The medical tent smelled of antiseptic, fever, and slow death. Muffled groans and the short rasps of the dying formed a macabre symphony. Zirel led Dylan to a cot isolated in a corner, partially hidden by a canvas screen.

Tonar lay there, a giant reduced to immobility. His gray skin had taken on an ashen, earthy hue. His torso, usually a carapace of muscle, was wrapped in dirty bandages, stained with yellow and dark red in several places. A sweetish odor of rot, characteristic of gangrene, hung around him. His eyes were closed, his features twisted by suffering even in unconsciousness.

Dylan froze, his seasoned soldier's gaze coldly analyzing the situation. He had seen hundreds of wounds. This one was fatal. Several arrows must have pierced vital organs. Infection must have set in, and the blood loss... It was a miracle he was still breathing.

"He's more rock than man," Zirel murmured, his voice choked.

"Leave us," Dylan said without looking at him.

Zirel hesitated. "Dylan..."

Dylan finally turned to him, his gaze becoming almost physically intense. "I'm serious, Zirel. Go. And you too," he added, addressing a young medic who was bustling nearby. The man, surprised by the tone, backed away and left after a nod from Zirel.

The scout stayed a moment longer, eyes narrowed. "What are you planning to do, kid? The best healers in the camp said there's nothing more to be done."

"I'm not a healer," Dylan replied, his voice low but firm. "And what I'm about to do... you must promise me that not a single word of what happens in here leaves this tent."

The request was heavy with consequence. Zirel studied Dylan's face, looking for madness or bravado. He found only a cold, absolute determination.

"Why?" he asked finally.

"Because I have no intention of ending up on a pyre for witchcraft, or in the dungeon of a Count who'd want to use me like a miracle fountain," Dylan replied bluntly. "I don't want to be called 'Saint'. I don't want some organization wanting to dissect me to understand. My life belongs to me. Promise me."

The silence between them was thick, broken only by Tonar's wheezing breath. Zirel, a man of honor and loyalty, was torn. But he saw the truth in Dylan's eyes. And he saw Tonar, his brother-in-arms, rotting alive.

"Alright," he breathed. "Not a word." With that, he turned on his heel and left, letting the heavy flap fall shut behind him.

Dylan was alone with the dying colossus.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, a resolute gleam shone within. He brought a hand close to Tonar's bandaged torso without touching it. He started there, with the greatest source of rot. Under the bandages, the flesh must be black, necrotic.

Then, he concentrated.

A tingling ran down his spine, rising from the base of his back. On his skin, along his neck and left arm, white, complex, sinuous marks – his stigmata – began to emit a faint, milky glow, like living mother-of-pearl. It wasn't the blazing light of Fire Awakened, nor the spectral gleam of illusionists. It was something more organic, more fundamental.

He gently placed his left hand, marked with the densest patterns, on the soiled bandage over Tonar's abdomen.

The pain was lightning-fast.

It wasn't an immediate physical pain, but a wave of pure information, of damage, of corruption that flooded into him. He saw, *felt* the torn muscles, the perforated intestine, the bacterial proliferation, the cell death. It was a map of agony imprinted directly onto his nervous system.

A stifled grunt escaped him. His muscles tensed, and a cold sweat beaded on his forehead. His power, Accelerated Regeneration, wasn't clean magic. It was a transfer. He was absorbing the essence of the wound, making it his own.

Under his palm, through the bandage, a change occurred. The unhealthy heat of the infection began to diminish. The dark color seeping through the fabric paled, then stopped. Dylan clenched his teeth, absorbing the necrosis, channeling the rot into his own body where his superhuman metabolism was already beginning to dismantle it, to burn it like fuel.

Then came the other wounds. An arrow had pierced a lung. Dylan moved his hand, and a stabbing pain shot through his own chest, cutting off his breath. He felt a warm liquid filling his alveoli before his body frantically worked to reabsorb it. Another wound, on the thigh, had severed a major vessel. A sensation of emptiness, of fleeing blood, overwhelmed him, making him dizzy.

He worked like this, point by point, absorbing the shadow of death enveloping Tonar. The pain was a stormy sea inside him, each wave a new, stolen agony. His own pallor became cadaverous, and his hands began to tremble. This was the price: to shoulder all the suffering, to become the receptacle of corruption so the other could live.

Suddenly, Tonar made a sound – a deep sigh, the first that didn't seem like a death rattle. His chest rose more freely. The ashen hue of his skin began to recede, making way for the healthier slate-gray color of his people. The bandages, where Dylan had placed his hands, were now just dirty, but no longer oozing.

When Dylan removed his final hand, he staggered and leaned heavily against the bedpost, shivering all over. Sharp pains shot through his body, echoes of every wound he had absorbed. He was exhausted, drained, and every cell in his body screamed as it repaired itself at an unnatural rate.

But he had kept his promise.

Tonar's eyes moved behind his closed lids. They opened halfway, cloudy, unconscious. They settled on Dylan without truly seeing him. Then, his chapped lips moved, and a word, in that strange, guttural language Zirel had mentioned, came out. A single word, heavy with obscure meaning.

Then, he fell back into a deep sleep, but this time, his breathing was regular and strong. The death rattle was gone.

Dylan stayed for a moment, catching his breath, feeling the last traces of gangrene dissipate in his stomach like a bad meal. The pain would fade, too, in a few hours. But the memory of Tonar's agony would remain etched in him.

He stood up, swaying, and headed for the exit. Before lifting the flap, he cast one last look at the giant. He would live. The rest was a secret that had to die here.

When he emerged, pale and covered in a cold sweat, Zirel was waiting for him, leaning against a nearby post. Their eyes met. Zirel said nothing. He didn't need words. He saw the extreme exhaustion on Dylan's face, and he heard, coming from the tent, Tonar's deep, peaceful breathing – a sound he hadn't heard in weeks.

He simply gave a very slight nod, a sign of respect and a sealed pact.

Dylan walked past him without a word, heading towards their tent to rest before departure. The price of flesh was paid. Now, the price of blood awaited them.

Dylan pushed aside the flap of Elisa's tent with the slowness of a man whose every step costs a piece of his soul. The canvas closed behind him with a soft, almost solemn rustle.

The interior was bathed in muted light — a hanging lantern swung lazily, casting dancing shadows on the ground. The smell of oil and leather mingled with the subtler scent of polished metal and Elisa's own perfume, a note both fresh and bitter, like the sap of a wounded tree.

She was there, sitting on her camp bed, without her armor this time, in a simple linen shirt rolled up to the elbows. When she saw him enter, she narrowed her eyes — not in surprise, but with that gentle vigilance she reserved for ghosts.

"You look like a corpse," she stated flatly, but without mockery.

Dylan sketched a smile that wasn't one.

"That's... not far from the truth."

He took a few steps before his legs buckled slightly. Elisa rose immediately, catching him by the arm. Her hand was seized by a shiver — Dylan's skin was ice-cold, his veins prominent as if blood refused to flow through them.

"What did you do this time?" she asked in a low voice, with that mix of annoyance and worry she no longer bothered to conceal.

"Nothing spectacular," he replied, his voice hoarse. "Just... stopped a man from dying."

She stared at him for a moment, guessing more than he was saying.

"At what cost?"

He laughed, a short, breathless laugh. "The price of flesh."

She tightened her grip on his arm a little, as if she could transfer warmth to him.

"You're an idiot, Dylan."

"I know. But it's part of my charm."

She sighed, helped him sit on the pallet, then crouched to check his pulse. It beat weakly, barely perceptible under his pale skin.

"Your spiritual essence is drained. If you try to draw on more in this state, you'll dissolve from the inside out."

"Then I'll just... sleep. Let the body do the rest."

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