F Grade Healer Becomes Strongest Biomancer-Chapter 51: She Who Hungers Eternal

Mio

Gaian’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.

"Speak before I use you to pick the meat off my teeth."

Mio stiffened. Nana pressed harder into her back. Ivory’s forehead somehow pushed deeper into the bone floor.

Three girls. None of them sure who was being threatened.

Ivory swallowed and straightened her shoulders. Lifted her chin off the bone just enough to speak.

"Yes, O’ Great Devourer." Her voice came out muffled against the calcium. "Your champion is here. My Appraisal has revealed she is Level 23, and her Reservoir sits at approximately eighty-two thousand, and to her right arm—"

"That’s it?" Gaian’s head tilted. "I’d expected more. Tell me about the arm."

"It— It it— it’s—"

"On with it."

Ivory lifted her head just enough to look at the obsidian limb. Smooth black glass where flesh should be. What remained of the Seneschal of the Seventh Threshold.

"The Putrid Knight," she whispered.

Gaian waited.

"The one who..." Ivory’s eyes drifted to the bones around them. The cathedral ribcage. The distant shapes in the void. Dozens of titans, scattered across the darkness.

All of them dead.

Mio followed her gaze. Her stomach dropped.

Can did this?

"It’s... it’s..."

Ivory’s face scrunched.

"I can’t remember."

Gaian’s shoulders tensed. The slightest motion.

"Me neither."

Silence.

Mio looked at her arm. The knight who had killed every titan in this graveyard, whose name had been erased so thoroughly that even a vestige couldn’t recall it.

Who were you?

The arm didn’t answer.

"I thought you’d know." Gaian’s voice was lighter now, almost disappointed. "It’s no surprise though."

"His name is Can!" Nana’s voice piped up from behind Mio.

Gaian turned.

"Oh?"

"Nana, not now," Mio muttered.

"His name is Can. I named him after a tin can."

Gaian pondered for a moment. Then her smile grew wider.

"Acceptable. I will let it pass." She clasped her hands together. "Now onto the matter at hand. Ivory."

Ivory straightened her spine. Any straighter and she’d pop her vertebrae.

"Did you give the new champion the rundown?"

"Yes, O’ Great Devourer."

"Did you show her the seeds?"

"Yes, O’ Great Devourer."

"Did you tell her about what’s to come?"

"Yes, O’ Gr—" She stopped. Shook her head like a headless chicken. "No. No."

Gaian snapped her fingers.

Mio’s body tensed. What came after was a memory relived inside her mind as if she’d experienced it firsthand.

Armies stretched to the horizon, flying drakes blotting out an alien sun. Lightning melted rock while fire engulfed entire armadas.

She was there, standing in it, ash coating her lungs.

A soldier burned alive three feet from her. She heard him scream, smelled the fat rendering off his bones.

She fell to her knees, gagging. The smell of smoked meat wouldn’t leave her nose.

"Onee-san!" Nana’s voice came through distant and muffled, like hearing through water.

The memory kept playing. Death and war and corpses stacked like firewood. A blade the size of a building cleaving through ranks of soldiers who didn’t have time to scream.

Then it stopped.

"Breathe, Tamei Mio." Gaian lifted her chin. "That’s what’s to come."

Mio’s lungs burned. She forced air in. Out. In again.

"What... what is this?"

"As I said. What’s to come." Gaian released her chin. "Fortunately for you, the tides are stable. Who knew Pontos found such a suitable host. She’s actually competent for once."

Nami?

The aunt she’d never met, the one who killed 345,000 people and now sat chained beneath the Bureau.

"Nami, right?" Mio’s voice came out hoarse. "That’s... that’s my aunt."

"I know, Mio."

"What does Pontos—"

"Your family is quite bothersome." Gaian turned away, foliage rustling. "Always has been."

"Anyway, I have to go now. Business to attend. Appetite to be fulfilled."

"Wait—"

Gaian glanced back. One eye, dark as the void around them.

"Get stronger, Tamei Mio. I didn’t pick you to watch you die like the others."

Then she melted into petals. They fell onto the bone floor and withered just as fast.

Gone already.

The dread Mio had been ignoring finally caught up to her. She doubled over and threw up.

"Mio-san!" Ivory scrambled to her feet. "Not on the bone! I just polished that! Do you know how long it takes to—"

But Mio hadn’t forgotten.

She tackled Ivory.

"You tried to blow up my sister!"

"She looked like a ghost!" Ivory shrieked, flailing. "It was my duty! My sacred duty!"

"I’ll show you sacred duty—"

They rolled across the bone floor, Ivory’s heels clicking wildly, Mio’s obsidian arm pinning her down.

"Ow! Ow ow ow!" Ivory deflected a swing. Grabbed a fistful of black hair. Pulled.

"Let go!"

"You let go first!"

Mio grabbed the knotted bun. Pulled the knot free, purple hair flowing everywhere.

"OW!"

Mio was panting. Three hundred thousand bloom. This woman could level a building, and they were pulling each other’s hair like kids.

"Time out."

"Thank the gods." Ivory didn’t let go either.

"Onee-san, stop! You’re gonna kill her!"

Mio pulled harder.

"Good!"

"Mio-san, please! Ow! That’s attached!"

"So was my sister’s head before you tried to vaporize it!"

Ivory caught Mio’s wrist. The obsidian one.

Her violet eyes went wide. The playful terror drained from her face, replaced by something older and deeper.

She was looking at the arm like it might wake up.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

"You could have stopped me at any time," Mio said quietly.

Ivory didn’t deny it.

Then she let go, very slowly, finger by finger.

"I wasn’t actually going to fire," she whispered. Her voice had gone small.

Mio looked at her own arm. Smooth black glass from shoulder to fingertip.

What did you do to make her this scared?

"You charged a Void Cannon."

Ivory blinked. The fear retreated behind her eyes and customer service returned.

"I charge a lot of things! It’s called intimidation!"

Nana crouched beside them. "Are you two done?"

Mio’s grip loosened. She was breathing hard. So was Ivory.

"She almost killed you."

"She didn’t though." Nana shrugged. "And she works for the scary flower lady who just showed you a war. So maybe don’t make enemies?"

Mio hated when her eleven-year-old sister made sense.

She rolled off Ivory. Lay on her back, staring up at the ribcage of a dead titan.

Ivory sat up, patting down her hair. Her bun had come completely undone. Purple strands stuck out in every direction.

"I really am sorry," she said quietly. "I’ve been alone here for... a long time. I panicked."

Mio closed her eyes. The smell of smoked meat still lingered — armies and drakes and lightning melting rock.

"How long?"

"Hm?"

"How long have you been alone here?"

Ivory was quiet for a moment. "Not counting orientation, about two hundred fifty-six years."

Mio opened her eyes.

Two hundred fifty-six years alone in a graveyard of dead titans, waiting for champions who kept dying.

No wonder she panicked at the ghost.

"Onee-san, she’s an old hag."

"I heard that!" Ivory’s voice cracked. "I’ll have you know I’m very youthful for my species!"

Nana leaned toward Mio. "What species is that?"

"Don’t ask." Mio sat up. "Show me the seeds."

Ivory’s face lit up. "Really?"

"I have eighty-two thousand Reservoir and apparently a war to prepare for. So yes. Really."

Ivory scrambled to her feet, heels somehow finding purchase again. She smoothed her coat, retrieved her scattered notes, and turned to Mio with something close to a genuine smile.

"Right this way, Mio-san! We have so many options!"

Nana helped Mio stand. Her small hand was warm.

"You okay?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Yeah." She squeezed Nana’s hand. "Let’s go shopping."