Damned Healer-Chapter 631: Nether Beasts

In a serene courtyard, adorned with a softly murmuring lake and lush green vines stretching overhead, the coldness Alaric had shown earlier vanished. Warmth filled his eyes as he raised a cup to toast his guests.

"I dedicate this toast to you!"

That courtyard was an isolated sanctuary, surrounded by multiple barriers that cut it off from the outside world. Aside from a few attendants bringing in the food, only the five of them were present in that peaceful space.

Niara couldn’t hold back and started eating at high speed, though she did try to restrain herself a bit to keep some decorum.

The City Lord waved his hand. "Please, make yourselves at home. You helped me vent a lot of pent-up anger. I’m truly grateful. No need to be polite, just call me Alaric."

Darian nodded, sitting beside Niara at the table. Within minutes, attendants began rushing back and forth from the kitchen to the courtyard, bringing more and more food nonstop. Everyone looked somewhat intimidated by that Dragoness’s voracious appetite.

The wine was good, and the food even better. Darian ate a bit as well, savoring those unique dishes.

Alaric sat with them at the table, as if waiting for them to be satisfied. After nearly half an hour, Darian turned to him.

"I’m curious. The clans are watching you like wolves. If you have the power of the Treasure, can’t you just put an end to all this?"

Alaric took a sip of wine and shook his head. "The four clans betrayed this city in the past. If it were up to me, I’d have wiped them from this world long ago. If they were disloyal once, they can never be trusted again. Still, even as City Lord, I can’t touch them. At least, I can’t do anything to them inside the City."

"Why not?" Darian asked.

Alaric smiled. That young man was the type who went straight to the point, no fluff. "Do you know why I had to bring you to such a hidden place for this meal?"

Darian nodded, understanding immediately. "The Sacred Treasure..."

The City Lord’s greatest power was, in fact, his biggest problem.

"It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of drinking with smart people," Alaric said, pouring them more wine. He was pleasantly surprised to see Darian grasp the meaning of his subtle hint so quickly.

They filled their cups again, and Darian, Niara, and Alaric downed them in one go. Meanwhile, Ailik and Ramel already looked full and a bit too tipsy to keep going.

After that, Alaric set his cup down on the table and sighed. "The Sacred Treasure has changed and forgotten its mission, its oath. I don’t know whether the four clans tempted it, or if it took advantage of them, but it started secretly absorbing malicious energy from the sealed Nether Beast to strengthen itself. Even though it still appears to follow its oath and obey the City Lord’s orders, in reality, it has slipped out of control. Even I don’t know what it’s planning."

Ramel was deeply shaken. After all, that Sacred Treasure was suppressing a terrifying creature. If it were freed, it would be a massive calamity.

"Could it have been possessed by the Nether Beast?" Ailik asked thoughtfully.

Alaric sighed. "That would be the worst outcome, but we can’t rule it out."

"Damn. If that happens, the entire City would become its sacrifice!" Ramel shuddered.

The Sacred Treasure held terrifying power. If it had been corrupted and was hiding it, its first goal would be to devour its own master.

At that moment, Darian’s expression changed. "When I arrived at the City, I felt a powerful gaze examining me. That must have been the Sacred Treasure. This is really troublesome."

"You felt it? Did it carry the aura of a Nether Beast?" Alaric asked eagerly.

Having spent all his time in the City, it was hard for him to detect subtle changes in that entity.

"I couldn’t," Darian said calmly, turning toward one end of the table. "Ailik, you felt it, right?"

"Yes, I can say that for sure." She nodded. She was extremely sensitive to the aura of that race and couldn’t be wrong. When they approached the gates, she felt it clearly.

"Then that proves the Sacred Treasure is using the divinity of the Nether Beasts to strengthen itself. Now, there are two possibilities. One is that it’s devouring the power of the head, and as for the other..." At this point, Alaric’s expression turned grim.

Darian finished for him: "The other possibility is that it absorbed the creature’s soul first. That way, it would have enough power to easily devour the rest of the body at the first opportunity."

"That’s the worst possibility," Alaric said, letting out a long, painful sigh.

The conversation stopped there, since there were no further clues beyond Darian’s and Ailik’s words.

Niara kept eating nonstop, even after an hour. The others ate as well, slowly savoring the wine and food.

Alaric stayed at the table with them. He was satisfied because Niara and Darian didn’t treat him any differently because of his position, which made him feel he could be honest. Being with them made the old man feel as if he had returned to his younger days.

After more than an hour of steady drinking, even though everyone’s tolerance was decent and the wine wasn’t especially strong, they all started to feel a bit dizzy. That wine was potent enough to make them slightly drunk for a short while.

Niara finally stopped eating and, feeling quite "cheerful," leaned against Darian. With a cup of wine in hand, she raised it for a toast and then asked, "Alaric, do you know the Golden Sky Mountain?"

Surprised, Alaric replied, "You mean the cursed region northwest of the city? That’s the most famous ancient battlefield, the very place where the Nether Beast divinity was defeated."

"Yes, yes, that place!" Niara said. "Ramel said it’s the most interesting place outside the city. And that there’s also a life fruit that only grows there, with a flavor described as divine and immeasurable." She was clearly still thinking about food, even though she was already stuffed.

"It’s a cursed land, but also a land of treasures. It has a deep connection to the City, but it only opens once every ten thousand years. There’s still a third of that time left until the next opening," Alaric said gently.

Darian turned to Ramel. "Didn’t you say you’ve already been there?"

Ramel understood Darian’s look, grasping where he was going. He nodded in confirmation.

"What? You entered Golden Sky Mountain and came out alive?" Alaric stared at Ramel in disbelief.

"I had a lucky encounter..." Ramel muttered, not wanting to go into details.

Alaric’s eyes changed drastically. It wasn’t impossible to enter that place ahead of time, but... he only knew one person capable of that, and that person had died tragically a few years ago.

"Then you’re really strong... ordinary people can only enter during the opening, because the City’s Sacred Treasure uses its power," Alaric said. He didn’t know where the conversation was heading, but he understood that Darian had quietly guided it there.

"Maybe you don’t know this, but the head suppressed beneath the city is the head of the corpse buried in Golden Sky Mountain. The Sacred Treasure can use the connection between the head and the body to temporarily open that place from time to time, when the flow of the Void becomes gentler."

"At the present moment, the Void barrier is at its strongest. It might be possible to force your way in, but you’d never be able to get out. Yet you managed to enter and return alive. You’re strong!"

The head of the Divine Nether Beast was where its soul was sealed. In the battle long ago, in order to seal it and reduce its power, the head was separated from the body. The body was left behind in that special region.

It was a natural place that had always existed on the island, where space and the power of the Void behaved strangely, sealing off an internal space. Even so, the city and that place became truly connected, allowing the Sacred Treasure to help people enter and leave from time to time.

It was like possessing a world of exclusive treasures. That was the greatest advantage of the City of the Heaven Seal over the Primordial Empire, which had nothing like it.

"I wasn’t in good condition back then and only managed to get in for a few minutes. After that, I was forced to flee, or I wouldn’t have been able to get out at all. So... couldn’t we open a back door?" Ramel asked calmly.

"You want to use the Sacred Treasure to open the place ahead of time? That would require the agreement of the four clans, as well as the approval of the Sacred Treasure itself. I find it unlikely that the four clans would agree, no matter what we do," Alaric replied, frowning.

"Well, I don’t think so," Darian suddenly said. "Sir Alaric, don’t ask the four clans. Just ask the Sacred Treasure. I think that if you do, your chances of success will be very high."

"Why would it be like that?" Alaric asked, not understanding.

"If the Sacred Treasure has really been corrupted, it’ll be in even more of a hurry to open that place. Why don’t you test it? My intuition tells me it’ll be very happy to do so," Darian replied.

"Alright, I’ll try now." Alaric nodded and left immediately.

Darian took a deep breath. He and Ramel didn’t know about the possibility of opening the place earlier, but now that the City Lord had confirmed that option, Darian felt this was the perfect chance. It was a delicious bait to lure all the hungry fish into the region, gathering them in a single place.

The four of them kept drinking calmly. In less than ten minutes, Alaric returned with a very serious expression.

"He refused?" Niara asked.

"No. He agreed." Alaric shook his head and sat down.

"Then you should be happy, shouldn’t you?" Niara asked.

"You’re the one who should be happy. But how could I be?" he replied painfully, understanding the reasons.

Darian’s expression also turned serious. The fact that the Sacred Treasure had agreed meant that the situation might no longer be under the City Lord’s control.

If it hadn’t agreed, that would indicate it still needed a lot of time to finish absorbing that deity’s soul. In that case, opening the place now would only be a huge drain, and it would be better to wait for the right moment.

Seeing the pain on Alaric’s face, everyone stayed silent for a few minutes.

In the end, it was Alaric himself who broke the silence.

"I’ve decided."

Everyone looked at him seriously.

"When the Sacred Treasure opens the Golden Sky Mountain, I’ll send everyone out of the city. While its power is exhausted, I’ll use the sacrificial ceremony of my ancestral blood to destroy the soul of the Sacred Treasure," Alaric declared resolutely.

Hearing this, everyone turned serious. Although they didn’t know exactly what this sacrifice ceremony was, it didn’t sound like something good. On top of that, it sounded as if Alaric were saying his final goodbye.

He looked at Darian and the others, offering them a faint smile, filled with meaning.

"I’m sorry. The situation is critical, and I won’t be able to protect you. I can send you to the Golden Sky Mountain, but when you leave, you’ll certainly face attacks from the clans and the Primordial Empire. So you must escape secretly through another exit before the time limit. You can do it, right?"

If Ramel could enter and leave, then once the place was already open, it would be simple to secretly create another exit.

"There’s no other way?" Ramel asked, swallowing hard.

"The Sacred Treasure doesn’t have the autonomy to fully use its power on its own and depends on people’s help. Absorbing everything from that Nether Beast can only result in something terrible," Alaric said, shaking his head.

"The Nether Beasts aren’t our mortal enemies just because of hatred. The stronger a Nether Beast becomes, the greater its desire for blood and power. The mind, the soul, everything in them is twisted by the natural power that comes from the Nether Sea..."

Darian had already seen all of this in the memories of the universe, but he pretended to be curious, since those visions were images without captions. He had to interpret everything he saw on his own, and some things were still unclear.

"What is the black sea around all the islands?" Ramel asked directly, since he had no idea.

Seeing their curiosity, Alaric explained. His family had existed since when the God Roc was still alive, and this knowledge had been passed down through generations.

That power had been called Nether by the God Roc in the past. It was a power that arose as the opposite of the Void. It was as if Nether were Yin, and the power of the Void were Yang. Both needed to exist together.

To save the universe, the God Roc moved all the Nether into a single region, imprisoning it there forever and creating the black sea.

Above the black sea, the power of the Void connected and balanced itself, creating a milder, subtler region, allowing life in the universe to exist on floating islands above the sea.

Outside the black sea and the islands, the universe was absolutely lethal, where the power of the Void was a thousand times more aggressive and devastating.

As millennia passed after the creation of everything, peculiar things began to appear on the islands.

The land in contact with the Nether in the black sea began to subtly absorb it. Then, some types of more sensitive demonic beasts started absorbing that power and became corrupted, giving rise to the Nether Beasts.

Many other races also emerged from this process, but all of them were wiped out in countless wars. The reason was always the same: the more powerful they became, the crazier and more evil they grew.

It wasn’t even possible to talk to them; all rationality was replaced by an insatiable desire to become stronger, and for that, they needed to devour everything that was alive.

Besides the Nether Beasts, only the Nether Spirits survived to the present day. That was because they were special, as they didn’t possess a natural physical body.

They were the only race that truly fused with Nether and the Void at the same time, achieving balance without becoming corrupted. This made them naturally very weak, but in return, they remained ordinary beings, capable of thinking and acting properly.

Darian listened to everything and understood. Before arriving in the city, he had spent a few months reading memories with the help of the Supreme Treasure that Ramel had given them, and through that, he had witnessed many shocking things.

The Nether Beasts were truly creatures impossible to coexist with. The only way to keep them under control was to prevent them from reaching a certain level of power or simply kill them. Those on the island where Ailik lived were relatively weak and could still communicate, but the more powerful ones only killed and fought day and night.

But Darian also knew that the blame wasn’t exactly on the souls inhabiting those bestial bodies. There were no completely evil or completely good races in the world; the problem there was far more complex.

The Nether Beasts suffered from a severe imbalance that affected mind, soul, and body. It was like a natural disease of this universe, caused by the Nether, which drove them insane.

Talking was easy, but the solution seemed obvious: do to them the same thing that had happened with the Nether Spirits, creating balance.

Darian imagined that after obtaining the four treasures, he might be able to try something using them. After all, the second Treasure he had obtained had the power to control the Void, so there was a possibility.

Returning to the present, after explaining all this, Alaric concluded:

"The Sacred Treasure saw a great opportunity in that Nether Beast and was corrupted by that desire, doing something it knew it shouldn’t. There’s no doubt that the Nether’s corruption is already affecting it..." He stopped, sighing deeply.

"Right now, it wants to absorb everything, both the soul and the power of the head and the body. That’s why it agreed to open the Golden Sky Mountain, because it has already absorbed the soul and can devour whatever remains in the head whenever it wants. But it needed to wait for the perfect moment. It wouldn’t ask to open that place and obtain the body ahead of time without a reason; so when I made the request myself, it gave it an excellent justification to advance its plans."

"At this moment, whoever acts first will have the advantage. But if it manages to absorb everything... it’ll be as if that Divine Nether Beast had been reborn, this time with all the power of the Sacred Treasure at its disposal. It will be an unprecedented calamity."

He finished with great sorrow. He didn’t know if the plan would work, since he didn’t know exactly what the Sacred Treasure intended. Even so, he had to try to stop it, even if that required his sacrifice... and the end of his family.

"Sir Alaric, if it’s like you say, I might have a method," Darian said suddenly.