground in the middle of the plains split open, cracks spreading out like spiderwebs all over the place. Then, a dense primordial power started to surge.

Darian stopped and looked at the enemies retreating without even glancing back. He was braced for the worst, with multiple emergency plans ready… but they just accepted defeat? That felt anticlimactic for them.

"For the other six sects to choose not to help and for everyone to just run, they're definitely scheming something." He muttered seriously, but sadly, he could only keep pushing forward, staying alert to every detail.

Turning to his army, who were already celebrating, he released them to each absorb their share of the eruption. He didn't take anything for himself yet, staying fully focused on the surroundings.

...

Three hours later, it was all over. Then, a group of sect Elders rushed over and used their powers to bring everyone back safely.

Inside the sect again, Darian gathered with the whole leadership.

"Your contributions are way bigger than anything the rest of us have ever done for the sect. It was truly an impressive feat we couldn't have imagined possible," Mazur said lightly. "It's about time you got the highest status in the sect, just below the leader."

"What are the perks of a High Elder?" Darian asked. It wouldn't be of much use if there weren't advantages, right? What's the point of just getting more work?

"You won't have any point limitations in the sect anymore. Everything will be open to you, even access to the diagrams, and you can use them for training if you want." Mazur confirmed, assured that was more than enough for anyone.

"Good, sounds fine," Darian said calmly. "In thirty days, we're going to attack our first medium-level eruption. Since the sects aren't following the rules anyway, you guys want to take a share?"

The High Elders shook their heads in response before Aegron answered: "Each of us would have to take more than a third. It'll be way better for the sect if you and your allies take everything."

"Yeah, in a medium-level eruption, over 60,000 people under 10 cycles can fill themselves up…" Hothir added.

Darian thought for a moment, then looked at them all and spoke. "I want to train, at most, twenty thousand people before the big eruption. During these days, we'll absorb all the lower eruptions, so that in the grand finale, we can all finish the 100 cycles."

Everyone listened and swallowed hard. He wanted to leave that fast? If he pulled it off… it'd take him less than three years. Even Fairy Chromaraic had needed ten, so one could imagine their shock to hear how confident he was. As to whether he could pull it off or not, only time would tell.

"I brought 9,000 allies with me, so I want you to pick another 11,000 from the sect to complete the group. We'll absorb all the eruptions just among us." Darian concluded.

Everyone nodded, satisfied. Darian could've just said he'd only nurture his 9,000, advancing twice as fast that way; but instead, he also chose to boost the sect members, to pay back the support he was getting from them. It was a fair deal as far as they could see.

Mazur nodded. "Great, we've got over 70,000 disciples. They've all been here a long time, most of them with less than 20 cycles, since we were always relying on luck to grab a few scraps. We'll make a strict selection among the most talented ones. As for their loyalty… well, if they chose to stick with us all this time, I'd say that's proof enough."

***

Right after the meeting, Darian went straight to the Scripture Pavilion. Now everything was open for him to study, so he didn't hold back at all.

He shut himself in, reading everything he thought was necessary, for several days. He ignored the combat techniques and methods, focusing only on general knowledge.

A lot of important info came up, including stuff about the final stage of the Trial. But of course, they were just fragments from a specific time, so things could be different nowadays.

First off, the realms in the system were divided into two distinct paths, each with four realms.

On the Yin side, from lowest to highest: Devil, Dark Saint, Devil King, and True Devil Lord.

On the Yang side, from lowest to highest: Radiant Sage, Holy Saint, Radiant King, and True Holy Imperator.

Everyone who started in the desert was in the mortal realm. Once they broke through to the first realm, they were taken to the Wild World. And after reaching just the second realm, they were already thrown into the final stage.

In the third Yang realm, the title was Radiant King. That could only mean one thing… advancing to just the third realm was insanely hard and complicated. Probably only a handful of people in history had ever managed to get that far.

And at the fourth realm, whoever got there would probably complete the Trial. But… the titles True Devil Lord and True Holy Imperator felt familiar to him.

Before entering this world, only those considered Devil Lords or Holy Imperators had been allowed to join. So, the final realm was directly tied to that factor.

Also, in the last stage of the Trial, space itself distorted. That place was described as immensely vast, maybe big enough to fit ten of the first-stage deserts inside it.

It was divided into thousands of clans, and obviously, they were always locked in wars and savage conflicts.

The most recent mention of that place in the books said that a Radiant King had appeared after some terrible event. A powerful Chromaraic woman, vice-leader of the biggest Yin sect there, had gathered an army and destroyed a Yang clan for revenge.

In the end, one person somehow survived. That person rose from the ashes consumed by vengeance, ascended to the title of Radiant King, and killed the Chromaraic woman.

There weren't many details, but Darian felt that maybe this was the story of how Remira ended up on that ship.

After reading everything, Darian left and headed to the Battle Institute. He needed to take a good look at those diagrams.

The commander of the institute, Aegron, led him to a heavily protected underground entrance. Inside, Darian saw a huge empty hall and, floating in its center, a magic diagram.

It was a circular structure, made of seven glowing runes connected together. Three radiated Yin, three Yang. In the middle, a red rune pulsed like a heart, glowing with a light that was half gentle, half fierce.

It was only a meter in size. The whole structure floated slowly, giving off an intense aura, looking like a living artifact—silent and striking.

Aegron calmly explained: "The three diagrams are linked to the grand inscription the sect was built on…"

In short, the three diagrams were part of the sect's grand inscription, acting as its cores. They needed energy, which came from the treasures of this world.

The most basic power of the diagrams was to radiate an attracting force that pulled the Wild World's primordial Yin and Yang into the sect. That boosted everyone's absorption by up to ten times. Someone with zero cycles, just staying inside the sect with that power at full strength, could fill themselves up in ten years without ever touching eruptions.

Each diagram had slightly different capacities, and there were countless simpler ways to use them, like opening spatial channels or assisting the training of the institute's members.

But their main use, no doubt, was burning all their power to strengthen people. They could create chaos power at a huge cost, infusing it directly into people's cores.

Chaos power was the greatest weapon in the Wild World, created inside their cores. Using it, anyone's offensive and defensive power became terrifying. But since everyone only had a little of it, it was used only once in emergencies, taking days to recover.

With a lot of resources, though, these diagrams could turn sect members into practically invincible warriors.

That was the reason why the other sects didn't attack the Wilding Kin Sect directly. If the leader triggered the full power of the diagrams, a bloodbath would follow, and the eight sects would suffer massive losses in retaliation. It wasn't worth it.

Their power was so great they could even strike the enemy sects head-on. That's why it was safer to just let them slowly die out without resources.

Darian listened to all that, getting even more curious. The demons who created these structures had left nothing written about them, so he could only study them by observing and sensing.

So, he activated his ring and slowly perceived the whole structure. He found it all very interesting, but just observing wouldn't bring him much benefit. Maybe in the final stage, the demons had left more info hidden in some sect.

On top of that, before leaving this place, Darian would have to wipe out all 27 diagrams from the nine sects to complete the special mission.

'If I seal them all with that technique and stash them in my inventory… that should count as mission complete, right?' he thought, and a slight smile tugged at his lips, 'Well… let's take it one step at a time.'