Outworld Liberators-Chapter 149: Calyx Calls the Shots Now

As the numbers of ghosts and wraiths swelled, Calyx’s strength swelled with them.

Radeon had handed off most of the daily work while he tightened his cultivation, leaving Calyx in charge.

A day had passed. In the distance, the hybrids were dying off. Silent Severance had been burning the dead in piles.

Calyx did not truly care about them. Still, he asked Radeon once how to blend in with humans.

The answer Calyx got was simple. Give them enough kindness that they feel indebted. Give them no attention once they start demanding.

That lesson sat in Calyx’s mind like a stone in the mouth.

He turned it over while his fingers worried the thin booklet Radeon had given him, the Eldritch Absorption Art.

Calyx did not know where Radeon had found such a thing. Sometimes his thoughts flirted with the idea that Radeon had invented it himself, but that felt too godly to accept.

Calyx took a deep breath and decided. He called over Oisin, Elsin, Maeron, and Ewan.

"Ask a thousand ghosts whether they fancy a walk," he said. "These are medical arts. Best they learn them before they set out." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Then he remembered Fay and Good Chip. They had cultivation. They had also stayed in the background for far too long, watching the calamity chew through the weak and the proud alike.

Calyx motioned for two ghost attendants and had them fetch the pair.

He handed them copies of the art.

"Come with us. It will be a great experience for you."

Fay and Good Chip exchanged a look. They had matured while the disaster unfolded.

People schemed. People hoarded. People watched others drown and only reached in at the last critical moment, when saving someone could be traded into profit.

No one had given a clearer eye-opener than Radeon.

They were grateful for it, and still their hearts twisted. They had seen too much greed to swallow the world without gagging.

Calyx did not know what they were thinking. He did not bother to find out. He dismissed them with a flick of his attention.

The next day, a thousand ghosts in white robes set out.

Their first stop was the worst of it, the Highroost District. Even now there were at least a hundred thousand hybrids inside array sealed tents, sedated to keep their bodies from tearing themselves apart.

The air carried a medicinal sting. Inside the lines of tents, every breath sounded borrowed.

The resident practitioners let the ghosts that wore the skin of men through without a word.

Affiliation alone had become a mark of competence. In a time like this, competence was a kind of authority.

From each sleeve, a needle was drawn, as thick as a chopstick and fitted with a heavy cylinder at its end.

The first ghost stepped to the first hybrid and drove the needle into the heart.

The hybrid convulsed. Relatives at the bedside surged forward, eyes bloodshot, bodies tight with fear and rage.

Cultivators blocked them, hands like iron, holding mortals down while anger shook their frames. No one wanted a cure that looked like murder.

The hybrid began to deflate, as if the corruption inside it had been pumped full like air.

Tentacles shrank. The swollen flesh dried. The hands that had become something else began to normalize, not fully, but enough to resemble hands again.

After three incense worth of time, the man on the cot looked like a skeleton wrapped in bruised skin.

Purple stains still marked the places the mutation had gnawed through him. Extra appendages still clung to him like a bad memory that refused to let go.

Then the ghost pulled out the needle. The man gasped. He was alive.

Medical practitioners rushed in, the miracle pulling them forward as surely as hunger. Their voices rose all at once, questions piling on questions until it became a storm.

"Sir. Sir. What method is this, venerable doctor? Please tell me what was used to cure him."

"Is this a type of acupuncture technique? Can we perform it? Tell us how we can help."

"Senior doctors. We do not covet the method. We only want to learn the concept to cure such an anomaly."

The ghosts did not answer. They removed the cylinder at the needle’s end and replaced it with another canister.

They heated the tip of the large needle until it glowed red. When it cooled, they plunged it into the next victim with the same calm rhythm.

Replace. Heat. Cool. Puncture. Wait. Withdraw. Like clockwork.

Oisin had drawn the shortest lot and ended up in charge.

Of the five among the wraiths, he had the least patience for mortal panic.

He stood there with his shoulders stiff, then forced himself to inhale like he still had lungs.

"Good day to you, gentlemen," he said. "I am here as Cairnlight Barterhold’s representative. I shall answer what Master Eldric permits, insofar as I am able."

Off to the side, Fay and Good Chip watched with the two attendants Calyx had assigned them.

The attendants did not coddle. They taught with hands.

"Do not hesitate," the two ghosts kept saying, and they drove needles into their hands.

Fay and Good Chip stepped to their first patients and froze.

This was not battle. This was not killing. It demanded the opposite, the kind of precision that kept ribs intact while the needle found the heart.

It demanded control. It demanded patience. It demanded faith that the act would not end in a corpse.

Their hands trembled. The two attendants saw the delay and grabbed their wrists, guiding the angle, guiding the depth.

Fay and Good Chip swallowed yelps that wanted to break loose.

Then the first puncture was done. Fear did not vanish, but it stopped ruling their fingers.

The next came easier. Then another.

Spice Cure and Gauge Point tagged along as well.

They could not participate yet, not truly, but they watched with hungry attention.

If they made their choice and told Radeon, cultivation will open for them too.

In a world that had burned so many paths shut, even the sight of a new road was worth the sting in the eyes.