Chapter 102: Noble II
The customs of nobility were unique and varied across the Lands of Stone.
Among humans, nobility was often a matter of bloodlines and territory, of accumulated power passed down through generations like heirlooms. But among the Noble Primal Beasts, the customs ran deeper. More ancient.
The Noble Simba Lineage held themselves to standards that even other Noble Beasts found demanding.
Descended from the first great cats that had walked the Lands of Stone when the world was young, they carried within them the essence of sovereignty itself. Their manes held captured sunlight. Their roars commanded the very earth to tremble. And their pride, their dignity, was sothing that could not be quantified or compromised.
For a Noble Simba, proximity ant kinship.
Contact ant trust.
To allow another being close enough to touch was to acknowledge them as family, as equal, as soone worthy of standing in the presence of lions who had ruled since before humans learned to make fire. Such intimacy was reserved for mates, for blood relatives, for allies who had proven themselves across generations of shared struggle.
It was never extended to strangers.
And certainly never extended to humans.
Tiaret, despite her sickly state, despite the weakness that forced her to be protected by others rather than standing on her own strength, was still a Noble Simba. She still carried the blood of that ancient lineage. She still deserved the dignity that ca with her birth.
Damian didn’t know any of these customs.
So he simply spoke out what was on his mind about what he had to do.
When it looked like the stellar obsidian sli and the two massive Simbas were about to erupt once more, it was the sickly young woman who smiled.
"You all can settle down now."
Her voice carried authority that transcended her weakened state.
"He’s a shaman and a healer, right? Such things can be expected."
She stroked Masamuk’s obsidian body with absent affection.
"Co on."
She beckoned to Damian with her free hand. She remained on that vibrant golden lotus, and even though her guards seed to hold waves of unwillingness, they listened absolutely.
Masamuk kept his cold crimson eyes on Damian more than anything else, as if warning him that if he did anything out of sorts, that would be it.
Damian didn’t pay attention to any of them.
He made a light jump from where he stood on the vibrant foliage, his body rising with the grace that the flight technique had granted him. He glided through the air in his ragged Dross clothing, crossing the distance between the shore and the lotus with movents that seed almost elegant despite his rough appearance.
He landed on that wide lotus where powerful Noble Beasts were staying.
And he got his first chance to look at the young Noble Beast up close.
She was more beautiful than he’d perceived from a distance.
Her golden features held an otherworldly quality. Her lion-like eyes watched him with curiosity rather than fear, vertical pupils dilating slightly as they adjusted to his proximity.
But she was also more sick than he’d realized.
Up close, he could see how thin she’d beco. Her golden skin had a grayish undertone that spoke of prolonged suffering. Her breathing was slightly labored, each inhale requiring effort that should’ve been unconscious.
And that scar.
It extended from just below her jaw, a thick rope of corrupted flesh that traveled down her neck and disappeared beneath her white-gold wrapping. The sickly green energy that pulsed within it was even more disturbing up close, crawling beneath her skin like sothing alive and hungry.
It was not rely a wound.
It was an infection and a corruption.
Sothing that had embedded itself within her and was slowly, inevitably, consuming her from the inside out.
Damian ignored the auras of all the others present and focused on the one thing that made him do this ridiculous action in the first place.
The Primordial Tongue.
That single letter.
Without further ado, he placed his hands on the shoulders of Tiaret.
He felt her tense slightly beneath his touch. The Noble Simbas behind them let out low growls that vibrated through the air. Masamuk’s obsidian body pulsed with warning light.
But before any of them could act, Tiaret spoke.
"Whatever happens..."
Her voice was calm.
"Thank you. And I’m sorry."
...!
She said this as if she was reading him the last words he would hear. As if she knew he would fail. As if she wanted to apologize for his death that would co soon after.
She’d accepted his attempt not because she believed he would succeed, but because she had nothing left to lose.
Damian only looked calmly at the sli she held in her hands.
"There will be an eruption of blue flas."
His voice was steady.
"Don’t think that’s an attack."
He gave this small warning, and right after, he spoke aloud with weight that filled the clearing.
"Persevere."
BOOM!
Like a radiant pillar of blue brilliance, sacred flas erupted around his body!
The fire roared into existence with intensity that exceeded his previous invocations. It wrapped around his form, sank into his flesh, and reached for the letter inscribed on his heart with hunger that seed almost eager.
This ti, he sought to see if he could actively control them. To direct them toward a specific wound.
That sickly scar extending down the front of this Noble Beast.
Simply a wound that needed to be healed, nothing more.
After having done this so many tis, he’d begun to understand the patterns of the Primordial Tongue’s power. He knew how it flowed and he knew how it responded to his will.
And the trick he wanted to pull right now was to once again use his blood.
His Second Doctrine allowed him to cultivate external things. The walls of the Purple Stone Tribe. The mountain he’d raised. The areas of the Lands of Stone that now responded to his will.
So why couldn’t he also cultivate with life forms?
He already felt the link between himself and the Holy Daughter after he’d used his flas on her. That faint awareness of her location. That connection that exceeded physical distance.
Another one would form here.
And if that was the case, why not go all out?
His palm silently split open.
The flesh parted without pain, so accustod to this action that it’d beco automatic. Tendrils of his blood, thick with stellar blue Mana, mixed with the sacred flas as they began to flood into her body.
The scene was astonishing.
Blue flas poured from Damian’s hands into the Noble Beast before him, flowing across her shoulders and down toward the sickly scar that pulsed with malevolent green light. His blood followed the flas, crimson threads weaving through the sacred fire as they sought out the corruption.
Masamuk, held in Tiaret’s arms, felt these flas as well.
The sli’s obsidian body had been tense and ready to attack. Its crimson eyes had been fixed on Damian with murderous intent. But the flas didn’t burn.
Instead, a light of purification washed over his body.
A warmth that sank into his obsidian form and touched places that had been cold for longer than he could rember. A cleansing that swept away impurities he hadn’t even known he carried!
This forced him to look toward the Noble Beast he loved.
And it was only at this ti that he thought, was it actually a possibility?
At this mont, the sacred blue flas surged toward that sickly scar on her chest.
They found their target and they attacked.
The sickly green scar pulsed in response, that corrupted energy roaring to life as if it recognized the threat. It fought back with fury that spoke of malevolent intelligence, of corruption that had grown strong on months or years of feeding on Tiaret’s vitality.
An expression of pain blood on her face.
Her golden eyes squeezed shut. Her jaw clenched. Her hands tightened around Masamuk with force that would’ve crushed anything less durable.
But the flas of the Primordial Tongue were offended.
A re wound trying to fight back?
What the fuck did you think you were?!
HUUUM!
The flas focused even without his control, concentrating their assault with intensity that made his previous healings seem gentle. They attacked that scar with prejudice!
They wanted to destroy it.
They wanted to erase it from existence!
His blood and flas shot up in this entire area like a radiant pillar of brilliance, blue-gold light reaching toward the canopy above. The very air seed to vibrate with the power being unleashed.
And in a ridiculously short period of ti...
The gory sickly scar began to shrivel up.
It writhed and contracted, the green energy within it screaming in frequencies that only those sensitive to Mana could perceive. Like a worm crying out at being scorched. Like corruption that had never faced opposition suddenly eting sothing it couldn’t overco.
Masamuk and Tiaret looked down with utterly shocked gazes.
They stared at Damian with disbelief, watching as his flas thodically destroyed sothing that had resisted every other attempt at healing.
But he couldn’t spare them a glance.
Because sothing was happening that they couldn’t perceive.
The flas that were purifying that sickness were also coursing across her entire body. They swept through her blood and her organs and her very essence, seeking out every trace of corruption.
And then they cycled back.
They returned to his body.
But they didn’t return empty.
They ca back carrying a terrifyingly dense and pure golden light!
This golden radiance flowed across his skin and into his flesh and through his bones and into his marrow and throughout his blood. Everything. It touched everything, causing his entire body to seethe with Mana so dense and pure that it made his previous cultivation seem like a child playing with candles.
This was....Noble Primal Beast essence.
This was power refined across generations of the Simba Lineage.
This was sothing that should never have entered a human body.
And on the back of his hand, a scorching golden inscription was forming.
Damian felt it carving itself into his existence with heat that went beyond physical sensation. Sothing was writing on his soul, etching characters into the very fabric of what made him who he was.
The inscription shone gold, brilliant and magnificent.
It had an air of dignity and nobility!
And the mont it began to appear, visible through his skin like light shining through parchnt, he hid it with a cluster of blue flas.
He wrapped his hand in sacred fire, concealing the golden inscription from the eyes of those around him.
Focus.
He had to focus on fully finishing healing Tiaret.
Whatever this was, whatever was happening to him, it could wait!
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