*Riiiinnnnnggggg!!!* *Pop!*
A high pitched ring echoed before a loud pop followed, followed by the barrier coming down.
Right when Alan heard the beginning of the ring he immediately stopped the sword in his hand. It was stuck a quarter way into his neck but he seemed to have missed his artery and spine just barely. The young man was already out cold with his eyes slightly open and anyone would have thought he was dead.
However, Alan had a feeling he was still alive. Since the soul was made up of essence, he could tell whether he was still alive, however, Alex wasn't normal. He had zero essence in him, even his soul. But he could still feel the power of a 1st Ring still emanating from his body.
Although he wasn't certain he was alive, that was a good sign.
"Sharla you can come i-" Alan began yelling out but didn't get to finish before the door burst open and Sharla rushed in. She didn't bother to even use the stairs and pointed her hands down while making strange hand signs.
A light green glow came out of her fingertips and made her glide towards the two men instead of falling straight down. Sharla's face was painted with worry and it only got worse the closer she got.
"What the hell did you do to him Alan?! I thought we agreed to not kill him!!" She gritted her teeth and glared at her husband with fury before dropping to the floor and beginning an incantation.
While she did that, Alan only looked away like it wasn't his problem.
"YOU agreed that I wouldn't kill him. And I didn't so we're all good." He brushed it off but emphasized how Sharla wanted to dictate how this fight went down.
"I know you still blame yourself for what happened to Tony and Jaeger but that doesn't mean he will go through it! He isn't you, so don't force him to experience a fight to the death when he hasn't even killed a monster for all we know!" She growled at him after finishing her first incantation.
A pale green light enveloped Alex as she quickly removed the sword on his neck. Blood spurted out but was soon clotted as the green glow swept across his neck and grew new skin and muscles visible to the naked eye.
Sharla was pale, not only because of the huge amount of essence she used at once to use one of her strongest heal spells but also at the condition of the young man in front of her.
As a healer, she had met many depressing scenes during the time she worked as a healer for the city's church, as an apprentice doctor, and when Alan would come back from the Ether forest with various wounds, but she had never seen something as grotesque as this.
He was unrecognizable since his nose was bashed in and his face swelled up with pressure. One of his eyeballs was also out of its socket and his jaw was dislocated. His inner ear was crusted with blood and a portion of his neck was severed from his shoulders.
The Claymore was still stuck in his arm and bled profusely with his shattered bones on the floor. His clothes had pretty much been torn to pieces and his chest and abdomen caved in a bit from all the punches he received.
She was pretty sure one of his lungs was punctured and his spleen ruptured. His intestines peeked out slightly from a sword wound to his naval.
Her hands were shaky as she made incantations one after another. Some tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she worked.
She couldn't help but picture her daughter in his shoes since they were of similar age. She was heavily against her daughter becoming an adventurer for this exact reason.
She was glad both her husband and daughter caved into her pleas but she had never been as close to her daughter since then.
She was a mother who prevented her child from following her dreams and although she felt guilty about it, she would always remember this man in front of her as her daughter.
Would Emma look like this? Or would she be r*ped and abused before being dropped in a ditch? These were the scenes every mother would imagine as their children left the safety of the nest and flew out into the world.
Once she had finished healing his neck, she moved onto the next more vital area which was his chest and abdomen. Although his face did not look good, he could still breath through his mouth for the time being.
She used many high level healing spells as she analyzed his health and stamina stats to make sure he was getting better.
As a healer, it was imperative that she learned to recognize the health and stamina stats. She also knew a little bit about essence but that was very hard to recognize since that began going into the realm of the soul.
She noticed that when she first got to him, he was already in the single digits when it came to health and stamina. That meant he was on the brink of death but noticed that it didn't move down any further than like 7 or 8 points.
She couldn't tell exactly how many points he had but it felt like some outside force was preventing it from going lower. She didn't question it, however, and just focused on reviving him.
He was already strange enough having no essence in him so she just assumed it had to do with that.
While Sharla was focused on healing Alex. Alan had clenched his jaw and fists before walking off.
His knuckles made loud cracks before he went up to one of the giant pillars in the room and hit it at full force.
*BOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!*
The air exploded as he broke the sound barrier and his fist collided with the banged-up pillar.
The room rumbled after his strike but Sharla ignored him even when the wind kicked up by his attack blew her hair around.
To her, he was just throwing a tantrum after her comment. Her words hit hard for Alan who blamed himself for the deaths of his comrades.
He took a couple of seconds after striking the pillar to take deep breaths. He was trying to calm down his rage but it didn't work so he hit the pillar again.
*BOOOOOMMMMM!!!*
The air roared in pain as he took very small chunks of the pillar off the main body. It had to be known that what he was hitting right now was a very expensive pillar of Adamantium, known as the strongest metal on Nova.
All three pillars were extremely expensive but Alan had saved up tons of money that he hardly ever spent during his travels.
As for his late comrades Tony and Jaeger, they were the first party members he quickly befriended after leaving on his adventuring journey.
As a boy fresh off the farm, he knew nothing about the dark underbelly of the kingdom. He unknowingly trusted someone from another party he shouldn't have and ended up getting him and his party ambushed and robbed.
Tony and Jaeger were tortured before being killed while Alan saw the temporary female member of their team getting r*ped and beaten.
It was unknown what had happened to her but he could care less since she was a stranger. He felt bad, but he felt way worse as he still remembered the vivid mutilated bodies of his friends.
It haunted his dreams every night but he thought it was the Gods punishing him for his naivety. He spent the remainder of his adventuring career solo because he couldn't trust anyone anymore and nobody wanted to be with the "party killer."
He became your basic edgy MC from earth novels and the only good thing that came out of his solo career was his quick rise in strength and he soon became an A-rank adventurer.
He was then recruited for the army, which he quickly realized was a huge mistake.
His freedom was limited and he was forced to interact with haughty nobles and stuck-up soldiers who barely knew how to fight.
It was a huge mess but they were still sent to the frontlines where the war with the Demons was in full swing. He fought well, but when he was taken away from the frontlines again, he soon found his leg missing after he stood up to a noble who wanted to send their almost wiped-out brigade to the frontlines again.
He was then discharged for being "wounded in battle" like Alex guessed and was given no compensation for his duty, claiming it was to cover "medical bills" that never happened to reach him.
It was clear how corrupt the system was but he could not stand up to the powerhouse that was the noble faction.
Many houses that stood strong for centuries had given birth to 7th Ring evolvers and the king of the nation always had at least 1 8th Ring that hid in the shadows.
It was impossible for him to fight back and he could only go home in shame and full of anger. He was lucky his life turned around after that, but whenever someone mentioned his friends or spoke highly of the kingdom, he could only grit his teeth and let his anger out on his pillars.
After he calmed down, he then walked away to a door behind the pillars.
"Just heal his fatal wounds, he can handle the rest." Alan said in his nonchalant attitude.
That attitude was born after he endured many years by himself in the wilderness. It got to the point where he forgot how to speak for a while but it came back to him after his recruitment into the army.
Sharla only glared in his direction before focusing on Alex. She had spoken to Alan many times about the horrors he experienced during his travels.
Although he didn't disclose everything to his wife, she knew that working as an adventurer or as a soldier wasn't all peaches and roses like many make it out to be.
After about an hour, she finally had Alex stable enough to relax. His chest was no longer caved in and he was breathing rhythmically.
His neck was back on his shoulders and his missing ear had regrown. His face was still swollen since it wasn't life-threatening but she had cleared up any fractures he might have had to his skull.
She had also healed his mutilated arm as much as possible but was unable to use her low stat strength to pull out the sword.
Luckily it hadn't severed anything important so it would just be a major flesh wound. Still, it would be extremely painful for him and only Alan had the strength to pull it out.
However, her husband in question was throwing a tantrum right now.
Now that she had saved his life again, she let her rage flow out. She was furious at her man-child of a husband who just disregarded her feelings on this matter.
The air seemed to ripple when her aura spread out into the hall. She went down and picked up the unconscious beat-up Alex and lifted him in a Princess carry.
She was too small of a woman to hold every part of him so his sword penetrated shield arm fell down in front. His head also dangled a bit to the side and she barely had a grip on his legs.
It was a comical scene to see a dainty woman like herself carrying a mountain like Alex but she never cared about her image.
She glared at the closed door her husband walked into before floating herself back up to the top of the stairs.
Her face was still a bit pale for the massive amount of essence she used at once but still had plenty to open doors without touching them.
Her daughter's door swung open with a slam as her rage continued to flare outward.
If one looked closely, you could see a very faint light green aura flickering like fire all around her. She flew through all the doors of the basements hardly noticing her daughter go by.
Emma had called out to her mother but the latter didn't seem to hear her. When she saw her carrying Alex, her face paled and she almost vomited.
She had pretty much been sheltered since childhood even though she learned to fight so seeing the state his body was in currently, was too much for her.
She couldn't help but cover her mouth when she saw a sword through the shield and his arm. Blood still dripping from the open wound but her mother seemed to not notice the bright red liquid staining the hem of her white dress.
It was a scary image but she soon heard her mother's voice.
"Tell your father that he will be sleeping on the couch for the rest of this month." She said nonchalantly like her husband.
However, to her daughter who had seen her mother angry before, knew she was fighting very hard to not erupt in rage. She may be a very sweet woman, but when she was angry, no one was safe.
Emma was sweaty and pale and nodded quickly. She didn't say anything else as she watched her mother move up the next flight of stairs. Once she felt the aura disappear she finally let out her breath and held her heart.
"Thanks, dad for making her angry." She mumbled sarcastically before leaving to go do what her mother asked.
All the while, Sharla had made it upstairs to where the public was, and the people that passed her fell down pale as if they were seeing a demoness.