Chapter 69: The Pollium Incident
The late afternoon sun two months before the skyvault citadel meeting, the color of burnt ochre, bled across the meticulously kept grounds of the castle. It caught the fine mist rising from the copper watering can in Leornars's hand, turning the droplets into transient, glittering rainbows. He was not in robes or armor, but in a pair of oil-stained, practical brown overalls and thick leather gardening gloves, his concentration absolute. The earth was cool and damp beneath his boots, a welcome contrast to the cold calculation that usually defined his world. His formerly short, obsidian hair had grown long, brushing the tops of his shoulders, and was tamed at the nape of his neck by a simple, antique golden hairpin—a starkly domestic image at odds with the man's fearsome reputation.
He gently nursed a patch of Moonpetal Blossoms, their pale petals drinking the water, when the peace shattered.
A crisp, almost too-loud crunch of gravel announced a presence behind him. Stacian approached, her usual graceful stride clipped and urgent, her dark battle-dress uniform stark against the soft green of the lawn. Her expression was locked down, a mask of professional seriousness, but the way her fingers kept twitching at the hem of her jacket betrayed the inner turmoil.
"Lord Leornars," she began, her voice low and tight, carrying the gravity of a death knell. "Ayesha and Salene are requesting your immediate presence. At the main hospital. They insisted that the matter could not be entrusted to anyone else."
Leornars did not immediately turn. He finished watering the current patch, his movements deliberate, almost insulting in their calm. He placed the watering can down gently, removed his gloves finger by finger, and only then did he rise, slowly straightening to his full, commanding height. The warmth that had briefly softened his eyes while tending the earth was gone, replaced by a glacial, calculating coldness that seemed to drain the light from the afternoon.
"Is the situation contained?" he asked, his voice a flat, empty space.
"No, my Lord. It is escalating rapidly. The sheer volume of victims is overwhelming their resources, and the nature of the affliction is defying standard magical remedy."
Leornars merely nodded, his silence a heavy, oppressive thing. He turned and walked with a sudden, unnerving speed toward the private wing, the gravel crunching under his feet with a less patient rhythm.
Rush to the Hospital
He did not waste time with formal wear. A few minutes later, Leornars emerged in attire that spoke more of comfort than court: simple brown leather slippers, a loose azure blue shirt, and white, baggy linen trousers. The only piece of ornamentation was the small, elegant Crescent Moon earring that glittered faintly in the sun—a subtle reminder of his power.
The journey to the hospital was a blur. The city itself was frantic. The recent, disastrous discovery of a new, highly volatile Dungeon of Avangard had flooded the medical facilities with the maimed, the poisoned, and the exhausted. The air was thick with the scent of antiseptics, ozone from overworked healing spells, and a pervasive, metallic tang of fear.
The main receiving area of the Royal Arch Hospital was a chaos of hurried motion. Nurses, Healers, and Acolytes—both human and various demi-human races—darted between stretchers. The cries of the injured were background noise, but Leornars and Stacian were not heading toward the trauma wing. Stacian led him deep into a quarantined ward, a secured section usually reserved for exotic magical diseases.
Leornars stepped across the threshold, and the sheer number of suffering people hit him with a physical force. The ward was crammed. Fourteen patients, mostly hardy adventurers, filled the beds, their skin drawn taut and ashen. They were coughing, a strained, hacking sound that tore at their chests, and all of them shared the same terrifying symptom: a profound, panicked shortness of breath.
He bypassed the waiting doctors, walked directly to the nearest bed, and placed two gloved fingers—he had kept the gardening gloves on—lightly against the patient's exposed throat. He leaned in, ignoring the distressed moans, and listened with an eerie, clinical detachment. He wasn't just hearing; he was using his aetheric perception to sense the inner workings of the body.
His eyes narrowed as he pulled back. "Shortness of breath, yes. Lungs are violently inflamed, clearly infected by something. But it's not an airborne contagion or a bacterial strain. There is a foreign substance lodged deep in the trachea, clinging to the lining. It feels like a fine, particulate powder, almost microscopic. I can't be certain of its nature yet."
Ayesha, the Head Physician, her face etched with exhaustion and worry, stepped forward. "You are exactly right, Lord Leornars. We have done exhaustive scans. All the patients here share the exact same ailment, down to the distribution pattern of the powder in the pulmonary tracts. It's defying every detox and expulsion spell we know."
"Then why," Leornars asked, turning to look directly at her, his voice devoid of warmth, "did you summon me? If the diagnosis is complete, why have you wasted my time? Implement the mechanical solution—surgical extraction."
Ayesha wrung her hands. "We tried, my Lord. Simple incisions on their skin immediately clot and resist any further penetration. It's as if an invisible layer of magical resistance has been woven into their very tissue. Standard scalpels shatter, and even magically reinforced blades cannot breach the dermis. Something in that powder is actively negating the fundamental magical principles of healing and manipulation."
Stacian, who had been observing the exchange with hawk-like intensity, saw the cold, dawning horror in Leornars's eyes. This was the moment of truth. She understood that misstating the facts would bring his full, terrifying wrath down upon them.
She took a breath and delivered the verdict. "My Lord, the problem they are all suffering from is... a massive Pollium overdose."
The air in the ward seemed to drop ten degrees. Leornars's expression didn't change wildly, but a flicker of something ancient and terrible passed through his eyes. They became intensely icy, a pale, shocking blue that seemed to absorb the light. Pollium was a banned, mythically potent anti-mana drug, a scourge of organized crime and assassination. It was never used in such large quantities.
"Pollium,Did you say POLLIUM?" he repeated, the word a soft hiss of sheer menace.
"Not only are they afflicted by it, but it's negating their ability to be healed. A perfect trap." He looked around the room, the fourteen dying individuals no longer just patients, but evidence of an enormous, deliberate crime.
He turned to Stacian, his voice an absolute void, empty of inflection, yet heavy with unspoken threat. "Stacian. I want the location of the distribution. I want the culprit. Do not make a mistake. Do not kill them. I want the person responsible for this brought to me alive. Do you understand the scope of the atrocity they have committed?"
She met his gaze without flinching, though her internal resolve was steeling against his fury. "Yes, my Lord. I will mobilize the Night Guard immediately." She executed a deep, crisp bow, her silhouette already turning toward the door.
Leornars walked back to the nearest patient. He placed both hands on the man's sweat-soaked chest, closed his eyes, and began to cast a series of sophisticated healing, purification, and detoxification spells. They were complex, multi-layered incantations capable of tearing apart most magical poisons at a molecular level.
They broke.
Mid-cast, the spells simply snapped, the flowing aether recoiling from the patient's body as if hitting an impenetrable, anti-magic barrier. He tried three more times with different schools of magic—high-level Abjuration, Forbidden Restoration, and a unique, self-developed Kinetic Cleansing. All of them failed instantly.
"It's worse than we thought," Ayesha confirmed, her voice cracking with despair. "Pollium, even in moderate doses, acts as an anti-mana anchor. An overdose locks every cell in a state of magical inertia. No conventional healing, purification, or even fundamental detoxification spell can penetrate the barrier it creates. The mana simply slides off the body. We've tried everything."
Leornars said nothing. He simply activated his Dual Parallel Minds. The process was physically imperceptible to the onlookers, but within his skull, a silent, furious storm of computation began. Four hundred individual thoughts per minute were launched, analyzing the aetheric failure, the cellular data, the metaphysical properties of Pollium, and the logical steps required for intervention. He was running thousands of potential solutions, weighing success probability against catastrophic failure. Every logical, orthodox medical solution he ran reached the same conclusion: Too dangerous. Probability of mass casualty: High.
He needed outside counsel, a perfect, neutral source of data.
"Althelia," he called out, his voice a low, focused rumble, addressing the invisible System AI that served as his ontological core.
'Yes, Lord Leornars. What seems to be the problem? The current death rate in the ward is projected to hit 95% within the next hour.'
"The solution forming in my mind, the only one that circumvents the Pollium's anti-magic field—would it work? Give me the unvarnished truth."
'Probability of success,' Althelia replied, her synthesized voice unnervingly calm, 'is at 67 percent. That is factoring in your unique capabilities and the use of the Abstract Field. It is the best possible outcome.'
A long, exhausted sigh escaped Leornars's lips. Sixty-seven percent. A surgeon dealing with mundane ailments would consider that a miracle. For him, it was a terrifyingly slim margin.
"Everyone," he ordered, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. "Doctors, nurses, ancillary staff—clear the room. Now."
He waited until only Stacian, Ayesha, and Salene, the young, talented apprentice physician, remained. The silence that descended was broken only by the horrific, rattling coughs of the patients.
"Listen closely," Leornars said, turning to the three women. His eyes swept over them, a final, intense appraisal. "Salene, Stacian. When I give the order, you will begin casting high-level, generalized healing spells. Do not target a wound. Cast them randomly into the air above the patients and do not stop until I tell you."
"But, my Lord," Salene began, confused. "If the spells are failing—"
"They are not for healing," Leornars cut her off with sharp clarity. "They are for forcing a momentary, localized mana saturation. You are creating an active, pressurized field. Now listen. This is the only chance."
He walked to the center of the ward. He looked at the fourteen patients, the line between life and death dissolving before his eyes. He took a single, controlled breath, and his entire body shimmered.
With a soundless, impossible motion, he unleashed his threads of the Abstract.
The entire ward—walls, floor, ceiling, patients, and people—was instantly covered in a shimmering, invisible lattice of energy. It wasn't mana; it was concept made manifest. Leornars was bypassing the physical, the magical, and dealing with the idea of matter.
His hand swept out, a blindingly fast gesture. Fourteen individual lines of the Abstract lattice instantly sliced open the chests of all fourteen patients in a single, perfectly clean, transverse cut along the breastbone.
Salene gasped, clutching her mouth to stifle a scream. The impossible had just happened. "W-we couldn't even cut them open," she stammered, horror and disbelief warring in her voice. "Not even a scratch! But how?"
"Lord Leornars's threads," Stacian explained, her voice remarkably steady, her professionalism fighting through her shock. "They are not blades of steel or magic. They are atomical cutters. They sever the bonds between the atoms that compose the skin and tissue. The Pollium-induced magical resistance cannot interact with it because it is not magic. It is faster than a conventional blade, faster than a thought. The wound is already there."
"Now!" Leornars roared, his voice suddenly a resonating bellow that cut through the ward's tension. "Cast the spells! Focus!"
Stacian and Salene instantly snapped into action, their hands weaving complex symbols as they began to pour a deluge of raw, chaotic healing mana into the room. Ayesha, understanding the surgical necessity, began to cast Paralysis spells to lock the patients' bodies and then frantically poured powerful, mana-dampening pain relievers directly onto the exposed flesh to reduce the agony the patients should have been feeling.
Leornars, ignoring the blood and the sound of the spell-barrage, was already moving. He cast his dreaded Bubble Skill, a power that conceptually kills cells. He didn't use it to harm. Instead, he targeted only the Pollium cells themselves—the millions of powder particulates lodged in the trachea. He was using a conceptual force to negate the poison's existence while the healing mana momentarily saturated the air.
And then, the final, most shocking act.
With a guttural shout of effort, Leornars summoned his Gate Keeper. He didn't call the full, terrifying entity—that would have shredded the castle and the city. He only ripped a single, massive arm and chains through a rift in reality. The chains were not physical metal; they were the chains of conceptual imprisonment. They instantly wrapped themselves around the fourteen exposed bodies, not crushing them, but killing the concept of the Pollium poison's effect on the body's magical receptivity.
For a crucial, agonizing second, the Pollium's anti-magic field wavered under the combined assault of the Atomic Cut, the Mana Saturation, the Conceptual Kill, and the Imprisonment Chains. It was just enough.
The moment the chains receded and the conceptual suppression was complete, the chaotic healing mana from Stacian and Salene suddenly found a home. The wounds on the patients' chests began to seal, the cells rushing back together, driven by the raw magical energy. Ayesha moved with equal, trained speed, applying specialized, rapid-regenerative balms, ensuring the skin reknit perfectly.
Leornars slumped back against a nearby metal gurney, the entire process draining him of a terrifying amount of energy. He watched the light of the ward's clock change.
"Eleven point three seconds," he whispered, the number a metric of how close they had all come to ruin. "That was entirely too close."
A heavy silence followed the frantic action. Leornars sat there, his head bowed, the massive adrenaline rush slowly ebbing away, leaving a core of icy, incandescent rage.
His eyes lifted slowly, drawn by a terrible finality. Of the fourteen patients, one man's chest had not fully sealed. His heart, already damaged by a chronic, undiagnosed condition, had failed the moment the abstract pressure hit it.
One patient hadn't survived.
Leornars stared at the body, his jaw clenching so hard that the muscles in his neck stood out like cords. His typically pale blue eyes began to glow with a terrifying, deepening crimson, the color of spilled life and pure, elemental fury. The air in the room grew heavy, tasting of ozone and blood.
He didn't speak the words so much as carve them into the very air of the ward, his voice now a low, resonant growl, vibrating with power that was suddenly not just surgical, but destructive.
"I need the person responsible for this stupidity destroyed."
He pushed himself up, his eyes locked on the ceiling, as if speaking to the hidden culprit above the castle walls. His voice dropped lower, becoming the sound of grinding stone and absolute finality—a promise of suffering that transcended mere physical harm.
"The Pollium was a weapon against me, a direct, undeniable challenge to my authority, and a murderous attack on the people I protect. They have crossed a line that I did not draw. They will regret ever having existed in a nation I govern."
He turned to a now-trembling Stacian, his crimson eyes twin points of terrifying light.
"Do not simply bring the culprit to me, Stacian. When you find them, you are to bring me their name, their family, their allies, and every coin they have ever earned in their wretched lives. I will not stop at imprisonment. I will break the concept of their legacy. I will eradicate their very memory from the public consciousness. I will ensure that the suffering they have caused these people is but a fraction of the agonizing realization that their life's work has been dismantled, atom by atom. They dared to mock me after the sacrifice I have given unto them allowing them to coexist in my lands, the term Mercy will not exist when I lay my hands on them."
He paused, the temperature in the room plummeting again. His last words were cold, terrifyingly quiet, and saturated with pure, dark intent.
"Get Zhyelena and Zhyier. Tell them this act came from the south. Instruct them to start their investigation at the heart of the Southern Merchant Confederacy. I want them to find the man who sold this death, and I want him to know that Lord Leornars has reserved a special, eternal kind of torment, where healing will always be just out of reach, and the concept of mercy will not exist. Tell him: He is already dead, he just doesn't know which part of him I'm going to kill first."
With a final, chilling glance at the single dead patient, Leornars turned and left the ward, leaving the three women with the impossible task of recovering from an eleven-second miracle and the truly menacing terror of the coming hunt.