Damned Healer-Chapter 190: Everything Has Its Time

’Why aren’t you this cool all the time? Isn’t it exciting?’ Niara murmured in her mind, moving comfortably through the hair on Darian’s head.

The Milky Way alliance had been fighting for over two hours, and hundreds of cores had been collected. Niara felt energized by the completely different looks the elves and the Zroot were giving him. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

’Everything has its time. I was gonna show myself eventually, but my plan was to do it at the right moment,’ Darian replied calmly. He had planned to start off quiet and then reveal himself. Of course, he didn’t want anyone in the alliance to die, but he’d only act at key moments.

Now, seeing Niara so pumped, he didn’t care at all.

Meanwhile, the other alliances were getting overwhelmed by enemies and had no time to pay attention to anyone else. The place was huge, a few kilometers across. Everyone came in from the edges, but there were so many enemies they couldn’t push to the center.

So, when the Milky Way alliance moved quickly forward, no one could see them anymore.

"Sir, the numbers are dropping." A polite voice sounded close to Darian.

He turned and saw Udyness’s violet eyes staring at him. At this point, she and Barod were reporting everything directly to him, waiting for his orders... and without him even realizing, the alliance no longer had three leaders.

Darian snorted, "Let’s head back toward..."

*BOOM!*

He didn’t get to finish. Suddenly, all the shadows cracked and exploded at the same time.

Their cores exploded too and vanished. That was the end of this stage of the contest. Those who survived moved on, and everything they’d killed and earned before was officially theirs.

Too bad, countless cores were lost. But there was nothing to be done.

At that moment, the two stars in the sky trembled and disappeared. Right between them, a huge sphere of light appeared.

At the same time, small strands of pulsing energy — some red, some blue — started to appear. They came out of that huge sphere of light, floating in the air.

They were the Yin and Yang Essences. The most important treasure, a thousand times more valuable than the cores.

Rhea hadn’t gotten any when she participated. Just having one gave the participant a real chance to get the primordial seed in the last stage. But of course, the more you got, the better your chances.

This second stage wasn’t about brute power, but about control and talent to attract and gather the essences. If someone got a lot, even if they didn’t get the seed in the end, the essence would fuse to their body and their potential would grow massively.

As soon as the essences appeared, the leaders of two alliances ignored everything and moved immediately toward the center of the place. That’s where the biggest concentration of essences was falling.

Two imposing demons, the leaders of planets number 8 and 9, stayed put; only their members moved. Those two planets had made a deal with the others below them — they wouldn’t really compete for anything in the first two stages. They’d probably grab one essence each and wait it out.

The natives, on the other hand, went wild. They stopped holding back their powers and all rushed toward the center together.

Everyone wanted those essences, which seemed like seeds of fortune. Since there were so many of them, they wanted to minimize how many the invaders could get, increasing their own chances to win the top prize.

Irana’s alliance stayed still. Their leader had a strange expression, looking around quickly. Then her eyes landed on a small group very close to the center.

Darian noticed her gaze on them, then saw extreme relief on her face when she confirmed they were okay.

It was then that the 40,000 natives got close to the center. Immediately, they all roared.

"!"

Darian saw a small mark appear on all the natives’ foreheads. It looked like the two marks from the blessing he’d gotten from the phoenixes. But his was bigger and brighter.

Then it was like the essences were being drawn directly to the natives. Eighty percent of the ones falling from the sky started moving toward them.

*CRASH!*

A strange sound echoed.

Darian turned another way and then saw something like a throat opening in space.

An intense golden aura started leaking from inside it. Below was a man with a golden aura and a twisted face. It was Woldi.

"It’s the supreme artifact! It’s called Celestial Pocket World!" Udyness said quickly beside Darian. "It can store, at a high cost, a huge amount of power. The channel opening takes time to stabilize and release everything, but even the little it’s releasing now... already gives a scary advantage and power."

At that moment, Woldi nodded.

Almost six thousand of his alliance started smiling. The golden aura flowed from the channel above, heading toward them. Soon, everyone was touched, and a golden power surrounded them.

Woldi grinned darkly. Then he pointed in a direction: "Kill them all!"

"DIE!!"

The six thousand roared and charged without hesitation. Their target... the forty thousand natives.

"WOLDI, YOU BASTARD!" Irana shouted at the top of her lungs.

The natives stopped absorbing the essences, their faces darkening. Woldi’s goal wasn’t just to kill them...

Everyone in his army carried weapons that looked like small black spears. They were made from a very specific demonic metal.

"AH!"

A scream echoed. A native was brutally pierced in the chest by one of those spears. He didn’t even have a chance to react; the Spiritual Guardian moved through space using his blessing.

Then, the mark on the native’s forehead pulsed brightly. Right after, it moved out of him and floated in the air.

The Spiritual Guardian smiled and grabbed it.

That was Woldi’s plan from the start.

A chaotic battle began... no, it wasn’t really a battle. The natives were being slaughtered. The golden power massively boosted the abilities of all Woldi’s allies.

Darian recognized it. Woldi had a pretty rare mystical blessing called *Celestial Enchantment*.

He could use outside power — in this case, the supreme artifact — to hugely increase the strength of his allies.

He could only activate this blessing using external things like pills, artifacts, or natural materials with power. That’s why it was a blessing for rich people. It could boost an entire army’s power or focus it all on himself, giving him terrifying potential.

"Attack!" Irana roared, commanding her alliance toward the natives to help them.

The leaders of the planets who joined her clearly had twisted expressions of anger. They didn’t want to do this. Fighting now meant wasting time and missing out on absorbing essences, but disobeying at this moment would be even worse.

More and more natives died every second.

Meanwhile, the Milky Way alliance was a bit farther away.

The twins looked anxiously at Darian. He stayed silent, like he was waiting for something.

Ten seconds later, Irana arrived with her alliance less than thirty meters from the natives, ready to help, but...

*RUMBLE!*

The ground split open. Golden spikes appeared out of nowhere, and everyone only noticed when it was too late.

"Hahahahaha!" From afar, Woldi laughed uncontrollably, holding a golden sphere.

He looked at Irana, who now had two two-meter spikes piercing her back.

"That... is the supreme artifact... Seed of Golden Spikes..." Udyness murmured painfully.

That attack was a trap made specifically for Irana’s alliance. Some of Woldi’s trusted allies had secretly planted golden seeds in the ground before the attack started. They managed to do it unnoticed thanks to their blessings.

Those seeds could move silently and position themselves just right, waiting for Woldi to activate his power.

As a result... Irana spat out a huge amount of blood but managed to clutch something in her fist.

The golden spikes evaporated, even the holes in her body closed up. But she dropped to her knees, pale-faced.

Looking around... she saw two-thirds of her alliance had been impaled and killed. She trembled, filled with despair. But the natives’ screams didn’t stop — they were being killed nonstop too.

"No... why..." she murmured painfully.

She looked at Woldi in the distance, who was watching her with amusement. He slowly drew a golden spear and then pointed it at her.

Irana had used a lifesaving artifact to not die, but she was already badly wounded and her strength was limited. She tried to stand... but her legs shook, and the power in her ring was acting weird...

Those golden spikes weren’t simple. After piercing the body, a strange poison invaded and paralyzed the energies.

Woldi laughed even more watching her try.

His plan was perfect, and now it was complete. He’d finish off this enemy, then wipe out all the natives in minutes and steal their blessed marks.

That way, he could absorb 100% of the essences and leave nothing behind. Without the natives’ blessed marks, they’d be like the shadows — time would run out, and anything not taken would explode and be lost.

Now that wouldn’t happen. The gains for everyone would be huge. In the third stage, they wouldn’t get anything anyway, since those two demons would take the seeds.

Irana’s eyes shook as she saw the tip of the golden spear pointed at her. There was nowhere left to run. He’d kill her now.

"It’s over... it’s all over..." she murmured.

The natives had been in despair for some time. They were being slaughtered, one by one. Faced with the enemy’s terrifying show of power, they’d already given up even resisting.

Until...

*BOOM!*

A black explosion burst in the middle of Woldi’s alliance. As a result, the entire left side, which was attacking the natives, was completely destroyed. Their siege was broken.

The air filled with something that made all the Spiritual Guardians swallow hard. They retreated — was that miasma!?

Then, everyone’s eyes focused on a figure that appeared at the epicenter.

His red eyes glowed coldly, and a smirk appeared at the corner of his lips as he looked directly at Woldi.

Irana was stunned. She remembered the info she’d gathered over the past few days about the humans from Earth.

That was... the healer... the damned healer...

"Darian!?"