Taboo Online

A Thornmender rushed toward them and dropped beside the Queen. She opened a pouch filled with living thorns and selected the longest one.

"Hold her shoulders."

Luke shifted behind Aelira and supported her upper body with his good arm. The Thornmender pushed the green thorn into the flesh beside the wound, making Aelira’s back arch against him.

Black fluid entered the living shaft, but the thorn darkened before the contamination reached its tip. The healer pulled it free, threw it aside, and replaced it with another. That one turned black even faster.

"The decay has gone deeper than the wound," the Thornmender said. "It’s moving through her mana."

"Can you stop it?" Iris asked.

"Not from here."

Aelira’s breath caught. The golden lifeline around her ribs dimmed as black veins crawled across it.

Iris tightened the anchor. "Her heart is slowing."

Luke watched the Thornmender’s hands, and Aelira’s earlier lesson came back to him.

The surface is not always where the damage lives.

He had watched the healers follow healthy tissue into a wound instead of simply closing what they could see. Aelira had warned him not to judge a spell by its first effect.

The Thornmender was following the same principles now, but she could not reach the source of the corruption. Every thorn entered through the wound, while the decay had already traveled deeper into the Queen’s body.

"Where did it go?" Luke asked.

The Thornmender glanced at him. "I told you. Through the wound."

"No. Where is it now?"

"I can’t see inside her channels."

Luke turned toward the Heartwood. "Lauren, I need to see them."

Her alarm reached him before her voice did. "That will take more mana than another warning."

"Can you do it once?"

"I can show you what’s there, but I won’t have enough left to keep searching afterward."

"Then don’t search. Just show me."

Lauren did not argue again. Violet light moved beneath the cracked bark, and their bond opened.

Aelira’s body appeared inside Luke’s mind as a network of silver-green pathways. Several had been torn apart beneath her ribs, but the worst damage had gathered near the center of her chest.

Black decay had formed a knot beneath her sternum, clogging one of the main branches of her mana flow. Every weak heartbeat pushed more corruption toward her heart and down into the roots connected to her body.

The surrounding pathways tried to carry her mana around the blockage, but the energy had nowhere to go.

When the vision released him, Luke immediately placed two fingers beneath Aelira’s breastbone.

"The blockage is here."

The Thornmender stared at him. "A thorn cannot reach that point without piercing her heart."

Luke carefully lowered Aelira flat as Iris moved one hand behind the Queen’s shoulders. Once Iris had her weight, he reached for the living blade beside them.

The weapon had already begun sinking back into the terrace. Luke caught the handle before it disappeared, and the faint warmth inside his empty mana channels followed his grip.

The blade stopped dissolving as his Spellblade class recognized it.

A system window opened before him.

[Ancient elven healing pattern recognized.]

[Compatible principle detected: remove foreign influence and restore living flow.]

[Spellblade class adaptation available.]

Every skill Luke had learned until now helped him reach a fight or hurt whatever waited there. That was exactly what he had wanted when he first entered Powerforge. Back then, becoming stronger had meant never being helpless again.

Aelira’s heartbeat faltered beneath Iris’s hands.

This time, Luke needed the blade to do something else.

[Core intent recognized.]

[New skill created.]

[Lifeblade]

[Channels restorative magic through a bladed strike.]

[The blade severs harmful influence from the target’s mana flow and redirects the target’s own vitality through damaged tissue.]

[Warning: Direct penetration is required.]

[Warning: The skill cannot restore life after death.]

[Warning: Insufficient mana may be supplemented by the user’s stamina.]

Luke tightened his grip around the blade.

The Thornmender noticed the green light spreading along its edge. "What are you doing?"

"Going where the damage is."

Lauren felt his decision through their bond. Her fear struck him hard enough to make his hand pause.

"Luke, that channel runs beside her heart."

"I know."

"You have no mana left."

"Then it uses my stamina."

He positioned the point over the place Lauren had shown him. There was no time to explain anything else.

Luke drove the living blade into Aelira’s chest.

Lauren screamed his name from inside the Heartwood.

The Thornmender grabbed Luke’s wrist, but green light had already entered the Queen’s body. Aelira’s eyes snapped open, and her hand closed around Luke’s forearm with enough strength to make him wince.

The blade had stopped before reaching her heart. Its light followed the damaged mana pathway instead, curving through her body toward the knot of decay.

Black veins rose beneath Aelira’s skin and continued spreading. Luke’s stomach dropped as they climbed higher across her chest.

Then Lifeblade reached the blockage.

The green edge passed through the knot, and dark fluid rushed backward along the weapon. It gathered near Luke’s hand, but the restorative light burned it away before it could touch him.

Aelira’s mana followed the cleared path. Silver-green energy flowed through the channels that the decay had blocked, reached the wound beneath her ribs, and began pulling the torn flesh together from within.

The skill took the last of Luke’s strength with it. Darkness crowded the edges of his sight, and his arm began to shake, but he kept the blade in place until the final black vein faded from Aelira’s chest.

Iris stared at the golden lifeline around the Queen. "Her heart’s recovering."

The Thornmender slowly released Luke’s wrist. Green light closed around the blade inside Aelira’s body, leaving the new puncture dry and sealed.

Aelira looked down at the living weapon buried in her chest, then raised her eyes to Luke.

"You stabbed me."

Luke swallowed and fought to remain conscious.

"Before you kill me," he said, "take a breath."

Aelira inhaled.

For the first time since the dead root struck her, the breath reached both lungs.