Zhang Xi doesn’t heal Rhayne the way someone closes a cut.
She kneels beside us, lays one hand over her chest and the other below the right rib, where the arrow chose to leave its signature. Her fingers find points I can’t see, but the skill isn’t born from the fingers. It’s born from the breath.
"Susanoo’s Love."
Her energy enters Rhayne like water into a broken city. Like a current. A heavy, fluid force that runs beneath the skin and reorganizes what the arrow tore. Rhayne’s chest arches against my lap, her mouth opening in a gasp that doesn’t become a scream. The current crosses muscle, lung, rib, and OXI, pulling each thing back where it belongs.
I hold Rhayne by the shoulders without gripping too hard.
Zhang Xi keeps her face serene, but the sweat at the side of her shaved head gives away the cost.
"Her body seems to reject me," she says.
The healing isn’t a pretty light. It’s labor. A storm passing through someone without permission to destroy.
My own injury was far worse, far more lethal, and yet for some reason I don’t understand, Rhayne’s energy keeps the healing from working with the same efficiency.
When Rhayne finally breathes without choking, the whole circle seems to remember it still exists.
The Nomine Gladiatus panel appears in the air, near where I dropped the burned leather.
[Nomine Gladiatus ended.]
[Result: victory for Rhayne Vesper.]
[Experience transferred: 4%.]
No one celebrates.
Rhayne opens her eyes soon after, still lying in my lap. For a few seconds she doesn’t seem to understand where she is. Her fingers climb slowly to the right side of her chest, hunting for the arrow that’s no longer there. When she finds only torn fabric and reknit skin, her expression turns confused.
"Dryden..."
"I’m here."
She looks at my face. Then at Zhang Xi. Then at the arena. The memory stops somewhere before the rest.
"I... got hit?"
"You did."
Her eyes drop. Her voice comes smaller. "Sorry."
That irritates me more than it should, maybe because irritation is easier to use than fear.
"Why are you apologizing?"
Rhayne presses a hand against the healed chest. "I don’t remember anything after that. So it must have been bad."
I breathe through my nose. "You won. In a reckless, dangerous, completely unacceptable way, but you won."
Her mouth trembles, unsure whether that’s a scolding or praise. "Then why is everyone looking at me like this?"
For a second I’d seen the future looking back through her black eyes.
In the other life, the first report I read about Void Monarch didn’t have a clean count. It had an area with no map. A whole stretch of coastline torn out of reality, without enough ruin to explain the size of the absence. I look at Rhayne in my lap and push the memory to where it can bleed later.
"You activated Void Monarch before you blacked out," I say. "It consumed Mira’s Hunting Ground, drained OXI from everyone nearby, and nearly turned this plaza into a hole."
Rhayne goes still. This time, the fear on her face is clean. It doesn’t come from a spear, an arrow, or a false jaguar. It comes from herself, and from my words.
"I... did that?"
"You did."
"Did I hurt anyone?"
"No."
’Not yet.’ But I don’t say that to her.
Zhang Xi lifts her hands from Rhayne’s chest and lets the air out slowly. "She can stand. Her body is stable."
"Can you?" I ask Rhayne.
She nods, still pale. I help her sit up first, then to her feet. Her legs tremble a little, but they hold. Zhang Xi worked a miracle with the face of a medical procedure.
I take LDP vials from my inventory and hand three straight to Zhang Xi. "You first."
She accepts without arguing. That says more about the cost of the healing than any explanation could.
Then I pass a vial to everyone in the arena. Rhayne, Veric, Oliver, Freya, Mira, and Kellan. No one left out. If I’m going to turn this disaster into a lesson, the advertising might as well work while everyone still has the taste of fear in their mouths.
Freya studies the amber liquid before drinking. Mira does the same, trying to pretend her hand isn’t shaking. Kellan takes his with a suspicious grimace. He looks more offended at receiving help than worried about the contents.
The effect comes fast. Veric closes his eyes for an instant when the OXI flows better. Oliver lets out a low whistle. Mira looks at the empty vial as if it just won an argument against her. Freya runs her tongue over her teeth, annoyed at being surprised.
"It tastes..." She frowns. "Like soda. Cola, maybe. But flat."
"Functional," I say.
"This recovers OXI like that, and my stomach doesn’t hurt..."
"That’s the idea."
Kellan drinks his in one go, maybe trying to prove nothing here impresses him. His eyes ruin the act. Freya notices too, because she lets out an almost imperceptible sigh.
I don’t drink LDP. I pull up my HUD.
[OXI: 487 / 2,500]
Almost five hundred. I don’t touch the expensive LDP. I take OXI Candies from my inventory and start eating them one after another, no ceremony. Ten would leave me near the limit but not at it. Thirstfall loves to charge for bad rounding.
[OXI Candy x11 consumed.]
[OXI: 487 → 2,500 / 2,500]
The excess is lost to the cap, which leaves me a light headache. Bearable, passing. I need a clean worry instead.
Rhayne watches in silence. I step closer and lower my voice. "We’re going to talk in private later."
She nods, her fingers still near the place the arrow went in. "About Void Monarch?"
"About everything."
The plaza light begins to change. The blue of the ocean sky above deepens, and the shadows of the pillars around the circle stretch long enough to cut the arena into dark pieces, announcing the end of the afternoon.
That’s when Kellan Rook decides to remind everyone he still has a mouth.
"Is the theater over?" He rolls his shoulder, impatient. "It’s getting dark, Sands. I’m not leaving without a fight just because your little rabbit got hurt."
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s collective.
My hand goes to Eventide. My fingers close on the hilt. For a second, I think about letting the black blade be born, ending the problem the way Kellan is begging to learn. I look at Eventide. Then at Kellan. Judging.
Then I let go of the hilt and leave the weapon at my belt.
Kellan smiles, thinking he won something.
I walk over to Freya.
She watches me approach without moving. The scythe is already gone, but the air around her still carries scraps of Permafrost and its wings, as if the skill left a warning stuck to the air.
"Can you lend me your toothpick?"
Freya goes quiet for half a second, then understands. The rapier.
Her eyes move from me to Kellan, then back. The sigh she lets out has no patience left to be elegant.
"I need to teach my companions to open their mouths only while they’re still useful."
She takes the rapier from her inventory and offers it to me by the hilt.
I just accept it with a smirk.
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