Healing System

[Michael's POV]

The explosion resounded and covered the entire world before him in purple. It was a miracle he was still able to breathe; after all, he had underestimated the radius of the explosion.

Even though he was roughly 10 kilometers away from the arena, he was still hit by the explosion, which even melted off some of his skin.

Thankfully, his healing capabilities dealt with that without him needing to expend too much mana—not like he had much to spare after all the golden shield domes he created for the citizens.

'How many survivors?' Michael asked the system hesitantly; he did not want to open up the map himself.

Do you want me to sugarcoat it?

'Of course not.'

Hmm... not a lot, then. The people that were pretty far away managed to survive because of those domes you made. As for those closer... well, they were not as lucky.

'So hundreds of thousands of people died... just like that?' He was still stunned by the situation, finding it hard to believe that this many lives could be snuffed out so swiftly.

People die, Michael. All of them had families and people to care for them, but due to the actions of a few groups, their lives were cut short. The reality never gets easier, but it is something you need to come to terms with.

Michael listened to the system's words quietly, taking a few more glances around him.

The city, which had been lively moments ago, was now nothing but a wasteland covered in purple puddles.

As for the structures in the sky, some were embedded into the ground, while others were completely decimated upon coming into contact with the purple mana.

There were still some purple raindrops falling from the sky, causing a chain of explosions that set the purple puddles aflame, causing massive fire-like pillars to shoot into the sky before once again crashing down onto the ground.

Chaos—that was the only word to describe it. Pure chaos that he could not even fully comprehend at the moment.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Michael took a deep breath and finally opened up his map. It was time to see it for himself.

As he did that, the now up-to-date map displayed a completely purple, ruinous landscape. There were a few dots, but it was nowhere close to what it had been just moments prior.

Surprisingly, not a single red-dotted individual was around; they had either died in the explosions or simply run away.

Their plan was to stir chaos between Vivum and Elarion, yet now that most people were dead, was there any point?

Those who could still fight would definitely not exceed double digits. He was unsure of what had become of the underground city since it was in a different place altogether; it might have remained unaffected.

Nonetheless, the number of regular people left was not a lot, still in the thousands; however, most of them were on the brink of death, while some were fairly unscathed.

But that did not mean much; if they stepped outside, the toxic air would kill them.

Michael was immune to such things, so he was completely unscathed; however, a wave of conflict hit him.

It would be impossible to save them all—he knew that—but it still felt unpleasant.

He hovered down to the nearest shield dome before him and stopped slightly in front of it.

Michael had thought up an idea, one that made it so healing multiple people at once was not as taxing as doing it directly.

Usually, if it were to cost 1% of his mana to heal a single person, it would cost 2% if there was another near him. It kept doubling until his mana pool would be completely drained.

However, with this new method, he created a source for the mana to travel through, that being the barrier.

In theory, it should work, as all those standing on it would be inflicted with the same type of heal.

Michael placed his hands on the dome and immediately cast Aegis of Light, using the healing mode.

As he did that, he could see the golden-colored mana interact with the barrier, and instead of dissipating, it began traveling across it, enveloping it entirely in a golden hue.

He had made the ground also act as a barrier; therefore, the mana traveled all around until finally, it stopped and the hue began disappearing.

However, it was not a failure. From outside of the barrier, he could see a few people darting up in surprise, while those who were previously on the brink of death had now returned to a stable condition.

Michael put on a small smile and cast his heal a couple more times, making sure that even those who were practically 1% were now at 100%.

It did not use as much mana as he expected; it was as if he was only healing a single person, yet he just healed hundreds at once.

But he was a bit confused because no blue notification came for such a great achievement. 'Am I not going to get a skill for that?'

It would not make sense if it was a skill since you are combining two different skills and using a bit of an interesting strategy to make it work. However, as for the barrier, it might get registered as a skill if you improve its effects.

'Wouldn't something like a healing barrier work, though?' He questioned once again, this time more out of curiosity.

I guess you would have to find out after improving the barrier, then. Also, what do you plan on doing now? I felt that Kevin left with Elizabeth somewhere; it did not seem like they were heading back to the academy. As for Chloe, she disappeared shortly before the explosion happened, though I doubt she is returning as well. Find more to read on empire

Michael was in deep thought for a moment before answering, 'I mean, what can I do? I am not going to stay here and care for each person individually; that's the job of those who were too busy worrying about the dungeon to actually pay attention to what was going on in the city.'

That's a pretty big assumption. What makes you think they were remaining idle? If a situation arose where even Amanda had been held back, it is likely very serious. But yes, I agree with your decision; just heal those who you can and use Purify to make the air less toxic. At the very least, they could try going to a nearby village.

'Oh right... Purify could work. I forgot about it for a moment.' He sighed to himself and took one last glance at the barrier before him.

There were still roughly four barriers remaining, those that had people in them. The remaining, as the system had said, all died.

Of course, there were still some golden domes that had a very small number of people in them, but by the time he would get to them, it would be too late.

Therefore, he made the difficult decision of prioritizing those closest to him, effectively making the others' lives be forfeit.

But it was a decision he could live with; it was his first time experiencing such horrors, and he highly doubted it would be the last.

You are right to think that. This world does not have nearly as many people as the others; deaths happening in the millions are quite a common occurrence.

'Still...' Michael did not know how to answer the system. While he did not consider himself a righteous man or even a hero of sorts, having civilians killed around him for no reason in particular left a bad taste in his mouth.

He put that aside for now; instead, he had a bit of work left to do.