Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

"I must admit that was not what I expected from gods of all things," Lucian muttered. "I'm definitely not praying to Onnea anymore."

Milena nodded frantically, hugging herself with all four arms. "Nergal and Onnea manifested upon us and had a... A showdown of strength? Since when have we become so important that two Gods would cast their eyes upon us?"

Glenn held his elbow painfully, wincing. "The Gods have been interested in my activities for quite a while, to be fair. Messing with the Fallen Mother, Epinos, and other ancient stuff brings up these sorts of consequences."

Liara rushed up to his side, glancing at the pile of ashes that was once his right arm. She bit her lips, taking a tourniquet from her dimensional pouch and fastening it above his elbow even as the flesh knitted itself together to stop the bleeding. "It's going to be fine, we—we'll get you a prosthesis like Sahro, and...!"

Sahro wiped the sweat off his forehead and grimaced at Glenn's new missing limb. "Damn it. The right arm too. That's going to be a much greater handicap than for me."

Nelg turned back into a human, hiding his mouth behind a steel-clad hand. "Holy fuck. Of all things I expected to slice through, your arm might have been the very last thing. Was it really necessary?"

Glenn shook his head, directing his Mana into the stump and pushing Regeneration to its utmost capacity. "My first meeting with a God was with Onnea. She gave me a sort of tracker to find Seeds of Darkness and destroy them. It's a literal piece of Divinity in my arm." He closed his eyes, disgusted. "I never imagined it could be used as a channel to Onnea. Fuck me."

"Whaaaat? That's why your arm shone golden all these times?" Diamanes exclaimed in disbelief. "I can't believe you hid that from me! Shit, and here's a missed opportunity to insult Gods again. Sigh..."

Glenn's eyebrows rose. 'Again?'

Lucian chuckled nervously, collapsing on a chair and holding his head in his hands. "So what do we do now? Do- Do we follow Nergal's orders? Go to the Beyond and find that Guardian guy?"

Milena averted her eyes from Glenn's stump. "I don't see what's stopping us. That Guardian guy was quite friendly with us, and we've gotten much stronger than back when we first went there." She nodded her chin at Lucian, who looked like his whole world was crumbling before him. "We even have a Newborn Ruler now."

Glenn pushed the noise away, withdrawing within himself to meditate. He carefully manipulated his Mana and the Regeneration Diamanes had stolen from Laurance, guiding it to the stump. 'If I can fix holes in my stomach, then I can grow up a new fucking arm. I refuse to be a cripple!'

'Come on, that'd give you something additional to share with your best friend, Sahro, in addition to your hatred of the Thorns Church,' Diamanes mocked. Glenn tuned out the voice, kicking the entity out of his body and into a magical, hand-shaped construct.

With all disturbances taken care of, Glenn could finally focus entirely on his arm. 'It's more than fixing ripped flesh and broken bones,' he thought as a bead of sweat pearled down his forehead. 'I need to figure out how to grow back bones. I'd love to have that potion from Harry Potter right now.'

In an exercise he hadn't done in a long time, Glenn focused on improving his understanding of his spell. Regeneration had always been an on/off thing for him. Whenever he activated it, his body would heal up at incredible speed in a Deadpool or Wolverine fashion. The fact that his body had been reinforced by the Thorns Church torture more than a year ago and that he was an Archmagi made it even easier to heal up grievous wounds. A hole in his stomach could be fixed in a dozen minutes, relatively not dangerous if taken care of outside a fight.

Healing a missing limb was a whole new pair of hands, though. That's why he never tried to heal Sahro's missing left arm again. 'But perhaps that could change if I make a breakthrough here.'

The easiest part was to direct all of his Mana into the stump. The issue came when the wound simply sealed itself up, instead of attempting to grow the missing flesh, bones, and muscles anew. Instinctively, Regeneration seemed to prioritize survival over full healing. And stopping the bleeding by sealing up the wound with a crude patch of skin and flesh was the best way to achieve survival, in the spell's opinion. 'If a spell can even have an opinion.'

'But I'm not in danger of dying anymore,' thought Glenn. 'So it should be fine to trade some blood for a new arm, right?'

Right as he thought that, Regeneration finished sealing up the stump, making it impossible to grow a new arm. He would have to slice through the healed part to work on sprouting out a limb. Glenn shivered at the idea, his heart stuck in his throat.

'I can't believe I hacked off my own arm. I really became a badass now, didn't I?'

Glenn exhaled slowly. Badass or not, cutting off his arm when fueled by the adrenaline of a potentially deadly and divine encounter and peeling off the skin that had grown back in cold blood were two completely different things. Glenn moistened his lips and reopened his eyes.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"-But I need to stay here and make sure everything goes smoothly," argued Liara. "You'll give my terms to the demons, Sahro, while I make sure Thalorieth is rebuilt correctly."

Sahro rolled his eyes and pointed a dark steel thumb at his face. "The only time I'll dip my toe in politics is when I'll slit another noble's throat," he warned. "Your Highness," he added with a frown. Liara sealed shut angrily, and she threw a desperate glance at Glenn, her face lighting up when she realized his eyes were open.

"Glenn, convince Sahro that you don't need me to go to the Beyond!"

'Going somewhere without Liara?' The calculation was done very quickly in Glenn's brain, almost immediately.

"No can do," he shrugged. "There are more chances this idiot will ruin everything by killing a stuck-up demon instead of establishing anything proper."

Liara's jaw dropped from the betrayal, her eyes darting between the two of them. Sahro raised his hands helplessly, as if to say 'I told you so'.

"My queen, if I may," Giselle cleared her throat from the side, Maron watching with his arms crossed. Glenn frowned. 'How long have I been meditating for exactly?'

'Like half an hour? Giselle and Maron kind of rushed their asses up the pyramid after you went into your healing trance. How's that working out, by the way?' Diamanes inquired, bored.

'It's complicated.' Glenn stood up, groaning at the disturbing change in balance. It was so strange to move with half an arm. 'I certainly can imagine myself getting used to it.'

Giselle scratched the back of her neck. "I'm sure that me boys can hol' the fort while you're out explorin' hell or somethin'." She assured while elbowing the half-stone half-merchant next to her. "And that piece of stone is impatien' to start workin' on developpin' a city."

Liara pressed her lips, considering the idea before giving one last defeated sigh. "Very well. I'll entrust Thalorieth to you, Giselle, Monsieur Maron. Thank you."

Glenn made a mental fistbump, ignoring the slight guilt he felt from taking Liara away from her kingdom. 'It will be fine without her,' he tried to persuade himself. 'Giselle and Maron are pros, after all.'

'You really can't help yourself, hah,' Diamanes snorted.

'Excuse me from wanting to spend time with the one I love!' His expression hardened. 'Nergal said that only the Heirs could do it. Maybe Liara and Sahro both need to come.'

'Another well-found excuse, hmm?'

'Shut up, damn it.'

Glenn shook the entity's mocking laughter out of his head. Milena, Nelg, and Lucian weren't here anymore, and he could see Pebble and Whitey patrolling the sky around the pyramid. He clasped the end of his stump, wincing.

"I'll leave you guys to it," he groaned. "I need to find a way to grow bones, muscles, and flesh back into a new arm."

Sahro waved his prosthesis despondently. "Tell me if you succeed. I'm thankful for Liam and Janica's prosthesis, but I'd still prefer an actual arm."

Glenn gave him a nod and jumped off the pyramid, searching for the person most likely to help him in his predicament. He almost stopped mid-air when he found Lina and Emily both enjoying the warmth of the sun in linen hammocks. They were even holding stylish glasses filled with... with soda? The magical mini-fridge he had found so long ago was resting on a table nearby, right by a few bottles of expensive alcohol waiting to be turned into whatever non-alcoholic beverage they desired.

"I see you know how to make yourselves comfortable," he said as he landed next to them delicately. He grabbed a bottle of whisky, looked at the fridge, then at his stump, and shrugged. He removed the cork with an efficient use of Gravity Manipulation and poured the alcohol directly down his throat.

"Glenn? What the hell are you doing day-drinking—oh my god!" Emily's eyes widened, and she jumped out of the hammock, running for his arm. "What the hell happened to you?! Where- Where is your arm? Are you okay? I need to heal this."

Glenn grimaced as the alcohol failed to even warm his stomach. Lina did a double-take at his missing arm, her hand clasped over her mouth. "Oh, my god."

The young man raised a purple, placating hand. "Now, now, I believe I can grow it back-"

"You what?"

He ignored Emily's interruption and continued. "-But I'll need your help. I don't know enough about muscles, bones, and all that stuff. And you're the only one I know with healing powers that are not..." he grimaced. "Divine."

His mother exhaled heavily, calming her shaking hands. "You stay here and you do not move," she commanded Lina, who gasped in her hammock. She steeled herself up and dragged Glenn to the medical tent she'd set up the previous day. Mary and Decimius were still resting peacefully in their beds, one covered in scars and traces of the experimentation done on her, and the other with two missing arms and a body riddled with barely patched-up holes.

"Sit." She ordered. Glenn obeyed without complaining, watching carefully as she prepared a set of surgical tools. He blinked when he noticed a Blumar scalpel.

"I need that much to slice through that Orc's skin," Emily grumbled, noticing his awe. "He's remarkably tough, and I think it wouldn't be surprising if he could survive a sword through his neck."

Glenn looked at the tent's ceiling and gulped. "This is going to be painful, isn't it?"

Emily looked at him like he was insane. "You're talking to me about growing back an arm, and you're complaining about pain? I knew some people who'd sell their entire families for a new limb back on Earth." She shook her head and gave him a bottle filled with a weird green liquid. "Take this, it'll put you asleep."

Glenn shook his head and nodded at his stump. "I have a very powerful power called Regeneration. It's what allowed me to grow back that patch of skin over the stump in a matter of minutes. I can't be asleep if I want to control it."

His mother froze, curiosity blooming on her face. "Oh, interesting. Like these, uh, healing factors we saw in movies?"

Glenn nodded. "Yes. The issue is that it prioritizes survival over, you know, growing back a new arm."

Emily rubbed her chin. "Magic is fairly strange when you think about it. I never managed to grow new limbs for my patients either, but perhaps combined with your Regeneration power, I could figure something out..."

"Perhaps your spell only works as far as your understanding," she pondered. "Maybe if we combine my expertise with your..." She squinted at him, "...Boundless Mana capacity, we could make it work." She shook her head and grabbed her Blumar scalpel. "Let's get to it. Bite something or find a way to silence yourself, I don't want you to wake up the other patients."

Glenn barely had the time to bite on his belt when his mother grabbed the stump and started slicing through the patch of skin covering it. His eyes went wide, and he almost jerked his arm out of his mother's grasp, but he barely managed to keep it as is.

"Don't move, and we'll be done in no time," Emily whispered, focused on her work.

Diamanes hissed.

"Oh, that's going to hurt."