Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

He spotted Vera and the other royalty to his right fifteen meters away. The sounds of combat and chanting were drowning out whatever was said, but he could see it was getting heated.

A flash of red on the paper distracted him.

‘Ready in three.’

Elijah channeled Mana into the white vial—a small but steady amount, making it heat up and vibrate in his palm.

Three.

Two.

One.

The air clapped as most of the Royal Mages to his left fell over from a blast of wind. Others instantly looked that way, at the moans of pain along with the horror-filled screams as Nightmares began to fly out of the alley. Abhorrent clumps of pure darkness that seemed to absorb the light sent towards them, with as many teeth as they had eyes.

Elijah threw the white vial the second he saw the first Mage have his face bitten into.

“Down,” he spat, and he and Aleksi both shut their eyes as they shielded their ears. It was almost enough to blow out his eardrums, as both of them felt the sheer power for a moment before the giant took hold of his axe and ran out.

As the last attempt had shown, the nearest Royal Mages couldn’t react in time. An axe went through the head of the first, and the second was able to do nothing but shout in alarm before a hand grabbed their neck and crushed it.

Elijah threw smaller vials, some sending out more light and sound while others shut out smaller doses of the toxic gas. It did little by itself, but the chaos made it possible for them both to survive the next five seconds.

“Kill them!”

He frowned, looking over at the ritual. Rubeus was shouting orders, having ceased his chanting to bring the Mages not focused on the ritual into action.

Wait, no. He hadn’t paused it. All the words had been spoken, the final call to the summoning ritual having been completed.

Oh no.

Elijah ducked under a blast of metallic shrapnel when something in his body warned him, yet his eyes refused to leave the ritual that had ceased in its pulsing to move over to a constant glow. It hurt his eyes to look at, but he refused to turn his head.

Had they failed?

Rubeus paused his shouting suddenly, reaching out a hand and letting Arcane Tendrils form from the limb. With a face contorted in rage, he lashed out and… caught someone not seen before.

Like glass cracking, the body of Harper could be seen held a meter from the ground, tendrils wrapped around her throat.

“You think that trick will work twice?” Rubeus spat. “I am—”

The Ritual vibrated as the Arcane Mage shouted out in pain, the tendrils vanishing as a third figure revealed themselves. Fox, knife in hand, wore a smile on her face while she twisted her weapon into the Royal Mage’s back.

A sword came hurtling through the air a moment later. Elijah felt sick when it reached the Antimage. A lethal hit.

Fox fell to the ground lifeless.

But her efforts had not been in vain. Rubeus didn’t cease in his screams of pain, and every other Royal Mage mirrored the cries. Then, one by one, those in the outer circle started to… pop.

They popped like balloons, every inkling of Mana removed from their bodies before they seemingly exploded and sent out their flesh in every direction.

Both sides looked at the display in fear, ceasing the fighting as Royal Mages in the ritual circle tried and failed to escape their fates. One by one their bodies were emptied and torn to pieces by the world. Those who ran met their end a second earlier, and it only became more and more violent as it approached the central circles. Those who had stayed in the ritual since the start tried to fight what was to come, holding themselves together, but the world did not accept their rejection. It took what it was promised.

Jack and Sasha.

Amid the downpour of flesh and cloth, he saw the two would-be sacrifices falling to the ground. The ritual no longer cared about them.

They had a chance.

“Come on!” Elijah hurried, bringing Aleksi out of his trance as the final circle of Mages was killed. Only Rubeus stood in the ritual circle, alone, fighting for his life to channel the Mana, and… though it seemed close to an impossible effort, the pull seemed to finally dim. New sacrifices had been found and consumed. “Here’s our chance!”

Elijah threw the final bottles in his possession, ones which exploded into a thick black fog the second they reached the ground. Other than irritating the lungs, they had no offensive capabilities, but there was no chance of seeing through it. It gave them cover, a chance to not be hit while the fighting started up yet again.

Ignoring Rubeus mere meters away, they helped the Illusionist up from the ground. Her arm looked broken, her right hand bent the wrong way, but that was a worry for later. Harper was pulled to her feet, assisted by Elijah as Aleksi took Jack and Sasha in his arms.

He could see them breathing. They lived.

“Go!” he ordered, fighting his body’s desire to shut down as he hurried away from the ritual circle. It was starting to shake violently below them, and the white lines were starting to become brown and black. “It’s starting.”

Behind them, he could hear the tired laughing of Rubeus. It was manic, the shouting of grandeur coming after only making Elijah dread what was to come.

The shaking lowered in intensity once they left the ritual, but it wasn’t over yet.

“My people, cease your struggling.”

Phillip.

As Elijah helped Harper move to the edge of the open area, the enhanced voice of the crown prince could be heard. Vera and Louis had been allowed to stand back, kept captive by Royal Mages while Phillip walked forward to join Rubeus in front of the ritual circle.

“It is time to reveal the beast that will carry us into a new age of safety.”

The voice sounded so warped that it became nearly impossible to hear what was being said and much less who was talking, yet Elijah somehow understood every word regardless. It was as if it was being forced into his mind.

He almost wished it wasn’t, when the stone finally gave away, and the ritual circle was replaced by a massive fracture in space. A portal, though the sense of doom that Elijah was filled with when looking into it made it clear it wasn’t one that any Mage should’ve ever helped create.

And that fact only cemented itself when a set of giant clawed hands emerged from the portal. He could hear the prince laughing as the rest began to be revealed.

No.

It took Elijah a moment to recognize the double set of horns on top of the orange carapace,

Please, no.

There was no chance that they would allow this beast to reach the city. There wasn’t.

“A Tarrasque,” Harper breathed out, broken hand forgotten as the beast entire armies feared looked down at them. “No… an Ancient Tarrasque.”

With a height of easily fifty meters, and a width and length so massive that it crushed countless buildings so it could stand inside the district, Elijah was forced to face one truth above all others.

They wouldn’t win this fight.

“Do not despair, my people, for this beast will not move unless we order it to. Rubeus, if you would be so kind.”

“Of course, my king.”

Attention was directed at the two below the beast’s head, as a black mark traveled from Rubeus’ arm to Phillip’s. It was akin to a tattoo of the monster’s head, sitting perfectly around the crown prince’s right forearm.

Elijah normally wouldn’t have been able to see such detail from this distance, but it was as if the world was forcing every person around to observe what happened.

“And so the control is mine and mine only?” Phillip asked, raising the mark for all around to see.

“Yes, my king, it is—”

The prince’s sword was picked up from the ground and inserted into the Royal Mage’s chest before anybody could blink.

“Don’t act surprised, Rubeus. You were waiting for your chance to do the same.”

Phillip’s voice dulled in volume as the Arcane Mage fell to the ground, the magic bringing out the crown prince’s voice to the world fading alongside one of the many betrayers that had been revealed tonight.

“Traitor!”

The other Royal Mages, those who had followed Rubeus, weren’t supportive of the prince’s actions. Elijah and the others moved further away, as the light of magical spells began to push into the skies. Mages with a death wish, firing off every type of magic they knew towards the crown prince.

Elijah had expected the Tarrasque to make its move there, the toothy maw perhaps put to use, but it just stood there and observed the chaos instead.

He didn’t like the intelligence in those massive eyes as they saw the dead below.

There were no attempts to fight back against the spells sent towards him. Phillip dodged those needed, but his armor and body just withstood everything else.

It was a demonstration.

A showing of how far above the survivors he was. They could perhaps dream of scratching him, but the powerful Royal Mages had already been killed. Now there were only the weaklings left, if Elijah could even call them that when he was so far below them as well.

“What have you done, Phillip?”

Yet everybody here was mere ants to the man who appeared in the sky above, standing on a small platform of stone.

Every Mage that tried to fire a spell in the seconds after was crushed by plates of rock from below, before being entombed in the ground. Another show of power, this one hopefully making a difference.

Alin Oathbreaker had awoken.