50) Devoid of any injuries and pain! Heal Mineself!
…
{3rd POV}
Ember felt pain so sharp and suffocating that it felt as if his lungs were being burned from the inside out.
He collapsed onto the ground, coughing violently.
Saliva sprayed from his mouth as his body convulsed.
The coughing didn’t stop.
Blood began to pour out next, mixing with the saliva, and his eyes became bloodshot.
The veins across his body twitched rapidly beneath his skin.
His remaining strength vanished in an instant.
He could no longer lift his arms or even move properly.
It couldn’t be helped; he had inhaled the Behemoth’s poison.
While it wasn’t as deadly as the concentrated toxins found in the monster’s meat, it was still potent enough to rot and kill a Level 4 adventurer with Abnormal Resistance.
Ember, on the other hand, was technically still Level 2, without any skill that countered poison at all.
His vision blurred.
His eyes filled with blood.
His skin began turning a disturbing shade of purple as the poison circulated rapidly through his system.
Ember struggled to speak through the agony, forcing himself to chant magic even as his body betrayed him.
“DEVOISH OFH INJURISH ANSHD PEIN HAIL MYSHELF—!” Ember blurted out, slurring the chant horribly.
Blood surged from his nostrils and mouth, breaking his words apart.
He knew...he absolutely knew that magic wouldn’t activate without a proper chant.
Hearing himself fail the incantation tore away the last of his remaining hope.
Despair flooded through his poisoned body as he felt death closing in.
Then—
Gasp.
A sudden breath escaped him as his body was suddenly wrapped in a soft glow of light.
His injuries began healing, at least partially, and the effects of the poison weakened slightly.
The spell had somehow activated.
However, Ember understood immediately that it wouldn’t last.
The magic would fade soon, and once it did, the poison would continue tearing through his body until it killed him.
Ember tried to crawl away, to move even a little, but he quickly realized he had no strength left at all.
His limbs refused to respond, his muscles trembled without power, and his fingertips could barely drag across the floor.
Then it hit him.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. PAIN. HOT, SIZZLING, UNBEARABLE PAIN.
He could feel his nerves melting.
He could feel his blood boiling inside his veins.
His vision blurred as his eyes burned and teared up.
Without hesitation, he forced out another chant: “Devoid of injuries and pain! Heal myself!”
The healing glow wrapped around him once more, suppressing the poison.
The melting sensation inside his organs slowed, then reversed as the tissues rapidly regenerated.
His lungs opened and he was able to breathe again barely, but enough.
He gasped for air, sucking it in desperately as he clawed at the floor.
Ember dragged himself forward inch by inch, crawling in the opposite direction, his mind clinging to one fragile thought:
'If I can find an exit… if I can just find an exit, I might still escape.'
The poison would diffuse and weaken once he reached the outside—at least, that’s what Ember told himself.
Because for a man who is dying, sometimes the only thing keeping him alive is a goal, no matter how foolish or desperate it might be.
Ember continued crawling, dragging his poisoned body across the passage floor as he checked the interval between spells.
He counted every second.
The moment the magic faded, the poison struck again.
The unbearable, agonizing pain returned which was hot, acidic, tearing through his organs and boiling his blood.
He chanted the healing spell again, forcing air into his ruined lungs.
The warm glow of healing magic wrapped around him once more as his body stabilized and the poison receded briefly.
He sucked in a deep breath, trying to make every second count.
Without a doubt, if not for this short yet powerful self-healing magic, Ember would have already been dead.
Ember, having now counted the exact amount of time it took for his healing magic to fade and for the poison to become unbearable again, began crawling and chanting according to that interval.
He timed every breath and every syllable so he could maximize the efficiency of his healing spell with the limited mana he still had left in his body.
He crawled across the dirty stone surface while dragging his weakened body forward.
Blood oozed from his pores, staining the floor beneath him.
Even as the healing magic worked, he continued to experience a gruesome pain that never truly disappeared.
He could feel his nerves melting and then healing.
He could feel every part of his body in agony.
Every organ, every muscle fiber, every single cell was in pain, fighting against a poison from a monster so deadly it had terrorized the entire world for generations.
Minutes passed.
Then more minutes.
Each second stretched longer...so much longer yet somehow shorter at the same time.
Ember’s tongue had already turned purple, burning with pain as he forced out each syllable of his magic over and over again, refusing to stop.
For hours, Ember crawled.
He battled exhaustion.
He battled agony.
He battled the constant threat of collapsing into the cold, quiet embrace of death.
Ember kept repeating the same words inside his mind, over and over, like a mantra that barely kept him sane: I can escape! Just one more step! Just one more! One more! One more!
Eventually after what felt like an eternity he reached the end of the tunnel.
But instead of salvation, he was greeted with despair.
It was a dead end.
There was no exit.
“No…” Ember tapped on the stone wall in front of him.
Then again and again.
As if sheer will and desperation could somehow make a hidden path appear behind the bricks.
“It cannot be! Please! Someone! Help! Help!” he screamed.
His throat burned with raw pain, torn apart from hours of coughing and chanting.
His legs were already paralyzed.
He could no longer move them even if he wanted to.
But no help came.
Only blood came, pouring from his throat and nostrils as the poison surged again.
Ember quickly switched back to chanting healing magic, barely keeping himself from suffocating on his own blood.
Now he lay there on the cold stone floor immobile, helpless, and painfully weak.
The Ember who had defeated a Level 4 monster was gone.
In his place was a man who was dying.
“I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die…” Ember whispered in a cracked voice as he stared up at the barely visible ceiling of the tunnel.
Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the blood at the corner of his eyes.
What had he done wrong?
Was coming into this tunnel a mistake from the very beginning?
Should he have run toward the other direction, where rest of civilization was?
But no...he remembered clearly!
The Behemoth had locked onto him.
It had targeted him specifically.
Running away would have been useless.
It would have caught him, crushed him, and killed him without effort.
Hiding in Karuna City had been the only reasonable option.
So why…?
Why was he being made to suffer for that choice?
Was being an adventurer wrong from the very start?
Should he have stayed in Alf’s Forest and simply enjoyed life there instead of chasing strength and adventure?
The pain overwhelmed him, drowning out every other thought.
It was so intense that it threatened to make him regret every decision he had ever made.
Ember wondered...if he just let go, wouldn’t it all be easier?
Maybe dying would be better.
Just a few seconds of pain, and then everything would end. No more struggling, no more poison eating him alive, no more agony twisting through every cell of his body. Before he even realized it, he would simply be gone.
'Yes… that’s it… 'he thought. 'I just need to let it go.'
Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it goLet it go.Let it go.Let it goLet it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go.Let it go…
Each repetition echoed in his mind, a quiet whisper turning into a loud scream.
The words weren’t just thoughts anymore, they were a command, an order to himself to stop fighting, stop resisting, stop enduring.
Because if he just let it go… everything would finally end.
“Ember… I love you.”
He wanted to let it go.
So why?
Why did he keep hearing their voices?
“Remia believes you can do it.”
“Isn’t this my most adorable son?”
“My brother is so cute!”
Suddenly, memories flooded him, memories from the very beginning.
He remembered the first moment he realized he had reincarnated.
Everything had been blurry then.
Everything had been terrifying.
He had panicked, wondering what had happened and where he was.
But when he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a gentle smile.
His sister, Riveria, was holding him as if he were the most precious thing in the entire world.
His mother was speaking softly to his father, and Riveria cradled him so carefully, terrified that even the slightest movement might cause him pain.
He had not known what had happened or why he was suddenly a toddler.
But in that moment, he knew one thing clearly, he was safe.
Absolutely safe in her arms.
He had been given the love of a family again.
He had been given a second chance at life.
If he died here, wouldn’t that be a betrayal?
A betrayal to his family?
To the people who loved him?
To the people who believed in him and placed their hopes on him?
“Devoid of any injuries and pain, heal myself!” Ember chanted through clenched teeth as the healing glow enveloped his body once more.
The poison receded again but the pain refused to disappear.
He gasped for breath, refusing to surrender.
'I will not give up,' Ember thought.
Even if dying was what fate had written for him then he would struggle against that fate.
He would struggle with every breath he could still draw, struggle with every beat of his heart.
He would struggle through every unbearable second of this agonizing pain.
He would keep struggling until the very end.
If the Lady Death was watching, then he would make her amused with how stubbornly he clung to life.
Let the world laugh at his struggle.
Let death sneer at him.
Because he wasn’t giving up.
Gritting his teeth, Ember forced his mind to think, he needed a solution.
He had nowhere left to run.
Even if he crawled back out of the tunnel and returned to the surface, the poison would still be filling Karuna City.
And in his current state, there was no way he could drag his shattered body through a collapsed city filled with rubble, fallen buildings, and possibly more monsters lurking about.
Ember didn’t even want to imagine which monsters might have survived, or worse, thrived amid the destruction.
'There’s only one way left then,' he thought grimly.
'I need to adapt to the poison.'
But there was a problem.
He didn’t know whether his healing magic was resetting his body’s natural adaptation to zero each time.
However, he reasoned with himself that it was unlikely.
Healing magic accelerated cell growth and division while cleansing the body, but it didn’t necessarily erase adaptive responses entirely.
That meant there was still a chance.
A painful, excruciating chance, but a chance nonetheless.
If he just kept suffering! If he kept enduring the poison then even if not today, even if not tomorrow, then in a few days his body might finally adapt to one of the deadliest toxins in the entire world.
So if suffering was the price, then he would suffer.
If breathing itself was torture, then he would keep breathing anyway.
Ember stopped thrashing uselessly.
If he wanted this plan to work, there were a few critical points he had to follow, no matter how agonizing it became.
First, he needed to stop wasting stamina.
Struggling blindly would only drain him faster.
And if he became malnourished and too weak, there would be no chance of survival at all.
Next, he needed to conserve every drop of blood he still had.
Even if he felt like vomiting blood, even if the urge became unbearable, he had to force himself to hold it in.
Losing too much blood would kill him long before the poison did, long before adaptation could even start.
Lastly, he needed to clear his mind.
He had to let his mana regenerate as much as possible and only use healing magic at the very last moment right before the poison became unbearable again.
He had less than a quarter of his mana remaining.
Thankfully, because his total mana pool was enormous, that still meant he could use healing magic several dozen more times.
But he needed to be careful.
He had to make sure his expenditure never exceeded his regeneration.
If that happened, if his mana hit zero then it was game over.
And so began the race, a brutal contest between suffering and death itself.
Life wanted to make him suffer longer.
Death promised peace at last.
Yet Ember chose suffering, because!
From the womb of suffering, the strong are born.
...
Hours passed, and Ember finally noticed a tiny glimmer of hope.
His remaining mana had dropped to nearly half, yet the time it took for the poison to reach the unbearable threshold had increased.
That meant his body was adapting.
To anyone else, it might not have sounded like a big deal but for Ember, that small change was everything.
It was the only hope he had.
…
More than twelve hours passed.
The time it took for the poison to trigger full agony had increased by nearly 50%, a clear sign that adaptation was happening.
However, a new problem emerged Ember’s mind was starting to empty out.
Even with his naturally fast mana regeneration, it could barely keep up with the expenditure anymore.
Ember understood that he was getting dangerously close to a mind-down, and that was exactly why he let his body endure more poison each cycle.
By allowing the toxin to escalate further before using magic, he earned a few extra precious seconds each time.
The increased pain forced him awake and alert, preventing his mind from slipping into unconsciousness.
His body was becoming numb to the earlier level of pain, but the new waves of agony kept him focused and bought him time.
Still, he couldn’t ignore the sizzling torment that shot through his bone marrow.
There was nothing light or tolerable about it.
It was a pain that sought to devour him from the inside out, to grind him down until nothing remained.
…
Ember had long lost his sense of time. His brain had become too exhausted to keep counting every second.
All he knew now was to chant healing magic whenever the pain became unbearable, whenever his thoughts grew fuzzy and the world began to blur.
He no longer felt his hands or his legs.
His limbs were numb, drained of all sensation.
He couldn’t even cry out anymore.
His strength had vanished completely.
By now, his mind was functioning on pure instinct, running in an automatic state—casting healing magic whenever his body reached the brink.
…
Then came the stinging pain.
A sharp, scorching agony erupted inside his mind, so intense that Ember genuinely wished for death.
His mind felt like it was burning from overuse.
His mana was empty, completely empty.
The poison surged through him to a fatal level only to be pushed back again each time by a desperate chant powered by the tiny scraps of mana his natural regeneration managed to gather at the very last moment.
…
The pain in his mind grew worse.
The poison’s pain also reached a new, horrifying peak.
But that pain kept him awake it kept his consciousness anchored.
And through that torment, a miracle quietly occurred.
The time required for him to regenerate enough mana to activate his healing magic… had finally become equal to the time it took for the poison to overwhelm him.
His body had adapted.
Not a little, but to an absurd degree, far beyond anything normal.
If he had even a small amount of mana left just a twentieth of his full capacity there would be no pain at all.
He would have fully adapted.
But in his current state, his mind remained completely empty, drained down to the last spark.
Still… the balance had been reached.
His adaptation was real.
…
Ember finally lost consciousness.
His body still hadn’t fully adapted to the poison.
From the outside, it seemed that death was inevitable.
His breathing slowed, his pulse weakened, and his mind slipped away into darkness.
But then the poison surged once more.
And in that instant, healing magic automatically wrapped around his body.
His subconscious had cast the spell instinctively, without hesitation, and more importantly… without a chant.
It was the first time Ember had ever used chantless magic.
Even if he didn’t know it.
…
One could see a body lying motionless in the tunnel.
Its condition was nothing short of horrifying.
The once proud elven ears, graceful and elegant had shriveled and shrunk.
The beauty that could have captured anyone’s heart had twisted into something unrecognizable and ghastly.
His arms and legs had turned a deep, sickly purple.
Plasma seeped out alongside the blood, pooling beneath him.
The fact that he was still alive at all was a miracle in itself an act of defiance against death when no hope should have existed.
And then a second miracle occurred.
Ember’s body finally adapted to the poison.
With every faint glow of healing magic, silent, subconscious, and chantless the poison weakened.
The toxin that had once melted nerves and ruptured organs slowly lost its strength… until, eventually, it vanished entirely.
Only then did his body begin to heal properly.
New cells started to grow while dead ones oozed out of his pores.
His face, his torso, his limbs, his ears, every part of him began recovering, even if painfully slowly.
He lay there in the dark tunnel, half-dead and half-reborn, as his body painstakingly reconstructed itself from the edge of oblivion.
…
By now, one could see Ember fully healed, his body having regained its former beauty and vigor.
He lay peacefully on the ground in a coma, breathing steadily.
The only things that still betrayed the nightmare he had endured were the dried poison, sweat, and bloodstains that clung stubbornly to his skin and clothing.
…
When Ember finally woke up, the first thing he felt was weakness, a deep, overwhelming weakness that sank into his bones.
His skin felt sticky and unpleasant, coated in layers of dried grime.
As he slowly pushed himself upright, his knees trembling under his own weight, he felt an unexpected urge to cry.
Yet no tears came.
His body didn’t even have enough energy left to cry.
“I… am… alive,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and dry.
Ember had done it.
He had beaten death.
No, he had survived it.
To be continued…