Damon grinned despite himself. "Now that’s the stubborn old man I know."
Sylvara let out a choked laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. She quickly wiped her cheeks, nodding rapidly. "Thank you. Thank you," she whispered.
Damon uncorked the vial with a soft pop. Carefully, he tilted it and let three shimmering drops fall into Artimius’s mouth. The old man’s lips moved as if tasting thunder.
Then Damon lowered the rest of the vial to Artimius’s chest, just over his sternum. As soon as the liquid touched skin, it evaporated into threads of pure light and slipped beneath the surface, vanishing like mist into dry earth.
The change was instant.
Runes not of any earthly language flared across Artimius’s chest and arms, burning white one moment, then deep gold the next. Damon could feel something rippling outward from the old man’s body.
Artimius arched, his eyes rolling back for a second as golden filaments laced through his aura. His body trembled. But this time, it wasn’t death clawing at him. It was life, dragged back from the edge and stitched into place with ancient threads.
After what felt like an eternity held in a single breath, Artimius slowly opened his eyes. Not pale. Not glazed.
Clear. Focused. Alive.
"Well damn," he croaked, flexing his fingers. "That tasted worse than anything I have ever put in my mouth, but it seems to have worked."
Damon exhaled a long breath. "Glad you’re alive, old man."
Sylvara collapsed beside her grandfather, gripping his hand like it was the last anchor in the world, her tears this time of stunned relief.
Damon stood slowly, glancing down at the empty vial in his hand. La Rocha’s voice smugly sounded in his head. "You’re welcome."
Damon’s face darkened but he did not care about this bastard right now. His gaze shifted to his family at the distance. There was still the matter of his family. Right now they were all extremely open and vulnerable.
The ice guys were not the only ones running around with blessings. In fact they could be considered the weakest and technically what Robert had probably wasn’t even a blessing.
The same couldn’t be said for the other big families. Damon would be a fool to believe that their strength was at the same level as the strength of these people. Except for Artimius, there wasn’t a single talented person in the entire family. Or maybe there were but Robert went ahead and killed everyone before they could fully develop.
Surely, the other families would have sensed some disturbance here and would probably soon come here to investigate in one way or the other.
And Damon did not want to entangle with them just yet. The memories from a few minutes ago were still clearly etched in his mind and heart. There were many things in his world that were beyond his control. He needed to play it more carefully.
The enemy right now could be several times more powerful than himself. It was not time yet to face them in the real world. At least not until he figured out when he was going to get his mana core in the real world.
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