Chrysos looked around the village. Everyone looked scared. If it weren't for his presence, they would've panicked by now.
Chrysos knew that he needed to find the Necromancer as fast as possible before the wall of fire disappeared. But searching for one person in a village with over four hundred people is too difficult and the time didn't allow for it.
Not only that, he didn't have a plan right now. He only said so because he knows that he needed to keep their hopes up.
In fact, he was worried too. He didn't know how to resolve this.
He could only think as fast as he could.
He went back to the stone house and began brewing something. Everyone defended the village and shot arrows in order to buy some time.
...
Inside the stone house.
Chrysos was rapidly thinking. "What do I know about Necromancers?" Chrysos desperately searched his memories for anything remotely useful against necromancers.
"Necromancer, a corrupted class that uses corrupted Divinious to turn dead creatures to undead. They will follow the necromancer and fight for them. The undead are powered by corrupted soul energy that absorbs Divinious from the surroundings, so they will never run out of energy to keep fighting unless their bodies are destroyed, which also destroys their corrupted soul. This means that Divinious plundering potions or similar methods wouldn't work against them." Chrysos was getting more frustrated by each passing second. He wasn't getting any useful information.
However, he had a half baked idea that he wanted to test out.
He pretended to brew something, so he made sure to make fancy effects like small explosions, sizzling and mixing sounds. After that, he left the unfinished stone house and came out with a "potion."
"Sir Gerald! Do you have a way to get rid of them now?" Eloro approached him and asked worriedly.
"Yes, I have a way to resolve this." Chrysos sounded confident to the point that the villagers didn't feel as much fear as before. "Get the grenade team over here." He beckoned.
"Yes, I'll call them now." Eloro called them with urgency. He sent men to gather all of them in front of Chrysos.
"Here they are." Eloro spoke with a respectful tone.
Chrysos slowly eyed the grenade team.
"Hmm, everyone looks normal.." Chrysos saw nothing strange about them. He then said, "All of you, follow me."
He began walking far away from the other villagers.
He made sure to bring them far away from the other villagers so that only the grenade team was able to hear what Chrysos was saying.
He spoke to the nervous people around him and said as he held several bags filled with chemicals, "Use these potions on the fire, these potions will release smoke that will stop the regeneration of the beast's Divinious. From what I found out, they are most likely being controlled by an awakened one, or to put it simply, someone who can use Divinious."
Chrysos then analyzed everyone's face, but aside from expressions of shock, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Make sure to leave your fire grenades here just in case you accidentally spill it and burn yourselves." Chrysos told them this warning for a reason. "We'll finally get rid of these beasts, because once this potion cures even a single beast, it will also cure those who are touched by the ones who inhaled this. Basically a chain reaction. If at least one of them gets this stuff inside them, it'll be over." Chrysos laughed confidently.
The grenade team's hopes were lifted.
However, one person was quite unconvinced. Raising his hand, he attracted Chrysos' attention.
"Yes?" Chrysos looked at the person who raised his hand.
"Sir alchemist, are you sure this will work? I don't think I've ever heard of a potion like this before." The man said with uncertainty.
Just as Chrysos was about to explain, another person beside the man responded with a scoff. "You dare doubt our only hope to survive? If you don't trust him, you might as well leave."
The man's tone was harsh, but the others agreed to what he said regardless.
Nodding their heads, the man who was doubtful immediately became quiet.
"This is no time to bicker, go ahead and do what I told all of you to do." Chrysos sent them off as he gave them the potion containers.
They left their fire grenades as instructed and ran towards the wall of fire. This time, they felt amazing. Just one beast cured! That's all they need to stop this madness once and for all!
The grenade teams helped each other to evenly spread out the potions. And when they tossed the grenades towards the wall of fire, gaseous clouds appeared that immediately began to spread out. This gas could be inhaled, since it's not toxic at all, but prolonged exposure would be enough to suffocate an adult.
The potion onslaught was going well until suddenly, the beasts moved back and avoided these gaseous fumes.
Chrysos smiled.
The necromancer was in the grenade team! The villagers clearly saw that the grenade team does not have their fire grenades anymore, so why are the beasts so afraid of the gas as if it's going to threaten their lives? Not only that, none of the beasts dared to touch the gas. Unless the necromancer knew of its effects, there's no way the beasts would react this way!
Unless, the necromancer heard his explanation of the potion.
"Eloro! Call the teams back! They've done their job!" Chrysos laughed heartily.
Eloro blew the horn and when the grenade team heard it, they ran back.
"Ceron, get the warriors and give them a fire grenade each." Chrysos issued another command.
"I'll get it done!" Ceron didn't know what Chrysos was up to, but he followed it anyway. This man was their only hope, they needed him to survive this night. What else can he do except follow his orders?
The warriors were gathered with the fire grenades.
"Alright grenade team, ten of you should use your fingers to touch this blade." Chrysos unsheathed his sword and picked out ten of them to touch the blade.
The ten of them looked at each other with hesitation, but they followed Chrysos' order regardless.
"Warriors, go there and throw the fire grenades at the beasts." Chrysos ordered.
The warriors didn't get what the plan was, but they did as ordered. They threw the grenades, but the beasts moved out of the way. They all dodged the grenades. Some grenades that weren't thrown high enough got ignited by the wall of fire.
"Hmm... Alright, next." Chrysos saw nothing suspicious so he sent the ten members of the grenade team away and called for another ten people.
"Touch the blade." Chrysos then turned to the warriors and shouted. "Throw them!"
The warriors threw another batch of fire grenades and the beasts dodged it again.
Seeing that nothing was wrong, Chrysos clicked his tongue. "Tsk.. you guys, next!" Chrysos called out ten more members of the grenade team.
"Touch the blade." Chrysos held the sword in front of them.
The ten members touched the dark blue blade and wondered why this was necessary.
"Warriors! Throw another round!" Chrysos shouted.
The warriors did as instructed, and the beasts dodged.
At the same time, one person touching the Alizuite blade emitted a purple glow from his finger. It caught everyone who was touching the blade off guard.
The man looked at the sword with fear. He knew that he messed up.
Without hesitation, Chrysos immediately punched the man, making him crash on the ground.
A man named Aptir was shocked. "Sir Chrysos, that's my brother!" He ran towards Chrysos who was about to curb stomp the guy.
Chrysos stopped him by pushing him back. "No! He's corrupted, stay back!"
Aptir didn't listen and tried to help his brother get back up, but he was sent flying back by his brother's punch.
"Gah!" Aptir's nose was bleeding from the punch.
Another member of the grenade team exclaimed in surprise. "Erico?! You're the one controlling these beasts?!" The man couldn't believe it. Erico was his childhood friend.. how could he do something like this?
Erico laughed crazily.
He slowly stood up with his eyes glowing with a purple hue. The way his body moved was unnatural, his hair floated up after being influenced by his Divinious.
"That's right Oceri! I am the one doing this! When I woke up with Divinium, I knew that I was special! I was chosen to be powerful! But you..." Erico glared at Chrysos.
"You're the one who's going to take it away from me! Well I'm not going to let it happen!" Erico's eyes glowed with an eerie purple light. He disregarded everything and made the beasts charge in the wall of fire without hesitation! He was totally deranged at this point. A point of no return
"Die! Alchemist!!!" Erico shouted at Chrysos.
"..." Chrysos looked at Erico and thought to himself..
"This guy definitely has brain damage."
…
Suddenly, the beasts all went through the fire, but the smaller beasts burnt into ashes before they could even do anything. The beasts with bigger bodies are the ones who survived with some damage included.
Erico looked like a demon from hell. He was fully consumed by corrupted Divinious.
The beasts were rapidly approaching the village.
Seeing this hellish scene, everyone in the village panicked.
"What should we do!?"
"Sir Gerald, please save us!"
"Erico, we've been with each other since our childhood! Why are you doing this?!"
Chrysos remained calm and used swiftness. He ran towards Erico with any hesitation!
He had to kill him.
...
When Erico saw Chrysos approaching him he was even filled with more rage and insanity. "Get him!" He shouted on the top of his lungs. His voice was shrill and ear piercing.
The beasts all focused on Chrysos.
Chrysos sliced the beasts with all his strength. He cut open a pig, a cow, and a dog. He dodged and moved around the beast horde just to get to Erico.
However, the beasts grouped together to catch him.
He was encircled.
Chrysos kicked his legs forcefully and jumped. He was going for Erico no matter what!
He stepped on the head of another pig, then a deer, then a cow before leaping up into the air.
Chrysos' heart was beating rapidly. He was surrounded by hundreds of monsters. One wrong move and he'll lose his life. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.
He infused wind Divinious in his sword and threw it at Erico. His sword immediately flew from his hand and flew towards Erico like a speeding bullet!
Normally, this would fail and the sword would just hit Erico without killing him, but with the magical properties of the wind Divinious, it alligned itself and was directly pointing towards Erico.
Erico couldn't even react until his head was suddenly impaled with a sword. When he finally realized it, the shock on his face only appeared for a second before his mind turned blank.
Zoom!
An invisible force spread outwards from Erico's dead body.
The corrupted souls of the beasts lost their energy and skidded down on the ground after suddenly losing movement. Chrysos landed into a pile of rotting corpses that broke his fall.
Chrysos breathed in and out. He couldn't believe he just did that.
He survived!
"Holy $#!+!" Chrysos couldn't help but curse. It was just too intense for him.
It just started from a very faulty plan. He didn't expect for it to actually work!
Around the village…
Everyone around the village was about to fight the beasts until their glowing purple eyes dimmed and they all suddenly fell down lifelessly on the ground. This shocked all of them.
When they tried to find Chrysos, they saw him walking towards the village while carrying Erico's body.
The sunrise shining on his back made his image unforgettable for the villagers..
An image of a true hero was imprinted into their minds..
…
…
"…"
An hour later…
Aptir buried Erico's body. He was crying because of how painful it felt knowing that the person he had left as his family would die like this. Oceri placed flowers on Erico's grave as respect. He also helped try to comfort Aptir.
A woman who found a ring cried after recognizing it. It was her husband's.
A man and a woman cried after seeing the body of their only son.
Some of them couldn't find their loved ones. There were people who did find them but it was only their limbs, or a half burnt face.
People were looking for the bodies and the remains of their loved ones.. Some of them celebrated after surviving this ordeal, while some mourned and cried.
But either way, they were all grateful that they lived through this day.
And two days later, Chrysos packed his stuff and waved goodbye to the villagers of Aviflora.
"Allow me to thank you again for saving us." Eloro gave him twenty gold coins as reward for his help. He added an extra ten gold coins, but Chrysos refused. This made Eloro's favorable image of Chrysos even better.
"No need. Just make sure to be careful alright?" Chrysos turned to look at Oceri and Aptir. Aptir was Erico's brother and Oceri was his best friend ever since they were kids.
"Hey, don't hate Erico for what he did. He was corrupted and it wasn't his fault. I'm sure he wouldn't want to hurt anyone in the first place." Chrysos looked Aptir in the eyes.
"Yes sir.." Aptir wiped his tears. "I know that he wouldn't do that for no good reason.."
"Good." Chrysos looked at the villagers of Aviflora waving at him. This made him smile.
He waved back before leaving. This day was something Chrysos would never forget in his life.
...
The villagers of Aviflora focused on studying Alchemy since that day. The stone house was finished and became a place where everyone brewed potions together.
They named it as "Aviflora's Community Alchemy House."
And for years to come, everyone would see Chrysos' name in a silver plaque to honor his deeds.
To the hearts of Aviflora, Chrysos was a hero that saved their lives. They are eternally grateful for what he did for them.