Chapter 26- A Reminder

Arthur was in the process of healing an injured teenager. The boy had been hurt trying to fight an evolved eagle of all things, as his gaggle of friends had informed the hospital staff when they’d brought the wounded kid in. Arthur was still a little amazed that the friend group had gone after a monster capable of flight with an old shotgun of all things. One that looked like it couldn’t shoot accurately beyond ten feet.

The teen would have most certainly died if he had been brought in a few minutes later, and Arthur was happy he’d been present to help with his healing. Not being arrogant or egotistical, Arthur sincerely doubted anyone else would have even been able to deal with regrowing the boy’s ruptured spleen and mangled organs without something going horribly wrong.

That had been the case often enough already since the hospital’s opening a few days ago, with the worst case being the accidental creation of a third lung when a healer lost their cool at the sight of so much blood.

That had not gone well at all.

Humans were born with two lungs for a reason. Arthur's thoughts turned morbid as he vividly recalled the grotesque sight of flesh forcefully growing through a ribcage. Bones straining against the surplus flesh as it struggled for freedom.

It was disgusting.

The extra organ had to be removed with mundane surgery- no one was experienced enough in healing magic to attempt it- and a professional surgeon had to be called in to supervise the entire procedure, wasting precious time and resources.

The hospital was severely understaffed to deal with the hundreds of cases that came in every day, both from injuries caused by monsters and a misuse of magic. No healer had enough ether to keep up with the intense demand, especially when they averaged at around level 13 with the accompanying ether levels.

Well, no one except Arthur, that was.

After he’d absorbed the Rodent king’s monster core, his ether reserves had never dropped below 20%, no matter how many times he used Regeneration. The skill really lived up to its description, and Arthur’s years of studying human biology allowed him to direct the skill in very specific, useful ways.

That in conjunction with his massive ether reserves meant that he always had the energy to spare. It wasn’t a surprise, but Arthur felt like healing magic was a field in which he truly excelled. Even without the system streamlining the process for him, Arthur would probably be able to heal. Okay, maybe he was getting ahead of himself a little there, no he definitely was. His recent failures were still very clear in his mind. It’d be a long time till he was ready to take off the crutches the system provided him.

Julia Addams had naturally been shocked when she’d been informed by her subordinates of the ‘healer’ that had worked in the emergency ward for twenty-eight hours straight. No doctor on Earth should have enough ether yet to maintain such a high output of healing magic.

She’d grown wary upon learning that the healer in question was none other than Arthur Ward, an absurd ether supply added to the long list of mysteries that surrounded the strange man. He’d been true to his word so far at least and caused her no problems, seemingly content to just level his skills as he’d initially stated, but Julia couldn’t shake off her concerns that something was very off about the young man. She was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Despite his obvious good looks, the other hospital staff avoided him like the plague, and she’d already received three separate complaints regarding the pressure he exerted on his surroundings. A magical aura of sorts that was extremely unpleasant to be around.

'It makes me feel helpless. Like a little bug before a hurricane, just waiting for my end to come.' Those words had come from the mouth of an elderly man. She would have labelled the claims as exaggeration if she hadn't seen the genuine terror on the man's face.

When she confronted him about it, Arthur had just looked at her in confusion, and it quickly became obvious that he had absolutely no idea whatsoever what she was talking about. Julia had dropped the matter after that but doubled the number of eyes she had on him whilst he was working. You couldn’t be too cautious when dealing with powerful mages after all. Already, the news was littered with stories of abuse and horror such individuals perpetrated.

Arthur, meanwhile, had been enjoying his job immensely, far more than he’d expected in fact. There was something therapeutic about healing that calmed him down. It was the only one of his affinities that gave him such a feeling. Water was second feeling both wild and relaxing at the same time, whilst shadow magic was simply cold and invasive.

Soul affinity, Arthur still wasn’t sure about yet. His most recent attempts at it had knocked him into unconsciousness, and he’d woken up in a strange room in the hospital with a splitting headache. Julia Addams had obviously been very concerned as to why he had been found passed out on the floor and forced him to take the rest of the day off.

Arthur hadn’t tried to use the skill since.

By his third day of working, Arthur’s regeneration skill had already reached level 8, over halfway to his goal of reaching level 15 in the skill before gaining his class. Well, it didn’t hurt that he worked almost non-stop, taking breaks only to eat and sleep when he had to. He highly doubted levelling his other skills would be anywhere near as easy.

Though he had stopped seeing progress in the skill for a while. Each level grew exponentially harder to build on than the last, or maybe the injuries he was treating were simply too basic.

Checking his ether reserves when he finished his careful administrations on the now healed boy, Arthur smiled.

2950/3200

With his level 8 skill, his healing had become a lot faster and more importantly efficient. Very, very efficient; taking about a fifth of the ether it had at level 1. With his absurd reserves, it meant that he practically had an infinite supply to work with and Arthur had abused that fact to try and quickly accrue levels.

All that he had left to do now, was learn some other healing skills and he’d done with this place.

Arthur would still work here in the future, he still had a lot to learn about healing, but maybe he’d be able to work out a better deal with Julia Addams. Part-time, or something along those lines instead of the slave-driving hours he was currently employed under. Not that he was complaining. After all, he'd chosen this.

Mira however was not helping in that department at all. She seemed to have been avoiding him over the past few days, doing a complete switch from her initial clingy personality. It would have been a cause for celebration if he didn't want to learn her Resurgence skill and that's why Arthur was extremely surprised when he saw her approaching him during his lunch break.

“Hey Arthur, darling.”

She still seemed to be maintaining her silly fake personality for some reason, even alone as she was with Arthur currently, though she must have realised he’d seen through it long ago. Maybe it was just habit now.

“Come quickly to the staff room. There's something important being broadcast on the news right now.”

Arthur stood up quickly when he heard that, curious as to what was so important that Mira had come to call him. The news agencies had been spouting all sorts of bullshit for the past few days after all.

“Why, what's going on now.”

Mira took a moment before answering.

“Well, they're not sure yet, but everyone thinks it's the first dimensional breach. You know, that stuff we were warned about in the tutorial. The satellites caught an image of a huge distortion in the air on the border of Russia and they’re preparing for a monster incursion as we speak. Apparently, the Russian government is broadcasting the whole thing as a show of force. Some dick-measuring contest or something.”

Mira finished her explanation just as they arrived at the doors of the staff room.

“Well. I hope we're at least in for a good show,” she said as she pushed open the double doors, her eyes twinkling in amusement as they always seemed to.

Arthur was a little surprised at how packed it was in the room, observing that most of the hospital workforce was gathered here, including the supervisor, meaning that they’d left only the bare minimum staff behind to manage the influx of patients.

Shit, is it that serious?

They were all in various stages of attentiveness, some of them barely even paying attention to what was going on on the massive TV screen whilst others were already leaning forward in anticipation on their chairs despite nothing actually happening yet. Looking at the reason why everyone was gathered here, Arthur saw what Mira had meant when she said distortion.

The entire Russian skyline seemed to ripple as if it was a huge puddle of water someone had dropped a stone in instead of the gas the air actually was. The recording cameras, which Arthur had no doubt were positioned miles away at a safe distance using remote technology, zoomed in on the strange phenomenon, and Arthur could see brief flashes of light within the dimensional breach.

Whatever was happening in there, Arthur realised it would come to fruition very soon. He didn’t really even know exactly how he knew that piece of information, but his instincts seemed to be screaming at him to flee as far as possible from the distortion, even though he was only observing it through a screen from halfway across the world. Maybe it was his lizard brain coming into play, or maybe it was caused by his half-breed title, but Arthur knew in no uncertain terms that he was the prey here.

Arthur gulped.

He was not ready to face whatever it was that would come out of that dimensional irregularity. Nowhere near ready. He could only hope that the Russian government was more well-prepared.

Something told him they weren’t.

“Hey Arthur,” Rachel called out to him, “Come and sit over here,” she said, patting the chair beside her. “I saved a seat for you.”

Arthur smiled at the little piece of kindness that brightened his bleak mood and made his way over to where his colleagues were sitting, despite the increasing sense of unease he felt. Everyone else, Arthur observed, looked calm and collected, excited even, as if they were watching a movie or basketball match. Only Mira had a guarded look on her face, and that was the only confirmation Arthur needed.

Things were going to get bloody.

After ten minutes of inactivity had passed, Arthur realised he was in for a long wait and slowly started to drift off, his lack of sleep finally having a chance to catch up with him, even though he tried his best to stay awake. He was disturbed from his slumber when excited murmuring started up around him.

Feeling a little irritated, Arthur looked at the TV to see what it was that had gotten everyone so agitated. It seemed that the Russian military had arrived at the scene, and they had arrived in force.

Over fifty people were gathered outside the rift, and they were dressed in combat fatigues. They looked dangerous and Arthur confirmed his suspicions when he tried to identify them.

He was unsure whether the skill would even work since he wasn’t there to observe them in person and was viewing them through a screen but Arthur was glad when he was proven wrong.

To be honest, Arthur had absolutely no idea how the general skill even worked. Everyone had received it when the system came, even people like Mathew who had zero affinities for magic, which led Arthur to believe that it operated on completely different rules to regular skills. Still, now wasn’t the time to worry about it.

After a slight delay that came with a throbbing headache, along with the notification-

Identify has reached level 3

-Arthur was shocked to see that every individual gathered on the rocky plains was above level 50. It seemed that the Russian government had poured a lot of resources into making sure these people were as strong as possible. He knew that Russia had a lot of wild, uninhabited lands, but to reach such a high level in only a few days seemed almost excessive.

From the loud murmurings around him, Arthur could tell that he wasn’t the only one who had realised that fact. Julia Addams in fact looked shocked by the casual display of might Russia was currently showcasing. Well, that was after all the main reason why this was being broadcasted after all. It was a message of might to the world.

Don't fuck with Russia.

Things seemed to finally be getting started, and Arthur tuned in to listen to what the reporter had been talking about all this time. The language being spoken was English of course, for the benefit of the American audience no doubt where the video was being streamed.

“Experts predict that something will be emerging within the next three minutes judging by the fluctuations in energy, and the ether levels being released at the scene currently suggest that the beast that emerges will be at least a level 80 monster. Knowing of the secondary evolutions beasts undertake at level 50, we can guess that this will be a bloody fight.”

Arthur gulped when he heard that and he saw the many looks of unease on everyone's faces. Maybe Arthur would survive a fight with such a beast, but he didn't know about winning. A secondary evolution made a monster's strength shoot up sky-high. A level 49 and level 50 monster were two very different beasts.

“Will they be able to deal with that?” someone whispered into the now deathly quiet room.

No one gave an answer.

What followed was some of the tensest minutes of Arthur's entire life, the only sound in the room was a woman's voice mumbling a quick prayer. Arthur hoped someone superior being was listening to her requests for assistance. His gut was telling him that this entire fiasco would end in disaster and that only a miracle would save the people getting ready to fight.

Mira too seemed to have an inkling of what was going to happen as Arthur heard her mutter under her breath, “Fools.”

Just as the tension reached a boiling point, something happened.

A massive ripple blasted out of the dimensional tear and the camera's view was distorted for a few seconds before clearing up. It was placed miles away from the scene, which spoke of how strong the energy fluctuations being released must have been.

The phenomenon was repeated in ten seconds, and then again after the same amount of time elapsed. Again, and again, it was repeated occurring faster and stronger each time until finally, time seemed to freeze in place for a single moment, as if trying to give the soldiers gathered their one final opportunity to flee.

No one ran.

Then suddenly the shimmering distortion in the air just disappeared, gone in much the same way it had arrived. Without warning. When Arthur saw what it left behind, however, all hope died in his chest and he heard a woman begin to sob in the room.

Oh shit, I don't wanna watch this.

He almost called out to the television screen to tell the military personnel to run, but they were already one step ahead of him, fleeing as fast as their advanced physiques could carry them.

They were too weak, too late and too slow to respond, and they seemed to realise it at the same time the audience did, some of them stopping and falling to their knees in despondent despair.

It took a moment for Arthur to realise that they hadn’t stopped voluntarily. The soldiers were already dead, killed in an instant before they even knew they had breathed their last. Someone vomited in the room and people quickly began to leave, unable to watch the sickening sight any longer. It was a hopeless situation.

There was something fundamentally wrong with watching a fellow human life being snuffed out with casual indifference, and the healers gathered there were all nauseated despite being familiar with the sight of blood. Arthur felt sick to the stomach and glared at the perpetrator of all this death and destruction as if his hatred could reach the monster through the TV screen. A sickly aura began to leak out of him, adding to the depressing atmosphere in the room.

The monster hovered in the air, beautiful in a savage way as it looked down with cold eyes at the devastation it had wrought. None remained alive. The very landscape itself was altered, trees cut in half like a massive axe had been put to use.

Like an avenging angel, the monster flapped its majestic wings once, twice, releasing powerful gusts of wind magic as it did so, mutilating the land and corpses with devastating wind blades until only ravaged flesh remained of the Russian military.

That's what cut those soldiers' legs off. A precise cut. This monster is sadistic. It's intelligent.

Rachel began to cry, unable to cope with the cruel savagery displayed in the live video, and Arthur felt a white-hot rage grip him. As well as a sense of helplessness. Because he knew that he would have been able to do absolutely nothing even if he was present there.

He had no hope against a monster like that.

Harpy Queen (Evolved Rank: E) Level 174- Queen of the harpies, this monster has found itself stranded in an unknown dimension. Its strength lies in its speed, but it lacks in constitution. Never turn your back on this beast.

The monster's description told him what he already knew from just witnessing the harpies' destructive wind magic. Fighting it at his current strength was tantamount to suicide. And if even he couldn’t hope to defeat it with all his absurd titles then-

Just as he was thinking that there was no one on Earth that could hope to defeat the monster, the reporter began to speak again. His voice was now much more subdued; raw with grief and loss. Perhaps he had known one of the soldiers that had just been killed in action before his very eyes.

“What the hell is that idiot doing?” The reporter whispered, dread in his voice. Arthur looked at the television screen, to see what it was he was talking about.

There was someone new on the scene.

A man walked through the puddles of blood, the red liquid parting before him like the sea before Moses, creating a clear path for him to traverse through. The video became a little shaky, as the drone the camera was attached to drew closer to the fool that was walking towards his death.

The strange man looked regal, like a proud lion with his long mane of silver-brown hair. The camera zoomed in on his face. He looked like a rugged warrior, completely at ease in the carnage around him.

He looked bored.

Then he began to talk, and though he was speaking some strange language, Arthur and most certainly everyone that could hear what was being said somehow understood the man's speech with perfect clarity.

“I was sure Jabal said something interesting was happening here.” His voice was deep, a low rumble that seemed to carry with it a wealth of experience. Arthur's breath caught when he identified the man.

“What about you, little birdie? Do you know what everyone seems to be so excited about?” The man questioned, amusement leaking into his voice.

The harpy Queen didn’t reply. It didn’t move. It didn’t do much of anything, actually. The Harpy Queen, like every individual on Earth watching the Livestream, was frozen by the appearance of the strange man, though for very different reasons to the audiences observing the surreal scene.

It was not frozen in awe, nor was it shocked into silence.

No, the harpy was terrified, unable to even move in the presence of the demon that had come before it.

For a monster had arrived.