He wanted to heal them all, regardless of how severe or light their ailments were.

And that was what he did once everyone was ready.

First, he cast and overclocked [Weave of Life], creating a shimmering network of life to fill a portion of the town center. He enlarged it, expending more pure Blood to grow the foundation of the weave etched into the ground.

“Everyone injured in today’s fight should enter the network of lifeforce. Those who were cut or harmed in other ways in the last few days should join them,” David added, casting [Healing Sphere], adding a few dozen spheres of healing light to the network.

He followed up with a less conspicuous use of [Lifeweaver’s Bond] as the townspeople followed his orders. David’s voice was neither loud nor commanding, but even the middle-aged men and women who looked at him in suspicion heeded his command. That made everything a lot easier as he examined a few people with the Intermediate Spark.

It was the first time he had used his Skills and Sparks on ordinary people. Their anatomy was almost too normal to be true. Not even a speck of Aether seemed to stick to them, which would make it more difficult to heal them. Or so he thought until he sent a wave of [True Restoration] into their bodies. Those who had yet to pick a Class, who hadn’t killed a monster just yet, were bursting with energy the instant he used [True Restoration] at its lowest level. However, not all problems were solved with the Skill. Not all diseases could be removed with [True Restoration].

David organized the people around him. He ordered Lilia to split them up into several categories: those who were easy to heal; those who needed new limbs; those whose entire body was fucked up; and those who couldn’t be healed—not without harming them first.

Most had been assigned to the first two groups. They were healed rapidly, restoring their maimed and broken bodies back to full health. Regrowing a lost limb back to full health didn’t take too long. David spent no more than one pure Blood droplet on overclocking [True Restoration], casting it thrice in a row on the patient to jumpstart a full restoration of the body. He could have accelerated the restoration and fixed the regrowing limbs with more energy, but they were not in combat or immediate danger. Wasting his precious Blood when hundreds of patients were waiting for him to heal them was… unnecessary, to say the least.

He’d long since tuned out the gasps, blank stares, the tears, and the rebirth of hope that seemed to shimmer in the eyes of a select few, but it was impossible to ignore the warmth embracing his very being. His Source worked harder than ever, producing not only more pure Blood than usual, but also Blood of even higher purity than he was used to. The exact reasoning was still unclear, yet David had a faint inkling.

The people caused this. Maybe not directly, but the way they respond to me; their awe, joy, gratefulness, and… reverence… The way they feel toward me affects me… somehow. It strengthens me.

Healing fucked up bodies was a little bit more challenging than he’d expected. Then again, it was the first time David saw people, Classers and ordinary, with this many disfigurements. Some were covered in scars, from poorly healed wounds, whereas others looked as if they had been born that way. But that didn’t really make sense either. There were way too many townspeople with disfigurements to make sense.

Despite that, he healed them all. First, he called upon the Law of Blood to augment [Blood Manipulation], before commanding pure Blood to surge into the first disfigured patient. Following that, David channeled [True Restoration] and [Healing Sphere], providing a constant stream of healing.

To ensure his first patient wouldn’t die miserably in front of everyone, David added [Weave of Life] as a precaution. Only then did he use the Spark, [Vital Weaving], to perform the ‘surgery’.

[Vital Weaving] was essential to reshape the disfigured bodies of those who had been broken ‘beyond repair’, as he heard some townspeople—Healers, apparently—call out. He didn’t pay much attention to these idiots, even less so once it was clear that they were merely Clerics with [Cure Wounds] and [Healing Word] as their strongest Healing Skills. David couldn’t imagine these morons at the Iron Rank to have anything more potent than a Tier-0 Skill Rune.

Sure, Orhain had some Healers with advanced Classes. But from the looks of it, those Classes were mostly Common or Uncommon. None of the Healers was at the Silver Rank either. The strongest presence with life-attuned energy within his range was Bronze.

David sighed and continued. He used pure Blood to control the patient’s nervous system and tweaked it a little to suppress the pain receptors. It was troublesome and a lot more complicated than expected, but it was essential. He broke the patient’s finger using [Blood Manipulation] to create immense pressure on the disfigured location and put it back into the right position using [Vital Weaving]. The Intermediate Spark was enough to restore the broken bone, but [True Restoration] was still active and restored the broken finger, fixing the mess once and for all.

Following the first step’s success, David continued breaking bones. He tried to shroud the patient in a dome of silence, but he wasn’t good at that. Therefore, while the patient couldn’t feel any pain, he and everyone around him could hear dozens of bones breaking over and over again.

David noticed that some people collapsed, whereas others vomited as the cacophony of breaking bones resounded, but he continued, fixing the first disfigured patient in less than 30 minutes. He’d spent a dozen Blood droplets to fix him up, but the cost was worth it. The patient bawled his eyes out and hugged him tightly, thanking David from the bottom of his heart.

He meant everything he said. David was sure of it. He could feel it—the sincerity, the truth—alongside a trace of power that wove into his being.

A trace of power was not a lot. It was insignificant compared to the value of an Attribute Point. However, it did not require him to spend weeks, if not months, working on his Classes to increase their rank by one. The power he had acquired in the last hour or two was immense. Not enough to rival three Attribute Points, which he would have acquired by leveling Lifeweaver, but it was the equivalent of more than one Attribute Point spread equally toward his Body, Mind, and Soul. After all, the power traces empowered his very being equally.

David liked that quite a lot and continued his healing. Some did not want to be healed, fearing he would kill them—he could only imagine that the sound of bones cracking scared a few poor souls—but others rushed at him, begging him to grace them with his divine touch.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

There was no divine touch or anything like that. If his healing had been divine, it wouldn’t have been this difficult. Nonetheless, David did what he could and pressed on, draining his Source, Blood Storages, and Sacred Beast Core of pure Blood to heal them all.

I shouldn’t waste too much precious lifeforce. David recalled the unprocessed monster corpses outside the fortified town after a while and retrieved the Obsidian Blade. He poked his finger and cast [Blood Manipulation] on the crimson droplets that flowed out. The blood droplets riveted toward the soulbound blade and attached to it. Simultaneously, David released pure Blood to form a thin thread, which he attached to the blood coating the Obsidian Blade.

A moment later, he rose and hurled the blade toward the battlefield. [Blood Manipulation] and the soulbound blade’s desire for blood and lifeforce were all it took to stabilize its trajectory and plunge perfectly into the Rift Boss’ flesh.

A thin thread of pure Blood connected him to the carcass, and he sapped its lifeforce for the Source to produce more pure Blood to use.

He was eyed oddly, but throwing a black blade through the air was likely the least mythical thing the townspeople of Orhain had seen that day.

Acting like nothing had happened, David finished tending to the disfigured people. He checked on those with more recent flesh wounds and cast [True Restoration] on a few Classers in need of more direct healing than [Healing Sphere] or [Weave of Life] provided.

That left him with mostly elderly, sickly men and women. He’d cast [Lifeweaver’s Bond] on all of them earlier, allowing the Spark to examine them and analyze their well-being. Their situation was close to what he had suspected. Something alien had grown within them.

David had never seen cancer before, and he couldn’t be certain whether it was cancer or not, but the information package and his instincts told him that it was something similar. Something that should not have grown within them.

“Were they already sick before? Like…did they have cancer before the integration or anything like that?” David inquired, while sorting the information accordingly.

Adults over the age of 50. Not properly integrated into the System since they lack a Basic Class. However, Aether it latching onto them, gathering in that…mass.

“My grandmother, and Mrs. Bolair had cancer but they beat it a few years ago, Sir,” Lilia answered quietly. She stepped up beside him, nibbling on her lower lip as her eyes darted from an elderly woman with some resemblance to her, then back to him. “Was doctor Lars right? Is it cancer? Did it come back?”

David didn’t want to sound too dismissive, but he could only shrug. “To be honest, I have no idea what that is. However, I think it is too much of a coincidence that only older people without a Basic Class are affected by this. The children look fine, which is good since they shouldn’t be forced to pick a Basic Class that doesn’t suit them, but Aether seems to have forced its way into the older residents, creating a place where—”

He stopped mid-sentence and examined the sick people once again. The ulcers caused by Aether were not in the exact same location, but they were all somewhere between the navel and the heart. Sure, there were some oddballs, but they were located in similar areas and looked rather similar.

“I think the Aether affects older people who haven’t integrated into the System. It’s probably similar to the creation of Infected,” David theorized. “But while a human’s adaptability to Aether supports us greatly when we gain access to the System, it seems to affect us negatively if we haven’t accepted the System. Aether wants to feed us. It wants to hold onto us, and…it seems to have found a way to do so in mature bodies of advanced age. Replicating an energy reservoir with a single difference: it kills the host from within.”

David was fairly confident that this was how stronger Infected were born. He was certain the old, sick people standing before him would resurrect as Elite Infected once they died, which would happen in a few months if nothing changed.

“W-what?” Lilia turned to him, eyes wet. She looked like she hadn’t understood half of what he said, except maybe the last bit. “They’re going to die? No! Can’t you do something, Your Excellency? I beg you!”

You and your ‘Your Excellency’. David tried hard not to roll his eyes and waved dismissively.

“Removing it shouldn’t be a problem. However, you guys should gain access to your Primary Class. There’s no need to level it if you don’t want to do so, but I don’t see a reason why you guys should stay like this,” David said, biting his tongue before he could add, ‘This is pitiful.’

He approached Lilia’s grandmother and reached out with his left arm. “May I?”

It was the first time he would do something like that, so he wanted the old woman’s consent first. While it wasn’t necessary, he would feel better if something were to go wrong.

“Go for it, kiddo.” She flashed her teeth—some yellow, others missing altogether—and put her trembling hand on top of his.

David grinned in response and released a burst of Vitae through Deryadus’ Arm. Vitae Nihilum surged out from his heart, flowed through the Ancient Relic, and poured into the old woman. Her eyes widened for a moment, while David pushed Vitae to move faster through her body. It reached the small construct of Aether in an instant and shrouded it.

Vitae hadn’t destroyed anything on the path toward the Aether construct, but that was also David’s doing. A single drop of sweat fell to the ground as he contained Vitae’s desire to devour the old woman alive. Instead, he allowed it to consume the Aether construct before pulling the Void’s energy back into his body—into his heart.

Lilia’s grandmother groaned and whimpered for a moment as Vitae ripped the construct out of her body, but David cast [True Restoration] right away, restoring her health once again. His hand pulled back when he was certain no trace of Vitae remained in the woman. Then, he studied her.

“She should be fine now,” David said, smiling faintly when the old woman’s complexion improved.

She was still weak and unlikely to survive centuries of tragedy, but she should have some good years left—if she accepted a Class and leveled it a little.

Lilia thanked him profusely, tears streaking down her face, but David was too focused on Vitae to notice anything.

Why the hell is Vitae in my heart?

All Vitae Nihilum had been gathered in the Maelstrom, which his Ancient Relic had absorbed and annexed. It should definitely not be anywhere close to his heart. The Maelstrom, however, was nowhere to be seen either. David closed his eyes, only to realize that it was not with Deryadus’ Arm any longer.

Thus, he looked in his heart. But while he could not find a fully intact Maelstrom, David was faced with something worse than that.

His heart was not like it used to be. It was still healthy and worked normally, but it was also…more.

It contained the fragments of his Maelstrom, a tremendous amount of Vitae, and…a lot more than that.

Why the hell does my heart look like the Fallen God’s heart?

It was corrupted.

Well…fuck that.