Apocalypse Healer - Path of Death-Chapter 7B3 - The Venomancer

As it turned out, Sparks were comparable to self-made energy techniques.

They were more a technique than a Skill, as they required greater precision to activate the ability sequence. However, activating the ability sequence was not instantaneous like a Skill Rune—unless trained extensively. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

David was not certain about that yet, but he was confident he could activate [Healing Link] in a moment. While it was a bit slower than the instantaneous activation of his other Skill Runes, it was still quite fast.

But it would take more time and effort to shorten the activation sequence and adjust the Spark to activate instantaneously, transforming the study of [Healing Link] into a time-consuming task.

Had it only been time-consuming without being rewarding, David wouldn’t have spent four days in the Enlightened state studying his first self-made Spark. Fortunately, the Spark’s rank increased rapidly as his comprehension and understanding of the technique and its limitations deepened.

Four days in Enlightened were not enough to understand everything, but spending every minute—every second—awake studying the Spark had been worth it. Adjusting the activation sequence and the way the Spark worked changed everything, allowing him to transform [Healing Link] into something no Skill Rune could achieve—strengthening or weakening the ability with each adjustment.

David nearly shattered the Spark once when he adjusted the activation sequence that transformed [Healing Link] into the equivalent of a Tier-0 V Skill Rune, only for his enlightened mind to catch the mistake before the Spark’s fading light could vanish completely.

As many times as David failed to improve [Healing Link]—which was a lot more often than he’d admit to anyone—his understanding of Sparks improved just as much.

He was improving, albeit it was unclear whether his growth was fast or insignificant. But there were still things he didn’t fully understand. That included the System and its antics.

While it marked Half-Sparks in his status screen, it didn’t label his fully formed Spark with anything specific. David didn’t know why, but everything looked normal as he glanced at the lower portion of his status screen for the umpteenth time.

[Basic: II]

[Healing Link]: [Low: Basic]

[Origin Lightning]: [High: Basic]

[Healing Link] was only identifiable as a Spark when he entered his mind space—apparent as a brilliant star surrounding his Source.

The Spark was far beyond the faintly glimmering flicker of a few days ago. It had grown several times over, was far more stable, and granted him easier access to be used and altered.

As his comprehension of [Healing Link] increased, David uncovered more applications of the Spark. He understood what it was capable of and how to adjust the connection he could establish with a target at will.

Who would have thought I’d like studying stuff like this? David snickered. He certainly didn’t expect to turn into a scholar for runes and ability Sparks.

Then again, he knew better than most to seek and grasp as many golden opportunities as he could. That, among other things, was also how he learned that a Spark could ignite enlightenment within him—as long as it gathered enough… something. David had yet to learn what exactly Sparks collected, but they accumulated something through the correct use of their aspect.

For [Healing Link], that meant establishing a firm connection with his patient—linking to various prehistoric monsters to acquire enough medical information to fully understand their condition. Interestingly, restoring a patient’s health via [Healing Link] also contributed to the accumulation of that mysterious something.

Once enough had been gathered, altered visions emerged, showing David how he could have treated certain patients differently. There were never many visions to study, and they never lingered long, but the Spark’s vibrant light always dimmed slightly whenever a burst of enlightenment occurred. This added insight, stacked with his Enlightened state, was how David managed to push [Healing Link] from the peak of the third Tier to Basic.

While it may not seem like much, David could hardly believe what he had achieved in a week.

He had created the Spark of a new ability and pushed it straight to Basic Rank, making it his first properly trained Basic ability.

***

It felt like eons before David finally found Zachariah. A few days after returning from the prehistoric Rift, he detected a familiar life signal outside the Dwarven Sanctuary. He charged out, catching the swordsman on his way back to the Sanctuary.

“David! Nice seeing you again!” Zachariah smiled vibrantly, holding out his hand—or what was left of it.

“I was just about to go looking for you. Can you give me a helping hand?” he snickered, winking at David. “If you know what I mean.”

David stared at the hand and then at the Regressor. “I can cut it off for you if you want.”

Zachariah’s smile froze for a second before it widened again. “Good joke. Restore it, please.”

David raised an eyebrow but complied. He cast [Healing Link] first, intending to examine Zachariah.

What he discovered was as interesting as it was terrifying.

How fucking strong is that dude? David shuddered, discarding the information he didn’t need for the examination after a moment of shock, and cast [Greater Restoration].

Healing energy surged into Zachariah, addressing the minor and moderate wounds—of which there were surprisingly many—then moved on to the deep gashes in his chest, a wound that had scraped his spine and nearly severed it, and several injuries in his lower body that should have crippled him.

How are you still standing? David asked silently, but Zachariah didn’t answer. However, his eyes widened ever so slightly, questions forming in his mind.

David did not plan on answering any of them—not before his friend answered some questions first.

“Do you have many Sparks?” David asked after a while, looking up from Zachariah’s hand as bones, muscles, and veins reformed.

The Regressor raised an eyebrow, a smile crossing his lips. “Are you about to form one? That’s good. Focus on the Skill you want to compress into a Spark and take as much time as you need. The first Spark may take a while, but once you get your hands on the first, compressing more Skill Runes into Sparks will be much easier.”

David’s lips parted, but they closed just as quickly. He cocked his head to the side, the urge to punch Zachariah surfacing.

“I’ve already created my first Spark. Because of my incompetence, the System granted me a few days of Enlightened…” he grunted after a moment of silence, studying Zachariah’s body language. “Couldn’t you have told me about Sparks?”

Zachariah let out a laugh and shook his head. Their eyes met for a moment before the Regressor looked back onto the once-corrupted land.

“Sparks take a long time to grow. Skill Runes, in comparison, are much easier to handle at the start of the integration. There’s no way a newbie can spend months replacing their Skill Runes with Sparks—not if they’re lacking the ability to procure a myriad of Skill Runes in the first place,” Zachariah said in a matter-of-fact tone.

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“Skill Runes are all they have and all they need. However, more important for the creation of Sparks would be the need for knowledge and understanding of the cosmos’s laws and the System’s mechanics. Residents of a newly integrated world do not have either. And even if they did, there’s no need to discard all Skill Runes. Some Skills are too complex to be efficiently turned into a Spark. Think of Maja’s portals.”

Zachariah was right. Maja’s portal magic was most definitely one of the most complex types of Skill Runes David had ever seen. He couldn’t imagine Maja gaining a profound understanding of her magic in a short period. She’d probably take years just to create a Spark at the same level her Skill Runes were.

“Creating a spatial-attributed Spark at the Basic grade without the System’s guidance would take years—probably decades. However, a Skill Rune supported by the System? A year at most,” the Regressor explained calmly. “If her Mind and natural inclination toward the space attribute are high enough, probably even less than that. In fact, she might have already pushed it to Basic, depending on what tier her Class Skills were when she first obtained them.”

Zachariah shrugged, inspecting his regrowing hand with a smile.

“So, you’re saying you didn’t tell me about it for my own good? To make sure I wouldn’t waste my time with Sparks since I wasn’t ready for them yet?” David asked, not quite believing it to be true.

The Regressor was nice to him, but David was not blind enough to think Zachariah acted for his well-being. If anything, he was sure his friend focused on the ‘greater good’. He’d do everything it would take to protect the Earthen Union and the cosmos, even if that meant leaving millions to die.

I’m probably not much better. Then again, I’m just… me. He’s pragmatic and does everything for an acceptable reason.

David suppressed a snort at the thought. He redoubled his efforts to regrow the missing hand.

“I don’t care what you think,” Zachariah said with a light chuckle. “I know what I’ve experienced, and I decided against telling you about Sparks. It is usually best to challenge the System, as it grants you various benefits. And, obviously, that worked very well.”

David cocked an eyebrow at the Regressor inspecting his fingers.

“Good work there, by the way. You’re getting better at restoring body parts.”

He’s damn hard to read. Does he care about the Dwarven Sanctuary, or is he more concerned about the benefits he can acquire from this place?

“I had enough patients to test and improve [Greater Restoration],” David shrugged non-committally, regrowing the final tidbits of skin and nails while adding, “Do you want to suggest anything to me? Like which Sparks to form or which Skills to leave as Runes?”

The Regressor pulled his hand away and coated it in silver light, releasing blasts of energy around him, muttering incomprehensible words. He looked around, seemingly waiting for something to happen, only to turn back to him after a few drawn-out seconds.

“To be honest, that is for you to decide. Sparks were incredibly helpful to me because of my particular situation. But even I still have useful Runes which I will never turn into Sparks, simply because they’re not worth it—or they’re too difficult to compress into stronger Sparks due to their complexity.”

He took a deep breath and ruffled through his hair. “I do not want to take the challenge from you, given the benefits you could obtain from facing and overcoming it without any help, but you should keep in mind that Sparks need much more time, effort, and understanding to be used in battle. Even then, you’d need an astounding amount of practice and modification to use Sparks efficiently in combat. However, the ability to modify Sparks accordingly, adjusting their abilities as you please, makes them incredibly powerful.”

While Skill Runes worked similarly, they were not the same. Skill Runes could only be modified to an insignificant degree when compared to a Spark’s modification. Plus, Skill Runes ranked up much slower, which could turn into a problem in the long run if one owned too many specific Skill Runes with too few uses to gain proficiency rapidly.

David understood that much very well. Zachariah didn’t need to ramble that much to get the point across.

In the first place, why is Zachariah revealing so much when he initially decided to say nothing?

Still, Sparks and Skill Runes each had their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

“You need to understand what you’re good at, which powers you understand best, and how to use your advantages to prepare properly for the battlefield. And that is not something I can decide for you,” Zachariah said when David resumed listening to the Regressor. “Though, if you have any specific questions, I will try my best to help. Creating a Spark at this time of the integration, as someone who’s been thrown into it without any pre-existing knowledge, is a formidable achievement.”

He smiled brightly at David, looking at him like a proud brother.

“Now, as long as you learn how to modify and adjust it accordingly, you will be perfectly fine!”

“That’s hardly a problem,” David shrugged before adding in a neutral tone, “I already modified my Spark to a certain degree. Honestly, that’s how I learned all about your concealed medical issues and why I treated them specifically while restoring your hand. Which you have noticed, obviously.”

Zachariah’s eyes rested thoughtfully on him for a moment, his lips parted slightly. “I thought you used something more… No, that makes much more sense. Is the Spark already at the 3rd Tier?”

“Basic.”

The corner of David’s lips curled upward as Zachariah’s eyes widened for a moment.

“You didn’t have a Spark or any awareness of their existence before the Cohorte attacked the Sanctuary. That means you’ve created a Spark and modified it to reach Basic already? That’s impressive. I’m serious!”

David could only shrug, his mind coming to a screeching halt as he recognized a familiar word: Cohorte.

It wasn’t the first time that word had come up.

Fortress said that too, didn’t he?

He recalled the Dwarven God’s words, emotions bubbling in his chest.

“What exactly is the Cohorte? Everyone calls it a Great Horde, but you use the term ‘Cohorte.’ Why?”

Zachariah grimaced and hesitated, but only briefly.

The Regressor exhaled deeply and said, “You remember the Venomancer I mentioned before? The Cohorte—which others labeled the ‘Great Horde,’ a good term, but not quite accurate—is one of his Authorities. The Venomancer possessed it in the past, but only much later, when his understanding of Domineer, the Secondary Class he acquired after attracting Zephir’s attention, deepened.

As a Domineer, he has the means to dominate the minds of those weaker than himself, marking and controlling them. When used often enough with an inkling of profound understanding and a snippet of Divinity, the Venomancer acquired his Authority, which allowed the creation of Hordes of specific monster types.”

David’s gut twisted with every word Zachariah spoke. He felt like vomiting on the spot—and would have, if he hadn’t feared this scenario already.

The Cohorte itself wasn’t what disturbed him, nor was it the ability to dominate and control the weak.

No.

David remembered Zachariah once referring to the Venomancer by name—William. Fortress had too. The first time, David hadn’t thought much of it. William was a common name, after all. But the second time? That gave him pause. Fortress wouldn’t have dropped it without reason, and the thought made David’s stomach churn.

“Is the Venomancer’s name… William?” he interrupted, cutting off Zachariah mid-sentence as the Regressor had continued describing the Venomancer’s atrocities in the name of the Poisonous Beast God, whose Fragment he held.

“Yeah. How do you know? Did I tell you his name before?”

David ignored the question, his mind spinning. “How does he look?”

Zachariah raised an eyebrow. “Are you sick? You don’t look so well.”

“Answer the damn question!” David snapped, Bloodlust flaring for a moment.

The Regressor didn’t flinch as the Bloodlust slammed into him. He regarded David silently for what felt like an eternity—though it could only have been seconds—before finally answering.

“I’ve only seen him once before he became Zephir’s Fragment Holder. That transformation changed just about everything about how he likely looked before. This time—if you understand what I’m getting at—I saw him before that. I tried to kill him, but Zephir, that sneaky bastard, reacted in time and stopped me.”

His voice had gone cold, laced with anger.

“Still, I was surprised by how he looked before the Transmutation. He was young, as expected, but he looked nothing like I imagined. Long, unkempt hair, thick goggles that looked too goofy to be worn by the monstrosity I remember… small, lanky body.”

Fuck this shit. That can't be. How can he—? No. He just looks similar. They're wrong. Everyone's wrong! David’s thoughts spiraled, doubt gnawing at him.

“Can you tell me more?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Did… did he have a birthmark on his face?”

Zachariah tilted his head slightly. “I think so. A small mark—three dots—right below his right eye. They looked a bit odd, so I remember them. But how—”

His eyes widened, and he stared at David, gaze sharp and unwavering.

“You know him, don’t you?!”

“Fuck!” David roared, Blood escaping from his Source explosively.

Blades of Rend erupted around him, striking the ground and tearing it apart as the news settled in his mind.

“William is the Venomancer? The one controlling the Cohorte—the one that’s annihilated several Sanctuaries? Seriously? That has to be a fucking joke! That cannot be right!!”

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