The single, piercing scream sliced through the heart of Bastion and left a ringing silence in its wake. It was a sound that promised irreplaceable loss. My own grief, a constant, low hum beneath the surface of my consciousness, resonated with it, and a cold dread coiled in my gut. We burst from Lucas' office into a scene of sudden, frantic chaos.

People were running, not away from a monster, but towards the settlement's newly constructed storehouse, a large, two-story building near the western edge of the town square. A thick cloud of choking, grey dust billowed from where the building's wide, overhanging porch roof should have been. As the dust began to settle, the source of the screams became horrifyingly clear. The entire structure, a heavy thing of thick pine logs and slate shingles, had collapsed, burying a section of the crowded marketplace beneath it.

"Get back! Give them air!" Silas' voice, a familiar bark of command, cut through the panicked cries. He was already there, his face a grim mask of dirt and determination, directing his militia to start pulling at the heavier timbers.

Lucas swore, a sharp, ugly sound, and broke into a dead sprint. I was right behind him. My initial assumption, that Blade's team had finally shown their teeth, felt both right and wrong. This wasn't a clean, surgical strike. It was messy, chaotic, public. It felt… inefficient. Unless the chaos itself was the point.

We reached the wreckage. Several people were already being pulled free, miraculously unharmed, just dusty and terrified. But others were not so lucky. Two men lay on the ground, their legs clearly broken, twisted at sickening angles. A third man was trapped from the waist down by a massive central support beam, his face a pale, sweat-sheened mask of agony, his breathing shallow and ragged. He was the one who had screamed.

"Jack!" Silas yelled, spotting me. "We need you! Now!"

There was no hesitation. This was my role, my duty in this town. I dropped to my knees beside the man with the broken legs, my mind shutting out the panicked noise, the crying, the shouts. The world narrowed to the task at hand.

And in that narrow, focused world, my [True Sight] was a constant, passive filter. As I prepared to heal, my senses automatically expanded, and I felt them. Blade and his two companions. They were not in the crowd. They were on the roof of the adjacent tannery, partially concealed behind a chimney stack. They were perfectly still, watching the entire scene unfold with the detached, professional interest of scientists observing a chaotic chemical reaction. They weren't helping. They were assessing.

A cold rage, clean and sharp as a shard of ice, solidified in my chest. They did this. The theory was almost a certainty, supported by subtle Essence fluctuations near the support beams.

"It's okay," I said to the man before me, my voice a low, steady calm I did not feel. "I'm here. Just breathe."

I placed my hands over the shattered bones of his leg. I called upon my power, upon [Phoenix Pyre Mending], but the act, which should have been second nature, was suddenly a titanic struggle. I couldn't unleash it. I couldn't let the incandescent golden light of pure Soulfire erupt from my hands in the middle of a crowded square with three Tier 3 Imperial contractors watching my every move. I had to throttle it, choke it, force the raging inferno of my power through the pinhole of my 'Jack the Healer' persona.

I visualized the lie I had told them — the old herbalist, the gentle nudge to the soul. I focused not on the fire, but on the mending. I pushed the power out, forcing it to manifest as a gentle, warm, green-gold light, the color of new spring leaves, not a roaring furnace. The strain was immense. It was like trying to stop a tidal wave with a fishing net. My muscles trembled with the effort, and sweat beaded on my forehead.

The man beneath my hands gasped as the healing energy flowed into him. The broken bones began to knit together with an audible grinding sound. The flesh sealed. But it was slow, agonizingly slow, compared to what I was truly capable of. The entire process took nearly a full minute, an eternity under the cold, watchful gaze from the rooftop.

While one part of my mind focused on the difficult, delicate act of suppression, the other part, the part that lived and breathed through my [True Sight], was screaming at me. I cast my senses over the wreckage, over the shattered support beam that had pinned the other man. My gaze passed over the splintered wood, the sheared joints, the crushed earth. And then I saw it.

It wasn't a magic sigil, not a lingering spell effect. It was far more subtle, far more clever than that. There were three critical points on the main support beam where heavy iron bolts should have secured it to the main structure. But there were no bolts. There weren't even holes. My sight, capable of piercing illusions and perceiving the very structure of matter, saw the ghost of what had been there. Faint, residual traces of warped space. A distortion so faint, so minuscule, that it had likely lasted for only a single, imperceptible instant.

They hadn't blown it up. They hadn't sabotaged it with tools. They had simply phased the critical connection points out of existence for a fraction of a second. The weight of the heavy roof had done the rest. It was a perfect, deniable act of catastrophic failure. An 'unfortunate accident' that no normal investigation could ever trace back to them.

The sheer, cold-blooded cruelty of it staggered me. They had done this — maimed these people, terrified this town — just to see me work. Just to get a measure of my power. This wasn't an interrogation. This was live-fire field testing.

I finished healing the first man's legs, leaving him exhausted but whole. I moved to the second, the process just as draining, my control slipping for a moment, letting a flicker of true, incandescent gold flash in my aura before I ruthlessly stamped it down. I glanced up at the rooftop. Had they seen it? The woman's head was tilted, her expression thoughtful, as if she'd noticed an unexpected variable in her experiment.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Finally, I moved to the man trapped beneath the massive beam. Silas and his men had managed to leverage it up just enough for me to get to him. His breathing was shallow, his life-signs fading. This would take more. This would take almost everything I could give without revealing myself.

I pressed my hands to his crushed chest, pouring my life force, my precious Soulfire, into him, my entire body shaking with the strain of keeping the raging phoenix caged in the guise of a gentle songbird. His broken ribs mended. His punctured lung inflated. The color returned to his face. By the time I was done, I was slumped over, gasping for breath, my own energy reserves dangerously low. I had saved him, but I felt as drained as if I had fought a Void Crusher with my bare hands.

By the time the last of the wounded had been cared for and the initial panic had subsided into a low hum of fear and whispered speculation, Blade's team descended from their perch. They strode into the square, their faces masks of calm, professional concern.

"A terrible tragedy," Blade said, his voice resonating with that same, infuriatingly perfect sympathy. He surveyed the wreckage, his gaze analytical. "A consequence of rapid construction, I suppose. It's a common problem in new settlements. Resources are spread thin, safety protocols are… informal." He was offering a perfectly plausible, official explanation, a neat cover story for the chaos he had orchestrated.

He walked over to me, his shadow falling over me as I still knelt on the ground, trying to catch my breath. He crouched down, bringing himself to my level, a gesture that was somehow both friendly and profoundly condescending.

"That," he said, his voice a low murmur meant only for me, "was the most impressive display of non-aligned healing I have ever witnessed. You single-handedly prevented at least three fatalities. The Overseer will be very, very pleased to hear about this." His eyes glittered with the cold, triumphant light of a scientist whose hypothesis had just been proven correct.

I didn't have the energy to respond. I just glared at him, a silent promise of future violence that he met with his placid, unreadable smile.

He stood up, turning to address Lucas and the small crowd that had gathered. "This incident only strengthens the Empire's resolve to assist you. To provide the knowledge and resources to prevent such tragedies from happening again." He made a small gesture, and his male companion stepped forward, offering Lucas a small, locked case. "A preliminary gesture of goodwill from the Overseer. A few advanced texts on structural engineering, a high-grade emergency medical kit, and a single Tier 3 Rare Skill Book: [Aegis of Command]. It is meant for a true leader, to better protect his people."

The crowd murmured. A Tier 3 Rare Skill Book. It was a treasure beyond imagining for a settlement like Bastion. Blade was pouring gasoline on the fire he had started, offering the means to prevent the very disaster he had caused. It was a breathtakingly cynical, effective move.

"Our advisory period here is ending," Blade announced. "But our offer stands. The gates of Nexus Delta-7 are always open to those with talent and ambition. Lucas. Jack. Think about it." He gave a final, polite nod, then turned. Without another word, he and his team walked away, their purpose here fulfilled. They disappeared down the main road, leaving behind a legacy of fear, ambition, and a single, unprovable atrocity.

That night, the mood in Lucas' office was grim. The empty mug of ale was gone, replaced by a full bottle of something strong that he hadn't yet touched. The whispers from the town had already begun. A gift from the Empire. A Tier 3 Rare skill… maybe they really are here to help…

"He's breaking us apart without laying a finger on us," Lucas said, his voice raspy with exhaustion and rage.

"This was a test, Lucas," I said, my own anger a cold, hard stone in my chest. "The roof… it was them. They wanted to see what I could do."

Lucas' head snapped up, his eyes widening in dawning horror, and then hardening as the truth of it settled in. "Those bastards."

"I can't keep hiding what I am," I continued, the decision solidifying in my mind, born from the strain and the cold fury of the day. "I can't keep giving you fragments of knowledge and watered-down healing while they are dissecting us. I need to do more. I'm going to start fortifying this settlement for real. First, with things you can't see. Hidden observation posts, ways to watch them from a distance. Then, with real, tangible defenses."

Lucas stared at me, his face a mixture of hope and deep suspicion. "How, Jack? How can you do all that?"

This was it. The precipice. "I can't tell you," I said softly. "Not unless I know the secret dies with you. That no matter what they offer, no matter what they threaten, you can never be made to speak of it."

I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a near whisper. System, I thought, focusing my will. Is there a way to enforce a promise? To bind a soul to silence?

A calm, blue text box materialized in my mind's eye, a beacon of absolute certainty in a sea of doubt.

[System-Binding Oaths are an available, high-level function. A contract, freely entered into by two or more parties and witnessed by the Prime System. It creates a geas upon the souls of the signatories. The terms are absolute. Violation results in immediate, System-adjudicated punishment.] [Punishment varies by severity of the oath broken. Options include, but are not limited to: severe attribute drain, skill erasure, forced forfeiture of assets, and in cases of extreme violation, soul-brand of the Perjurer, leading to permanent inability to gain experience, cultivate Essence or even death.]

Absolute. Unbreakable. The tool I needed.

I looked at Lucas, at the good, desperate man who was trying to hold his world together against impossible odds. I was about to ask him to take the biggest leap of faith of his life.

"Lucas," I began, my heart pounding with the weight of my next words. "There are things about me, about the world, that you do not know. Things that can help us, things that can give us a real fighting chance. But the secret is so dangerous that if it gets out, we are all dead. Not just conquered. Erased." I took a deep breath. "There is a way, a promise we can make to each other, witnessed by the System itself. A magical oath that neither of us can ever break. If you are willing to take that oath with me… I will tell you."

I watched him, my breath held. The lantern light flickered, casting long, dancing shadows on the walls. He searched my face, looking for the lie, the trap, the angle. He found none. He found only the same desperate intensity he felt in his own heart.

He sagged in his chair, the last of his resistance crumbling under the weight of his responsibility. He looked at the locked case on his table, the one containing the Empire's poisonous gift, and then he looked back at me, his trusted friend, his miracle healer, his last, best hope.

"Yes," Lucas said, his voice rough with a mix of terror and relief. "Tell me what I have to do."

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