THE EXPLOSION BLINDED and deafened Nero, as he could only see in white and hear a high-pitched ringing. It also took away his tactile sense, as he felt like he was floating.

It wasn’t long though before his senses started coming back slowly.

He first regained seeing in colors; he saw the branches and thick, dark green leaves of the tree. Maybe due to what he’s looking at, he also started feeling the few blades of grass and the soft soil and hard roots on his back, and the pull of gravity as he was lying down. The high-pitched ringing in his skull also subsided, until he heard his own heartbeat, then quickly the silence of the surrounding and soft rustles of the leaves.

He sat up slowly; the simultaneous returning of his sensations pounded his head. It felt like he was having a massive hangover. He massaged his temples as he looked around, in hoping to see what happened. But his vision got blurry—he wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses anymore. And it wasn’t anywhere near him.

However, despite his poor eyesight, the aftermath of that small and odd explosion he could somewhat see:

A part of the tree’s bole was burned superficially, and there was no other damage—something odd for a relatively powerful explosion.

But, it wasn’t this which caught his full attention.

Sitting upon and laying against the burns was a man. At a glance, Nero saw the man blackened, and missing his left leg. The odor of a burned flesh and hair and skin also permeated the surrounding, a sift of it brought biting pain in his nose.

Still staggering, he approached the man to check upon him more clearly.

The man presumably was a knight, as he was wearing a knight’s armor, only more sophisticated and more dirtied and damaged than whatever he had seen ever. The knight…he was severely wounded, almost as if tortured, or had just come from a losing war. His face and scalp: half was burned thoroughly, that he could see the right side of his cranium—which at that moment was also blackened by burns. His right eye was already missing, leaving an eye socket filled with burned and withered skin and flesh.

Upon his silver breastplate was holes of varying sizes, from a pencil’s thickness to a diameter of a standard-sized mana orb. He looked down and saw blood flowing out the breastplate and upon the knight’s golden belt. “Fresh wounds,” was what the young healer thought immediately. His right arm was skinned, actually showing strands of his muscle and fresh blood flowing out, as if he was profusely sweating blood. His left arm, broken on the elbow and seemed to be twisted for more a few turns, but definitely more than one. And his left leg, as he had seen at first, was missing—from half of his thigh down; the cut was rough, his femur still sticking out and his muscles ravaged, but it was burned thoroughly that no blood was flowing out it.

Due to these lethal injuries, it was not surprising he wasn’t breathing anymore, nor his heart still beating. Whoever did this to the knight, wrath had overtaken them completely. Nero used his Sirilion’s Eyes to thoroughly assess the knight’s status. As expected, his soul was nothing but antimana; a dead man already.

However, he was surprised to see the knight’s mana core still filled to its brim, not decreasing whatsoever—a very odd phenomenon, and one Nero only now had observed. Because of that, a thought flashed through his mind: Can the knight be saved still?

Quickly, he looked for his backpack; the explosion might have severed its strap, that’s why it flew away from him. However, as he was looking for his backpack, though his vision was blurred, his peripheral caught a big, odd rug a couple of meters away from him, black and thick. The blurred image panged his heart, that he postponed trying to heal the tortured knight.

Unwittingly he approached it, whatever that which caught his eyes. Upon closer look, it really was who he expected it to be but hoped not. It was his dog, Rius, burned, lying upon a root, lifeless. It was not breathing, and its mouth agape, its tongue sticking out. Fluid had already flown out its mouth, seeping into the root and earth.

Unlike humans, animals don’t have souls, rendering his Sirilion’s Eyes useless that moment—rendering his skills as a healer, also, useless. Still, he decided to check his dog’s vital to see truly if… But it really wasn’t breathing anymore. And he couldn’t feel its heartbeat. He tried opening its eyes, to see if they were dilated, but the burn had welded its eyelids. Nero pressed the back of his right hand upon his lips to keep his grief from overflowing. A few while later, he let out a sigh…a deep, stretching sigh. Then he returned his attention to the knight.

There’s still a soul that he might be able to save.

~*~

First thing’s first: he should cancel out the antimana that had permeated the knight’s whole soul. Or at least, he would try—such a state of the soul was new to him.

He looked again for his backpack, while still being confused how a tortured soul could still keep a mana core in perfect shape and at full reserve (and trying to keep his grief regarding Rius’s death at bay—there’s just so many things happening at the same time). It wasn’t far, just a few meters away. Both the straps really had been burned—hence ripped—that’s why it flew away. He also found his spectacles near it, or what remained on it rather: just a burned frame without the lenses. He should ask his uncle to give him another pair later.

Out of the bag, he took out the leather pouch that contained the aether sand he bought earlier; good thing it remained intact, keeping the blue sand from spilling out. But the portable extractor was broken, the oil pot dangling on the burner. Even the two mana orbs were in shattered pieces—the explosion might have been much stronger than he initially perceived.

However…this didn’t mean that he couldn’t do healing.

It is true that to heal someone—to cancel the antimana in his soul, essentially—a healer needs mana, and usually that mana is only available for use once extracted and contained in a mana orb, i.e. mana can usually be ready-for-use from mana pearls.

Usually.

But for Nero—by some innate talent—he doesn’t need mana pearls to heal—he can directly extract the mana from aether sand without the use of fire. Amé had discouraged him from using this talent though, even warned him sternly not to use it in whatever case. But without clear explanations, the young healer couldn’t blindly follow his uncle’s warnings, and sometimes used it clandestinely. And, especially now that he felt being called upon using it to treat the knight who’s about to step into afterlife, if not already—of course, he would use it.

He returned to the knight.