The partial lie about Tiar’s identity further shocked the woman and diverted her attention away from her wound, allowing him to tear off a piece of her dress around the area of the injury, finally getting a clear view of it. With that, the easy part of the surgery ended.

 From what little the Viktar knew about restructuring wounds, he needed to run Order energy through his patient and use it to get a picture of the body before it was injured in his mind. After that would come the most difficult part – restructuring the woman until she returned to that uninjured version, altering nothing but the wound in the process. His dwelling on such thoughts was suddenly interrupted when she grabbed his arm, the Order champion’s bright blue eyes meeting the mortal’s lime-green eyes.

‘-If you serve Order … d-did you know … about the attack on my city?’

‘-I came the moment I learned of it, but it appears I was still too late – something for which I am just as sorry, child. All I can offer you to repay the debt of my failure is saving your life.’    

‘-C-can you bring my family back? And the other citizens?’

‘-I’m afraid such feats are only within the power of God, my dear. (he gave her his hand as he saw the short-lived glimmer of hope in her eyes disappear, trying to not focus too much on the almeya’s desperation himself) Whatever happens, do not let go of my hand. This will hurt.’

She took his hand, Tiar transferring Order energy from his body to hers through the physical bond they now had, concentrating his gaze and his powers on the wound on the side of the woman’s stomach. Soon enough everything around him appeared to be made of white and dark blue energy, the version of the female almeya he now saw not having a single scratch on her. Then a separate structure was formed by the two surrounding colors of energy, becoming the wounded image of the woman.

‘-So far, so good. Now to only make the one version look like the other.’

The Viktar’s eyes shifted from the torso of the one version to the other, overlapping the two in his mind until he no longer saw the wound, finally getting a clear image of what he wanted to achieve, giving the psychic command to start the procedure. The two versions started mixing together, their mutual reconstruction coinciding with the woman’s screams.

Her response was not one bit surprising. After all, in the present her insides were being broken apart in order to be reassembled afterwards, the only thing allowing her to live through that being the very Order energy that orchestrated the process. If the pain was limited to her stomach, though, there would be no issue. She only needed to bear with it a little longer until the right sequence was found to bring her body back to the version that wasn’t wounded.

The almeya’s screams suddenly became louder and more pain-ridden, this becoming a cause for concern for Tiar who removed the Order energy filter on his vision to see what was actually happening to her in the present. The answer was as simple as it was terrifying – he had failed.

Restructuring formulas had now spread far beyond the mortal’s stomach, having covered her whole upper body, reshaping it in the most hideous ways. The current example of that was that her arms were coming out of her chest rather than from her shoulders, a gaping hole being left in place of one of her eyes, that eye having appeared on her tongue that was sticking out of her open mouth as she screamed.

Something needed to be done to stop this process as soon as possible or eventually the damage done to the woman would become irreversible. More than that, there was the risk of one of the sequences tested on her being the one where she is restructured into nothing. If that happened, there would be absolutely no chance of saving neither her body, nor her soul.

Thinking about that, an idea came to the Griffin Slayer’s mind, blaming himself for coming to that realization with such delay.

One of the key differences between restructuring and healing was that while healing only affected the body, restructuring affected the soul as well. That simultaneously made it more efficient and more dangerous.

Due to the fact the soul was also affected by this procedure, however, Tiar could now empower the female almeya with pieces of his own soul, allowing her to counter the effect of his restructuring. The area affected by the process would then once again be limited only to the wound with the rest of the patient’s body returning to normal.

It wasn’t the first time he had given pieces of his soul to save someone, only the first time he was going to do it as Viktar, hopefully still being able to perform such an action as efficiently as before. For if he failed to do that as well, whatever remained of his sanity would leave him.

Ignoring the different versions her body changed into, each of which was as grotesque as one could imagine, as much as possible, Tiar focused on his soul and the woman’s soul. The two were already bonded through the restructuring energy flowing from him into her, so all that was left was to detach a few pieces of his soul and send them through to the almeya using that bond.

Of course, those pieces would need to be restructured in their own right in order to become compatible with a mortal’s soul, once that was done, the Griffin Slayer sending the pieces over to his patient, praying all the while. Praying to the God that would not answer him, but also the only one Tiar thought would listen to a monster like him right now. The woman’s painful screams were dulled by his extraordinarily high level of concentration, at one point becoming so focused that he didn’t hear them at all.

After gathering courage for a while, he decided to open his eyes, having finally resigned himself to accept whatever sight was going to be revealed when he did. If anything, his failure would just add to the punishment the former Distroya rightfully deserved. Something else revealed itself instead, however.

The almeya was still in his arms, the two were still in the same place in the pillaged city, but the one difference was the woman’s appearance – she had now returned to her normal form. Only her expression and breathing were not quite normal as her sweat-covered face was twisted by shock and ragged breaths escaped her lips every few seconds.

The soul transfer had yielded a positive result and Tiar’s theory had proven right, but he still needed to check the condition of the injury to the side of the woman’s stomach he had started to treat initially. Her dress was still ripped as before, but there wasn’t a single scratch on the pink skin under it now, meaning the overall restructuring had been successful as well.

For the first time in his life, Tiar had saved the life of an Order-bound creature. He himself was so shocked by that fact that he didn’t know what to feel aside from astonishment, only letting go of the almeya, getting up and taking a few steps away from her. She was no less amazed by this experience, of course, needing more than a few moments to come to her senses and even make an attempt to get up.

By then, the Viktar had calmed down enough to notice her struggle, realizing that although she was no longer wounded, the procedure itself had taken its toll on her stamina, which meant she would still need assistance for a while. So he provided that assistance by giving her a hand and supporting her after she was finally back on her feet, the young lady’s eyes immediately finding his.

‘-You really are one. You do serve Order.’

Tiar chuckled nervously as he was certain his ineptitude in performing the surgery must have left his patient wondering just how experienced in using Order energy he was, needing another lie to cover that up. Apparently, he would need to tell a great many lies from here on – a realization that was just starting to sink in the honest man’s mind.

‘-I’m glad you fully believe me now. My sincerest apologies for the suffering you had to endure during the procedure. In truth, I haven’t performed one like that in quite a while. I’ve been doing plenty of fighting with the enemies of Order, but healing … well, let’s just say that’s not what I excel at.’

The almeya shook her head with a smile, proceeding to bow to her confused savior, which downright surprised him.

‘-There will never be a need for a being like you to apologize to the likes of me, my lord Arit. (she now came to a sudden realization and started panicking while bowing again and again) And where on Almeya are my manners?! I haven’t even introduced myself to the one who saved my life!! Please forgive me, sire! I truly am the lowliest of the low!!!’

Her flustering made Tiar even more uncomfortable, so he thought of a way to diffuse the situation and spare the mortal any more shame – through another lie.

‘-Calm yourself, child. I am merely a lowly knight. There is no need to address me in such ways. Calling me Arit will be just fine. Although I would indeed like to learn your name.’

The Viktar’s words apparently succeeded in calming down the flustered almeya who made another bow with an embarrassed half-smile.

‘-My name is Bara, my lord, and I am far from fit to call you by your name. More than that, however, I am in your debt. Whatever a lowly creature like me can do for you, ask it. It shall be done.’

Things had felt comfortable between the two for only a short while, but the pink-skinned beauty bringing up her debt to the Order champion rapidly changed the mood, much to Tiar’s regret.

‘-No, no! I didn’t save you to put you in my debt or anything of that sort! You simply were the only one here that could be saved, so I …’

The Viktar had been so distracted by his new acquaintance that he had not sensed at all the Chaos Griffin who had appeared nearby until he was close enough that his eyes could see him. But by then an attack had already been unleashed in the form of a dozen rings of blackish-yellow feathers engulfed in Chaos flames. The Griffin was clearly enraged by the discovery he had made.

‘-Someone actually survived?! And you’ve even called for help?!’

A swing enveloped in white and dark blue energy broke apart all the rings into separate feathers that were restructured into nothing, Tiar now knowing how to use his ability and wasting no time to present his opponent with another opportunity to strike. He chose him as a target in his mind, Order energy covering everything around the Viktar again and with its disappearance the space had rearranged itself so he could stand right in front of the monster, his hand already being plunged deep in its chest.

The Griffin made a final desperate attempt to attack by blowing out a roar of fire and feathers at point-plank range, but that failed miserably as well. Tiar restructured the roar with ease, just as he did with the one who had used it.

Only then did he hear the screech typically made by Chaos Griffins and realized the enemy he had just slain was not alone, one just like him having appeared next to Bara. But that was not the real cause for the Viktar’s great surprise. What shook him to his core was the fact the almeya had instinctively swung to attack the creature and in doing so had created a large energy hexagonal prism.

The velocity of that figure had been so great that it had pierced straight through and left a smoking hole in the villain’s stomach and an astounded look on his face, the mortal being surprised by the attack she had conjured up as well. But none was more bewildered than Tiar and it was the nature of Bara’s attack that made him feel so. It was made of white and dark blue energy – Order energy – something no almeya had ever been able to use. Until one of them received a piece of the soul of an Order champion.