856 C-7, Rain Month 2, Moon 28
When my eyes opened again, there was a lot I needed to process. The first of which was the fact that I’d willingly stepped in to save the Blade Saint’s life by trying to fight that blade-wielding vampire. Though I’d tried to justify my actions by saying that the Blade Saint was my prey and that I couldn’t allow him to die unless it was violently and painfully by my hand, in my weakened state, it’d been a huge gamble—one that hadn’t ended up paying off. If anything, I’d almost lost my life...if it hadn’t been for the Blade Saint. But also, if I hadn’t been able to access my mana cache, we most certainly would’ve died.
This brought me to the second thing I needed to process. During the fight between the Blade Saint and that vampire, I’d decided to transfer the mana I’d worked so hard to bring into the barrier to the Blade Saint. Consequently, the memories contained in my mana seemed to have given him knowledge of some of the blades that his future self had used. It might’ve helped him defeat that vampire, but it also made my goal of killing him much more difficult.
I could’ve let him die. I could’ve simply sat back and let that vampire slice his head clean off. That would’ve accomplished my mission, even if it meant I’d consequently die at the hands of that vampire as well. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an answer as to why I’d done it.
At first, I tried to reason that it’d been my way of paying the Blade Saint back for saving me from the stupid fight that I’d picked in the first place, but that didn’t make any sense. I owed him nothing. If anything, he’d paid off a sliver of the debt he owed me for slaughtering my entire clan. Even so, it’d been a split-second decision. Something in my gut had told me that I’d needed to save him.
But that only served to confuse me further because I’d saved him not just once or twice but three times. First, I’d stopped the vampire from cutting off his head. Then, I’d transferred my mana to him to give him the boost he’d needed to fight the vampire. Finally, at the end of their battle, when the vampire had been mere moments away from strangling the life out of him, with the very, very scant amount of mana that I’d managed to recover, I’d activated Reset and stabbed the vampire in the hand in an attempt to free the Blade Saint. What was I thinking?! I could’ve let him die there. There was absolutely no reason for me to have risked my life for that. Was it out of spite for that vampire at that point? I have no clue. Maybe it’d been an instinct that’d come about due to me already having put in so much time and effort into saving him in the first place. I simply hadn’t been able to allow myself to let him die after sinking so much into keeping him alive.
But by far, the biggest question I had was... Why am I still holding this knife? I glanced at the simply designed weapon and remembered how desperate I’d been when I’d plunged it into the vampire’s hand. There’d been no guarantee that it would’ve made him release the Blade Saint from his grip, but I’d prayed—actually prayed—that it would. Elder dragons didn’t believe in higher powers, nor did we respect Celestials whatsoever, and yet I’d still found myself praying to whoever would listen that the Blade Saint wouldn’t die.
As much as I wanted to say that my actions had been spurred by my strong desire to be the one to kill him with my own two hands and not want someone else to make off with my prey, I couldn’t deny an alternate explanation. His words played back in my head. “I won’t let them touch you. After all...”
“‘This isn’t where we end.’ Huh?” I whispered.
There was no easier way to learn someone’s true nature than by fighting against them. And now that I’d fought the Blade Saint in both the past and future, I could confidently say that the present him was a completely different person. The cold, callous, and collected butcher in my memories was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a tinge of fear inside the present him, but before that, there was a warmth and kindness that kept me from believing that he was capable of mercilessly slaughtering an entire tribe of elder dragons.
Was it possible for a person to change that much in seventeen years? It wasn’t for elder dragons, but maybe it was for humans. That’s right, he’s just a human. They were quick to be blinded by their emotions and had malleable minds. It was more than possible for him to have a change of heart and personality in seventeen years.
Regardless of my actions that saved him, I’ll still kill him with my own hands. If anything, this is for the best. Now I know his strength and how much mana I’ll need to store up externally to defeat him. Yes, this can work, I can—
“Hey, El, you awake?” Suddenly, the human called out and peeked behind the white curtain enclosing the bed I was lying on, making me jump a little. I’d been so engrossed in my thoughts I hadn’t even sensed her. “Oh, sorry I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.
“You didn’t scare me,” I grumbled.
“Well, it’s good to see you’re okay. I ran into Doctor Paunsasoy as she was done checking on Rhand in the other room. It seems like you’re mostly just mana deficient. A little bit of rest, and you’ll be right as rain.”
“Great,” I grumbled.
“What’s with the attitude? I thought you’d be happy. You’ll be back to your normal, energetically grumpy self in no time—oh, I guess you’ve already gotten your grumpiness back,” she snickered.
“If I had any feelings in my limbs, I’d hurt you right now.”
The human giggled. “Thank goodness for mana deficiency, right?”
I grumbled and rolled my eyes. I was finding out how bad mana deficiency was for elder dragons firsthand for the first time in my life. Though elder dragon mana could regenerate very quickly, literally exhausting every last drop of mana in my body put my body in extreme survival mode where it focused everything on regeneration. As a result, I couldn’t even move a muscle for the time being. But just you wait...
“Oh, that reminds me.” Then she leaned in and put her hand against the collar. “Hmm...seems okay. I was worried about what’d happen when you fought Rhand, but it seems like my theory was right,” she mumbled.
“What theory?” Actually, wait. I didn’t think about it in the heat of the moment, but the Magic Breaker boy could nullify mana. In theory, he could’ve nullified the collar, allowing me to rip it off my neck.
The human leaned in close and began whispering. “I was wondering if Rhand’s mana nullification would’ve affected it, but it seems like even though the limiter was in the nullification zone, it locked itself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The limiter’s spell makes it so that if the limiter senses that it could be removed, it’d guard its mana from any external entity and divert all its power to keeping it locked on you.”
“What happens if it doesn’t gain any additional mana in that time?”
“Well...” A difficult expression crossed her face. “Let’s just make sure that doesn’t happen,” she whispered, trying to move away from the topic.
It was then that I remembered the nasty trick that I’d uncovered while analyzing the collar. Most likely, it’d explode if it didn’t receive any additional mana input. Guardians seriously have some vile ideas, and it seems she’s fully aware of how violent the retaliation is for forcibly removing a limiter.