Extra's POV: My Obsessive Villainous Fiancee Is The Game's Final Boss-Chapter 198: For One Life

The smoke thickened unnaturally, curling inward, folding like hands around an invisible shape. The shadows bent and twisted, wrapping around something, drawing breath into emptiness. The fog parted, not away from the wind, but towards something.

And then, a figure emerged.

A cloaked, hooded silhouette, gliding across the rubble as if it had been there all along, hidden just beyond what they could perceive.

It was the Silent Healer.

Valen stiffened, his eyes going wide in the biggest expression of emotion any of them had ever seen him display. "That's not—"

He stopped himself, voice caught in awe. "I've… heard stories. Among the thieves. I— I didn't think he was real."

"He's real." Ren muttered through gritted teeth, his voice raw. "And I need him."

Ren gently laid Thorn down and scrambled forward, gesturing frantically. "Please, him— Thorn— he's dying. Heal him."

The Silent Healer didn't move. He stood over Thorn, his face hidden in a darkness deeper than the smoke around them. After a few seconds, he slowly reached down.

Then paused.

"What are you doing?" Ren snapped. "Heal him! You heard me! He's going to die!"

The figure turned, slowly, as if time bent around him, to face Ren. There was no face visible beneath the hood. Only darkness. Endless and full of presence.

Then, without lips, without voice, a sound erupted within Ren's head.

A voice like stone scraping bone, nails in soft wood, iron dragging through earth.

"Do you care for him?"

Ren flinched. His hands flew to his head, and pain stabbed through his skull like ice picks driven behind his eyes. The voice wasn't just heard. It was felt, digging into the folds of his mind.

"Just— heal him—!"

The healer spoke again, voice heard by only Ren. "Do you care for this swordsman?"

Ren groaned, gripping his skull. The agony of the healer's words felt like his mind was being carved open.

Lilith stepped forward, her eyes glowing. "Back away from him." She warned, forming a sword of soul energy in her hand.

"NO!" Ren and Valen both shouted at the same time.

Lilith froze.

Ren looked at her, pleading. "Don't touch him. You can't. If you do, you'll die. Instantly."

The Silent Healer turned back to Ren, his attention now solely focused on him again.

"Is this man truly that important to you?"

Ren, now pale, and with sweat dripping down his brow, blinked rapidly. He gasped against the pain in his skull and choked out, "Yes! Of course, he is— he's— he's Thorn! He's my brother, my—!"

The shadows beneath the healer's hood moved. Shifted.

Ren could see it now.

A grin.

And not a kind one.

A shadowed, wicked thing, stretching too wide for any human face.

The voice returned, more amused than before, and more violent.

"Then let us renegotiate."

More spikes of pain.

Ren screamed, falling to a knee. Blood streamed from his nose.

"What… what deal?! We already have a deal!"

"We do," the voice agreed. "Ten healings. Four spent."

Then, it spoke.

"But I choose when to heal. And I may… never choose. Time is my right. Not yours."

Ren's heart stopped. "You said— you promised—!"

"I promised nothing except a healing. And perhaps that time will come… when he is already dead."

"No!" Ren whispered. "Don't do this— there has to be another way—"

"There is."

The pressure in Ren's skull tightened, like a vice.

"Sacrifice the remaining six healings. Annul our agreement. And I will heal him now."

Ren's jaw clenched. The others watched helplessly. Lilith looked ready to tear the world apart, glaring at the silent healer. If this had been the Lilith of yesterday, all hell would have already broken loose.

Elias and Valen stood stock still, not even daring to breathe too loud at what was going on.

Ren's mind spun. All six healings. Gone. For one life.

But it wasn't just one life.

It was Thorn.

He exhaled. "Fine." He breathed. "You win. Take them. All six. Just— Just save him."

Silence filled the air as the dark smoke coiled past.

The healer nodded once.

He turned back to Thorn and knelt. A single hand, wrapped in threads of shadow, touched Thorn's chest.

A pulse of darkness and light rolled through the clearing.

Thorn gasped violently, arching upward, eyes wide in pain and shock. He coughed hard, blood flying from his mouth as his lungs finally refilled. His broken ribs shifted. Bones mended. His torn flesh closed, scars sealing like water flowing in reverse.

His eyes blinked open, hazy.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

"…Ren?"

Ren nearly collapsed from relief. He held his friend tightly, gripping him like he might disappear.

"I'm here." Ren whispered. "You're okay. You're okay."

The Silent Healer straightened slowly, shadows curling around him. He turned toward Ren one last time.

"It was a pleasure… doing business with you."

Then, as quietly as he had come, he walked into the smoke, disappearing to places unknown.

Silence filled the air for a moment.

Then, Valen spoke, his voice soft with shock. "Gods below… that thing was real."

Ren wiped blood from under his nose and nodded. "He's very real."

Elias spoke up as he looked out into the smoke around them. "What now?"

Ren helped Thorn sit upright. "Now?" He looked over the ruins, the scorched landscape of what used to be a city.

"Now we leave Rainhold."

He turned toward the north.

"We get Thorn to safety… and then we prepare."

"For what?" Elias asked.

Ren's eyes narrowed, his hand resting on Freedom's hilt.

"For the war Albion just started."