In a small room within the wooden manor, a pained groan escaped Michael's lips.
His eyes opened slowly, while his expression distorted in raw agony.
'I am still alive? How?'
Michael couldn't remember a lot of details pertaining to the end of the 'battle' against the 13 Paladins. However, he could hazily remember the destruction caused by the Chaos Pills, the silver inferno that devoured Extraction's golden streams of light, and that darkness engulfed him when the energy influx of the Paladins reached his War Rune.
'I received 10 energy influxes…right?' He tried to remember, but he wasn't certain. His mind was a total wreck, just like his body.
'So there are still three Paladins left? Will they attack us again? Fuck this shit!' Michael cursed in worry.
He tried to get up from the bed, just to feel immense pain spreading through every cell inside his body upon moving.
Michael looked down at himself, but the only thing he could see was bandages. His entire body was covered in them.
'I shouldn't have sustained flesh wounds,' Michael thought while trying to push some of them aside to see what was underneath.
Unfortunately, what unveiled itself beneath the bandages was not pleasant to look at. His veins were black and his skin had a silver tinge. He had been corrupted by chaos essence and was slowly rotting away.
Even without the silver inferno, which accelerated the spread of chaos essence, Michael was slowly dying.
Michael forced himself to get up from the bed. He stood inside his room and began to use Extraction.
His palms began to glow golden as streams of light conjured all around his hands. But just as Michael wanted to use Extraction to extract the chaos essence out of his body, he felt immense pain wherever the golden streams passed by.
'Is that the aftereffect of using too much origin energy? Or is that from devouring too many energy pills?' Michael wondered, unable to arrive at a definite conclusion.
He just knew that utilizing Extraction caused immense pain. Nonetheless, he had to do it.
Michael used Extraction on his body, slowly but steadily extracting the chaos essence that had infiltrated every single pore within him.
He grit his teeth trying to endure the immense pain as the golden streams infiltrated his body. They extracted the chaos essence all while causing unbearable pain. It was only at this point that Michael realized how weak and injured his body actually was.
Everything was in disarray. It was a big mess.
Michael couldn't even control the origin energy inside his body properly. Utilizing Extraction had never been as difficult as today, but Michael forced himself to maintain his Soultrait.
After half an hour, Michael found himself lying on the ground, sweating profusely. He had yet to extract the last bits of chaos essence ravaging inside his body, but they were a little bit resistant. It would take a while to cleanse his body and remove the traces of the chaos essence.
At one point in the last half an hour, Tiara entered his room. She tried to aid his recovery but was told to stay back and report the territory's current situation to him.
That way, by the time he finished using Extraction on his body he was up to date with the current scenario.
Tiara helped him up from the ground before retrieving a few potions.
"Most of the Untamed Jungle's outer ring is now corrupted, but thankfully everyone survived. Three Paladins survived but they ran away. I don't really think that they'll come back. In fact, after the humongous, winged serpent appeared, nobody should be daring enough to enter the Untamed Jungle for a while," Tiara summarized to make sure that Michael heard the most important points.
"Winged serpent?" Michael asked quietly while gulping down the viscous liquid inside the glass vials.
"Yes, a winged serpent. In fact, most of us could only see the shadow of the humongous serpent because we weren't able to move. The wing serpent's presence was overbearing and prevented us from moving," Tiara explained, "The winged serpent extinguished the silver inferno before it disappeared again."
Michael could never forget the mythical serpent he saw the day he went out with Icarus for the first time, and he could imagine how everyone must have felt being in the mythical serpent's presence.
One way or another, it would be great if the remaining Paladins never returned to the Untamed Jungle. That would save him lots of trouble.
Thinking about the Paladins, and how ten of them died in the epicenter of the Chaos Pills' explosion, Michael recalled his loyal aides in the battle.
"How are Sun Demos and the Elemental Mages?" He asked carefully.
Michael knew that they were still alive, but he could also tell that their condition was not that great.
"Their condition is similar to yours. In fact, I believe that the Elemental Mages' condition must be worse. Sun Demos' bloodline should have a faint resistance to the influence of chaos, and I've heard that you used Extraction inside the silver inferno. The Elemental Mages must have been hit the worst," Tiara summarized what Michael thought.
"In that case, let's save the Elemental Mages," Michael announced, walking out of his room to find the Elemental Mages and Sun Demos.
He was far from fit and felt like collapsing on the ground with every step, but Michael didn't want to give the chaos essence inside the bodies of his loyal aides more time to destroy them.
It didn't take long to reach the medical hall. Many combatants of the territory were being tended to there.
Michael greeted all of them as he passed by. He thanked them sincerely for giving their utmost in the battle against the invaders of the Untamed Jungle until his gaze fell onto the three Elemental Mages and Sun Demos.
They were unconscious and lay in the beds, their skin gray and their veins as black as the darkness of a starless night. Michael's expression turned gloomy upon looking at his subordinates. Even Sun Demos didn't seem to be doing fine. Most of the Demon Monkey King's hair was missing, and he was writhing in pain as if a nightmare was causing him intense physical pain.
"Their hair fell out," Tiara mumbled next to Michael, whose expression distorted even more than before.
He realized something, and instinctively reached out to his own head. His face was drained of all its color and his frown deepened.
"Again…really?" Michael cursed as his hand rubbed across his shiny bald head.
Michael was bald again.
He shook his head in disappointment. After having patiently waited for months for his hair to grow it fell out again. Was that a cruel joke?
It took him a few seconds to regain his composure and return his focus to the Elemental Mages and Sun Demos.
Michael exerted Extraction, ignoring the pain that spread through every cell inside his body, and he began to extract the chaos essence within his allies.
Michael didn't stop using Extraction until the last bits of chaos essence had been extracted from the Elemental Mages and Sun Demos.
He vomited blood more than a dozen times and fainted a total of three times, which was how Michael ended up in a worse state than before, but he succeeded. The Elemental Mages and Sun Demos were cleansed of chaos essence!
"They're still not awake? Well…at least, they survived…" Michael mumbled before slumping down to the ground.
His legs felt squishy like jelly, and he was too exhausted to keep standing.
Unfortunately, Sun Demos didn't allow him to lie on the ground. The Demon Monkey King woke up shortly after the last traces of chaos essence had been extracted from his body, and he was overjoyed to see his lord again.
After witnessing the power his Master could unleash, Sun Demos felt incapable of containing himself anymore. He was excited for the future that awaited them.
Michael could feel that quite clearly through their Link of Loyalty. He smiled weakly in response, unable to tell Sun Demos to calm down.
The last few days had been way too exhausting. His body was badly damaged, not only from the chaos essence, but also from an overkill of energy pills and energy potions. It would be best if he didn't use any energy pills for a while, otherwise, he might end up with permanent injuries, or other issues.
In fact, Michael would be better off not using too much origin energy at once. He knew that he had to give his body some time to recuperate if he wanted to keep using it for a long time.
Michael felt like sleeping for days. He was tired and his body was begging to rest as every muscle and bone in his body was under tremendous pain. The Jungle Expedition was over, and it was about time that he got some quality rest without anyone or anything bothering him!
But his mind didn't want to give him qualitative rest. On the contrary, his mind dug out something that had imprinted itself deep into his brain.
It was something ethereal that had forced itself into his head when he fell unconscious. Unknown words that resurfaced in his mind.
"Repair what you've destroyed?" Michael mumbled when he recalled the unknown words of the ethereal voice that had infiltrated his head, "Is that what it means?"
Michael was not sure how, but he could understand the meaning of the unknown words.
He was also not sure who or what told him the unknown words, but if he had to make a guess he would probably think of the mythical serpent.
Though he had no proof about it, the mythical serpent was the most likely to order him to repair the Untamed Jungle's outer ring.
'Well, I did destroy the Untamed Jungle, and I have Extraction to fix the corrupted land…it should help me to fix it…'
Even if Michael didn't have the right means to carry out reforestation of the Untamed Jungle, he felt like he had to fix it. After all, he didn't want to turn the mythical serpent against him.
'Let's be thankful that this monstrosity didn't take out its anger on me by burning me alive,' Michael thought, goosebumps spreading all over his body.
"I will fix the Untamed Jungle, no worries. Just stay where you are!"
**
[A/N: Today only one chapter because I'm way too busy, helping a friend prepare for his wedding. The next few days might be a little bit chaos. I hope you can understand that I'll upload a little bit irregular for a few days :d]
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