I’m screwed, absolutely screwed. Lucia turned Durandal into a braindead idiot, and it’s up to me to resolve it. How the hell am I supposed to do that? I’ve Soul Scoured tons of people, but I’ve never looked for a way to undo the damages Soul Scour can bring. If I can’t bring back Durandal’s mental facilities, the amount of destruction Lucia will cause when she goes on her rampage will be greater than everything I’ve accomplished in the last five years. There’s a chance the Secret Phoenix Rebirth Technique will calm some of Lucia’s anger, but she’s still going to explode.

“No precedence? Then what’ll happen to him? What’s going to happen to Durandal?”

Lucia’s grabbing my shoulder. Does her tail know I want to teleport out of here and make a run for it? I can’t teleport away, not as long as she’s holding me down. Ugh, why am I always the one solving Lucia’s problems? What can I say? I have to reassure her, minimize the damage until an actual diagnosis is received. “Durandal will be fine. We just have to take him to the doctor.” I found the sect a heavenly doctor for a reason, and it wasn’t to tell Softie she was pregnant. It was for times like these.

“Phew, why didn’t you just say that earlier?” Lucia asked and relaxed her grip. Do I run away now? I feel like it’d be a waste if I threw away all my hard work from the past five years. However, that’s just getting stuck in a sunk cost fallacy. Even still, it can’t hurt to wait until after the doctor makes his diagnosis, right?

Baldie cleared her throat. “There’s always the sects I told you about earlier, the ones that could help you have children with a weapon spirit. They have multiple ways to bring things back to life even if their methods are a bit … unsavory.”

Baldie said their methods were unsavory, but she doesn’t even know them. I can only find a few vague recollections or rumors about said places. She’s probably fishing for a chance to enter the immortal realm by making Lucia take her. I’ll do my best to prevent that from happening. It’s not that I want to keep Baldie here in the Immortal Continent for malicious reasons, but if she goes back up there, I don’t doubt she’ll warn everyone about the army of immortals I’m trying to raise. “Let’s save that as a last resort. Lucia has no intentions of ever going to the immortal realm.”

“That’s right! If I go up there, there’ll be crazy-strong people like that furry man! I’ll live a life of being bullied.” Lucia bobbed her head up and down. “Uh, there’s something about moving injured people, right? We shouldn’t do it? Mm, I think I heard of something like that. Wait right here! I’ll bring the doctor to us.”

I found myself staring at Baldie since Lucia disappeared, clearing the view before me. There was a frown plastered on the immortal’s face. She wasn’t even trying to hide it like she usually did. She cleared her throat again. “How has the Righteous Holy Sect kept itself from imploding with a leader like that?”

I don’t think she was expecting me to answer the question. It was pretty obvious, after all. I’m the reason why the sect is doing so well.

Baldie snorted. “I’m still not convinced, by the way. Good and evil is more than just a concept. It can easily be seen in the heavens under the form of karma.”

Ah, karma. The arbitrary judgment system that I can’t seem to figure out. It might exist, that’s true. “I have a theory about that. The heavens are artificial. They were made by someone, and he imposed his view of good and evil onto us through karma.”

Baldie stared at me as if I were a corpse puppet. Then, she stared up at the sky as if to make sure the heavens didn’t hear what I said. No bolts of lightning came down, as expected. “You, you don’t believe in the heavens?”

I think Baldie has listening problems; though, they aren’t as bad as Lucia’s. “That’s not what I said. I believe in the heavens.” How can I not? “I just think they’re manmade. Maybe some supreme, supreme, supreme immortal created the whole immortal realm on a whim. Have you considered that?”

Baldie exhaled. It seemed like she was relieved. “I figured out why I couldn’t get through to you despite how intelligent you are.” She stared at me with an expression full of pity. “You’re a lunatic.”

…Me, a lunatic? I’m the most sane and levelheaded person I know.

“I’m back! You didn’t do anything to Durandal, right?” Lucia appeared out of nowhere. She was carrying two people, the heavenly doctor and his assistant, on her shoulders like they were sacks of potatoes. “Doctor, hurry up and fix him!” With a thump, the two people fell to the ground.

“I’m sorry, Sect Leader, but this is beyond my capabilities.”

That was an awfully fast response.

“His body has been completely taken apart. His flesh and tendons were separated from his bones. His dantian was ripped out of him, and his organs are missing. You want me to bring him back to life? That’s impossible!”

“Not him, dummy!” Lucia pulled the heavenly doctor away from my hammer-in-progress. She pointed at Durandal, who was propped up next to me with his eyes glazed over. “Him!”

The doctor adjusted his robes and grabbed Durandal’s wrist. He closed his eyes. A few seconds later, a frown appeared on the doctor’s face. Lucia’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the doctor’s shoulders, shaking him. “What’s wrong? Can you fix him!?”

“L-let go of me!” The doctor struggled free—or tried to. “He’s fine, absolutely fine!”

Lucia stopped shaking the poor man. “Really? Really really?”

The doctor positioned himself behind his assistant, keeping Lucia out of arm’s reach. “His vital signs are fine, but his sea of consciousness suffered a huge shock. One can say that it’s been fractured into trillions of tiny pieces. I can’t help him.”

“Huh?” Lucia blinked hard. The assistant was blown out of the way by the back of Lucia’s hand, and the doctor was once again in her grasp. “What do you mean you can’t help him!? You said he was absolutely fine!”

“I said that to make you unhand me!”

And that’s my queue to leave.

“Not so fast!”

How did Lucia catch me mid-teleport!?