Chapter 330: Elm’s Regrets
Silas stepped slowly forward with his glowing golden eyes narrowing sharply.
’This place is really hot...’
He could physically feel the terrifying unstable power of the raw mana leaking through the microscopic seams of the iron door.
The thick metal plating was actively glowing an angry cherry-red, radiating enough pure thermal heat to instantly blister human skin upon contact.
The amount of life force being forcibly converted into spell-fuel inside that room was astronomical.
Evelyn didn’t hesitate for a single agonizing microsecond.
"Stand back, Brenna!" Evelyn commanded.
Her voice lost all traces of the stressed hoodie-wearing adult and suddenly echoed with the absolute authority of a Lord.
Evelyn threw both of her bare hands forward, pointing her palms directly at the superheated center of the blast door.
She didn’t have her heavy mythril disguise armor, and she didn’t have her translucent blue crystal rapier, but she was still a high-tier Lord who had carved her territory out of the brutal Unknown Zones.
"Radiant... Annihilation."
A devastating beam of pure unfiltered light magic erupted directly from Evelyn’s outstretched palms.
KRA-THOOOOOOM!
The destructive light magic slammed perfectly into the center of the superheated iron blast door with catastrophic force.
The heavy melted metal was instantly and violently blown entirely off its reinforced hinges.
The massive slab of iron was sent flying violently inward into the medical chamber, crashing into the far wall in a blinding shower of molten orange sparks and shattered twisted steel.
Evelyn rushed recklessly through the smoking burning doorway, entirely ignoring the searing heat washing over her face, with Silas right on her heels.
The interior of the subterranean medical chamber was a terrifying nightmare.
The air inside the room was actively boiling. Thick, scalding white steam hissed violently from ruptured twisted coolant pipes running along the iron ceiling.
The heavy metal walls were vibrating and shuddering uncontrollably, groaning audibly under the unnatural stress of the massive, territory-wide spell currently anchoring the room to the battlefield.
’I didn’t think it was this bad...’ Evelyn thought.
In the center of the ruined chamber, submerged entirely inside a massive, ceiling-high glass containment cylinder, was Elm.
Silas’s golden-ringed eyes widened slightly at the sight.
Directly beneath the massive glass cylinder, a colossal glowing white Four-Leaf Clover magical circle was violently etched into the solid bedrock foundation of the fortress.
It was flaring with blinding, absolute brilliance, serving as the massive, singular conduit that routed Elm’s raw life force directly out to Hiro on the battlefield.
But the physical cost of sustaining that spell was horror.
The thick, glowing green nutrient fluid inside the glass tank was violently boiling, churning with millions of chaotic pressurized silver bubbles.
And Elm... Elm was actively dying.
Her beautiful, long silky white hair, which had once floated gracefully around her shoulders like a perfect halo of winter frost, was actively shedding and tearing away in large sickening clumps into the boiling fluid.
Her pale skin was stretched terrifyingly tight over her bones.
Her slender frame looked horribly thin and emaciated, as if her actual physical mass and bone density were being literally converted into raw burning mana to feed the glowing clover array beneath her.
Her pristine crystalline silver eyes were wide open, locked entirely and unblinkingly onto the iron ceiling as she forcefully pushed every single remaining drop of her life force down into the spell.
"Elm!" Evelyn screamed, running recklessly up to the boiling, superheated glass.
"Elm, stop!" Evelyn sobbed, slamming her bare hands against the scalding surface, completely ignoring the burns instantly forming on her palms. "Turn it off! The duel is over! I surrendered! Cut the magic right now!"
Inside the boiling, churning tank, Elm’s wide silver eyes slowly shifted downward.
She looked through the thick, vibrating glass, finding her Lord standing there in her oversized, soot-stained gray hoodie, her pale face completely streaked with desperate tears.
Despite the unimaginable soul-tearing agony ripping through her ruptured core and melting her body, Elm offered a soft and heartbreakingly loyal smile from beneath her flexible breathing apparatus.
Her voice echoed weakly through the chamber’s external comm-speaker, sounding completely fragile and broken.
"No, My Lord..." Elm whispered, her voice cracking with pain. "You... you cannot surrender. We... we have to win this broadcast. You built this territory from the dirt. You sacrificed everything for us. I will not let them take it from you."
Evelyn slammed her blistered, burning fists violently against the scalding hot glass.
"We already lost!" Evelyn cried out, tears of panic welling heavily in her dark eyes. "You are dying, Elm! The spell is literally eating your physical body alive! Turn it off before your core shatters completely into dust!"
"I am your sword, Evelyn..." Elm replied, her silver eyes rapidly filling with tears that instantly dissolved into the boiling green fluid surrounding her face. "I have sat alone in this dark room for so long... watching you fight the world... watching Hiro bleed for our people... I am finally useful to you again. I am helping you win."
Evelyn let out a heart-wrenching sob.
’I...’
She didn’t care about the Lord War anymore.
She didn’t care about the mobile territory, the precious Spirit credits, the massive global stream, or the hundreds of millions of demanding viewers watching from around the world.
She refused to lose her very first Hero.
Evelyn forcefully surged every single drop of her remaining concentrated light and water mana entirely into her right fist.
CRASH! SHAAAAATTER!
Evelyn drove her glowing mana-infused fist directly into the absolute center of the weakened containment cylinder.
The heavy pressurized medical glass violently shattered into a million jagged flying pieces.
A massive, roaring tidal wave of boiling green nutrient fluid and sharp shattered glass washed entirely over the iron floor, splashing heavily against Silas’s dark combat boots.
Elm’s frail, incredibly thin, and ruined body spilled limply out of the broken tank, completely and violently disconnected from her thick life-support cables and breathing tubes.
Evelyn dropped instantly to her knees in the boiling spreading fluid.
She desperately caught Elm’s fragile, broken body securely in her arms before the Hero could hit the hard, unforgiving iron floor.
Evelyn ripped the hissing breathing apparatus completely off of Elm’s face, pulling the dying emaciated woman tightly against her chest, rocking her back and forth in the ruins of the chamber.
"There there... you’re with me now..."
Elm was trembling violently, her entire body seizing with failure.
Her skin was freezing, terrifyingly cold to the touch, despite the boiling hot green fluid thoroughly soaking their clothes.
Her breathing was terribly shallow, coming in weak rattling gasps.
Thick, sickly silver-tinted blood leaked slowly from the corner of her pale, cracking lips, running down her chin and dripping onto Evelyn’s gray hoodie.
Her vital life force was almost gone.
"Evelyn..." Elm coughed weakly.
Her crystalline silver eyes struggled immensely to focus on the sobbing, black-haired girl holding her so tightly.
"Did... did we push them back?" Elm forced the words out, her voice a fragile dying whisper. "Did... did my magic help Hiro? Did we win the war?"
Evelyn pulled Elm even tighter against her chest with her hot tears falling freely and heavily onto the dying Hero’s pale freezing cheeks.
"No, Elm," Evelyn choked out, her voice breaking entirely under the crushing weight of her failure. "We lost. The Blessed Land is too strong. We lost the war."
Elm let out a soft and agonizingly sad sigh.
She rested her head heavily and limply against Evelyn’s trembling shoulder, her beautiful silver eyes staring blankly at the smoking ruined iron wall of the medical chamber.
"I am so sorry, My Lord," Elm whispered, her voice barely audible over the hissing steam of the broken pipes. "I tried... I gave Hiro absolutely everything I had left. I just wanted... to stand beside you on the battlefield one last time. I just wanted to be your Hero again."
"Don’t apologize!" Evelyn sobbed loudly, burying her tear-stained face deeply into Elm’s wet thinning white hair. "You idiot, I’m the one who failed you! I should have found a proper cure so long ago! I should have never, ever let you cast that sacrificial spell! I’m so sorry, Elm. I’m so incredibly sorry!"
Elm coughed again, a violent rattling spasm that caused a fresh wave of silver blood to spill from her lips.
Her frail body grew incredibly limp in Evelyn’s desperate arms.
"It’s okay..." Elm murmured, an incredibly tragic, and completely accepting smile touching her pale bleeding lips. "I just... I really wished we could have done the things we talked about back in the beginning. I wanted to see the actual ocean again... I wanted to walk in a real living forest once more... not just these cold vibrating metal corridors."
Evelyn gripped her frantically, her brilliant and normally highly analytical mind completely shattered by the overwhelming grief of the moment.
"We will!" Evelyn promised frantically, her voice rising in panic as she felt Elm’s pulse fading. "If you just hold on, Elm, I swear to you! I’ll take you to the best medical facility in the entire Central City! I’ll sell the entire mobile fortress and all the treads if I have to! I’ll buy you a real forest! Just please... please don’t die on me!"
Elm slowly, weakly closed her beautiful, crystalline silver eyes.
"I wish... I could..." Elm breathed out softly.
Her chest completely stopped its fragile rise and fall as her body went still in Evelyn’s arms.
Silas stood exactly three feet away, watching the entire heartbreaking exchange in silence.
’Oh... I was wrong.’
The Lord of the Blessed Land looked down at the weeping, desperate girl in the oversized hoodie, entirely and completely broken over the devastating loss of her very first Hero.
He looked at the fragile dying woman in her arms who had willingly, stubbornly sacrificed her own soul just to give her Lord a tiny, fleeting chance at victory.
Silas felt a deep resonance in the center of his chest.
He looked at Evelyn, and he saw a terrifying reflection of himself.
If Eluned, Vespera, Tasmin, Brida, or Morwenna were ever lying dead or dying in his arms like this, he wouldn’t just weep.
He would burn the entire Sovereign Realm down to the bedrock and slaughter every single living entity in his path to save them... If he could...
Evelyn wasn’t a soulless corporate suit.
She wasn’t an arrogant, disconnected noble from the inner cities who treated her summoned units like disposable replaceable tools...
She was a true Lord who deeply loved her people. Much like Silas, well not exactly.
’Still I was wrong... and I’ll make it up to her.’
Silas let out a long weary sigh.
"Move," Silas commanded softly.
Silas walked deliberately forward with his heavy dark combat boots splashing loudly through the boiling green fluid.
He knelt down smoothly in the wet, ruined mud directly beside the sobbing Evelyn.
Evelyn looked up at him, her dark eyes completely red and devastated by her loss.
"What... what are you doing?" Evelyn choked out defensively, tightening her protective, desperate grip on Elm’s lifeless body, fully expecting the enemy Lord to execute them both to finalize the victory.
"Definitely not what you think I want to do..."
Who did she take him for? Someone that would kill another in their darkest moment, well it depended on who the person was.
’I’m going to bring her back...’
Tasmin had died before, and as Eluned had told him, as long as the time between death hadn’t been too long. He could bring someone back to life.
He simply reached out his large calloused right hand, gently and firmly placing his warm palm directly against Elm’s pale lifeless forehead.
Silas closed his glowing, golden-ringed eyes.
’Please Elu... Let me...’
The rune throbbed as it began glowing.
’Heal her!’
HUMMMMMMM!
A blinding pure and utterly majestic green light erupted directly from Silas’s palm.
The light did not carry destructive force... It did not carry offensive elemental magic and it did not burn or scorch.
It was the pure essence of healing.
The green light violently flooded directly into Elm’s frail broken body.
WHOOSH!
It completely bypassed her shattered ruined mana pathways and healed them as it went.
The supreme authority of Silas’s healing acted like a divine adhesive.
It flawlessly re-knitted her torn spiritual veins. It actively purged the dead tissue that had plagued her the time she had been sick.
And most importantly, it forcefully injected a massive wave of pure vitality into her failing biological system.
Elm’s crystalline silver eyes snapped violently wide open.
"HAH!"
Elm took a massive deep breath of actual fresh air only to cough a bit later.
The air in here was not fresh at all...