Heir of Synthesis: The World Mage

Priam raced through the region in a blind, desperate search. For hours, he scoured every cave, ravine, and dense patch of bushes within a radius of several kilometers. However, Dandara had fled while trying to hide her tracks from the enemy, and it seemed she was actually pretty damn good at it.

Half a day of fruitless searching passed.

The accumulated frustration and growing fear finally exploded.

Priam stopped abruptly in the middle of a clearing, digging his feet into the ground and punching his own thigh.

"Fuck! I’m an idiot!"

Once again, his blind focus had made him forget the most obvious and efficient tool at his disposal: his Power Runes.

More specifically, the Flow Detection Rune. The same ability that had guided him during his exile and in the underground temple when he was searching for the Qi Heart.

Dandara possessed the bloodline of the Cursed Forest Elves. Priam, on the other hand, also carried a trace of that same essence within his body. Although his own bloodline had been tainted by the curse of the Laws of the World, the essence still resonated on the same wavelength.

It wouldn’t be a perfectly precise search for Dandara’s pure bloodline, but it was more than enough to locate the general area where she was.

Without hesitation, Priam focused, creating the Flow Detection Rune within seconds. The runic lines glowed with a bluish light and spread through the air like invisible waves.

He closed his eyes, filtering out the surrounding energy noise... until he felt a faint pulse. Weak, trembling, but unmistakable.

South.

*Wooooosh!*

Priam activated his Elemental Physique to its limit. He launched himself into the sky, recklessly burning through his energy to fly at maximum speed.

Minutes later, he dove toward an arid area just beyond the mountain range.

The place was a monotonous maze of huge, barren rocks, with nothing that stood out to the naked eye.

The Detection Rune covered the entire area, indicating the presence of the bloodline but unable to pinpoint its exact location. However, Priam’s sharp instincts took over.

His gaze swept across the area before locking onto an apparently ordinary rock, two meters tall, resting at the base of a cliff.

Priam landed with a thunderous crash, took two steps forward, and planted both hands against the rock. Channeling his raw strength, he pushed the monolith with everything he had.

The stone went flying, revealing a hidden underground entrance.

The instant the opening was cleared, a putrid, acrid, unbearable stench gushed from inside, slapping Priam in the face.

His heart skipped a beat.

He rushed into the tunnel, descending over the cold rocks until he emerged into a small, stuffy, dark underground cave.

The moment his feet touched the damp ground... he froze.

"!"

In a dark corner, curled up against the stone wall, was an unmoving figure.

"Dandara!"

Priam lunged forward, but the moment he knelt beside her, all the air left his lungs. The sight made his blood run cold.

Dandara’s clothes had been reduced to rags soaked in bodily fluids. Almost her entire body was covered in deep, ugly, necrotic cuts. But the most terrifying thing wasn’t the wounds... it was their color.

There was no red blood. A viscous purple substance leaked from the exposed wounds, bubbling slightly as it devoured her flesh.

Priam stood completely stunned, panic locking his movements in place. He knew that poison.

Calamity Poison! A deadly toxin originating from the Calamity Beasts!

’Pry!’

Mirra’s mental roar echoed through his mind like thunder, instantly snapping him out of his shock.

Priam extended his trembling hands over Dandara’s body, channeling his perception inward to examine her condition.

The scene looked like a nightmare.

She was alive, but only by an invisible thread. Although the external wounds might have been bearable at first, the poison had penetrated deep inside. Her meridians were completely shattered and corroded. Her muscles had severely atrophied, and her life energy was nothing more than a flickering spark on the verge of being extinguished forever.

Her entire body was rigid, completely motionless.

She couldn’t even open her eyes, and she must have been in unbearable pain the entire time.

The simple fact that she was still breathing was an absurd miracle. If Priam had taken another day or two to find her, he would have stumbled upon nothing but a decomposing corpse.

Mirra acted quickly, beginning to move and weave all the natural energy she could extract.

Priam simply opened all his reserves, providing everything without any restrictions.

However...

Even after several minutes of uninterrupted effort, there was no positive change.

Half of Priam’s entire Ether reserve had already been burned through in the process.

At that moment, Mirra’s broken, tearful voice echoed through his mind, overflowing with despair:

’Pry... I can’t... Dandan...’

Mirra was sobbing uncontrollably, unable to contain her panic as she watched someone so close to her stand one step away from death.

Priam took a deep breath, forcing his mind to calmly analyze Dandara’s condition.

Mirra’s natural energy wasn’t capable of purifying or eliminating the Calamity toxin. However, when applied directly to the tiny amount of life energy Dandara had left, it managed to replenish exactly the vitality the poison consumed every second.

In other words, as long as she received a continuous flow of natural energy, they could keep her alive. But there was no way to remove the infection or heal the damage that had already been done.

’She’s not going to survive. I know it’s hard, but you have to let her go.’

The shield’s voice sounded cold, analytical, and completely devoid of empathy.

"FUCK THAT! She’s staying alive! I’m here, and I sure as hell won’t let her die!" Priam gritted his teeth, his eyes blazing with fury.

Kneeling even closer, he began working with his own hands.

Priam pulled out several high-level healing pills from his spatial ring. Without hesitation, he crushed the pills into a fine powder, quickly mixing them with concentrated medicinal herb extracts to form a thick, dark ointment.

Without a second of hesitation or unnecessary modesty, Priam tore away and removed the remains of Dandara’s ruined, blood-soaked clothes. Then he gently began spreading the ointment over all her exposed wounds—wounds that covered practically every inch of her body.

The medicinal mixture reacted to the touch, sealing the pores and temporarily stopping the poison’s external spread, preventing the necrosis from advancing into her vital organs.

Mentally, Priam sent waves of calm toward Mirra, encouraging her to maintain the steady flow of natural energy, sustaining Dandara’s life by that one fragile thread.

With every touch of his ointment-covered fingers against her cold skin, Priam felt a subtle vibration in Dandara’s consciousness.

She was conscious. Trapped in a paralyzed body, she was fighting an invisible battle, experiencing visceral, agonizing pain with every millisecond.

’Priam... do you really not realize that her heart has already given up?’ the shield’s voice echoed through his mind again, this time with a soothing, almost pitying tone. ’She knows she has become an invalid, someone who can’t even stand up. She respects you as her leader and feels that she has now become an enormous burden.’

The shield paused briefly before continuing:

’Even if you manage to keep her breathing, to her, this existence is thousands of times more torturous than a quick death. Trying to save her in this condition is the same as condemning her to endless torture. Calamity Poison was a terrifying weapon in the ancient war; even Immortals couldn’t take it lightly. You’re strong for your current level... but you’ll never be able to cure her in a short time. How do you plan to move forward? Carrying a useless body on your back while your enemies hunt you?’

Those words hit Priam like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

His entire body stiffened. His hands stopped in midair, covered in ointment and dark blood. For several long, suffocating seconds, he didn’t move.

Slowly, Priam lowered his head. His gaze locked onto Dandara’s horribly pale face, following the slightest unconscious tremors of her lips.

"Don’t you dare give up," Priam murmured. His voice came out low and trembling at first, but it quickly filled with an unshakable authority. "I trusted you. I accepted you as my vice leader. As long as there’s even a breath left in your chest, I guarantee I’ll find a cure. If you give up now... it’ll be the same as betraying me."

At that moment, Priam felt Dandara’s rigid body tremble slightly beneath his hands.

He drew in a sharp breath, leaning a little closer to her face.

"I know how hard you’ve worked. I know you gave everything you had day and night so you wouldn’t disappoint anyone, so you’d never become a burden. Maybe now you really will cause me problems. Maybe you’ll become a huge burden... But you know what? I don’t care! You’re a thousand times more valuable than any problem you could ever bring me. So you don’t have the right to give up!"

"I’ve suffered more than you could ever imagine. I’ve cried, despaired, and watched everything around me fall apart..." Priam spoke with a choked voice, his mind flooded with bitter memories of his journey. "But I always stayed on my feet, because I had something—or someone—to desperately hold on to."

He firmly held Dandara’s cold hand.

"So don’t be ashamed to hold on to me now. Use my strength as a reason to keep breathing! I’ll be your crutch, your shield, whatever it takes to keep you alive. Because the most important lesson about life is painfully simple..."

Priam brought his voice close to her ear, speaking every word with his soul:

"All things pass."

"No matter how great the pain, the despair, or the ruin... All things pass."

"It’s only a matter of time and resilience. Life is made of cycles, and eventually the wheel always turns the other way. No matter how much you’ve lost, whether you’ve been destroyed, humiliated, or feel useless... things will eventually pass and change. You just have to stay alive with a strong mind, so that someday you can enjoy the other side of life with me."

Priam put his whole heart into that speech, desperately trying to ignite even the smallest spark of will within her soul.

His greatest fear wasn’t the physical severity of the toxin, but rather the death of her will to live. If Dandara’s mind accepted defeat, nothing in the universe would be able to save her.

At that moment... a clear, shining tear welled up from the corner of Dandara’s closed eye, slowly rolling down her pale, dust-stained cheek.

Priam felt a profound change in her aura—a spark of stubbornness and a thirst for life rising from the ashes.

He let out a long, deep sigh of relief.

"Good. Now leave everything to me."

With renewed strength, Priam resumed spreading the ointment over Dandara’s wounds.

Until... his hand suddenly stopped halfway through, between two very prominent areas.

Only now, with the emotional storm settling down, did he realize that he was applying the medicine directly onto her completely exposed skin.

’Fuck it,’ Priam thought, shaking his head and continuing his work, feeling comfortably relieved when he realized there was no hesitation or disgust in his mind whatsoever.

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