Chapter 245: A promise made

Chapter 245: A promise made

POV Tess Hansen

Have I ever been this angry in my life? Have I ever hated another being this much? If Nathaniel hadn't stopped me, I would already be in the middle of the room, fighting those four ants and probably risking the lives of my three precious friends in the process. The lives of my comrades.

Can I trust you to save them? I want to ask, but our eyes meet for a second and I know I don't have to.

Right now, Nathaniel wears an expression I had yet to see on his otherwise emotionless face.

Fuck them up, Lily spits out, and his mana crashes in waves inside the room.

Nathaniel disappears, teleporting, and reappears on top of the biggest ant, the Arcane Juggernaut. Mana radiates from Nathaniel in a torrent that I'm sure would tear my body apart, and armor manifests around him, armor that continues growing until Nathaniel is three times taller and surrounded by all that mana condensed into the form of the armor.

A few fire-based attacks crash against it, followed by some invisible ones that leave deep gouges in the ground behind him. He just shrugs off any that land and stays on top of the comparatively slow ant, yet from the look, extremely durable.

Lily groans, falling to her knees, and a few of her fingers disappear as she continues to stare at the crown on top of his head.

Then more mana radiates from him, the armor turning dark blue and speeding up its movement. The hands of the armor become bigger, and he grabs the head of the ant hes mounted as it tries to shake him off.

With sheer shock, I watch as he tears the head off an ant, twice the size of a bus. The barriers around the ant just vanish the moment Nathaniel's armor touches them. The Juggernaut's body isn't able to endure, and the head just comes off.

Nat throws it at the Inferno ant who summons a wall of flame in response, turning the head to dust in the blink of an eye.

The massive body of the dead Juggernaut ant falls to the ground and I notice that Lily barely has any mana left as Nat continues to bleed from the wounds hes sustained all over his body.

Lily's left leg disappears and I feel movement behind us.

[Stormcrown] activates and my lightning surrounds us, clashing against a few attacks directed at us.

Then one of Nathaniel's anchors activates nearby and his disrupting mana hits the Rift Shifter ant before he can disappear.

Immediately I boost my javelins as much as possible and a few of them strike its body, sending lightning coursing through it.

The ant tries to create another rift, but another anchor near him explodes, Nathaniel's kinetic energy destroying a few of the ant's legs and that's when I increase the weight of my spear as much as possible until it gets hard to move.

The spear pierces the ant's carapace, the sheer momentum behind it allowing it to do so, but the ant disappears again, appearing near Lily.

Before he touches her, a few gray threads spin around her and pass through the ant's body while another of her legs disappears. For a moment the ant looks almost confused and then his body falls into two pieces that continue to move.

My javelins stab through him while I push against him with my [Psychokinesis] at full power.

He uses another rift-like attack that crashes against my lightning, forcing me to use more of my mana until they cancel out each other and my spear finishes him off.

When I look up, Nathaniel floats in the air, standing against two remaining ants. He has no wings and uses no mana, lightning, or anything. He just floats there and I cant feel anything. It's almost eerie.

A small ant jumps on the Inferno ant's back and golden flames burst forth from them at the same time as it feels like they are sucking the heat from the room.

Just an arm's reach in front of Nathaniel they stop, like there is some invisible barrier, and I hear a sound that reminds me of a heartbeat.

One heartbeat later I feel an immense amount of mana radiate from Nathaniel.

The second heartbeat and some of the flames move and swirl around Nathaniel as he takes them under his control.

Third heartbeat and Nathaniel's legs twist and break as if under immense pressure.

Fourth heartbeat and Lily's right hand disappears. I grab her and hold her against my chest.

Nathaniels face is calm and I can see that he is careful to not allow any of this to touch our friends. Roaring like a terrifying animal, the flames around Nathaniel burst forth, extremely concentrated.

There is no heat filling the room, his thermal energy just becomes more concentrated, focused into a single beam as thin as my finger at speeds impossible to track. It strikes the Inferno Ant in the middle of its body and then moves diagonally, cutting him in half like some sort of laser.

The small Ability Leech Ant tries to run, but Nathaniel does something, and the ant freezes in the air, unable to move.

No don't kill him, someone says, and it takes me a few moments to realize it's Sophie.

Have I given up already? This much is fine. I can do it. Deep breath in. Breathe out.

Immediately I scan the rest of of our group, but no one shares the mark in their brain the three who attacked us had.

Good.

"Through the rift," I say calmly and grab Sophie's head, ignoring Lily and Tess.

When I pass through it, I wait until everyone is here and watch as wounded Myrra closes it.

"I will be alright," Myrra says, blood on her lips.

I put the twins on the ground and then put Sophie's head next to her neck.

It's fine, we have a few minutes, We can heal it.

"Nathaniel, I don't have enough mana," Lily cries knowing what I'm thinking, "even if I sacrifice most of what I have left, I won't be able to heal it and restart her..." The petite brunette sobs.

"Items?"

"I don't know how! I tried, I tried so hard!"

"I see," I nod and look around.

There is no other healer.

For a few precious seconds, I stare at Sophie's body and then get on my knees and settle in front of Lily, "Sacrifice my body parts," I tell her.

"I won't be able to, it would be even harder than"

"I know," I tell her and then, creating a resonating mana along my hand. I cut off my entire left arm and burn the wound closed with thermal energy.

I put the arm in front of Lily, "This is the arm you restored for me. You sacrificed your arm to restore it. It's made by you and strengthened by me. You have a connection to it."

Slowly, her eyes open wider, and with shaking remains of her left arm, she touches it, "If I fail..."

"You wont," I say.

With her eyes wide open, she points what remains of her arm towards my severed limb. Her brow furrows and a few seconds pass, feeling impossibly long.

Then my arm disappears and the mana that flows through Lily is grander than ever before. The arm she sacrificed came from someone of a much higher level than her. With constructs etched into it, the arm is filled with mana and came from a body bearing two epic passives. It's a good arm.

Her healing skill activates, and I watch as the two pieces of Sophie's body connect.

It happened just a few seconds ago. The brain didn't have time to die. Lily can restart the body.

It will be fine.

Lily uses more mana, and it keeps flowing through Sophie, restoring her, circulating around her heart, and her brain.

Sophie isn't a normal human either; she has stats, levels, skills, and passives. Something like this should be possible even with a normal human, but Sophie is more akin to a superhuman like all of us.

It will be fine.

Sophies heart starts beating a few times, and some color returns to her face. More warm mana radiates from Lily, and Sophie's chest starts moving.

I don't want to break a promise I made to a little kid. A promise I made to a friend.

Sophie breathes out and in, and her eyelids move a bit, and she opens her eyes, immediately closing them because of the light.

I look at Lily, Tess, Sophie, Aaron, and Dennis.

All of them are fine.