Reincarnated Hero System

Chapter 728 Eliza’s Crossroads

As Eliza hugged Evan from behind, her ether flowed out of her body and permeated into his, conducting a thorough analysis of his condition and her brain started working on how to go about healing him.

"Ah, you're here. That was faster than I expected."

Evan remarked calmly, lightly swinging his arm to flick away Darfin's blood from his hands.

After he was done gathering enough 'evidence', he decided to give the man a taste of his own medicine and that led to him repeatedly punching Darfin's chest over and over again until he eventually broke open the man's ribcage and destroyed his heart.

His individual punches were not strong enough to kill the weakened man but were more than enough to inflict severe pain with each hit.

Evan also cut off Darfin's left arm as well, freezing the stump with ice and then nailing his legs to the ground with the Unforged.

As he did with Kailu, he used potions to keep Darfin alive long enough that the man began to beg to be killed.

The boy ignored those pleas though, and he even froze Darfin's tongue to prevent him from biting it and killing himself.

He disabled the spatial isolation barrier with the aid of a magic stone's energy before he began this, so his contractors had long since regained information on his location.

Since he had told Eliza he was going to the Rahead Mountains, the girl was already heading in that direction even before the connection was restored.

She had gotten Felyela to use teleportation magic to take them through the cities where there were no Teleportation Waypoints, which was quite a lot and after continuously teleporting a country's worth of distance, even the Sovereign Level existence was exhausted.

What's more, she was carrying someone else along.

When she reached where Evan was, her face contorted into a deep frown.

Not just because of the boy's state, but also Eliza's.

The girl was continuously reapplying a Serenity Inducement spell on herself so she would not lose her cool and deal with Evan's situation with a calm mind.

When Eliza scanned Evan's body with her ether so she could assess the full extent of the damage Evan suffered, she finally noticed that Evan still had a heart beating on the right side of his body.

A normal Human's heart was roughly to the left side, and so was the hole in Evan's chest. But she could sense a beating heart on the right and that heart did not seem like that of a Human's.

'That dragon from Lacertilia…so this is why he was after its Heart.'

That thought crossed her mind for a second but she banished it quickly as it wasn't important right now.

"Aunty Fey…can you get me his arm?"

"…"

Felyela used levitation magic to move Evan's severed arm over to Eliza and she grabbed it before placing her hand on the frozen stump and shattering it with a pulse of magic power.

Blood spilt onto her body but she ignored it and focused on reviving the frozen cells in his arm.

"Breath of Life: Revitalizing Grace."

Eliza's magic power and ether surged from her body and enveloped Evan's form with the green light of restoration.

Her ether expelled all the residual aura that Darfin, Sana and Kailu's attacks had left in Evan's body, before beginning to heal the wounds that the auras had caused.

For this phase of the healing, she used her 'Breath of Life' skill. The next phase was where she would then use her more powerful 'Child of Life' to heal the major wounds.

Just before she reattached Evan's arm, her body froze as she came to a realisation.

'I have 25 Skill charges. I need about 7 to heal his arm and all 25 to heal his heart. I can only recover 3 charges per day so if I use 7 to heal his arm, I would not have enough to heal his heart even after recovering the 3.'

She had arrived at the crossroads that the EOTD had spoken of earlier.

'Due to the severity of the wound, Breath of Life is not powerful enough to reattach Evan's arm without any side effects. I would not even have enough magic and ether left to heal him after I healed his heart.

Should I borrow from Aunty Fey? No…she's already exhausted from the repeated teleportations.

What about Roselia? I don't know how long she and Uncle Gavin would take to get here so I can't bank on them. I also can't stall the healing for too long.

Spirits…? There aren't any life-attributed spirits nearby…I can't borrow energy from spirits of other attributes unless I use my skill to drain their Life Forces.'

"…"

She went silent for a moment, considering her options before making a choice that left even the EOTD surprised.

'If I consume a bit of my life force…then maybe I would have en-'

"STOP."

"Huh?"

Evan's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she let out a shocked voice. The boy leaned his body into hers, barely having the strength to prop himself up as he spoke.

"You don't realise it, but you were already acting on your thoughts."

"…"

He had nearly lost consciousness due to the soothing feeling that Eliza's presence coupled with her life energy gave him, but the moment he sensed what Eliza was about to do, his eyes snapped back open.

He flexed the fingers on his right hand, having regained full mobility there before raising it and grabbing his severed arm with it.

"I have a way to deal with the heart so heal my arm. I can't deal with that one."

"…what? What way?"

"EOTD. He helped me."

Evan did not hide anything from her as he knew that if he didn't make things clear, Eliza might make a decision which would not turn out well for her.

And he certainly didn't want her to do that.

"…how sure are you that whatever he gave you would work? It's better if I just do it myself-"

"And burn your own life in the process? You think I'm gonna agree to that?"

"It's not a matter of agreeing or not, there's not much of a choice here!"

"Eliza…I'd like for you to trust me on this. Just heal the arm and then handle my other injuries."

"…"

Clearly, Eliza wasn't willing to put Evan's recovery in the hands of an entity she barely knew the first thing about.

However, every second she spent debating this with Evan was valuable time wasted.

Evan pushed himself up and turned his body around, raising his right hand to hold the side of Eliza's face and looking her right in the eyes before speaking.

"Eliza, I understand your concerns and even I don't have 100% trust in his means.

But I don't want you to do something which would harm you greatly, even if that means I'd be taking a gamble with the EOTD's magic."

He grabbed his left arm and stuck it to his body as he continued.

"Please, heal my arm."

Eliza hesitated, her expression torn between concern and reluctance. The thought of relying on unfamiliar magic whose effects she could not see was unsettling.

However, Evan was adamant about his decision and eventually, she nodded reluctantly and began to focus her healing magic on reattaching his arm.

"Child of Life: Renewal Embrace."

With a grateful smile, Evan leaned in and pressed a brief kiss on her forehead before pulling away.

Eliza's Child of Life showed just why it was a Unique Series skill, as Evan's arm was seamlessly reattached with no issues.

The process still took some time though, as Eliza wanted to make sure the bones, nerves, veins and muscles were all reconnected properly and it was only when she had just finished that Gavin arrived with Roselia and the others.

The Wolfen Officials who were outside had long since entered the Rahead Notch, but a single glance from Felyela stopped them from getting close to Evan and Eliza.

When Roselia and the others arrived, the adventurers present recognised her, and after knowing about the situation in Obrita earlier in the day, they figured out just who it was that had fought here.

Evan got up to his feet after Eliza was done, tossing on a new shirt from his inventory and admiring how Eliza had stopped the constant loss of blood from the hole in his chest.

When he turned and saw the people from Wolfen, he waved at them, asking the familiar retired A-Ranker to reserve some more Thunder Bear Meat for him.

"Now then, it's 1:pm currently, meaning I have 11 more hours."

"11 more hours for what?"

"Until my heart starts healing."

Evan replied to Eliza's query before turning to look at his contracted spirits, an idea coming to his mind the moment he saw them.

"And what are you going to be doing until then?"

Eliza's question snapped him out of his thoughts and he smiled before stepping forward slowly.

"15."

"?"

"That was the number of people they sent to kill me."

His words served as a confirmation of the conjecture the Wolfen officials had—that this whole situation was just an attempt to assassinate Evan.

"One was to lure me out of Obrita, using the lives of civilians as hostages. They knew I would not ignore them, especially after declaring I'd make this war one with the least casualties in history."

Pointing at the North, he continued.

"They intended to bait me there, but I went in the opposite direction. They still ended up catching up to me and used a Spatial Isolation barrier to entrap me here and prevent me from escaping or calling for external help.

I was surrounded by 9 Superior Grandmasters and 3 Inferior Stage Epics."

Evan then stopped walking and took a deep breath before calling out the names of the countries responsible.

"Osmaoque, Zoskye and Goshya. Those three countries conspired to kill me."

The ambient temperature suddenly increased rapidly, to the point where everyone around felt they had just been thrust under the desert sun.

Felyela and Gavin widened their eyes in surprise as they understood exactly why this was the case.

'The ambient energy of the World Laws of Fire and destruction are responding to his emotions…his anger.'

Cracks spiderwebbed on the ground beneath his feet, making the weaker adventurers and Wolfen officials lose their footing instantly.

"They can't attack me and go scot-free. They've gotta pay the price."