Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

Elijah ducked, eyes wide as he tried and failed to spot the enemy. Mana flew from his own Core in droves, while he did his best to narrow down the exact position that had caused his misunderstood warning, but nothing appeared in his sights.

The chaos of the world around him made the effort difficult. In less than a second, massive structures of stone had already risen from the ground, tearing through the ancient dwarven city and causing the cohesion of the plant network to sputter.

'Dawn, get ready to strike,' Elijah ordered, as he utilized the wall of manifested stone as cover, while checking on the diplomat.

A bolt identical in color to the beam that had pierced Hafrad came from above in the same instant, hitting the helmet of one of the dwarven warriors. The metal did not stop it, and another fell.

"Cleanly shot through," Elijah muttered to himself. He frowned at the rapidly spreading necrosis. In less than ten seconds, the brain had already rotted. "Necromancy."

Commonly known as Death Magic. One of the most despised Affinities to be found in the world, with its limited range of use.

"Five in the air!" Grace shouted, revealing their position through the wind. Though near-impossible to see, the faintest glimmer of armor perfectly matching the sky could be caught.

Enchanted gear for flying?

The how didn't matter at that moment, as Elijah was dragged back under cover by Aleksi. Green veins covered the giant, fully dosed up on elixir and ready to fight. But he couldn't. Neither sword nor fist could be used against a target that couldn't be reached.

That didn't stop the dwarven lord. As the remaining dwarven warriors surrounded Greyhelm, shields up to ward off any attempt on the Earth Mage's life, the lord chanted in broken tongues.

Ahead, one of the small hills was ripped apart into stone chunks the size of people. They floated for a moment before being thrown through the sky at rapid speeds. Each made loud hissing noises as they flew above their heads, yet no impacts could be heard. The enemy, camouflaged too well to point out precisely, went unharmed.

The same could not be said for their escort, as another bolt of death came from the side. It went through one of the warriors and got a glancing hit on the lord. Elijah could see Greyhelm stumble, stopping his chanting, but he remained on his feet. Not dead yet.

They wouldn't last like this.

"Grace!" Elijah shouted, the young woman looking over from her own cover. "Get them on the ground!"

Despite the days of overuse, and the cumulative strain Grace had suffered hadn't yet healed, instincts forged through hardship took over, and she called upon the winds. With the same power she'd used to ragdoll a multi-ton amalgamation of flesh, the invisible enemies in the sky were thrown onto the ground hard.

'Spotted!' Dawn screamed in his ear, the second that he could hear the thud of flesh impacting the ground. With the sparse greenery, caused by the rocky area, only a single blade of grass could touch the fingertip of one of the enemies, but the roots that dug beneath the stone felt the new pressure from above. Though their armor still proved to keep them invisible to the naked eye, he knew where they hid.

And so did Dawn, as the same roots that helped spot them ended up being their doom. Sprouting through the stones above with an unnatural speed and strength, they pierced the flesh without resistance. Not even a scream had time to leave them, as barbed plants ravaged the lungs and heart, killing them in an instant.

"Five dead," Elijah reported to Aleksi, who still kept him from leaving their cover behind. "We got them."

One of the dwarves, who rose above the manifested cover to inspect the kills, proved them wrong. The metal helmet fragmented as the bolt went through the skull.

More in the air?

No.

That had come from the west, slightly higher than where they sat, but not far into the sky.

And Aleksi had spotted that as well, his enhanced senses pinpointing the target. With a speed unmatched, the giant leapt over the destroyed walls, skipping across the broken-down roofs of the ancient buildings while bolts of death began to appear out of the thin air once again. The enemy knew what was coming; they knew where the man could see them, but they could not flee fast enough.

One bolt found purchase, the darkness splitting up the left arm and spraying untold amounts of flesh and blood into the air, but Aleksi did not pause. With a final leap, one that brought him several meters into the air, he grabbed onto something.

For a brief moment, gravity did not take hold, as an unseen force held the giant up, but then the forearms flexed and the grip tightened enough to destroy whatever enchantments held the magical aspect of the enemy's armor in check. A short man in comparison to Aleksi, trying and failing to wriggle out of the giant's grip.

Elijah could hear the shouting during that second it took to reach the ground, along with the awful squelch of flesh liquefying inside the metal.

Just like back in the old days.

The thought left a bitter taste in Elijah's mouth while he waited, trying his damndest to spot any signs of additional foes. He refused to make another mistake, to endanger himself and the others due to his leniency.

That arrogant thought that they'd been safe would not find itself repeated any longer.

Danger was everywhere now.

Yet, as the minutes continued to pass, and no more bolts flew through the air, a tense calm grew through the group. Dawn could find nothing, Grace felt no anomalous winds in the sky, and Aleksi's senses only noted the already-spilled blood.

"Even if there are no more alive for now, there's no promise it will last," Lord Greyhelm said, rising from the crowd of remaining dwarven warriors. One tried to insist the Earth Mage stay, that they retreat to the tunnels again, but the old dwarf ignored it in favor of moving towards Elijah. "Take our dead, write down the times of death, and bring them to the entrance."

Showing his age, a groan left the dwarven lord's lips as he knelt to see Hafrad's expressionless face. The necrotic curse of the death magic had already spread far, melting most of the features away while the skin began to boil down the throat. A sore sight, but one that could be done nothing about.

"Do you need me to help with the arm?" Elijah asked, trying to spot where on the armor the bolt had hit the mage. He'd seen the splattering of blood upon impact, but the dark armor now revealed nothing amiss.

"Your magic would do little against the stone that makes up a dwarf of Stroham," Greyhelm replied, taking off his glove to show off the stone-covered skin. "The curse has already been removed, and what was lost has been regrown. It is a gift for which I am grateful, even when it doesn't allow me to grant the same privilege to others."

Greyhelm placed the uncovered hand on Hafrad's chest, muttering words in a language Elijah could not decipher before taking off the dwarf's necklace.

"I knew his father well," the dwarven lord explained. "We fought together, centuries ago, against the drow hordes that plagued Stroham's borders. A brave man, who raised an even braver son, whom I allowed to die while under my protection."

"The blame does not solely sit on your—"

"Keep that human tongue still," Greyhelm cut in, before Elijah could finish his words. "I promised a father I would keep his son alive, to show him more of this world, but now he walks in another with the ancestors."

Elijah kept quiet as he looked down at Hafrad. Rites were spoken, the face was covered, and the dwarven diplomat's body was carried away to be rejoined with his family. Hafrad was older than him by several decades, but, to his people, he had still been young, an adult but not yet old enough to join the elders.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

A young man, taken before his time.

A pointless death.

The first of many.

War rarely allowed for there to be a point.

"Aleksi," Elijah said, as he walked over to the giant, who was dragging the body over to the others. They would be burned soon. "Do you recognize the armor?"

"Nothing I've seen before," Aleksi replied, lowering his voice as Grace and Greyhelm approached. "This one begged in a northern accent, though."

"Northern parts of Castilla?"

"Serenova."

With the sparse population around the border, it likewise allowed for them to originate from the south-eastern parts of Castilla, or perhaps they had stayed within Serenova for a long time before being deployed. Neither option was impossible.

"Do they have anything on them?" Grace asked when she arrived, the dwarven lord in tow. "Anything beneath their armor?"

"Let's find out," Aleksi said, dropping the broken corpse and picking up one of those in one piece. With a gentle hand, the giant got his fingers into the crevice of the armor around the neck, before peeling off the metal like it was the skin of a fruit. It made a frightful sound, digging into Elijah's ears, but he cared less about that and more about the insignia on the inner side of the armor.

"The royal seal of Serenova's leading family," Lord Greyhelm commented in a low voice, the stone finger tracing the edge of the insignia. "Put on years after the armor was forged and enchanted, without a doubt, but my people will care little about that fact."

"Lord Greyhelm, I promise we had nothing to do with this," Grace said, her voice strained as she forced herself to sound calm. "Queen Vera wouldn't do something like this."

I'm not so sure about that.

"While I can't speak about the cunning of your queen, sources tell me she is far too intelligent to reveal her signature on the bodies of assassins," Lord Greyhelm said. Another word was muttered, before the metal warped, the insignia breaking off and revealing blank metal in its stead. "Do not speak of this revelation with my people. I would prefer that the enemy truly behind this horror be found and struck down."

Politics and war truly brought out sides of people normally left covered. Elijah knew how deeply ingrained honor and truth were for the dwarven folk. To hide evidence, to encourage lying for the sake of long-term success, was something expected of humans. Not dwarves. And yet, those cold eyes made it clear that this was no jest.

"Understood," Elijah said, noting that he needed to make it very clear that the truth would only be heard by very few.

The inspection of the assassins continued, more armor peeled off in search of any papers noting down orders, or just about anything that could prove that this had been ordered. No luck was had in that aspect, as the enemy only wore simple clothing beneath their enchanted armor. Cheap cotton, able to be bought in bulk at any farm shop, and with no distinctive features.

"Nobody in Kulvik could've built this," Grace commented, picking up one of the ripped-off gauntlets. "None of these people are mages, but they're able to use the armor so intuitively. And with so many interweaved affinities… Wind for flying, Necromancy for these bolts and the beam, something I can't recognize for the camouflage, and… I think there are Arcane symbols in their helmets, but they're only partial constructs."

"The other half are on their bodies," Elijah added, twisting the blank-eyed head of one of them, to show the black lines that travelled from their ears and down to and around their necks. Each had a hundred small geometric shapes, making his eyes hurt if he looked too long. "I take it we don't deal in directly engraving the runes onto flesh either?"

"No, that's too dangerous," she said, kneeling down beside him to get a closer look. "Even if done perfectly during the initial engraving, aging skin or mere pulses of mana from within could send the whole circuit spiralling. Since it's on the throat, it would likely tighten and crush their windpipe instantly, and those symbols around the ears… I think they travel to the brain."

"Any practical uses for that?"

"Keeping them in line."

A raised eyebrow had Grace shrug.

"I'm seeing some symbols that fit the Force Affinity's structure in there," Grace explained. "The right person could make the case it could be used for augmenting hearing, but the usual usage is to crush. I wouldn't be shocked if whoever is behind this has some external command that would cause the runes to fly through the head and crush the brainstem."

Wait.

"You're saying that could be done externally?" he questioned.

As Jack and Sasha approached, Elijah could see Aleksi's eyes widening.

"Technically, yes?" she replied.

Little regard for the lives of the assassins, lenient usage of Necromancy as a weapon, and the ability to activate them from afar.

Knowing when to trigger it would require nothing more than knowing if they had died and failed

And who, in their right minds, would ever allow technology such as this to fall into enemy hands?

"Get back," Elijah ordered, letting go of the head and letting it drop to the ground amongst the other bodies. "Now."

Grace didn't question it, throwing the gauntlet with the others. Elijah's instincts began to scream as the piece hit the chestpiece of another corpse, ringing through his skin and warning him of what was to come.

And then it stopped being instincts, the world darkening as the remaining mana inside every piece of armor began to activate. The people they had killed had carried no Core of their own, after all. The suits had been loaded with enough energy to carry the assassins through their work and back. While Elijah did not know the cost of each bolt shot or what it required to fly and stay invisible, he knew that they'd still have much to spare for the return trip.

Dual-Channeling of [Accelerate Growth] and [Plant Bond] has been activated! Current cost: 104MP/sec

With a force that brought aches to his moving limbs, Elijah covered the bodies in layers upon layers of plant material. He shouted for Greyhelm, who'd left to repeat the ancient scripts for the fallen warriors, but the dwarf did not understand until it was too late.

Pain flooded his being when the Necromancy began to manifest. A simple pulse at first, moving through the air and hitting the first layer of leaves and branches. The instantaneous rot, the sensation of death, flooded through Elijah, and he felt the black tar grow in his lungs, but he kept on, letting himself be pulled back by Aleksi while he continued his work.

The force grew. The pulses quickened in their pace until it became continuous.

No small amount of destructive potential had been left in the enchanted metal. Not enough to take out the entirety of the ancient dwarven city, but enough that nobody would be left standing in this section. Even the horses, a hundred meters away, had little chance of surviving the miasma of destruction.

Elijah cursed the higher beings as his brain worked overtime, trying to figure out what could neutralize the force.

Destroy the armor? It could potentially reduce the effect, but it would take too much time. That is, if he could even get to it, with the energy radiating off the armor.

Enhance the protective layer? A temporary effort, which would soon mean nothing anyway.

Words of anger almost left Elijah, as he debated the chance of Aleksi carrying them away while betting on Greyhelm realizing the danger that had manifested again quickly enough, but he found it all stuck in his throat as Sasha passed him.

With no care in the world, she walked forward, approaching the half-sphere of plant matter being continually repaired as it continued to be rotted from within by the Necromantic rays.

She's mad.

Some stupid trait of his made him go back to pull her away, but it was too late. His Core could not keep up with the rays, and the half-sphere ruptured.

Showing off an intelligent eye behind it, the rays of death in magical form avoided the skies, flying through the air and towards the nearest target. In real time, it was instant, but Elijah's fears made it seem so slow.

Was this how the ones he and Aleksi had tried so hard to protect would die?

No.

Please, no.

The beam of death, wide enough to cover Sasha's entire torso, struck the young woman.

It didn't pierce.

Elijah saw it reach her, saw as it honed in on her flesh, saw as it rolled around on the surface, but it didn't go through.

Impossible.

A second passed, and the strength of the attack increased. The grass closest to Sasha rotted, the air began to darken, and Elijah felt his skin begin to prickle as Aleksi pulled him away.

But Sasha remained standing.

She was not in pain.

She was not dead.

The power increased.

The rays tried to turn away, to find another target, but a hand kept them there. Sasha's hand, gripping onto the purest manifestation of death that magic could do, keeping it in check. It fought for freedom, fought to kill, but it could do nothing.

Elijah, having trouble breathing from partial exposure, found some aspect of fear creeping into him.

An impossible feat, made possible without strain.

Before long, the armors ran out of Mana, leaving nothing but frail husks that previously wore them, lying in the dead and rotted grass.

"I expected more," Sasha commented, looking down at the sight. As she talked, Elijah could see the black lines that travelled across her skin on her arm and face. Or, no, this wasn't anything like the necrotic spread seen on the dead. There was nothing in those lines. No empty air, no empty space, nothing lifeless. There was nothing. Only an abyss, held together by the human skin slowly reclaiming the lines. "When do we leave?"

Elijah couldn't find it in him to answer.