Chapter 315 - 315: The Fragile Vessel
Rubedo swiped his hand across the polished obsidian of his command console. The massive altar of cosmic crystal hummed, its thick veins of violet energy pulsing in rhythm with his lingering frustration.
He closed the active map of Tarnstead and pinched the holographic projection, zooming out to view the entire Fourth Continent before dragging his focus westward toward the Gildreath Empire.
He tapped the [OMNISCIENT EYE] icon on his interface. The fog of war peeled back to reveal the captured Gildreath Palace.
Thousands of tiny blue dots swarmed the newly occupied capital, representing the Vanguard patrols securing the perimeter. But Rubedo ignored the armies. He zeroed in on a single, isolated blue dot located deep within the palace's heavily guarded medical ward.
He hovered his armored hand directly over the marker representing Julia Vance.
A digital drop-down menu cascaded across the screen. Lines of system text populated the air, scanning her physiological and metaphysical state. Instantly, the text flashed a blinding, warning crimson.
[ ENTITY: JULIA VANCE ]
[ CLASSIFICATION: HERALD (UNSTABLE) ]
[ STATUS: CRITICAL - AETHERIC RESONANCE OVERLOAD ]
[ METAPHYSICAL ANOMALY: ISOLATED 14TH SOUL FRAGMENT ]
[ UNBORN ENTITY: HUMAN - FRAGILE INCUBATION ]
[ WARNING: HOST BIOLOGY FAILING. ESTIMATED TIME TO FATAL RUPTURE: 14 MINUTES. ]
Rubedo leaned forward, his violet eyes narrowing at the glowing red text.
Unlike the other twenty-seven Earthlings, Julia still possessed her divine powers and her piece of his soul.
When Krug had captured the twins in the tavern, Rubedo had deliberately ordered Glitch to spare her. Ripping a soul fragment out of a living host was a violently traumatic process, and Rubedo knew the physiological shock would instantly kill her unborn child.
He was a ruthless sovereign, but he refused to cross the line of murdering an innocent infant to speed up his own healing.
However, his mercy was backfiring. Because the other thirteen fragments had been extracted and integrated back into Rubedo's core, Julia's isolated fragment was panicking.
He now understood why the heralds were in pairs.
The severed connection was causing her spatial magic to hyper-activate, drawing in massive amounts of ambient mana from the Gildreath leylines to compensate. Her pregnant body simply couldn't handle the crushing cosmic pressure.
'If her body ruptures, the child dies, and the fourteenth piece of my soul shatters with her,' Rubedo thought, his jaw clenching.
"Krug," Rubedo's voice echoed through the telepathic link, cold and commanding. "Get to the medical ward immediately."
In the sunlit courtyard of the Gildreath Palace, Apostle Krug paused mid-stride. He gripped his massive battleaxe as the Sovereign's voice thundered inside his skull.
"Sovereign," Krug muttered, bowing his head slightly in reverence. "I hear you."
"Julia Vance is destabilizing in the east wing," Rubedo ordered through the link. "Her Herald core is overloading. If she dies, the child dies, and we lose the final fragment. Do not let her perish."
"Understood."
Krug broke into a full sprint. His heavy boots shattered the marble tiles of the courtyard as he charged through the grand double doors of the palace.
He ignored the startled Vanguard sentries and navigated the winding corridors, following the scent of sterile herbs, medicines, and the distinct crackle of spatial magic.
He kicked the heavy oak doors of the medical ward open.
"Out of the way!" Krug barked, shoving two Vanguard healers aside.
Julia Vance lay on the central silk-draped bed, violently convulsing. Her blonde hair was matted with sweat, and her skin was deathly pale.
A terrifying, blinding white light was actively bleeding through her veins. Around the edges of the bed, miniature spatial rifts were tearing open and snapping shut like shards of broken glass, slicing through the bedposts and curtains as her teleportation magic bled uncontrollably into the room.
"Julian..." Julia gasped, her back arching off the mattress. Tears streamed down her face as the raw mana burned her nervous system. "Julian, it hurts! Make it stop!"
"Her Herald core is pulling too much energy from the local leylines!" one of the alchemists shouted, holding his hands up as a spatial rift snapped shut just inches from his face. "The ambient pressure is going to crush the child!"
Up in the Void, Rubedo watched the live feed on his center monitor. He pulled up the [SKILL SHOP] tab and rapidly scrolled through the alchemical survival blueprints.
'I will not lose my fragment because of a biological technicality,' Rubedo thought furiously.
He found exactly what he needed: [ASTRAL-SILK BINDING SEALS].
[ Cost: 10,000,000 DP ]
It cost a massive amount of Divine Points, but he didn't care. He purchased the schematic and instantly dropped the glowing blueprint onto Krug's exact coordinates.
Down in the ward, a flash of violet system-light erupted over Krug's open palm. Three heavy rolls of silver-threaded bandages materialized in his grasp, humming with absolute, freezing void-energy.
"The bandages," Rubedo whispered into Krug's mind. "Wrap them directly over her core. They will act as an artificial mana-dam. It will temporarily suppress her spatial magic and throttle the energy flow to the child."
Krug stepped forward, completely ignoring the spatial fractures sparking against his heavy armor. He grabbed Julia by the shoulders, pinning her thrashing body flat against the mattress.
"Hold her down!" Krug ordered the healers.
As the Vanguard medics secured her limbs, Krug unrolled the Astral-Silk and rapidly bound it tightly around her waist and chest. The moment the void-infused fabric touched her glowing skin, the blinding white light violently hissed.
The bandages absorbed the overflowing aether. The silver threads turned a deep, glowing violet as they forcefully severed her connection to the Gildreath leylines and clamped down on her divine Herald powers.
Julia gasped, her eyes flying wide open. The spatial rifts tearing up the room vanished instantly.
The blinding light beneath her skin sputtered and faded back into complete darkness. Her convulsions stopped. She went completely limp against the pillows, her chest heaving as she dragged in ragged, exhausted breaths.
"The Sovereign protects," Krug muttered, stepping back and wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. He looked up toward the ceiling, speaking to the empty air. "She is stabilized, Sovereign. Her magic is suppressed. The vessel holds."
In the sanctuary, the red warning text on Rubedo's console flickered and changed to a stable, muted blue.
[ STATUS: STABILIZED. MAGIC SUPPRESSED. ]
Rubedo let out a slow breath, sinking back into his throne. He stared at the high-definition feed of Julia sleeping exhaustedly on the bed, her face pale and tear-stained.
He found the entire situation profoundly infuriating.
The Vance twins were the ones who had orchestrated his arrest back on Earth. They had lied to the police, ruined his life, and eagerly offered him up to the Royal Mage's sacrificial altar. He had waged a global, apocalyptic war just to hear them scream.
And yet, here he was, spending his own divine resources to play guardian angel to Julia and her unborn child.
"Humanity really is a cruel joke," Rubedo muttered to himself, shaking his head. A dark, cynical chuckle escaped his lips, echoing across the empty command center.
He reached out and tapped the console, minimizing the medical ward's feed and moving it to the corner of his screen.
"Rest well, Julia," Rubedo whispered, his golden eyes locking onto her sleeping thermal signature. "Because the second that child draws its first breath... Glitch is going to rip that magic out of your chest."