Damned Healer-Chapter 555: Only One Left

From the moment the flying ship appeared on the planet to Runar’s arrival and departure, not even two minutes had passed. Darian calculated the time and still had two or three minutes left to get out of there.

The Twilight Owl elder had already been feeling a bad premonition about Darian for a while. Even Runar had said Darian wasn’t someone to be provoked.

However, he misunderstood that terrifying Wyvern’s intentions. He thought it was Darian’s background that made him so powerful, someone his race couldn’t afford to offend.

Since Darian always made surprise attacks, ran away fast, and avoided fighting, the whole race assumed he was using some trick to break into and destroy the branch barriers. Now that Runar *said* he had a powerful background, that made the elder even more certain they had some incredible treasure. Basically, he could never imagine that these invaders actually had a lot of individual power.

Darian had blatantly looted several of their branches, and they couldn’t just accept that. No matter how "tough" Darian’s background was supposed to be, the Twilight Owls had reason on their side and could take action.

In truth, nothing had changed, because from the start they intended to capture them alive. As for what to do with them later, they’d leave that to the Emperor. Anything was fine, as long as they were captured alive.

All the hundreds of Twilight Owls understood exactly what the elder meant. The highest-level inscription on the ground pulsed, and a scarlet light moved toward the attackers, merging with them. It gave them far more power than normal, and they attacked immediately.

That was the nearly unbeatable tactic of the Heavenly Beasts. They were already at the peak of the universe’s power, and with that buff, they reached an incomparable level.

That’s why none of the three races ever dared launch an attack against the other’s main planets. This kind of inscription could only be used by the owner of the planet, required many years to create, and made losing a defensive battle almost impossible.

This was also the reason the other two races chose a slow-destruction tactic against the Rainbow Cranes. Their goal was to slowly drain their resources and planets until they became so weak they couldn’t fight back, even with that inscription.

"Let’s finish this quickly," Darian said dryly. In that moment, everyone on the flying ship activated their powers.

Hundreds of Twilight Owls attacked from every direction like scarlet lightning bolts. At that instant, Tir and Eleri appeared in Darian’s hands.

*Wooosh!*

"!"

As soon as they made a move, Darian moved as well.

In the next moment, countless spears of ice and earth appeared in the air around the flying ship, attacking like sharp blades, leaving no openings.

It all happened extremely fast. The power of Darian’s rings flowed into the two of them, and since they were getting stronger every day, they unleashed a devastating strike instantly.

Everyone felt death surrounding them and defended against the spears. But...

*Slash!*

Darian appeared like a ghost behind them and cut with devastating blows. Suddenly, a dozen of them were instantly sliced apart and exploded.

He vanished before the explosion even fully formed, appearing in the middle of another group like a hungry god of death.

The elder’s eyes widened. In two seconds, more than thirty had died outright. Not even with the inscription’s power could they block his attacks!

"Stop!"

He finally panicked and roared.

Negotiate now? Darian had no time to waste and ignored him. In fact, he moved even faster. In a single second, he attacked and killed them by the dozen, at a speed and ferocity the Twilight Owls couldn’t even react to.

They didn’t even manage to get close to the flying ship. Fear paralyzed them, and seeing everyone explode without any defense, they hesitated even more.

"Ah!"

"No!"

With that person’s death, the others fell into total panic, and amid the chaos, it became even harder for them to defend.

The most shocking thing was that only Darian was attacking. The elder realized this too late, searching for the others. Then he felt a strange fluctuation and turned around in fear.

Behind him, already inside the castle, he noticed they had all invaded without him realizing it. His heart pounded in complete terror. What the hell was happening? How could they be this terrifying?

Only now did he understand what that Wyvern meant.

In that instant, he grabbed a blood-red crystal. There was no winning, so he was going to flee.

*Slash!*

His vision lifted upward and spun, leaving him confused. Only then did he realize he was falling. He was nothing but a head separated from the body. In the next second, his body and head exploded too.

Alear, right behind him, snorted, controlling a Yin blade.

From start to finish, everything happened in a matter of seconds. In the end, everyone was brutally defeated by Darian. It was absolutely impressive.

Darian was the most excited. It wasn’t just his raw power that had increased with the four cores. His techniques became even more efficient and easier to use. Even without having space mastery, he could now move by piercing space over short distances with a single thought.

Using Tir and Eleri’s elemental power to force them to defend, all he had to do was appear behind them and strike their blind spot. It was a teamwork move with his two partners.

After killing dozens so brutally, the others were terrified, and that sealed the end.

No one is immune to the fear of dying, even after living so long and training so much. Especially those arrogant figures who thought they were invincible; the moment they felt like they were about to die, their first thought was to run, not to attack.

Facing a torrent of fast and devastating attacks, their only option was to face him head-on. If they had quickly grouped up and covered all directions and each other’s blind spots, it would’ve been harder for Darian to end everything so fast.

Inside the castle.

Everyone appeared in front of the barrier that led to the treasures. Niara snorted, holding a dagger in her hands.

’Sis Niara, hold me properly!’ Awel shouted mentally. Niara wasn’t very good with weapons, and she was holding the dagger in a very strange way.

She sighed and changed her grip, trying to imitate Darian. Awel nodded slightly; then, on her blade, a rune shone.

It was the sharpening rune seal.

Of Darian’s three daggers, Awel was the only one who managed to place the rune seal. That was because the seal had to fuse perfectly with the blade’s core, and that required a certain level of control from the three of them.

Darian kept the three rune seals created by Haruto in his inventory at all times; they were sealed with chaos power. The three of them, whenever they had free time inside, kept trying to apply those seals on themselves.

Eleri and Tir still hadn’t managed it, but since they had developed a lot in other areas, Awel pushed herself to at least accomplish this first and be more useful.

A cutting aura spread through the entire castle. Niara moved the dagger forward, stabbing in a very clumsy way.

*CRACK!*

The barrier broke and shattered easily, as if it were made of glass.

"GO!"

Tizol and Lihan shot forward like lightning. Everyone else ran to help and make it even faster.

In less than a minute, they took 80% of everything stored there. They left only what they knew they already had plenty of, stolen from other planets. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay longer and take everything.

Everyone ran out of the castle. Darian was waiting for them on the flying ship, holding its controls and already with all his power ready to leave.

He had already used other disposable daggers with rune seals and destroyed the whole barrier that sealed the planet.

When everyone jumped in, the flying ship shot forward, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

...

"Hehehe... we got everything! Where are we going now?" Alear asked, laughing excitedly.

Darian shook his head. "We already stole pretty much everything this race had to offer. We’re not going beyond what’s necessary; it’s time to go back."

Alear sighed, a bit disappointed. But, seeing Niara’s expression, she knew this was only a temporary break. Soon, they all went to check the treasures together.

They were already rich to a frightening degree before. But now... the amount of stuff had multiplied dozens of times. Darian had an almost infinite amount of Genesis Ores stored, along with materials, herbs, and rarer things from this universe.

But he knew that each of the three Heavenly Beasts had unique treasures that only they possessed. Darian stole everything from the Twilight Owls and now had material to make a fair trade with the Rainbow Cranes.

Only one race left... and deep down, he was hoping they’d show up at his door and hand everything over to him too.