Apocalypse Healer - Path of Death

It was already late at night when David returned to Ashville. Locating monsters had been a lot more difficult than expected. Not only was the area around Ashville cleared—Lukas and his people seemed to have done a great job—but the life signals he discovered while scouting were too weak.

David didn’t like the thought of hunting ordinary monsters, let alone peaceful creatures that would run away if given the chance. He would have loved to find some Elite Monster to test the limit of his power, but all he found was a settlement ruled by a Goblin Champion. The Goblin Champion was not weak, nor were the Goblin Shamans supporting their master. However, [Indomitable Will] blocked the Shamans’ curses and weakening spells. Their debuffs—spells that afflicted the target with negative effects—struck David, but his Class Skill seemed to shake them off without any problems.

He eliminated the Shamans first, slashing their throats and piercing their hearts. Once dead, David left a trace of [Holy Touch] behind, causing their lifeforce to gather around it. It was the first time he tried to retain lifeforce from escaping carcasses, but it worked better than expected. Clots of crimson motes formed in their bodies, all while he was busy blocking the Goblin Champion’s attacks.

[Blood Aegis] was all he needed to do so. As for the other Goblins, David ignored them as they slashed and thrust their weapons, trying—and failing—to pierce [Blood Armor].

He used Rend and [Slash] as he cleaved through the Goblin Champion’s mace, armor, and body in one go. Only then did he turn to the Goblins, eradicating the plague in one swoop.

All lifeforce was drained and transformed into Blood, which was distributed to the three Blood Storages, but one settlement of Goblins was not enough. Fortunately, he discovered the life signals of more nearby camps. David eradicated and accumulated enough lifeforce to fill the Blood Storages. But he was not happy. He was not done. Not after discovering several mangled human corpses sprawled across the settlements. Most of them were men, yet it didn’t take long to find the women. Faint life signals led him to a barn.

He could still vividly recall the stench hitting him as he opened the doors. A putrid stench—a mix of excrement, blood, sweat, and corpses that had been abandoned among the other women.

David could only imagine what had happened to them, and he did not know what to expect when he found the poor women. However, he did not expect them to take their own lives when they had the opportunity. He healed their wounds, but he could not mend their hearts.

In the end, David left to search for more Goblin settlements. Where there were three settlements, there had to be more. He was right.

He found several camps—smaller, but just as disgusting. He lost count of how many Goblins fell victim to his blade, yet the number of women who had taken their own lives before his eyes, or those who had begged him to end theirs in their stead, were engraved in his mind.

Thirty-one. A grand total of thirty-one women had given up on their lives before his eyes.

No, by the time David reached them, they were only husks of their former selves. Pitiful. Soulless. To them, death was more comfortable than staying alive. And once they had the chance, their nightmare ended. A blade to the neck was all it took.

The sight of the desperate women, their soulless eyes looking at him—through him—was engraved in his mind. It affected him much more than he was willing to acknowledge.

Back in Maja’s place, he washed up in silence. David found her calm, resting life signal in her room and returned to the guest room once he had cleaned up. He looked clean, leaving no sign of the carnage he had caused, but David felt anything but clean. Right now, he was just… confused.

Get your act together. You cannot change what already happened. But you can change the future, he told himself. He could change everything for the better if that was what he truly desired. Or so he hoped, at least.

David retrieved the Blood Storages and looked at the ping-pong-ball-sized Artifacts, a wry smile forming on his lips.

He stripped down to his underwear, opened the door leading to the backyard, and stepped outside. He sat on the plastered terrace, which made him shudder as the cold cobblestone spread through his body.

“How bad will it be?” he muttered to himself.

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The Blood Storages were full at last. It had taken him a while, but he succeeded. At last, he could get to work, doing what he had planned for a while now.

David materialized the Obsidian Blade in its smallest form in his hand and activated Rend. His intent coated the soulbound weapon’s blade in a grim, grey hue. He studied it for a moment, looked down at his body, and channeled pure Origin Essence into his eyes.

“Should I start with the shoulder?” he muttered to himself, tilting his head.

No, before he did something that would be difficult to fix in a minute or two, he decided to test something first.

He switched the Obsidian Blade to his left arm and pressed his right hand against his chest.

His finger trailed softly across his chest and down his body as he mumbled, “The heart is here… this is my liver… and that’s probably the kidney… the pancreas is…here. Yep, there it is. Gallbladder is also there, and so are the large intestines, and here is the mess of the small intestines…”

David didn’t just touch his body; he also sent waves of Blood through it to locate and differentiate his organs. He coated each one in Blood, then lay down on the ground once he was done.

He closed his eyes, feeling the Obsidian Blade and the organs inside him. He shifted the blade, its tip pointing toward his abdomen. David didn’t rush to stab himself, but he wasn’t about to waste precious time either. The three Blood Storages had to be planted and integrated into his body either way!

Inserting foreign objects into his body didn’t seem like the best idea—probably barbaric, maybe even suicidal. However, David could always heal himself. In the worst case, he’d cut his body open and remove the Blood Storages again.

He pulled the blade toward himself, making sure the soulbound weapon’s lifeforce drainage was inactive, and cut through skin and flesh.

The pain didn’t come immediately. The Obsidian Blade, coated in Rend, was razor-sharp and sliced him cleanly. However, a small cut wasn’t enough to fit one of the Blood Storages, let alone his entire hand. David pulled the weapon downward, cast [Purify] a few times, and ripped the wound apart. A wave of pain struck him in the gut—quite literally. He gritted his teeth and continued casting [Purify] on himself, the blade, and the Blood Storage of his choice. He willed the Blood coating his small intestines to slow the blade, but Rend ignored all defenses, piercing through the Blood and nicking his intestines.

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David cast [Healing Sphere], fearing that if he used [Greater Restoration], it would heal him too quickly before he could react to the wound in his intestines. A second later, his hand plunged into his abdomen. He shuddered, his hair standing on end, as he rummaged through his body, pulling his small intestines aside to place the first Blood Storage.

It had only been a few seconds, but David broke into a cold sweat as he pulled back, shrouding his small intestines in Blood and willing it to wrap around the Blood Storage. Not long after, he used the Blood Storage’s energy to create a weave of Blood, connecting the storage to his intestines.

After that… nothing.

David remained still for several minutes, casting [Greater Restoration] on the massive cut he had inflicted on his abdomen, sealing it instantly. But still—nothing.

“Is that it? No rejection? No system message?” he asked, slowly getting up once his body was fully healed. He could see the Blood Storage through Bloodthrone Dominion eyes, and he could feel it as well.

He double-checked it as he moved, jumped, and dashed, but everything was fine. Next, David threw Blood from the storage. It worked perfectly. If anything, the process was smoother than before. It wasn’t yet perfect, let alone natural, but he no longer had to access the Blood Storage through external means first. It was inside his body, making it easier to tap into—though it strained his mind quite a bit.

With a little bit of effort, the entire process would easily become second nature to him. David broke into a vibrant smile. The second Blood Storage had been added to his body. And this one… this one, he wouldn’t lose easily.

His enemies would have to carve it out to take it away from him.

Even then, David thought, glancing at the two remaining Blood Storages.

Even then, the one linked to the small intestines would be the easiest to detect and remove.

***

The sound of breaking bones still echoed in his ears even after completing the second implantation, sending a shudder through him.

He moved Deryadus’ Arm in all directions, testing its flexibility and the Relic’s durability now that he had adjusted some things.

Calling it a modification felt more accurate, David thought, shuddering as the sickening sounds returned to wreak havoc in his mind.

“At least it works,” he muttered, patting his left shoulder.

He had been hesitant to tinker with the shoulder—it was a complex structure of bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. Worse still, this was the first time David had experimented on himself without any prior experience. So many things could have gone wrong as he cut open his shoulder and upper arm, exposing the shoulder blade and humerus to reach the joint. But it turned out easier than expected, though it was only one of many complex, time-consuming tasks.

The upper arm bone—the humerus—was what David had been looking for. More precisely, he needed the upper part of the humerus. It had a large, round surface that fit into the shoulder blade’s small socket.

The humerus head was slightly larger than his Blood Storage, but that wasn’t a problem. If anything, the tiny gap was perfect.

David considered the humerus head a golf ball connecting to the socket in the shoulder blade—the tee if one wanted to think of it that way.

Replacing the humerus head with the Blood Storage was not feasible. Thus, David worked on it, grinding it slowly to dust while casting [Greater Restoration] to ensure he could regrow the bone if something went wrong.

It was already morning when he finished working on his upper arm bone, but the second Blood Storage fit perfectly in the humerus head, which grew around it as [Greater Restoration] stimulated the upper arm bone to regenerate. Not everything was perfect, and David was certain he would have to work on his left arm and shoulder blade again. However, the shoulder blade socket and the humeral head were now covered in cartilage again, allowing the bones to glide smoothly against each other without pain. David refined the tough, lubricating tissue to improve the process slightly before shifting his focus to the muscles and ligaments that encapsulated the shoulder joint.

As it turned out, [Greater Restoration] was not only exceptional at regrowing body parts but also at restoring them to their designated places. The muscles and ligaments returned to their original positions, stabilizing the shoulder joint while maintaining free movement. Even as the first rays of sunlight basked the terrace in Maja’s backyard, David wasn’t certain he had thought of everything. The shoulder joint was where it used to be, and the only difference from a few hours ago was that he had forcibly embedded one of his Blood Storages into the humerus head. Once the head had healed, everything settled into place.

It didn’t feel much different either, now that he tested a few motions. If anything, his left arm, including his shoulder blade, felt stronger. Amplified. He accessed the Blood Storage, but it was more difficult than before. It required more focus, though David was confident he could improve with practice. Just as he had learned to seamlessly access the Blood Storage linked to his small intestine, he would do the same with this one.

Should I connect Deryadus’ Arm with the Blood Storage? Creating blood veins should work, he thought, wondering what would happen if he transformed the Blood Storage in his shoulder joint into a reservoir filled with altered blood. Since Deryadus’ Arm could modify blood, drastically augmenting its healing properties, he might as well take advantage of it. Why not? David couldn’t think of a reason not to give each Blood Storage a specific function.

He looked at the last Blood Storage with a grim smile, then down at his body. He pulled his underpants aside and channeled blood into his waist, precisely shrouding and separating all parts of the hip joint. Mapping everything through blood made it much easier for him to visualize the steps he needed to take and the sequence in which he had to proceed. Every step required to install the third Blood Storage appeared in his mind, and he readied the Obsidian Blade to get started—when a shriek shattered his focus.

David looked up to see Maja staring at the terrace—at him—from a window on the second floor.

“What are you doing?!” Her frightened voice carried through the window, which she flung open in a hurry.

“Good morning to you as well,” David responded calmly.

“What. Are. You. Doing?!” Maja repeated, her voice rising hysterically.

“I don’t think I owe you an explanation,” he muttered to himself. But considering that he was operating on his body in her backyard, caking her terrace in blood, maybe he was wrong.

David groaned and held up the last crimson Blood Storage. “You remember these? I can’t afford to lose them, but I can’t store them either. That’s why—”

Maja’s eyes widened in horror as she interrupted, “Please don’t tell me you cut your body open to plant these things inside you!”

“If you don’t want to hear it, I won’t tell you.” He shrugged lightly while Maja looked like she was holding onto the last threads of her sanity.

“You… No… Why?”

“They make me stronger, and I don’t want to lose them. Even if something went wrong, I could have healed myself,” David responded in a neutral tone. “If that’s what it takes to grow stronger, I’ll modify my body however I need to.”

He noticed Maja was about to retort—probably to call him suicidal—but David wasn’t having it.

“I do what it takes to survive and thrive. It might seem idiotic to you, but if these Blood Storages allow me to fight at full strength, then I see no reason not to use them.” His voice grew colder. “This doesn’t concern you either way. My body is mine. I’ll do whatever I want with it.”

Maja didn’t look satisfied, but he was done with the conversation. He turned back to his pelvis.

“You should train your skills. Or, if you’re too tired to fling around dense ores, help Lukas and the others find more survivors instead of complaining to me. I found a few Goblin camps yesterday. There were… no survivors.” His voice cracked slightly as he added, “If you do find survivors, don’t be too shocked.”

David felt her intense stare lingering on him for a few seconds, but they exchanged no more words.

At last, he focused on the hip joint. He used Rend, cutting through skin, flesh, and bone in one motion, gritting his teeth as pain crashed down on him.

Enduring the agony, David pressed on.