Damned Healer-Chapter 565: Owed Nothing

As they kept moving forward, that pressure kept multiplying. Even the army of Golems and Rainbow Cranes started feeling like they were really close to their limit.

"Don't speed up too much and don't spread out. If the weak and the strong stay together, the pressure here won't increase. We can endure it as a group," Darian said in a calm tone to everyone behind him.

With that, the Spiritual Guardians, who were almost unaffected, immediately stepped in, activating the power of the ring to block part of the pressure. The stronger members joined the weaker ones. Just like Darian had said, with their support, the pressure on the weakest instantly dropped.

The people up front saw it and got jealous, their eyes practically begging. But they didn't dare open their mouths.

The situation in those two armies ahead quickly turned chaotic and bloody. More than 60% of the common natives had already exploded; even with that many dead, it was still impressive that so many were holding on.

As for the two races of Heavenly Beasts, they weren't the most powerful in the universe for nothing. After several minutes, the weakest in their ranks died too, but their overall average strength was pretty high.

Soon, all those middle-level fighters activated their full power and managed to stabilize. Darian felt the energy of a strange technique flowing through them, like the laws of their universe were supporting them. In that channel and crossing, they technically still had a connection to their own universes.

The Rainbow Cranes also had a technique like that. But they could only use it once all the impurities in their bodies were gone. And even with all of Veyle's help and her pills, it wasn't enough.

She only failed because she could only rely on herbs and materials from this universe. Since almost everything was different from what she knew, Veyle had to study them and run tests while cooking at the same time. In the end, if she had had a few more months, she would've managed to make pills capable of purifying everything in them.

At that moment, Darian felt that two-thirds of the path had already been crossed.

But, unfortunately, he also became certain: those weaker people at the front wouldn't make it to the end. Worse... even the middle-level ones from the two races wouldn't survive.

Darian took a deep breath and cursed himself in his mind. His curse had activated instinctively through his gaze, and he saw the karma of the weakest of the two races; nothing particularly dark or marked.

If they had all been evil, he would've just ignored it. But apparently, only the strongest ones, those connected to the Emperors or to the races' business matters, were forced to do shady things to climb high. The rest had nothing to do with it.

A few steps later, the weakest up front reached their absolute limit; not even their will to live could save them. In that moment, many desperate people turned to Darian.

"If you don't want to risk dying, you can come with us." Darian announced, sighing.

Everyone from the two Heavenly Beast races or the common natives swallowed hard. Half of them weren't that arrogant, but the other half snorted and turned away, refusing any help.

So, once that first half heard Darian's words, they were instantly grateful.

"Don't be pathetic. Die as heroes, giving your best to move forward." Galteus and Caelu mocked, saying basically the same thing.

Those who weren't idiots clenched their fists in fury. Die as heroes? All of this just to help those bastard leaders avoid using too much power? Everyone thought it, but no one dared to say it out loud.

As a result, tens of thousands of people stopped walking and retreated. They all moved toward Darian, mixing into his army. The pressure on them was mostly relieved.

"Mediocre idiots. Whatever, they just postponed their deaths a bit." Galteus spat dryly.

He and Caelu couldn't stop it, since everyone was under pressure and couldn't use maximum power outside their bodies, or they'd die. But those weak ones, even those two leaders, knew they'd die soon anyway, so it made no difference. Actually, it was even good, because they'd end up getting in Darian's way.

In those two armies, the ones who stayed behind ridiculed them. In Darian's army, if the strongest members didn't have enough strength to reach the end because the weakest held them back, everybody would die. In their eyes, Darian's action was the peak of stupidity.

Everyone in Darian's army was shocked. Besides Beasts, Demons, and Humanoids... very few, but still some Twilight Owls and Three-Eyed Ravens joined them.

Darian didn't forget to check their karma, confirming they were just regular folks.

Alear's eyes changed, seeing with her own eyes what her adoptive father had always told her. Even with all the conflict with those two races, and with possibly all of them hearing negative things about Darian... each individual was still an individual. These people weren't blind and could easily tell who was the real one.

To stabilize the situation, Darian stopped advancing. Everyone stopped and waited for the weaker ones to stabilize first. Veyle even gave them a few pills.

That made the two armies ahead get even farther away, even out of sight. The newcomers had tears in their eyes. Everyone knew the second stage depended on the order of arrival; the faster, the better. But Darian was deliberately helping them, even though it would cost him a lot.

After a few minutes, Darian kept leading the way. The higher they climbed, the stronger the pressure got. But it was still within a limit everyone could endure together.

Their ascent got progressively slower, and they were obviously the last group. His army now had another one and a half million people added in, totaling four million and six thousand.

Not long after, a huge distortion was already visible ahead. Everyone felt extreme euphoria, like they were finally about to escape hell.

They quickly picked up the pace and finally crossed the distortion.

When they arrived…

*ROOOAR!*

Guttural roars echoed ahead.

Everyone's vision was filled with a pitch-black world with no light, covered in blood-soaked ground. In front of them, countless ethereal figures surged like a tsunami.

"H-how… is this…" Clanne stuttered, trembling all over.

Darian narrowed his eyes. What was in front of them was something people called the War Shadows.

In short, in battles between extremely powerful cultivators, even long after the battle ended and they were dead, it was like their furious will stayed behind in that place. Normally, this happened when someone died a bitter death in battle. Their will lingered in the world, something completely mindless and frantic, attacking anything that got close.

These shadows had no soul and shouldn't even have real power. But in a battlefield full of death-Yin, they absorbed that energy and turned it into their strength.

Clanne was stunned because these Shadows, historically, only appeared in the final stage of the convention and were the deadliest challenge for anyone chasing the treasures. Usually, only a few hundred appeared, and even with millions fighting them, many still died.

But in front of them…

There were countless, a massive sea of these terrifying enemies.

Darian took a deep breath. This convention was definitely not something meant to hand out treasures and let someone win, but something meant to kill as many people as possible.

He activated his curse, quickly feeling the karma of millions of people in a single direction. They were all from the two Heavenly Beast races, which now had less than half their original numbers.

All those slaves from other races no longer existed, with only a small group having joined Darian. Before, some of them refused to bow and even mocked him, but their fate was obvious.

The shadows roared and were already less than a hundred meters away.

Everyone turned to Darian. It was impossible to fight that many and protect the weak ones. The only viable option left was separation. They had already helped during the crossing, after all, so now they owed nothing.