Pandora Unchained - B1C91: Hand of the Medicine God

Outside the Governor's Manor and high above the Bloodwood Outpost, Guild Master Roy and Governor Marsh collaborated to severely punish the mythical invaders for underestimating their defenses. The seeds of deception sowed over decades finally paid off as the guild master pierced the dryad through her wooden heart with a burning spear, and Governor Marsh lopped off her head with his silver blade.

Just like many times before, the dryad reformed from her own sawdust, greatly weakened from the effort. She was joined by the satyr, who could no longer support the spiritual expenditure needed to play his instrument.

"It seems we underestimated you humans once again," said the satyr. "But no matter. We will return, and when we do, this outpost and any adjoining cities will fall."

"You think we'll let you out of the net we wove with such great difficulty?" said Governor Marsh. "Naïve."

"It is you who is naïve," said the satyr. "Did you think we didn't come prepared? Let's see who you value more – the residents of this outpost, or the lives of us three-star demons." He summoned a sphere of corrupt energy in his hand and dropped it.

"It's not even a question," answered Governor Marsh. "We'll do both!" He gripped his sword and made to execute his heroic ability.

Yet just as he was about to activate it, a flash of gold emanated from his manor, accompanied by an intense aura of corruption. It was only a single instant, but that instant made all the difference. The satyr took advantage of it to push the sphere of corrupt energy downward, forcing Guild Master Roy and the mysterious preacher to catch it and suppress it.

As for Governor Marsh, he belatedly activated his heroic ability, Infinite Blade Storm. His blade bit into the satyr and the dryad multiple times, but in the end, he missed a strike due to their head start, bringing an untimely end to his chaining ability. "Till we meet again!" yelled the satyr, dragging the half-dead dryad alongside him.

"It'll be impossible to catch up once they reach the forest," said Guild Master Roy, working with the bishop to seal the corrupt sphere. Governor Marsh immediately identified it as an unstable three-star Core of Violence.

"Someone has invaded my manor," said the governor, frowning. "I sense corruption… and something else."

"We'll be right there," said Guild Master Roy. "You go on ahead. Don't worry about us." Sighing, Governor Marsh took one last look at the walls and the retreating demons before flying over to his manor, wondering what the hell Marcus was doing inside it instead of the clinic and what in the Seven Evils was going on with that strange energy signature.

***

Having incorporated corruption into his cultivation, Sorin found himself at a disadvantage against the prison of wish fire Marcus had summoned. Yet thanks to the golden light that was now part of his mana, he was able to place both hands on the intangible prison and inject manabane poison into the framework.

Sorin circulated his mana in a familiar pattern: Viper Strike. As he did so, a stream of information entered his mind and informed him that his ability was no longer so limited. He would now be as gifted at injecting, withdrawing, and manipulating poisons in anything he touched. The ability's name had changed to reflect this and now went by the much more impressive title: Hand of the Medicine God.

Using his powerful spiritual perception, Sorin quickly identified nodes in the wish-fire prison. The prison was powerful against demons and corruption, but weak against humans. The enhanced manabane poison rapidly eroded the wish-fire prison, rendering it susceptible to physical breakage.

As a blood-thickening cultivator, Sorin would normally be unable to exert this much strength, but thanks to Violence's empowerment, he was able to repurpose his mana and strengthen his physique. The prison shattered, revealing a shocked Marcus with blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

"Impossible," said Marcus. "How can this be? Escaping that prison should be impossible."

"I took a risk, and it paid off," said Sorin, looking at his clawed and scaled hand.

Sorin's body was littered with wounds. His vitality stores and mana stores were still quite low despite having unlocked what he decided to dub the Divine Meridian. Fortunately, it wasn't just Viper Strike that received an upgrade, but his Toxic Metabolism as well. It was now a divine ability that was extremely effective regarding corruption, something he immediately put to good use.

The claws on his hands pulled back inside his body, where he subsequently metabolized it. The core aspect of Violence remained and could not be separated from him, but he could still purge the excess corruption in his flesh.

Just like any other poison, Toxic Metabolism converted the corruption to mana and life force, something Sorin was in dire need of.

Despite his wounded state, Sorin didn't give Marcus time to react. He launched himself at the physician without a weapon and took a dagger to the chest in the process.

In exchange, he laid both hands on Marcus and used Hand of the Medicine God to inject a heavy dose of mixed manabane and acidic poison—straight into the man's weakest point, his internal organs.

Marcus forced Sorin back with a life shield, but Sorin, having yet to land, summoned a dark spear filled with mixed poison and corruption. The spear shattered the life shield and pierced through Marcus's mana shields like they didn't exist, burning a hole in his protective robes and melting away a significant amount of flesh.

Marcus reacted quickly. He swiftly chopped off the corrupted flesh and mobilized his life-affinity mana to heal the injury. He then drank a healing potion and an all-purpose antidote to fight off the poisons burning his innards.

He'd just finished drinking the antidote when Sorin used Adder Rush to attack him from the side. Marcus went for the kill. A dagger shot out, this time aiming for Sorin's head.

Yet he underestimated Sorin once again. A half second before the dagger made contact, Sorin activated Cobra's Gaze, paralyzing Marcus. The ability broke through what remained of the realm suppression between them, dragging out its duration significantly. This bought Sorin the time he needed to use Python Coil around Marcus's arm, then use Hand of the Medicine God to quickly inject manabane poison into the arm's acupoints.

Sorin's mana was weak against two-star mana, but realm suppression no longer seemed to apply to him. The divine empowerment he'd received was responsible, and eliminated the concept of realm suppression entirely, at least between their two cultivation stages.

As a result, Marcus was a step too slow in purging the manabane poison, giving Sorin the last opening he needed to press his hands on Marcus's poison-filled torso. "Violence," Sorin whispered, injecting corruption into his body, and causing the initial manabane poison and acid he'd injected to flare. The poison expanded violently, melting away half of Marcus's organs before he could even react and eating away at the forged bones forming his rib cage.

It was impossible for Marcus to speak in his condition. It was equally impossible for him to recover, even with his life mana. He simply stared ahead blankly as he collapsed to his knees, waiting for his brain to get the message that the fight was over, that he would soon be dead.

Finally, Marcus collapsed. With defeat, the orb around Lorimer vanished. The rat looked up at Sorin fearfully, and Sorin, for once, smiled. "You did good, Lorimer," said Sorin. "Enough to deserve a good reward." He then summoned Lorimer's contract rune and tossed it over to the rat. "Sorry for being anything less than a friend. In my defense, you did try to kill me."

Lorimer stared at him for a moment. Then, to Sorin's surprise, he tossed the rune back at him. "You want to come with me?" said Sorin, surprised.

"Reee!" squeaked Lorimer.

"But you want to actually get paid instead of getting ripped off," said Sorin with a chuckle. "You're smarter than I realized."

Sorin then turned his eyes over to his unconscious companions. "Help me take care of them for now, will you? I have something important to do. Something that just might kill me."

He walked over to the laboratory, which was no longer protected by a life shield. Gabriella's body was completely covered in black veins, and a silver glow was beginning to appear on her skin.

Despite the glow, she was not in a good condition. Yet thanks her inherently high vitality, and the subdued nature of the poison, she was still holding strong, despite the ample death mana flooding into the ritual circle and empowering the poison.

Sorin was not in a hurry to remove the poison—the slightest loss of balance could easily result in her death. But he did take the flask of poison Marcus had injected into her and drank it, then used Toxic Metabolism to sort out the poisons and identify them.

The formula was 70% identical to the original tincture from similar experiments. As for the missing ingredients, they'd been made up for using various necrotoxins. He identified life bane lily, nightshade vine, demonic wolf spider venom, and death touch toad poison, all high-level one-star poisons that interacted in wondrous ways to delay sudden necrotic damage.

Gabriella's meridians were a mess, as was her mana. Life mana and death mana were opposites and therefore eliminated each other in a surprisingly peaceful fashion. There were occasional holes in her meridians, as well as dead flesh, but for the most part, her body was undamaged.

A surprising development, considering the death-aligned ritual circle, thought Sorin. The ritual was still steadily gathering death-aligned mana, thereby enhancing the poisons in her body at a steady rate. He confirmed from Marcus's notes that this was all according to calculation.  Marcus had apparently mapped out Gabriella's abilities long before formulating his hypothesis. Originally, Marcus had been sent to the outpost to try and improve the Kepler Clan's primary meridian opening tinctures.

It didn't take long for Sorin to finish extracting everything valuable from the notebook. He first used Hand of the Medicine God to gradually control the poisons and draw them towards the half-opened hero meridian in Gabriella's body. He then extracted the necrotic poison through subsequent acupoints, breaking open the cracked silver seals on her Conception Vessel one at a time. A silver light flashed when the final acupoint opened, and Gabriella's body began to recover at a visible rate.

Sorin then moved to withdraw the necrotoxins and death mana coursing through her veins. Yet before he could do so, Gabriella's body began to glow with a silver light. Her body began to actively devour the toxins and the death mana contaminating her body.

Is this her heroic ability? Purification? thought Sorin, relieved at the direction of her recovery. With her intense life force and purification abilities, her life was no longer in danger.

All that was left was disabling the death-aligned ritual drawing death mana from outside the manor. He was no expert in rituals but knew that destabilizing them would likely interrupt their core functions. Removing the gems in the circle would likely be enough, something Sorin attempted to do, but failed.

No worries, thought Sorin. I'll just wait until Daphne is awake. She should be able to disable this thing, right?

But once again, Sorin's hopes were dashed. The force in Gabriella's body erupted following the initial round of purification and reached out to the ritual circle, which began operating at several times its original frequency. The initial trickle of death mana became a stream that poured into Gabriella's body, causing it to glow light a torch in the darkness.

If I can't stop the ritual, I'll take her out, Sorin decided. He moved to pick her up, but a powerful energy forced him back. What's more, it was a familiar energy to Sorin. A golden energy not dissimilar to the one present in his own body.

Before he could even process what was happening, the stream of death mana turned into a river of anguished souls that filled the room. Sorin could only escape and drag his friends out of range before their life flames were snuffed out.

Crisp shattering sounds filled the air much like they had during Sorin's breakthrough. Then, after an extended pause, a final seal broken open. A golden light filled the room, causing plant life to erupt from the stone walls and the stone floor.

Similarly, Sorin's companions received a large dose of life energy.

"Urgh." Stephan was the first to regain consciousness in their group. "What happened?"

"My head… hurts," moaned Daphne, picking herself up.

"Um, why are there plants randomly growing in this dark basement?" asked Lawrence.

"I'm so confused," said Gareth.

"Ree!" agreed Lorimer.

Sorin was confused as well, but he had his suspicions about what happened to Gabriella. "Let's get her out of here," he said as the presence of death in the room faded, leaving only the purest life energy that continued to heal their wounds, including Sorin's.

They found Gabriella still unconscious on the operating table, with a remnant golden glow leaking out from her bare skin. A strange symbol could be seen on her forehead—one of a torch glowing in the darkness, bringing forth new life after a cold winter.

Sorin quickly picked a blanket off a chair and tossed it onto her naked body.

"What happened to her?" asked Lawrence. "And why is she glowing?"

"I think you're better off not asking that question," said Stephan. "Assuming what I'm thinking just happened actually happened."

Sorin had many questions for Stephan, but before he could elaborate, a powerful presence bore down on their group. It entered the manor, and swiftly cross two floors before entering the laboratory.

"What have we here?" said the man Sorin immediately recognized as Governor Marsh. The man's silver eyes zeroed in on Sorin. "High-level demonic corruption? No, based on the energy signature, that's impossible. If you don't peel off your disguise, demon, I'll do it for you!"

The pressure Governor Marsh gave off intensified and immediately scattered Sorin's energy. Regardless of the benefits the divinity in his blood and mana granted him, he couldn't deal with the sheer raw power of a flesh-sanctification cultivator.

"Governor, you're killing him!" shouted Stephan. "And what's this about corruption?"

"Know your place boy, and let me deal with this scum," said Governor Marsh. "Kneel, boy. I said kneel!”

The man's imposing nature skyrocketed, and Sorin immediately felt an urge to prostrate himself. His knees buckled, but he caught himself just before they touched the ground.

"Piss off," said Sorin, channeling every once of divinity in his body to fight off the governor's influence.

"Interesting," said Governor Marsh. "You give off a surprisingly holy presence for a demon. Are you a hybrid, or some sort of experiment? No matter. We'll get to the bottom of it and obtain justice for Physician Marcus."

"Justice?" said Sorin, infuriated by the man's words. "The man conducted human experiments in your basement, and you're calling for justice? And here I was hoping you were just complacent. Instead, it appears that you're complicit."

Governor Marsh frowned at these words. "Human experimentation? What nonsense is this? Marcus was just borrowing the laboratory space to treat sensitive patients and conduct the veteran rehabilitation trials. Something that proved quite effective, according to what I've been told."

Sorin had already reviewed Marcus's notes, so he wasn't surprised by the man's words. Yet he still had his suspicions; What kind of man wouldn't know what was happening inside his own basement?

Fortunately, it seemed the matter wasn't solely up to him because seconds later, two other powerful cultivators descended into the basement and joined the governor.

"Kepler?" said Guild Master Roy upon seeing Sorin.

"You know this man?" asked Governor Marsh.

"He's the young member of the Kepler Clan Marcus Kepler kept causing problems for," said Guild Master Roy.

"Right, you told me about that," said Governor Marsh. "Is he the one my idiot son decided to corrupt justice over?"

"The very same," said Guild Master Roy.

Sorin was surprised by the exchange; by all rights, these two should be at each other's throats. Instead, it seemed that they were actually on friendly terms, and even shared a long history together.

"Then that explains his reason for coming down here and killing Marcus," said Governor Marsh. "What a diplomatic bomb."

"Not as much as letting those two demons slip away," said Guild Master Roy. "Don't worry though—I'll help you clean it up, but only if you let me figure out what's going on here. Also, could you explain why there's a naked female hero strapped to hospital bed in your basement, along with what appears to be an apothecary's worth of poison concoctions and laboratory notes? Wait, is that golden light trickling off her body?"

The two flesh-sanctification cultivators and the bishop instantly rushed past Sorin and his companions and ignored them. "Hope be praised," said Governor Marsh.

"Is she…"

"Yes, I can confirm it," said Bishop Harold. "She's a god seed. Whatever experiments Marcus performed on her awakened her inner divinity."

Having confirmed his suspicions, Governor Marsh's vision trained on Sorin and his team. Sorin felt killing intent from the man, and highly suspected that silencing them was suddenly on the table, damn the political ramifications.

Fortunately, Bishop Harold cleared his throat. "I believe the death of five promising heroes would not go unnoticed. Moreover, the one that appears to be affected by demonic corruption is someone Lord Hope has taken interest in."

Governor Marsh grunted. "Fine. But I expect a full investigation of these individuals, as well as the imposition of an Order of Silence. Regardless of our disastrous ambush, the god seed's safety is paramount.

"Meanwhile, we'll conduct an investigation into Marcus's activities. We'll involve the Medical Association, the Alchemists Guild, and the Kepler Clan. None of us are to reveal the appearance of a god seed. Is that understood?"

"Understood," said Guild Master Roy.

"Everything will be as you say," said Bishop Harold. "Now come along you five. And you too, little rat. I'm afraid your stay won't be comfortable, especially Sorin's, but I believe everything will be fine as long as everyone cooperates.