3159 Know Mercy (Part 1)

Derek snarled, not caring one bit about the travelers.

'For all I know, they are the cause of my pain. Those thugs were a measly meal and I'm still hungry.' He slowly raised to his feet, a mix of emotions still clouding his judgment.

He glared at the woman with spite, smelling the stench of urine coming from her clothes and from those of the rest of her family. It was one of the most common effects of being electrocuted, but to Derek, it was a sign of weakness and cowardice.

And he hated cowards because they were a bully's best friend, ready to cover up any injustice just to not be the next victim. He hated the weak, because they reminded him of his past, helpless self that Derek despised with every fiber of his being.

"Don't." Ragnarök begged, feeling the anger of the Abomination rising and a spell forming on his lips. "Not you."

Derek's eyes were ablaze with mana as she stared at Agra. Then, her crouching figure was replaced by a majestic red-furred wolf with kind emerald eyes.

"Don't do it, Scourge. This isn't you." The Voidfeather tapped into Lith's memories to give sense to Ragnarök's words. "Wisdom without power is hot air, but power without wisdom is the greatest madness."

"Protector?" Another fit of pain blurred Derek's vision under the Ry's loving gaze.

"Remember what I taught you about Abominations. They aren't defined by what they do, but by what they are. Sometimes you've acted like a monster but you've never been one. Don't become one now." There was no judgment in the Ry's words, only worry.

More memories flashed in front of the Void's eyes but this time they belonged to Protector.

Back when Lith had saved his friend's life, the exchange of life forces had allowed the Skoll to learn everything about Lith and Solus but it had also allowed Lith to learn everything about Protector.

He watched the Ry giving a speech, always the same, to every new litter of cubs as soon as they reached adulthood.

"From today onward, you are not just a responsibility of the pack but one of its members. One day, you might take my place as the King in the east. That won't happen just because you are the biggest or strongest of the pack.

"Those things make you a great warrior, not a leader. The King must know mercy and allow his pack to kill only when needed. Our prey are weak, but if we cull their numbers during spring, we'll starve during winter.

"Spare their lives today so that we'll prosper tomorrow. Someday, they might evolve just like us. Someday, they might fight by your side against a common enemy, as all Kings do."

The words were followed by the images of a foolish human child attacking the Ry to get his hands on a broken stone. Protector could have killed the kid or even tracked his scent back to the small boy's home to exact revenge.

Instead, the Ry had let the young Lith go, hoping the child would learn his lesson without the need for senseless violence. Then, Derek watched Protector gifting a magnificent stag to the same boy, just slightly older, after he had defeated the King in the west, Irtu.

Once again, the wolf could have easily preyed on the weaker youth but he chose to befriend the boy.

Just like Derek could have feasted on the lives of the travelers, but under the worried gaze of his forgotten friend, he chose not to.

"Okay. How…" Seeing Agra raise her head reminded the Void that the difference between thinking and talking was that, with the latter, others could hear you.

'Okay, how does healing magic even work?' Derek had mastered chore and tier one magic, but he had never tried it out on a living subject before.

His first instinct was to disinfect his hands, but he had no alcohol. Then to take a look at the wound but he was no doctor. He had no idea what a living human's viscera looked like, let alone a Mogarian's.

"Don't waste time with such insignificant details, little imp." An old woman appeared out of thin air, kneeling right beside the wounded Borj. "We are healers, not doctors. Come here. Our patient hasn't much life left in him."

Derek was certain he had never seen her before, yet she felt as familiar as an old grandmother. Except that he had never had such a figure back on Earth which made the feeling even more surreal.

The old woman looked to be at least eighty years old, her back was so hunched that Derek expected her to fall forward at any second. She had sharp grey eyes, a face full of wrinkles, and a big aquiline nose.

She wore a shawl over her head that was filled with long white hair and her worn-out grey gown remained pristine despite being drowned in Borj's blood.

Derek obeyed her out of habit and the blood sizzled upon contact with the Voidwalker armor.

"Eyes on the prize, little imp. Lunch break can wait. We are here for the money." The old woman scowled at the Void who reeled in his hunger and stopped feeding. "Now, follow my lead. Vinire Rad Tu!"

"Vinire Rad Tu!" Derek weaved the runes with his hands and mouth but as he spoke, something clicked in his mind.

Before the tier one light magic spell could fully form, he cast his own tier four diagnostic spell, Full Scan. Lith had devised it years ago to hide his use of Invigoration and now Derek needed it because as an Abomination he was incapable of using a breathing technique.

The spell provided him the equivalent of a full total body CT scan, showing him Borj's injured organs and how deep the knife wound went.

"This is bad. The intestines and liver are damaged. We have to give it our all. Vinire Lakhat!" The old woman cast what Derek somehow recognized as a tier three spell, something way beyond his current mastery.

"Vinire Lakhat!" His hands and mouth conjured the real spell without effort, staunching the blood and buying the wounded man a bit more time.

'This is wrong. Vinire Lakhat isn't enough to save this man's life.' The Void's mind was still spinning in confusion when another spell rose from his memory, weaved into existence by the rhythmic pulses of his mana core.

An emerald construct of Elina slowly emerged out of his body as the tier three Spirit Spell, Mother's Embrace took form. The ethereal figure held Borj in her arms while emerald tendrils emerged from her hands.

They stitched together the edges of the wounds, both internal and external while the light element repaired the damage at a speed visible to the naked eye. Forgotten by the Void, Mother's Embrace used all the elements of creation, light, earth, and soft water, to conjure the best healing spell Lith had in his arsenal.

The tendrils also collected the blood surrounding the wounded man, cleaning and filtering it from impurities before injecting it back in his body. The spell also extracted nutrients from the ground and water from the air's humidity, adding them to the blood during the transfusion.