The Price Of Healing

After his fruitful skirmish on a small demonic domain, Lothair stopped by a forest landscape with a grassy field and several trees in the background.

A ramshackle house was present on the northern skirt, covered in claw marks from native beast-like demons that had been turned into Lesser Puppets.

A small pond of water was lying gently near the shabby structure, reflecting the red-turned-gray sky with a full blue moon in the middle.

Before he came into a restful halt, he commanded 20 of his new Manic Puppets to take some Lesser Puppets with them to do a disruptive skirmish around this region.

Lothair knew that doing this would eventually lead to an uneventful loss for many of them as the coalition hunters were still aiming their bow on his throat, but it was better than giving them a lead of his currently vulnerable state he was in.

"How many months has it been since my last time sitting above the sea of grass?"

He wanted to enjoy this simple moment, but definitely not with the tormenting coat that was forcefully hung on his shoulder.

Sluggishly, he walked towards the small pond. A clear outline of his face was shown amongst the moon. His silky white hair had been degraded into an array ugly gray and brown, and the everlasting smile on his face had been unknowingly reverted into that of a frown.

"Even after all of that, I still haven't been able to overcome my pain, huh…"

Being reminded of his battle before, he grabbed a simple rock on the skirt of the pond. Casting his reflexively ingrained Overhealing spell, he duplicated the material of the stone and printed it into a sharp knife.

Without a single moment of hesitation, he tore off his blood veins on his neck, letting the blood spurt into his messed white robe and the surface of the pond. Amongst the striking red he saw on the reflection, he noticed a subtle shift on the color of his hair that slowly reverted back to glistening silver.

As if a revelation had struck his mind, his eyes broadened in enthusiasm.

"So that's how it works."

Using the same knife, he traced all of the blood veins that were close to the surface of his skin.

And lacerated them all in a single motion.

"Aaaaa…"

Tears were coming out of his eyes, as his jaw couldn't stop the salivation due to the overwhelming pain.

It was effective. The coating torment that was placed upon him was slowly disintegrating as his hair returned to normal.

Feeling the excessive jitter, Lothair fell onto the sea of grass once again. Albeit, accompanied with a dozen patches of his own blood. He then lets his natural regeneration do their work with zero interference from his healing spell.

After a few minutes of grueling misery, the excruciating pain subsided. While he might have already gotten used to his muscles being torn and his flesh being melted, Lothair felt like all of the pain he received had been amplified significantly.

Whether it was actually that he became more sensitive to pain both mentally and physically, or the curse of healing tampered with the suffering he received — what only matters is that Lothair had grasped what truly happened to him.

"Sanity." His eyes were upon the lamenting sky. The moon asked him if he was okay, only to be replied with a neglectful sigh. "The very reason why the act of healing through any medium is considered to be a taboo, is because that, it casts off the layer of insanity that makes a demon — a demon they were meant to be...

"Every demon was born insane, that's why we're able to shrug off the pain and commit to everything that we aim to accomplish." Lothair felt a conflicting thump in his chest. "If I keep using this healing spell of mind, will I stop becoming a demon?"

Lothair had already planned his long-term path of demonhood. He already promised to himself that he must achieve his goal no matter what.

The goal to become an Overlord.

He had already set his odyssey into motion the moment he vanquished half of the Nether Country that he currently resided in. Although he didn't break through the wall that he was enslaved to build with his very own hand, he planned to demolish it after he gained enough infamy and stronger puppets.

But now, an unpredictable constant came into play. Lothair only had his healing power and nothing more, yet, if he kept using it, he would eventually lose his demonic self.

"No." Lothair tightened his grip on the grass. "I've just started, I won't be stopping anytime soon. Not yet, I haven't yet seen the very wretch that crushed my village into flatline… I haven't plunged this accursed continent into an everlasting sea of flame…"

Anxiety began to creep into his neck, suffocating him with the fear of failure that inevitably awaits him in the future.

He stood up, and picked out the lesser puppet needle embedded on his wrist, before turning it into a large nail at the size of half of his height.

Lothair then gritted his teeth to stop his whimper from letting out — as he plunged the oversized nail into his chest, letting it sink deep and comfy between his sinful flesh.

"If I need to be in constant pain to prevent myself from breaking down… Then so be it."

Taking the same steel material of the nail penetrated to his chest, he coursed an extreme amount of healing factor to duplicate the material and print yet another object from it.

"Overheal Series… Disastrous Expansion."

The steel expanded in size and mass exponentially. Crackling sounds akin to exploding bombardments were spread throughout the forest. Amongst the howling steel, was the fervent cry of a demon who wanted nothing but to fight his own inevitable fate.

Within a thunderous howl of the night, a sky piercing tower of metal coated in warmth hue of green appeared ragingly out of nowhere. The shockwave of such a massive structure's sudden existence was enough to shake the ground and the sky.

The tremor was so intense, it could be felt in the neighboring regions. Of course, with such an extravagant display of power, come with the vivid flare sign that could be easily seen.

Hundreds of hunters from the coalition party began to emerge into the scene like a moth soaring into the flame. Upon reaching the site, they were welcomed by an entity of pure sinister manifestation, hunching from the unfathomable pain that he was going through.

"Is that… the Holy Witch…?" One of the aerial scouts flapped his wings in uncertainty.

"That looks more like a hellspawn…"

A giant spike protruded from the tower of steel with a pinpoint accuracy towards the aerial scout. It was so fast, the scout didn't even realize the enormous rod of steel that replaced the entirety of his head.

"W-what is happening??"

Soon after, more spikes extruded from the tower. The sky, flesh, ground, and greeneries were grotesquely punctured by the bombardment.

200 meters of the tower vicinity became an immediate kill zone.

The only survivors were those who were fast enough to flee the moment they noticed the existence of the fake babel.

After that incident, the intensity of the skirmish made the Holy Witch grow rampantly, with an even greater brutality.

New title was given to the Holy Witch by the Chaos Embassy.

'Indomitable Hellspawn' — was spread to further increase the fame of this new calamity.

Whether there was someone who pulled the strings behind the shadow, it mattered less to Lothair who had been plunged to an abyss of excruciating madness.