Chapter Ninety-Seven: Treatment in Red Harbor

The remaining wounded in the fishing village had been gathered into a single house. Their injuries were severe, and they were difficult to heal.

As the door was pushed open, a foul, stagnant stench rushed out at once, laced with the reek of decay and blood.

The room was dim. In the ten-square-meter space, bed pressed against bed, more than twenty injured villagers lay scattered in all directions.

Lingmeng and the three light elf girls shrank back at the doorway and did not dare enter. Bai Shengye went in first to examine the wounded. On the infected parts of their bodies, much of the flesh had already rotted away, and none of them were fully conscious.

Only one healthy village woman remained here. She looked exhausted and sorrowful as she crouched on the floor giving them water. She must have been a relative of someone inside. She watched the newcomers with some fear.

Chixin said, “Don’t be afraid. We are from the Mage Alliance.”

Only after seeing the emblem of the Five-Color Stone on Chixin’s shoulder did the village woman finally relax.

“The injuries in Red Harbor are relatively serious. These villagers have no defense at all against demons, so most of them were hurt.”

At the sight, a surge of bitter hatred rose in Lingmeng’s heart, and she bit hard at her lower lip.

“Those damned demons. They are truly detestable!”

Having grown up in the sacred realm, she had encountered very few incidents of demonic invasion, and so she was even more sensitive to them.

Bai Shengye had already unfastened his medicine box and taken out bandages and hemostatic, wound-treating potions, presenting himself with the air of a miraculous healer who could save the world.

“I’ll bandage and medicate their wounds. Hei Yu and Lingmeng, try to purify them.”

“Mm.” Hei Yu nodded.

“Purify the wounds? You?” Lingmeng’s eyes widened as she stared at Hei Yu in disbelief. “You know purification magic?”

Hei Yu gave an awkward smile and did not answer.

He wrapped a strip of bandage around the palm of his right hand, covering the dark red birthmark and the flame seal. Of course he had not told Lingmeng the truth; if she learned that he possessed dark power, she would surely hate him to death.

He went to one side of the room and began with the outermost patient, gently placing his hand on the wound. As expected, the aura of darkness was drawn in, silently flowing into the palm of his right hand.

Lingmeng and the other three light elf girls came to help as well. They worked on Hei Yu’s other side, moving bed by bed along the line.

The stench of decay from the wounds, together with the pus and blood seeping out, made them uncomfortable. Covering their mouths and noses with one hand, they placed the other over the wounds. In the warmth of the light in their palms, some of the lighter injuries gradually began to heal, and the dark aura drifted away and vanished. But for those who were more gravely hurt, there was little change.

“Move faster. We’ll try to catch the noon boat and leave this place, then spend the night aboard,” Chixin said coldly and mercilessly. “The infected in the southern forest are far more numerous than the ones here.”

“They’re hurt too badly. We can’t do anything about them…” one of the light elf girls said timidly.

One of the elf girls walked over to another unconscious male infected villager. A woman from the village was lifting his head to give him water, and from the look of things, the two of them seemed to share a deep bond.

The skin on the infected man’s left arm had already mutated into a deep blue. Though hidden beneath the sleeve, the long, hard fingernails and the scaled skin of his hand still gave him away.

As the light elf girl approached, the woman giving him water roused him awake. Unexpectedly, the unfocused eyes he had just opened suddenly narrowed to vertical pupils, and his body, driven by that mutated arm, lunged at the light elf girl before him.

“Aah!”

The light elf girl screamed in terror, frozen rigid in place.

“Watch out!”

Lingmeng, standing at the doorway, heard the scream and reflexively threw a shield over the girl in a flash. That was often her first response in the face of danger.

In the same instant, Hei Yu, who had been standing by the corner of the wall, manifested a trident staff and sprang into the air. With the blessing of the Demon Eye, he reached the light elf girl almost instantly.

Almost at the same moment the shield formed, the end of Hei Yu’s trident staff was already planted against the man’s chest. He used no magic at all, only the force of the staff’s impact, sending the man crashing through the wooden wall.

The wall of the cottage burst open with a hole. After hitting the ground, the man coughed up a mouthful of blood, and a sunken impression had been driven into his chest.

The strength of Hei Yu’s reforged staff was far greater than even a blade forged from steel. The moment it struck, there had already been a muffled crack of breaking bones. His breastbone was probably shattered now.

But the situation had been desperate, and he had had no choice.

The red-haired female warrior was the first to rush outside to check. Her hand rested on the hilt of the sword at her back. The infected man lay screaming on the ground, convulsing with pain.

“His left arm has already demonized. He can only be killed!” Chixin said.

The woman ran out, tears streaming down her face, and threw herself over the wounded man. “Don’t kill him. I beg you, don’t kill him! He’s my husband, please don’t kill him!”

Chixin ignored her, stepped forward, and drew her sword to strike down at the man.

“Stop!…”

Hei Yu shouted as he ran out after her, but he was too late to stop it. He only heard a wet thud, and a spray of blood burst from the man’s neck as his head flew skyward and rolled to the ground.

“Aah!…”

The woman was struck pale with terror. At the sight of the blood-spouting corpse, she fainted on the spot.

Chixin turned her face, smeared with blood, and her eyes were fierce. “On the road, we’ve seen this kind of thing many times. Once someone demonizes, they will only fall irreversibly into a monster. There’s no need for mercy.”

With that, her greatsword rang as it slid back into the scabbard at her waist.

Only then did Lingmeng, Lingxiaolei, Bai Shengye, and the others reach the side of the cottage, all of them at a loss. Lingmeng murmured, “That was far too ruthless. Even if he had to be killed, it shouldn’t have been done in front of his family…”

Chixin had long since grown accustomed to the weeping of the dead’s relatives, and there was no emotion in her gaze.

“Stop wasting time and go back to treating the wounded. We still need to set out at noon.”

Hei Yu was deeply shaken. “No wonder people hate demons and dark power so much. So falling into monstrosity brings consequences this severe.”

Hei Yu quickened his pace and returned inside, taking charge of the little girls. He feared that if they were any later, another one of those fallen monsters might appear.

“You point out the more seriously injured ones for me to look at. You follow behind me and treat them.”

“Those few over there,” Lingmeng said, pointing them out.

Hei Yu extended his right hand to absorb the dark aura from their wounds, then said to Lingmeng, “Now try it and see whether healing magic works.”

Lingmeng placed the warm light from her palm over them. Those wounds that had shown no response before, after Hei Yu’s treatment, began to heal little by little as if by miracle.

“Oh my goodness, what spell did you use? How did you make them better?”