Damned Healer-Chapter 476: Devourer’s Gambit
Darian was really surprised. Had she been infected by the blood of those creatures? No way. Impossible. The draconic bloodline was on another level — nothing could infect her like that.
Her body was still covered in scales, but they were ordinary ones now — without that insane power from before. It was like she had burned away all her Bloodline earlier, leaving behind only a faint layer of defense.
Niara ran toward Darian, and then her wings flapped fiercely, making a slight adjustment in her flight path toward him.
Near where he was, the army of nearly eighty enemies was regrouping. Darian's previous attack had killed the leader and about twenty of them.
*BANG!*
A violent explosion shook the ground. Niara punched toward the earth, and a wave of energy burst out.
One of the Black Bloods was reduced to nothing with a single move from her.
His Bloodline blood splattered everywhere, hitting the others nearby. That made them roar in frenzy and charge at her.
Niara roared back and attacked again.
*BOOOM!!*
This time, her attack made Darian's eyes widen. That strike was at least ten times stronger than before and wiped out half a dozen of them at once.
The others surrounded her, attacking together. But unlike the four-circle enemies, these ones seemed to fight with some level of tactics and basic intelligence. While some blocked her from the front, others used long-range attacks, firing crimson beams at her blind spots.
*BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!*
Niara kept attacking, each strike stronger and more violent than the last, while her body was bombarded from all sides without mercy.
Without the powerful green armor, her scales began to shatter easily, and the attacks started hitting her skin. Blood flowed all over her body, but she seemed to ignore the pain completely.
At that moment, Darian sensed subtle fluctuations. There was a faint violet energy in her fists.
'That's mind power.'
She was using the *Divine Fist Art*, that basic martial technique they had learned at the very beginning. But instead of channeling Darian's white or black power, she was using mind power.
With every strike, when her mental power touched the target, it weakened their defenses. Niara was pouring an absurd amount of that power into her blows, causing terrifying explosions — and with that extra effect, the result was devastating.
"AHH!"
She stopped and roared. In that instant, her body pulsed, and all her wounds closed, fully regenerating in just one second.
"That's... an insane amount of life energy."
The enemies around her went into an even greater frenzy — she had already killed almost thirty of them in an incredibly short time. The fifty that remained, the ones with some intelligence, quickly regrouped into a new formation.
They stepped back after one of her violent blows killed another.
Then, all at once, they began glowing with red light. It was clearly a coordinated move, using their racial connection.
Niara also stopped, sensing the danger instinctively. Even with her mind blank, her instincts were still sharp.
Darian started to move to help her, but froze the moment he felt something coming from her.
Niara flapped her wings, taking off into the air. At first glance, it looked like a foolish move — they could all target her together without hitting each other. But...
*DIE!*
A harsh roar came from her mouth, and an invisible wave burst out from her, spreading rapidly.
'Soul power,' Darian felt it clearly.
The wave spread across the sky and the ground, covering the enemies. Their expressions froze, and their attacks stopped.
It was a high-level Soul attack, affecting an enormous area. The density and amount of power required for something like that were unimaginable. With their souls shaken, they were all left stunned — the sky and the ground seemed to spin around them.
Then, Niara dropped from the sky like a violet meteor.
**BOOOOM!!**
The ground trembled, and dust rose, covering everything.
Darian swallowed hard. Niara was using mind power, soul power, and life energy in an amount impossible to imagine.
When they were in Vadise, he'd heard from Zelkov that Niara spent almost all her time inside the Berserker God Array. On top of that, she had asked Painita for help getting techniques involving the use of Soul power.
Niara had always had terrifying practical talent. If Darian tried to teach her every detail, she'd never learn. But if he just showed her something simple and straightforward, letting her try it herself, she'd instinctively master it after only a few attempts — even without fully understanding how.
In the past, right when the two first met and made that bet against two newbies at Celestia Academy, Darian had found an opportunity to fill her mental sea with an almost infinite amount of mind power. (Chapter 16)
Back then, he hadn't expected much from it. But Niara ended up with a mind power thousands of times greater than a normal person's. Now, she had used that advantage to learn how to control mind power more efficiently and apply it in battle.
Life energy was the simplest for her. Everyone with a draconic Bloodline was born with an absurd amount of it, and she could manipulate it naturally. The Bloodline always generated more and more life energy, making it easy to heal any ordinary wound — as long as there was enough energy.
That left soul power. Niara had never trained it, nor had she received it directly from Darian.
However, he had explained that mind power and life energy were connected to soul power — the three together formed the energies of life. If she mastered two, controlling the third would only be a matter of time.
Thinking about it, everything made sense. Niara had trained on her own, using the *Divine Fist Art* with mind power, then sought techniques involving the soul, taking advantage of the resources on the great planet Vadise.
But... the amount of all three energies she was using now went far beyond normal limits. That much power hadn't been inside her body before.
When the dust settled, Darian saw a huge empty crater.
"..." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
In the center, he spotted that beautiful Dragoness standing still.
She had killed all of them by herself, in just a few moves — in the most brutal way possible — and she didn't have a single wound on her body.
Her wings were lowered, and her head hung slightly, like she was exhausted and barely standing.
Darian took a quick step toward her. The moment he got close, her gaze lifted to meet his.
He stopped.
Then he saw clarity return to those amber eyes. At the same time, there was exhaustion — and her eyes started to close on their own.
He caught her gently, facing her. Her head rested on his right shoulder as she leaned in and hugged him softly.
A faint murmur escaped her lips, "...was I... cool?"
"Yeah, really cool," Darian replied with a sigh.
"hehe... that's... my blessing..."
Her voice sounded weak, like she was fighting to stay awake.
"Using my Bloodline... and my mutant ability... I created something that fits me... I call it the Devourer's Gambit Blessing."
He listened and examined her from within carefully. She was completely drained — her Bloodline, and all three life energies. But the thing she had burned earlier... that hadn't existed in her body before.
"I think I get it. Get some rest, it's over now."
He spoke softly, then carefully lifted her onto his back. She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her legs. Niara rested her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes with a peaceful expression, and fell into a deep sleep.
Darian took a deep breath, feeling her warmth, her softness, and her calm breathing. Then, he started walking slowly toward the distant army, lost in thought.
Niara wasn't a Spiritual Guardian, but she had a spiritual root thanks to Darian. And using her Draconic core that generated intense Draconic power, she had actually replaced the power of the ring and created a Blessing.
He could feel it clearly — it was a legitimate Blessing, capable of distorting reality. And it matched her perfectly, born from her own mutation.
Niara had been born able to devour and perfectly absorb the Bloodline of other Mannaz like her. It fused with her body, improving her Bloodline and amplifying her internal energies.
Now, she had created on her own a Blessing that distorted reality and turned her into... the most perfect, impenetrable shield. She could block attacks that should've been impossible for her level.
But what was the limit of that? Since it distorted reality and the laws of the world, any attack that didn't come from an immortal should be possible to block.
Still, "block" wasn't really the right word. The name *Devourer* wasn't random — just like her natural mutation, she absorbed the enemy's attack power into herself and converted it into the three life energies.
A Blessing that powerful always came with a price. Darian had seen many Blessings before and knew that pattern well. It had to be some kind of world law: the more reality was distorted, the more specific the condition — or the greater the price to pay.
Most likely, after devouring that much energy, Niara's body wouldn't be able to handle it and would explode. But she refused to waste something good — just like Darian.
So, she created the Divine Dragon Possession to stabilize herself temporarily. And thinking a bit more...
Inside the Berserker God Array in Vadise, on the last level, there were some Jade Slips Darian had only skimmed once. They contained ideas about how to expand physical potential and release energy extremely efficiently.
But that Berserker God method caused a person's mind and reasoning to be severely affected — a trade-off: massive physical strength and power in exchange for becoming a fool.
After reading that, Darian completely ignored the technique and focused only on the other benefits of the place. But... Niara saw an opportunity in it.
She needed an effective method to release all that energy without exploding. So, she incorporated that idea into the aftermath of her Blessing. The downside became an advantage.
In short: after blocking a devastating blow with her Blessing, she'd get so overloaded with power she could explode at any moment. So she learned to enter *Berserker* mode and unleash everything by fighting with overwhelming strength.
During that state, she'd be almost without reasoning, guided only by instincts and the techniques she'd learned to use almost automatically.
It was a risky move — since she stopped following orders and had to release that energy no matter what. Depending on the situation, that could cause problems.
Darian sighed. If Niara kept growing stronger, with that Blessing and her Bloodline evolving, she would never be useless. In fact... she'd become a secret weapon capable of completely turning any battle.
