Dark Resurrection: Shadows of Nekrom [Dark Fantasy | Isekai | Soft-LitRPG | Slowburn | Time Loop]

Chapter 150 - The Prodigy



"Vesalis Luz."

"Gah, fuck...!"

Trying not to move, Tristessa covered her mouth as she stifled a sob from the deep pain emanating from her broken and bruised ribs. That corner of her abdomen, left exposed, revealing internal bruises that tinted her skin with a deep, dark violet color.

She was lying on the ground, over the cloak of one of the thaumaturges, doing her best not to writhe in pain while Xavier treated her. The man, almost her age, was kneeling beside her and pointing his catalyst at the wound, tracing delicate geometric symbols on her skin with his free hand. He was taking great care not to contribute to the girl's agony, as she was sweating so much and closing her eyes so tightly that her head began to ache as if she were suffering from a migraine.

"What did I do to deserve so much suffering?!" She wondered, reasoning that ever since the loop began, she'd done nothing but endure nonstop physical and spiritual pain. "Seriously, did the Tristessa Irandell I hate offended some god on Earth or something? Surely she did... Stupid, coward bitch."

The intensive use of her [Divinity of Accursed Existence] with the albino vilecross. Being injured by Katriel Strauss. Vomiting until exhaustion while traveling with Vergil. Fighting lost souls and monstrous beasts within the Evil Dream. And now having internal fractures whose healing hurt even more than the wound itself.

"It won't be long, miss. Just a little longer and you'll be as good as new," the thaumaturge encouraged her, doing his best to focus on the wound that took up a large part of the girl's side, but unable to stop himself from shifting his gaze to his own periphery. "Are you sure your vilecross isn't going to…?"

"Grrr!"

Vergil was sitting next to her. He complained to the man with a soft growl, not intended as hostile, but inviting Xavier to hurry up with his healing work.

"Keep an eye for anyone or anything that tries to kill us, okay, Vergil?" she asked the black-furred beast, forcing a smile through her pain. In a sign of affirmation, she earned a strong, nauseating lick across her face. "You're so loving… Watch over her too."

Tristessa was referring to Urias, who was also lying on the ground beside her. She was sleeping with her eyes open, still holding her cane like a dolly to fight against night terrors. Her hat rested near her head, stuck between two bloody vines, and her academy uniform was stained by all the corruption that abounded in the Pestilent Fields.

Urias was out of danger, despite having nearly used up all her magical capacity and putting the stability of her spirit at risk. She hadn't reached that extreme, fortunately. It was shocking to see someone bleeding out from the inside, suffering a slow Death… Tristessa had seen Severus suffer the consequences of overdoing it, and it was one of the things she would never be able to get out of her head.

Neither the fact that that same woman had cursed the blood elf with illusion thaumaturgy.

"I will never forgive you for that shit…" the young woman thought, whose gray eyes radiated anger directed at the unconscious thaumaturge, the memory of Severus paralyzed by fear and indescribable pain flashing before them. "Bitch…"

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the man asked, his brow furrowed from the effort he was putting into his first aid duties.

"No, nothing. Xavier, right? I have a question," she said. "Is that veil you're wearing a garment from your academy?"

"Oh? Yes, but it's not normal among students. Few of us suffer [mana burns]," he replied, raising his gaze to meet Tristessa's. Up close, she could see through the semi-transparent material attached to the hood by small chains: the skin on his face was charred, dehydrated, and covered with sickly-looking pustules. "Consequence if you don't follow one of the first rules of thaumaturgy: 'The soul's desire is like fire. If you play with it, expect some burns.'"

"I see…" Tristessa understood what he meant, but she was more dismayed for another reason: she didn't know whether to tell him that she had found a similar veil in the Sea of ​​Trees. "…"

Abandoned, almost hidden among all those red leaves that kept falling. How could she explain to him about an object she no longer had in her possession, not even in this same timeline? Besides, they were in a delicate enough situation without adding another problem. The Evil Dream was still active, maintaining the corruption of the dimension and its miasma, obscuring everything in its path with thick darkness.

"Let me know if you see Armin coming back, please?" he asked, distracting her and causing her to feel a new electrifying pang of pain as one of the fissures in her ribs closed. "Or if you see any…"

"A [Fallen Militiamen] patrol, or something worse, like the Princess of Sin and her dragon. That's the third time you've said that," she hissed, regretting it almost instantly. "I'm sorry… That last spell hurt like hell."

"I know, don't worry. I'm almost done."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I am. I can't do anything less than my best to heal the person who saved our lives." Behind the veil, Tristessa saw a small smile form on her face. A normal grimace, unaffected by the magical burns around it. "If you'll pardon my audacity, how long have you been a mercenary, Miss Tristessa?"

"I told you to call me Tessa. Actually, I…" She almost bit her tongue, luckily reasoning that she couldn't go around telling every person she crossed paths with that she was a [Stranger]. Much less people she'd only crossed paths with once in a nonexistent past. "…I'm a rookie, under the tutelage of Reiden Malak Invran, of the Fireclaw Company. Does that sound familiar?"

"Only in name. I'm not very informed about mercenary and militia activities," he replied, not suspecting for a second of her words. Too trusting, a double-edged sword. "It must be a difficult job, right? And just having had the misfortune of falling victim to the dimensional shift event, like us... There, done!"

"Ugh, shit! Phew... Thanks, Xavier"

Tristessa straightened with some trepidation and carefully touched the spot between two of her ribs, where her skin was the darkest. A relief, since she felt no pain. That wave of agony had been the last, and that made the girl sigh, relaxed. Even Vergil celebrated by passing his snout close by and nuzzling her with the side of his head.

"Wait, your fur pricks! Geez... So tell me, what are you doing outside the safety of Entrana?"

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A question that concealed a hidden intention to extract information. She had never expected to find herself in a situation like this with that group of thaumaturges; it was difficult to contain her curiosity.

"I asked them to go with me to the Feydra Forest."

"Urias!"

Beside her, Severus's bully had regained consciousness and spoke with weariness in her voice, intensified by the constant sleepy expression in her eyes. Xavier quickly helped her straighten, and Tristessa found herself face to face with her. She was pretty, there was no doubt about it, even more so with that beauty mark beside her right eye. Perhaps if she hadn't known that behind that innocent, taciturn expression lay a person capable of hexing people and causing false, but sensorially real, pain, Tristessa would have felt attracted to her.

"All hail our trench-coat-wearing savior. We'd be dead if it weren't for you," Urias told her, offering her free hand as salute and smiling with that false smile Tristessa had seen on the perimeter of the Evil-Warding Pillar, in a past loop. It disgusted her, and with a dislike she couldn't hide, she squeezed her hand tightly. "Strong! Did you say you were under the wing of Reiden, the hero?"

"Yes, though he doesn't like being called that…" Tristessa saw that the crystal on her staff emitted a deep, void of color. As dark as the Discord that abounded among the bloodthirsty clouds. "What the fuck…?!"

She jumped up, now that her abdomen was healthy again. As she drew her hunting knife and Vergil joined her, growling in hostility, Urias had already activated an unknown spell that wasn't aimed at her: dozens of meters in the air, a glyph glowing in a metallic gray color transmuted into a projectile that flew like a rifle shot straight toward a tainted terrdrack. Solitary, a scout.

The projectile penetrated its head, and it exploded into infinitesimal drops of blood and flesh mixed with brains and pulverized bone. Tristessa silently watched the terrdrack's corpse fall near the edge of the forest, with no chance of calling the rest of the flock to hunt for fresh prey.

"Urias! Are you crazy?!" Xavier admonished, completely shocked. "You haven't even begun to recover from your magical exhaustion!"

"Yes, I know, sorry, Xavi dear!" The thaumaturge lowered her staff and scratched her right cheek, blushing. "It was just a reflex. Where is Armin?"

"He went to find the big gal; in the direction she escaped..."

"And you let him go alone?! We're inside the Evil Dream!"

"I know, I know!"

Worried, Xavier turned his attention to the surroundings, to see if he could spot his other companion. That allowed Urias to address Tristessa with a look brimming with shyness, ignoring the weapon she was slowly sheathing.

"I also apologize if I frightened you and your pet. Will you help me up?"

"Of course..."

Tristessa bent down and allowed the thirty-something woman to put her arm around her neck, leaning against her back to allow herself to be lifted from the mattress made of her companions' cloaks.

"Are you really a mercenary?" Urias asked with a low voice, something Tristessa had expected. Not that question, but something said in private. "I've never seen a she-dragoon misuse her mount so badly before."

Trapped within the Evil Dream, surrounded by a wasteland filled with vines made of clotted and rotten blood, with monoliths crafted with the most vile and diabolical malice possible. And with no reason to believe they were safe. All reasons to take this situation more than seriously, and yet, Urias indulged himself in making fun of someone she didn't know.

It was so absurd that the black-haired girl could only laugh.

"Are you fucking with me?"

"Well, I saw Aurelia Eramisaptor decapitate witches of the Coven while riding an aracross larger than that pup," the thaumaturge explained, looking soothingly at the beast watching her like a predator stalking its prey. "Whatever you are, we must get out of here right now, do you understand? The Princess of Sin could appear, and we'll wish we were dead."

"You think I don't know that, idiot?" Tristessa had heard about [Ithrendyl] so many times with such unquestionable terror that even she felt chills at such a mention. Worse, seeing Urias smile like a fool to hide her fear fueled the embers of her concern. "What about your other companion? Did he go to Feydra Woods?"

"I don't know… Damn my luck, it was a stupid thing to come here… Ah!" Urias released a sob that came from the depths of her soul. Wounded, lacerated by using magical ability beyond its limits, and it reverberated with blood escaping from the sides of the woman's mouth, with saliva in the form of a foaming mixture. "Curses. And all because the three of us were studying the stars and saw that Radiance orb emerge from the middle of the forest... Truly, we're going to end up dead one day."

"...!"

Now everything made sense to Tristessa. The reason the three thaumaturges were there, exposed in the middle of the Pestilent Fields, and not in the safety of Entrana and its Evil-Warding Pillar as in previous loops.

"You saw a distress signal and decided to go with your friends the next day to investigate? Are you out of your mind?" she asked, staring in disbelief. "Why didn't you just warn local authorities? What if that signal was a trap from bandits, or the fucking Coven?"

"You're right... Sometimes you just want to be a hero, you know? Saving people, fighting witches... As you must, apprentice." Urias instantly broke eye contact, her eyes fixed on the corrupted ground, so Tristessa wouldn't see the shame she felt. "And then I complain about wanting to advance further as a thaumaturge. In the end, not even a prodigy like me is without some flaws."

Tristessa rolled her eyes at that vain comment. It didn't go unnoticed, causing Urias to chuckle.

"Be that as it may, yes, it was a mistake to have come. And now we're paying the price. I don't even know if Armin is still..."

"There he is, it's him!"

Fortune smiled upon them by proving Urias wrong again, through Xavier's shout of joy, pointing toward the other end of the Maturín River: a stocky, red-furred female Vilecross, her mouth half-open, dripping saliva and breathing heavily from running.

"Milla?!" Tristessa exclaimed, unable to suppress a smile at the sight of the lesser demon she had watched sacrificed to avoid suffering from the deadly poison in her body.

Even Vergil, standing firmly beside his owner, seemed happy to see a kin of his, barking with excitement.

"If we were to lose one of the most popular vilecrosses in the city, our heads would roll," Urias commented as they watched the bipedal beast cross the murky river, even covering its legs. Armin followed behind, using elemental ice thaumaturgy to freeze the river's surface and walk across. "They're both safe. Good, I expected nothing less."

In truth, the blonde woman was very relieved. It was so obvious, between her self-centered grimace and bored eyes, that Tristessa wanted to punch her.

"The wagon's up ahead!" the thaumaturge announced as he and Milla finished crossing the river. He joined them shortly, greeting Tristessa with a cordial nod. "A pleasure to see you healthy, Miss She-Dragoon."

"Same here…"

"There's no time to get to know each other. You two, let's go," Urias ordered his friends—henchmen, more than anything—passing between the two of them. Heading north, along the remains of the Meridion Highway, almost hidden among the vines, in that nightmare dimension. "Move!"

Obedient, Armin and Xavier followed the leader, alongside Milla, whose footsteps shook the earth and broke every vine in her path.

"You too, fake mercenary!"

Shouting and her back turned on her, Urias angered Tristessa again. It seemed like an innate ability for that woman, so skilled in the art of thaumaturgy, but with an ego so large it almost caused the Death of both her, her companions and a vilecross.

"Come with us!"

"Maybe if I hit her... No, that's a bad idea: she'll make my skin turn to acid, or make an asteroid fall on me," the girl thought, once on top of Vergil, the two ready to resume their journey to the great main city of End-World. Where Astoria, Auron and Severus awaited. "So close to see them again..."


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