Damned Healer-Chapter 541: Greatest Reward

Darian roared and attacked the skies. His whole physique was pushed to the limit. Tir, Eleri, and Awel also moved together; all the focus and concentration of the four were raised to the maximum.

**BOOM!**

Darian collided with two different lightnings. Furious ripples of flames and thunder spread from the collision point, covering the skies.

As for the other three lightnings, they were shattered and disappeared almost immediately.

Terrifying sounds echoed. In the skies, only Darian remained still, with the two lightning-dragons pressing him in a duel of resistance and absolute power.

The three daggers fell to the ground, completely powerless. They looked up, struggling to stay conscious, filled with apprehension.

The power of those lightnings was truly terrifying. They had to give their all to dominate their elements, but Darian wasn’t like them and was born from the purest essence of those things. Worse, he still had to withstand two of them.

Darian spat blood. That duel made his soul shake and left his entire body numb.

*PIERCE!*

Darian’s chest was completely pierced by both lightning strikes. He felt an unprecedented sense of danger. The lightnings’ power trembled, about to explode inside his body. If he allowed that, it would kill him brutally.

He spat a lot of blood and activated his maximum elemental domain, locking the power of both lightnings that had pierced his body, keeping them from moving.

Everyone on the ground widened their eyes.

However, Darian’s expression remained completely calm. He didn’t show the slightest hint of panic.

’Impossible...’ Darian thought quickly, tense.

Inside those lightnings, it wasn’t just Yin and Yang like the natural elements; there was an unknown power mixed in, something he couldn’t deal with.

Even with full mastery over Yin, Yang, and the life elements, that was nothing compared to that extra power. Those lightnings looked like they came from hell. They were sinister and dominating.

He struggled, but it seemed they wouldn’t rest until Darian was dead. As a result, cracks could be seen all over his body. He was one step away from exploding.

He would die very soon if it continued like that; he was only resisting because his primordial physique greatly reduced the impact.

Countless fire and thunder runes invaded his body, trying to destroy him from the inside. An absurd pain made Darian’s mind waver. But he endured and activated his white power to the maximum, healing himself. His healing speed was higher than the damage he was suffering, but that wouldn’t last forever.

"!" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

In that instant, that power flooded his mental sea, making him widen his eyes.

That fierce power seemed to have some kind of consciousness; seeing that he was enduring, it tried attacking his weakest part, which was his mind. It didn’t even dare touch his soul, because that was the peak power of a Spiritual Guardian.

"Fuck!"

This time, Darian felt true despair. He forced with all his strength to stabilize his mind, but now, he felt he wouldn’t last more than ten seconds.

Until...

Inside his body, more precisely in his Dantian, he felt something connect, and a message flowed through his brain.

They weren’t words; it was like whoever sent the message couldn’t speak. Even so, Darian understood it. It was almost an instinctive understanding.

’What? The Heart of Gaia can seal that thing?’

The message obviously came from the Gaia of that planet. Darian thought, stunned, but immediately everything made sense. Those Life-Lightnings appeared at the beginning of planets’ lives, when the Gaias had just been born, and the surface had nothing.

The five Life-Lightnings were absorbed by the Gaias, stored inside them, to later be used slowly to generate life. That message seemed to say that he had the same Gaia power inside him, allowing him to store that thing inside and seal it.

’I’ve got no choice but to bet.’

Darian clenched his teeth, then used all the strength he had left to create a free path for the two lightning energies to reach his Dantian.

When he did that, all the power that was trying to destroy his mind sensed the opening and moved at the same time. Both powers approached...

...in that moment, the Heart of Gaia seemed like an ancient beast opening its eyes. An immense force erupted, like a black hole sucking in all things from heaven and earth. The two lightnings were sucked in almost immediately.

That power trembled, trying to escape. In that instant, a sharp pain struck Darian’s entire soul. He felt as if he was about to explode again.

"SEAL!" Darian roared, firing up all the chaos power he had left.

Darian was surrounded by raging energies in the skies. Violent booms echoed from his body, while the whole sky looked like a shattered mirror, covered in cracks.

Blood kept pouring from every possible place. But not even all the pain he felt managed to wipe away his joy. He was really doing it, little by little.

He had imagined that the Golems’ secret technique and the Heart of Gaia were just a bonus he got by accident, something that wouldn’t have made a difference whether he had gotten it or not. But now, he realized that this was possibly his greatest reward.

Half an hour passed. Everyone watched without breathing; it was easy to understand he was fighting internally against that power.

Meanwhile, sparks of furious power shot in all directions, hitting the people and the ground.

Luckily, the Golems could really ignore it when they were together and pushing their elemental power to the max. As for the ground... some looked around, feeling the earth pulsing with life.

It wasn’t just those two life bolts. In the other two phases of the Heavenly Annihilation, the ground had always received remnants of power. Even though it had 99% destructive power, when it touched the ground, the planet’s Gaia drew in only what was nurturing and dispersed the rest.

Suddenly... the skies opened, and sunlight returned to illuminate the world.

That devastating Heavenly Annihilation had finally come to an end.

Everyone looked at Darian above, with eyes of absolute worship.

He was unrecognizable, with his body completely burned and broken. His handsome face was covered in burned blood. His upper clothes had vanished, two holes existed in his chest, and you could even see the other side.

But his red eyes still held an absolute calm and shine, as if everything had gone exactly the way he planned.

Darian slowly landed on the ground...

He made stiff hand movements, taking three pills from his inventory.

He almost never needed to use pills, but Veyle always gave him every highest-level pill she managed to make. Because of that, he always carried hundreds, with all kinds of effects, including healing.

He didn’t have white power, so he swallowed the pills. As he took a deep breath, he felt pure energy travel through his body. Slowly, his wounds began closing.

After a few seconds, he crouched down and picked up his three daggers.

At that moment, he noticed the three had started sleeping deeply after seeing he would be fine. Inside their core, Darian felt an absurdly vast pure elemental energy.

He could only sigh. For the three, it had been relatively easy to dominate those bolts and even store all the energy. Now they were absorbing everything and would be much stronger when they woke up.

Darian felt the ground, noticing countless tiny life fluctuations across the whole area. Practically every centimeter, in all directions for a vast region, had a newly formed heart of the earth.

He took a deep breath, seeing his skin returning to its normal shine. Internally, he was still heavily damaged, but he could move normally again.

When he turned toward his distant army, he spoke softly, "It’s all over. Now, you should help the Golems be born, right? Most likely, in this generation, your population will explode."

Thulon and all the Golems trembled, overwhelmed by extreme emotion.

It had been hundreds of thousands of years that they practically only managed a few hundred new Golems every three hundred years. These numbers had been dropping each cycle, with the invaders getting more experienced in dealing with them.

Now, with no obstacles, more than a million should be born at once.

"Help the Golems however you can. I’ll go to the Temple and come back soon." Darian told the Spiritual Guardians. Then he turned, walking slowly in one direction.

He had no energy left, so he had to walk. He also swallowed a few power-recovery pills, but those took a few minutes to take effect and only recovered a little. The more rings a Spiritual Guardian had, the less effect these pills had.

Veyle had very recently received all those new things from Darian. For sure, she would be able to create something better and more effective in the future. Her biggest problem was that Darian only gave her resources, not knowledge of how to make things.

Camille had already bought all the knowledge that could be bought from the universe’s alchemists and gave it to her, but even so, it was insufficient. So, she had to test and create everything on her own.

Even so, she constantly evolved and created increasingly better things, showing how hardworking and dedicated she was. You could say she was talented, but her effort and will were 99% of the process; talent was just a solid foundation.

After a few minutes, Darian saw a small stone temple appear ahead.

His steps grew faster. He knew no one could get too close; even Aurix had barely managed and only took a very quick look inside.

Darian simply walked straight and didn’t feel anything stopping him.

Meru had explained it the first time they met. All the books were sealed, so only people with karma directly connected to Heaven’s Will could approach. Not even a missionary had that permission just for having the title.

As for him... he had no idea how he had this connection with Heaven’s Will. Obviously, it could only be something from another life. His mind had reflected on that story countless times; he knew all the characters described, but guessing was difficult. So, he chose to simply ignore it. When the time came, he would eventually find out.

His steps reached the front of the small temple. There was only one door, a big round stone with a handle to grab and roll to open.

He opened it calmly, taking steps inside.

In the back, he saw a small altar with a closed ancient book. It was exactly the same as the book he had seen in the past. Darian took a deep breath and walked closer. When he was five steps away, the book shone with an intense light.