THE ANTI-HEALERS ODESSY

The moon hung low in the sky, casting pale shadows through the whispering trees of the Wild Woods. Arthur's breathing was steady but quick, his heart hammering in his chest. Fenrix and Umbra flanked him silently as they navigated through a dense stretch of trees where the mana signature pulsed erratically.

Something was wrong here.

The air was saturated with unease. Birds had gone silent. Even the insects had ceased their nightly chorus. This part of the forest felt… infected.

Arthur gripped his grimoire tighter. The tome had been whispering more frequently since its awakening, offering guidance, spells, and fragments of ancient knowledge. But tonight, it was silent.

He didn't like that.

"Stay sharp," he said softly to Fenrix.

They had been tracking something. A creature twisted by magic, maybe another corrupted guardian like the one they'd faced before. But the readings were unstable—one moment it seemed close, the next it vanished entirely.

That's when the growl came.

It didn't come from the trees ahead, but from the very ground beneath them. The earth trembled lightly as something massive stirred. And then, with a roar that shattered the silence, the forest floor erupted.

A towering beast burst from the undergrowth—a horned, quadrupedal monstrosity with skeletal plates wrapped around its torso and an aura of green mist trailing its every movement. Its eyes glowed with unnatural light. Something about its form… it looked like it had once been a forest bear, but twisted, mutated beyond recognition.

Arthur barely had time to react.

"Shield!"

Mana surged as he cast a barrier just in time to deflect the monster's first swipe. The impact sent him skidding backwards.

Fenrix lunged in retaliation, biting into one of the beast's exposed joints. Umbra moved like shadow, slashing at its eyes.

Arthur opened his grimoire. A defensive spell? A summon? His hands trembled as he reached for something familiar.

But in the heat of panic, he misread the spell matrix.

A page glowed—deep violet. A spell he had recently learned but never tested: **Reversal Surge: Anti-Heal Amplification**.

"No—wait!" he tried to stop the incantation, but it was too late.

Mana poured from his core. The spell completed.

A sickly, violet wave erupted from Arthur's hand, colliding with the beast.

At first, nothing happened.

Then came the scream.

The monster howled—no, shrieked—as its wounds began to rot before Arthur's eyes. What should have been minor cuts now bubbled and festered. Muscle blackened and peeled back. Flesh evaporated into steam. The Anti-Heal worked not to undo healing—but to reverse vitality itself. The creature's very life essence was being unraveled.

Arthur's stomach turned.

He could feel it—his own mana feeding the process, twisting the laws of magic and biology. It wasn't just killing the beast—it was erasing it.

"Stop," Arthur whispered.

But the spell didn't.

The beast convulsed, howled again, then collapsed in a heap of smoking ruin. Its bones cracked, then dusted. Within seconds, only a scorched crater remained, steaming and pulsing with leftover energy.

Arthur stood frozen.

His grimoire burned hot in his hands. The page that held the Anti-Heal Amplification spell shimmered for a moment—then went dark.

Fenrix crept forward and sniffed the crater. Umbra growled low and circled Arthur, sensing his distress.

Arthur dropped to his knees.

"That wasn't a kill," he muttered. "That was a curse."

He stared at his hands. They still trembled.

The whispers returned.

"You must learn control," the grimoire whispered faintly.

Arthur clenched his jaw. "I didn't mean to… I didn't want that."

But the spell was real.

And terrifying.

He had tapped into something ancient and forbidden.

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To be continued...