Adrian floated back toward the fortress.

Scarlett and Renard carved their own paths across the waves, leaping from pillars of water, anchoring themselves on shattered hulks of monsters.

The sea-wall was alive with sound. Defenders who had survived the nightmare were shouting, laughing, weeping, their voices raw from battle cries and terror.

“We did it! The bastards are running!”

“Look at the size of that corpse… by the Sentinel’s light…”

Victory was theirs. But as Adrian’s gaze swept over them, his expression did not change.

Too many were slumped against rubble, bodies mangled beyond simple treatment. A young defender clutched his severed arm, blood pooling beneath him as he whispered his lover’s name.

The healers staggered between the wounded, their energies wrung dry.

A healer collapsed against a wall, his hands trembling as he failed to close a gaping chest wound.

“I can’t… there’s nothing left,” the healer gasped, his face pale as parchment.

Even standing here required willpower, the pressure of A-rank monsters alone pressed like mountains on the human frame. Recovery would come in time, once healers returned to strength.

But time was not a luxury for some. Men and women who had stood against the abyss were now dying on stone floors, their blood soaking through runes meant to protect them.

His fists clenched. “Not enough.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. Even his own healing spells were not enough to heal someone who was mere seconds away from death.

He realized this when Mira had been pierced earlier, he had thrown away his own life force just to drag her back. That had worked once, but it was unsustainable.

Volume III spoke of healing as a branch of life. Humanity’s healers worked with fractured fragments of life affinity from Volume Two.

They could stitch wounds, heal slowly, but not restore someone who was lethally injured. But Volume Three… it had shown him more.

Healing was just a branch of life itself. With life affinity, he could create better spells.

Adrian closed his eyes, weaving a new spell. Life affinity concepts he learned from the language of mana volume book spiraled in his mind.

A structure rose in his thoughts, vast, delicate, pulsing. He shaped the spell with the same precision he’d used for Starbreaker.

When it was ready, he poured life affinity mana into it. The Source responded, translating his will into reality.

He opened his eyes and spoke the name. [Breath of Life]

A soft emerald haze unfurled around him. Transparent at first, then spreading like mist, until it covered the entire fortress.

“What is that?” someone whispered, staring at the green light dancing across their skin.

Soldiers gasped as they breathed it in. It seeped into lungs, wrapped around wounds, and soaked into bone.

The dying defender’s severed arm began to regenerate, bone extending, muscle weaving itself back together. He stared in shock as fingers sprouted from nothing.

Groans turned to gasps. Open gashes closed in seconds.

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Men who had lost arms clutched at whole limbs once more, empty sockets wept new eyes. Women clutching stumps of legs found flesh and bone knitting back as if time itself reversed.

“My leg… it’s back,” a veteran sobbed, flexing toes she hadn’t felt just now.

And it didn’t stop there. The mist did not stop at mending.

Old scars melted away. Weathered faces regained their youth, wrinkles smoothing like disturbed water.

Hair greyed by campaigns blackened to its prime. Veterans stood straighter than they had in decades, staring at their hands as though strangers to their own flesh.

“I feel… I feel like I’m twenty again,” a healer breathed, his voice strong and clear.

For a moment, the Bastion of Tides seemed less like a fortress and more like a divine temple. The air itself hummed with vitality.

Scarlett staggered as she reached the walls, her manifestation flickering. Even she, who wielded water’s endless vitality, felt her exhaustion vanish like smoke.

“This is impossible,” she whispered, flexing fingers that no longer ached.

Renard’s battered body knit whole in seconds, his laugh echoing in disbelief. “I’ve never felt this strong. Not even in my prime.”

Selena Valcrest, watching from the ramparts, felt her composure break. Her golden tattoos glowed faintly, pulsing in recognition of the power flowing around them.

She had deciphered fragments of life runes herself, but what Adrian had just unleashed was beyond her comprehension. This was not healing.

This was a miracle that should have belonged to gods, not mortals. Her hands trembled as she watched defenders weep with joy.

When at last the haze faded, every soul in the fortress stood whole. Not a scar remained, not a wound endured.

Even weariness seemed to have been driven out. The miracle had ended, but its echo would last lifetimes.

Adrian descended, ignoring the stares and whispers that followed him. Defenders pressed against walls to let him pass, their eyes wide with something between reverence and fear. He did not do this for praise.

The fractured rune hall bore scars from the battle, shattered stone, splintered wooden tables, ink stains marking where desperate inscriptions had been attempted.

Inside, Mira stood with her father, Dorian, examining the wreckage of what had once been their sanctuary.

Fully healed, her playful brightness had already returned, though her eyes still carried the memory of her near death. She had nearly died shielding him.

A gesture unnecessary, but unforgettable.

She grinned when she saw him. Her voice carried that familiar teasing lilt, though it wavered slightly.

“Don’t look so grim. My life isn’t worth more than yours. Adrian Blackwood matters more to humanity than Mira Veylan.”

Adrian’s expression darkened, his jaw tightening. The words struck something raw within him, the same thought he’d once carried about his own importance, his own selfishness to hide his power.

“No. One person never could.” His voice was firm. “Humanity stands because we all climb together. Humanity survives because of people like you. Because Defenders like you stand, even when death is certain.”

Mira tilted her head, the teasing smile softening into something gentler. Her father watched from beside a collapsed bookshelf, his hands still trembling from the battle’s aftermath.

“You sound like you’ve learned that lesson the hard way,” she said quietly.

Adrian stepped over debris, his boots crunching on scattered parchment. He didn’t know how to repay someone who had thrown herself in front of a monster for him. But he did know what she valued most.

Runes.

He raised his hand, white-grey light pooling at his fingertip. The mist swirled, condensing into a small sphere of brilliance that thrummed with the weight of his comprehension.

Mira blinked, her breath catching. “What are you—”

The light touched her forehead.

Her breath hitched. Knowledge poured into her mind like a flood. not chaotic, not overwhelming, but sealed, stored safely in a corner of her being. Concepts, runes, translations of symbols from the Source, and insights he had gained through the Source.

All of it planted within her, like a vast library waiting to be opened with time.

She staggered backward, her hands flying to her temples. Her golden-brown hair fell across her face as she doubled over, gasping. “This… this is…”

Dorian rushed forward, catching his daughter’s shoulders. His eyes darted between her and Adrian, alarm and confusion warring across his features.

“What did you do to her?”

Adrian lowered his hand, the mist dissipating. “A gift. Call it a better version of a skill book. Everything I know of runes, every piece of the Language of Mana I’ve understood, all of it is yours now.”

His voice softened as Mira straightened, wonder replacing the initial shock in her expression.

“Grow into it. One day, you’ll stand among humanity’s greatest.”

Mira staggered again, then laughed through the tears that brimmed in her eyes. Her voice cracked with emotion, barely above a whisper. “From childhood, I only dreamed of becoming like my father.”

She looked up at Adrian, her eyes blazing with newfound understanding.

“But with this… I might go beyond him.”

Dorian stood wordless, his hands trembling at his sides. He didn’t understand the method, but he saw the fire in his daughter’s eyes. He knew her path had just been rewritten.

Adrian turned without another word. The command room awaited him, and with it, the aftermath of all that had transpired. His footsteps echoed through the hall as he walked away.

But for the first time in centuries, a fortress of Defenders stood not broken, but renewed.

And in their hearts, a name burned brighter than ever, Adrian Blackwood.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep