Lifestealer: Cursed Healer [A LITRPG Isekai Survival]

It felt like every branch was positioned perfectly in Symon's way as he ran through the forest, Entisse hot on his heels. Though the shade from the trees and the breeze from the sea provided a measure of relief from the suns, Symon was already sweating.

This was only partially because of the physical exertion. His Constitution might help him run for longer, and his healing would extend this even further, but he was still pushing himself as hard as he could. This limit was much higher than it had been when he'd first arrived half buried in the Wastes, but pushing your limits would always be a difficult prospect, no matter how high they were.

That was only a minor component. More significant was the panic causing his heart to hammer in his chest like the booming of a drum.

Symon and Entisse had no chance against a single Praetorian, let alone the full squad currently being led in his direction. They were Third Step, which meant they may as well have been gods, relative to him. They'd simply kill him before he even had a chance to do anything.

Even if the stars aligned and he was somehow able to drain them without instantly dying, it would take far too long to make an impact on someone so much stronger than him. That was assuming it even worked.

"Fuck!" Symon gasped out for what must have been the dozenth time. The Praetorians were bad, but at least he knew what was about to kill him. More concerning was the other member of what he was thinking of as a hunting party: the odd, bestial man that had somehow spotted Symon.

His movements — and Symon was fairly sure they were a man, though the distance had been too far to tell for certain — had a predatory, animalistic slant that reminded him a little of Entisse. But while she was more graceful and fluid, like a cat or a snake, he seemed more like an out-of-control bull. He also possessed the lighter skin tone that Symon associated with Imperials, meaning the man wasn't an Elf.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Symon demanded, directing his question to Keelgrave in order to save his breath.

<Hells take me if I know, kid. Someone with a fucked up tracking class, I guess. Quit thinking and run!> Keelgrave shouted back. He sounded nervous.

Symon grunted in response before ducking under a large branch, choosing to barrel through the smaller ones instead of slowing down and going around. The wood scraped at his skin, leaving blood on the branches, but he was prioritising speed. The blood trail would make them easier to track, but they were already leaving an obvious trail of broken branches through the forest. Besides, they'd already demonstrated they knew where he was.

With his Running passive, he could be faster than Entisse. That was presuming they were running in a straight line over flat terrain, which wasn't true now. He often tried to use the passive as a way to dodge attacks during combat, but it wasn't really meant for that. True to its name, it made him better at running, and nothing else. It helped him deal with the uneven terrain, his feet always managing to find a flat root or wide enough gap in between them, but it didn't give him the extra agility or reaction time to dodge around larger obstacles, forcing him to slow down and allow Entisse to catch up.

"We will hide in the barrier?" she half asked and half suggested. Her breathing was completely even.

"Not sure," Symon huffed out. "Doubt Third Steps will care about the pollen—" he gulped down another breath "—when you only needed a couple levels of the resistance to survive." After all, a high enough Constitution was effectively the same as having a resistance to everything, and combat-focused Third Steps would be high indeed. He wasn't sure what the exact number would be, but it had to be at least be firmly into the double digits, maybe even beyond.

Symon didn't have much of a plan. The barrier wouldn't be anything more than an annoyance for the Praetorians, if even that. It was also where they probably expected him to go, although the fact that they hadn't already been there meant they must not have known about it. Did no one in the village tell them where Lady Renske had lived? Most of the villagers wouldn't know the precise location, but they would at least have known the general direction. It wasn't that far from the village, but no one ever went into the forest to find it, at least not recently.

Either way, they'd find the barrier soon. It was the obvious place for Symon and Entisse to try and hide, which made it a poor hiding spot, but it wasn't like they could run past it and try to fake out their pursuers. After all, he still wasn't sure how they'd spotted them in the first place.

They had a significant head start in terms of distance, but that didn't equate to much when dealing with people at least an order of magnitude stronger than him. They could have had any number of abilities or passives to speed themselves up, but even just their raw Attributes would have been enough.

Symon knew being caught up with was inevitable, though the insane perception of that beast-man worked in his favour; he'd been spotted from so far away that there was a quite a distance for them to travel before catching up with him. His legs furiously pounded the ground in a panicked, staccato beat, and it wasn't long before he started spotting familiar trees.

Even knowing it would happen sooner or later, the sudden attack still caught him by surprise. Right as the barrier around the manor came into view, Keelgrave started to shout a warning into his mind, but the hunched-over man was so fast that he wouldn't have been able to dodge anything even if he saw him coming.

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He slammed a fist into Symon's back, sending him tumbling to the ground with a sharp crack. Even through the surprise and pain, one thing stood out: he couldn't feel his legs.

He rolled head over heels several times, his lower body flopping around limply until he came to a stop, face down.

By now, he trusted in his healing enough that he wasn't logically worried about being crippled, but the animal part of his brain screamed in panic. He forced it down at the same time as he forced a fist into the ground, slowly pushing himself onto his back. It hurt, even with his resistance, but not enough to stop him. Already, the vitality streamed towards his spine and the other, relatively minor wounds he'd received tumbling across the ground.

Wrapping his focus around the vitality, he directed it to the break in his spine. Despite the overwhelming Strength of his hunter, the force of the blow had been precisely controlled. Instead of rupturing all his organs or piercing straight through him, he'd been struck just hard enough to disable him without killing him.

Now, he could see the man hunting him up close for the first time. He was muscular, and his powerful body rippled as he slowly stalked towards Symon on all fours. A large, upturned nose that looked like it had been broken and improperly reset many times wiggled unnervingly as he drew in a deep breath, seemingly savouring a scent on the air. He had large ears and eyes, reminding Symon of Entisse. However, the tips of his ears were rounded, and his eyes were a common brown, with the normal whites surrounding them instead of the pitch-black orbs his companion had.

This man was a human, he thought, but with every feature on his face exaggerated. He snarled at Symon like a dog, and while his canines were sharp, he didn't have a full set of fangs like the elf did. Further complementing the comparison to a dog was the collar wrapped around his neck. It was made of a black metal, though the impression of red symbols stood out against the material in stark relief.

The man's bloodshot eyes locked onto Symon's blurry ones. He wasn't one to roll over and accept death, but there was nothing he could do. His spine was reconnecting the shattered pieces together, but so what? He was just too weak. The less than two weeks he'd had the Ledger weren't enough to catch up to those who'd had their whole lives and the backing of an entire country, no matter how powerful Symon's magic may be.

Maybe he could distract the feral man, buy Entisse a few more seconds, but she wouldn't fare any better than him. Even if a god came down and smited the hunter, there was still a mounted squad of Praetorians hot on their heels. They'd be here in a minute or so, not that he'd live long enough to see them up close. Despite this, his thread still snaked out optimistically. It latched onto the hunter, who had been slowly approaching Symon's prone form.

For the first time, he didn't feel the intoxicating rush of vitality the moment he began draining a powerful living being. In fact, he didn't feel anything at all. The thread bucked and thrashed, but nothing happened. He couldn't even steal a tiny trickle of vitality. Slowly, it retreated, pulling back inside Symon. He'd even landed in an area where he'd killed all the grass yesterday, so it hid away completely.

Despite himself, Symon laughed. "I didn't… even know that was possible," he said. His throat felt all sore and scratchy, even though it hadn't been injured.

The hunter took another step closer. Was it slower than the last?

"Well… shit. We had a good run, I guess," he said as he flicked his eyes towards the barrier. Entisse stood with her back pressed to it, facing Symon as his executioner slowly approached. She stood on the precipice, vacillating between fleeing and trying to help.

He gave her the slightest of nods, and, after a moment of hesitation, she vanished into the mist. Maybe his sacrifice could mean something, but he doubted it.

The hunter surely must have noticed this, but her let her flee, his attention focused entirely on Symon. His bestial face scrunched up, and his whole body tensed, pausing mid-step. He was standing upright, like a normal man would. Symon hadn't noticed that change until now. The bloodshot eyes seemed to soften slightly, the predatory gleam shifting to something closer to pity.

Symon took the opportunity to stand up shakily, his legs now mostly working in exchange for half the vitality in his vessel. The man allowed Symon to stand. Was he… toying with him?

Oh well, Symon thought. At least he could die on his feet. It was better than a hospital bed or a car wreck.

The hunter raised a hand slowly to his own throat, dirty and overgrown fingernails scraping against the metal wrapping around it.

Symon blinked, and that same hand was now embedded through his chest.

"Oh," he murmured as he looked down. His legs gave out, but the arm through his body held him aloft. Even with both his relevant resistances, red, hot pain flashed through him as red, hot blood poured out of him.

"Weak," the man growled out. His voice was sharp and painful sounding, like a rusty hinge.

Symon agreed. They'd moved so fast that, to his eyes, it had almost been like they'd teleported. His whole body felt numb, in a way that wasn't just because of the new damage to his spine. The fist had gone all the way through his chest and burst out of his back, leaving a trail of destruction through him. His heart was just gone, his lungs were crushed to pieces, and his spine was severed once more.

"Weak…" the man whined, his gore-soaked hand scratching at the metal around his neck. "I'm… so…" he started speaking. His dirty and blood-streaked face stared at Symon, his face awash with anger and… shame? Symon was a little out of it, but this wouldn't have made sense even to an unaddled mind. He blinked, and the man was gone, abandoning Symon to his fate.

His half-empty vessel tried to help, but Symon wasn't grateful. Even like this, he had the awareness to know that there was no way he could replace so many missing organs in time. His heart hadn't just been ripped out, it had been completely destroyed. It would take minutes to regrow, when he only had seconds left.

The fact that he was aware enough to even realise this spoke to the benefits of his Constitution and Bleeding Resistance, but it wasn't nearly enough. Already, darkness was intruding on his vision, and he distantly noted that he'd collapsed to the ground at some point.

He had experience dying, but it wasn't exactly something you got used to. The sickness had been much slower, while the crash had been much faster. Still, he'd been hoping he'd get to actually live this new life. Yet again, it was cut down right as it truly started.

Keelgrave was saying something, but he couldn't understand him.

You're not so bad, buddy, was the last thing he thought before everything went black and a final sigh escaped his lips.