Damned Healer-Chapter 553: Really Fast

At that moment, the glorious commercial buildings of the Twilight Owl race were in ruins. When people saw the leader of the place in his final breaths, lying in the center of a huge crater, they could barely believe their eyes.

Darian took a deep breath, still shocked. With the support of his four cores, it was like a hammer had just gained a proper handle. That didn’t just increase the hammer’s destructive power; it also protected him from the impact.

He hadn’t used any technique; it was just raw power coming from Gaia’s core. Darian could feel a huge flow of energy in the cores, so he didn’t even try to use a weapon or the other cores together, since he was still getting used to it and feared injuring himself internally. He could heal quickly, sure, but he could put the others in danger for a few seconds.

It would be like holding a hammer by the head and smashing it against a rock, instead of holding the handle and hitting the rock. The difference was massive. With the first, you couldn’t even use your full strength because you’d be afraid of hurting your hand. But with the second, you could smash it however you wanted.

In the end, the four cores and his seven rings acted automatically, as if they were a single thing, and nothing happened to him. As a result, his simple raw strike looked like some absurdly terrifying technique.

Matteo, Zelkov, and the others on the flying boat were completely dumbfounded. Even Alear and Niara didn’t expect Darian to have such frightening power.

Right then, a purple glow mixed with sparks of lightning appeared in the middle of the rubble.

"Boss, we’re done!"

Lihan’s voice sounded full of excitement. Then, two small Crimson Storm Talons flew back at high speed.

Darian nodded in satisfaction. That race’s specialty was exactly speed and precision. He had told them, long before the attack, that at the key moment they should rush in and break into the underground of the building, where the treasure was kept.

When the barrier exploded, all the energies of the treasure’s protective inscription became unstable. It would only last a few seconds, and Darian wouldn’t have time to make use of that; even if he could break the barrier easily, he wouldn’t be fast enough. So those two were essential to keep everything safe and efficient.

As soon as they landed on the flying boat, Darian said seriously, "Alear, quick. More people will arrive soon."

Alear nodded and activated the full power of the flying boat, not caring at all about the absurd resource consumption. They shot into the sky, piercing space at ridiculous speed.

"KILL... What!?" A roar that made the entire planet tremble echoed, but his disbelief was even more shocking.

Right after they left, the space around the entire planet became covered in spatial portals, with hundreds of Twilight Owls pouring out of them.

They landed quickly at the site with intimidating expressions, making the spectators flee in panic, overwhelmed by fear. When they looked at the leader of that place, they saw his final breaths before he died.

There were dozens considered the elite of the race, accompanied by their Supreme General. Any one of them would kill the leader of this place in just a few moves. They ran as fast as possible as soon as the inscription was destroyed, but...

Darian and the others looted, destroyed, and escaped in an instant, showing unbelievable efficiency.

All those people had red eyes, filled with killing intent. When they saw the corpse, as well as the destruction around it—especially the empty hole where the treasure had been—everyone almost lost their minds.

Their eyes swept the area, and anyone nearby immediately hid, not daring to look at them.

"Who did this?! Show me the image of him in your memories!" the Supreme General shouted to a surviving Twilight Owl.

He ran over and sent his memories. Using Qi and cultivation power, things like that were pretty simple, without needing Artifacts like the Spiritual Guardians used.

"It’s that human! Hurry, we can track him!"

Right then, the tablets on their belts started flashing, making their expressions change instantly.

Another powerful figure exclaimed, shocked, "The Golden Moon planet branch is under attack! Is it possible...?!"

"We’re going!" the Supreme General roared, and everyone nodded.

With no time to waste, they all used some Magic Technique. The void trembled and, in an instant, they all vanished.

On the planet, the city people were stunned, staring in disbelief.

"Impossible. He really didn’t run away and just went straight to the next one?"

...

**BOOM!**

A massive attack, along with a terrifying draconic power, devastated the commercial branch of another planet. As a result, the leader in charge coughed blood, cracks spreading across his entire body. He was almost killed by that single attack.

"Mama Nia is powerful!" Alear said excitedly.

Niara flapped her wings, returning proudly to the flying boat. She looked at Darian, and he nodded. Her power had also grown to disproportionate levels.

Niara didn’t have all of Darian’s destructive force, but she had three cores with unique abilities that could use mental, vital, and soul power at an extremely high level.

That gave her many possibilities Darian didn’t have. For example, she could use a soul attack on an entire army at once, stunning them and possibly killing them afterward. Darian couldn’t do something like that; his powers were more destructive and focused on fewer targets.

The Life core, together with the primordial core from her Bloodline, made her just as hard to kill as Darian. And her mind core could slowly kill any stronger opponent by invading their body like a poison. As long as the enemy couldn’t defeat her quickly, time was the greatest ally of her mental power.

Of course, Darian had countless other things hidden, but his partner definitely wasn’t behind him and could always fight at his side.

Right then, Lihan and Tizol rushed back onto the flying boat.

"Great! We’re leaving." Darian told Alear, and they escaped again, flying away at full speed.

"Wait, all of you—"

The injured leader of the place tried to stop them, but he coughed up blood again. The world spun around him, and he almost fainted.

Already far, far away...

"Hehehe, this is the third one! We’re going twice as fast as the last two times. Clearly, we’ve got plenty of room to improve!" Alear said, laughing and having a great time with all of it.

Darian or Niara were in charge of breaking the door. Lihan and Tizol went straight for the treasure, while the others were focused on sensing the spatial fluctuations of the planet; even the slightest abnormal fluctuation meant the enemies were arriving, and they needed to run immediately.

Of course, Darian was confident he could kill the opponents, but doing that without needing to would be risky; not to mention it would cause destruction and the death of the entire population of the planet during the battle. That race definitely didn’t care about common people, but he did.

Luckily, the moment they appeared, the leaders of the place used a defensive inscription, and that absorbed the power of Darian and Niara, concentrating the destruction only in that region, without affecting innocents.

After getting the treasure, they left immediately. Everything lasted just a few minutes.

That was great training for Darian and Niara, who took turns attacking and testing their cores and new power.

Darian now felt confident in using this in complex battles and understood a bit more of the extent of his current strength.

They picked completely random planets, very far from each other, without revealing any pattern. Darian learned the location of the best places in the Rainbow Cranes’ library. There were thousands of planets, and it was impossible to protect all or reach them faster to block them.

Not to mention, they had started looting less than half an hour ago. The enemies were still stunned and in a chaotic state. But that would change soon.

Luckily for Darian, the Twilight Owls were known for their wealth and vast trade across the universe.

Now, Darian and his group were truly packed with treasures, including the rare and coveted Genesis Ore. But there was all kinds of stuff together, so much that Darian would have to go back to the library to look for records of what they had gotten.

Alchemy materials, forging materials, cultivation resources, inscription-building materials, everything you could imagine was there. Even the things you couldn’t imagine were still there.

"As expected, looting the rich is the fastest shortcut to getting rich. The amount of courage and cruelty a person has is proportional to how wealthy they are," Alear said, laughing, "Which makes stealing from them even more satisfying."

They were in the middle of space, getting as far away as possible from the last planet. Once everyone felt safe, Alear asked excitedly:

"Dan, are we going to the next one? What are the coordinates?" She was addicted to it. The feeling of getting rich instantly was unbeatable.

Before Darian could say anything, it was Niara who scolded her: "You make it sound so easy, but we were walking on a thin line; any tiny mistake or bad luck, and everything could fall apart. And also, are you trying to kill everyone from exhaustion?"

Darian sighed. Even Niara, who usually didn’t think much about anything, knew how to be considerate with her allies. She had lived long enough to know they were important and needed constant attention.

After looting several times, all the others were already out of breath. They had spent all their energy. Alear was pretty young, and she felt like her adoptive father and mother were the ones doing everything and were unstoppable. But all of that was teamwork, even if the others did smaller things.

Darian spoke gently: "Niara’s right. Let’s not be careless. We already robbed five out of the 36 largest planets. They must have moved all the best resources from the other 31 to their fortress planet. Attacking smaller planets won’t add much to what we already have. So..."

Niara’s eyes lit up, understanding. Darian explained everything calmly while they recovered.

After moving all their greatest treasures to the planet with the strongest defenses, that race was sure Darian wouldn’t be crazy enough to attack that place full of powerful figures, since they always escaped without wanting to fight. To them, Darian and his group were cowardly thieves, too weak to fight head-on.

Darian’s plan was simple. After they stored everything most valuable, they would move many of their strongest soldiers to the other biggest planets, waiting for Darian in a trap.

This was because they would activate the tracking mechanism on the flying ship, which was a type of Bloodline curse that the first Twilight Owl had placed. That way, they’d know Darian was ’near’ the galaxies where several of the largest planets were.

He would certainly attack one of those planets. But he should be cautious or recovering right now. If they attacked him in the middle of space, he would simply run away, so it was better to wait and create a well-prepared trap.

As for Darian, he could’ve removed that curse easily with his power, but he deliberately left it there.

The flying ship’s speed while they were robbing was so absurd that, even with the enemies knowing the region he was in, they couldn’t react in time. In just minutes, Darian arrived on another planet, did everything, and fled.

But now that they had time to think, the Twilight Owls would decide to focus on a few planets and abandon the smaller ones.

Darian already had plenty of experience with war strategies and troop movements. Combined with the immense arrogance of those enemies, and having read all the battles and tactics used previously against the Rainbow Cranes, Darian could easily predict what they would do.

After explaining, Darian took a deep breath and activated his curse.

All over the flying ship, fully fused with the hull and impossible to detect, he forced the curse out.

Everyone saw a bloody energy flow out. But he didn’t destroy it. Darian nodded and pulled out a spatial artifact the size of a fist. Then, he split the curse into two parts.

He gave Alear the coordinates. The flying ship quickly reached planet A, making a quick stop.

Half of the curse he sealed inside the spatial artifact, cutting the connection with that race completely. Then he tossed the artifact toward planet A, where it would fall inside.

Next, they went to planet B almost immediately, in a nearby galaxy. It was so fast the enemies would just assume he moved in a straight line without stopping.

This time, Darian compressed the other half of the curse and threw it directly at the planet. It sank into the ocean and stayed there.

"Let’s move fast," he said, and the flying ship activated its full speed.

At that exact moment, all the Twilight Owls were certain Darian was on planet B. And when they discovered he was at the bottom of the ocean, they’d assume he was hiding to prepare his next attack.

The Twilight Owl race knew the Rainbow Cranes had no resources to remove the tracking curse. And with such a terrifying flying ship in their hands, they assumed the thieves would prefer to keep using it even with the curse, relying on their speed to run, just like they had been doing.

Their going into the sea was a bit suspicious, but since they were convinced it was really the thieves’ flying ship, they moved everyone to attack it with a massive trap. They were sure he wouldn’t escape this time.

Less than a minute later...

That’s when the curse on planet A was released. The supreme general widened his eyes. Two locations? Then a third appeared, leaving him stunned.

...

Seconds earlier. On the Fortress planet, above the main castle. The space trembled, and the skies opened. The flying ship arrived.

*Buzz*

Instantly, the high-level inscriptions felt an unexpected disturbance. They activated everything automatically, sealing the planet.

A massive pressure from all directions struck the flying ship.

"You ignorant brats, you dare rob our military base?! None of you will leave here alive!"

As that furious roar echoed, a large group of figures appeared around them.

"Oh? They’re actually really fast." Niara muttered, and Alear smiled.