All Chapters of Ascension of the Cursed Healer: Chapter 101
- Chapter 110
150 chapters
CHAPTER 101 — “AFTER THE FIRE”
The Ember ruins were quiet. Not dead, never dead, but subdued, like a beast that had finally accepted a collar.Molten rivers dimmed from violent gold to a slow, breathing red. The air still shimmered with heat, but it no longer pressed like a threat. It watched instead.Terry stood at the edge of the chamber, Truth Blade lowered, Heartblood resting against his chest like a second heart. His breathing was steady now. Too steady.Mira noticed first.“You’re not shaking,” she said quietly.Terry blinked. “Should I be?”“Yes,” Jalen said immediately. “After what you just did? Absolutely yes.”Terry looked down at his hands. Violet light pulsed faintly beneath his skin, controlled, obedient.“No,” he said. “I feel… balanced.”Corvin stirred in his mind, no longer sharp, measured. Balance is temporary. Enjoy it.Mira stepped closer, eyes searching his face. “Terry… talk to me. What does it feel like?”He exhaled slowly. “Like standing in the eye of a storm that finally recognizes me as the
CHAPTER 102 — “THE WEIGHT OF MERCY”
The city didn’t celebrate. That unsettled Terry more than fear ever had.Valoria moved cautiously around him now, voices lowered when he passed, eyes following but never meeting his for long. Healing wards hummed brighter in his presence, reacting instinctively to the Heartblood’s restrained pulse.Mira noticed it too.“They don’t know whether to kneel,” she said quietly, walking beside him through the outer ward, “or run.”Terry exhaled. “Then I’m doing something right.”Jalen snorted. “Great. You’ve become a walking moral crisis.”They stopped outside the shattered infirmary near the south district. The building still smelled of smoke and old blood. Survivors waited inside, wounded rebels, civilians burned by Circle residue, children coughing from lingering corruption.Mira hesitated. “Once you step in… they’ll expect miracles.”Terry closed his eyes for a breath.“I won’t give them miracles,” he said. “I’ll give them work.”Inside, the room fell silent.A woman clutched her arm, ve
CHAPTER 103 — “THOSE WHO FEED FREELY”
The aqueducts smelled wrong. Not rot. Not damp.Expectation.Mira felt it first. “This place is listening.”Jalen snorted softly. “Everything listens when Terry’s around now.”Terry didn’t respond. He walked at the front, Truth Blade sheathed, Heartblood quiet but alert against his chest. Each step echoed too cleanly, like the tunnels wanted to remember him.Corvin murmured, low and thoughtful. This is not hunger bound by fear. This is hunger invited.Terry whispered back, “Then it’s not mine.”Not yet.They reached a junction where old stone gave way to newer reinforcement, Circle work, but crude. Rushed. Desperate.Mira crouched, fingers brushing a sigil etched into the floor. “This isn’t resurrection.”Jalen frowned. “Looks like amplification.”Terry stopped. “Say that again.”“Amplification,” Mira repeated. “They’re not creating power. They’re letting something flow through them.”Corvin’s voice sharpened with interest. Ah. Volunteers.A voice echoed ahead, calm and amused.“You s
CHAPTER 104 — “LINES THAT BLEED”
Elen didn’t sleep. She sat upright on the infirmary cot, fingers clenched in the blanket, eyes tracking every shadow as if it might speak.Mira noticed first.“You’re safe,” she said gently. “No one followed us.”Elen swallowed. “That’s not what I’m afraid of.”Terry stood near the doorway, arms crossed, listening.“What are you afraid of?” he asked.Elen looked at him and flinched.“That it’s still listening,” she whispered.The Hunger stirred, faint but alert.Terry stepped closer, slow, deliberate. “It is. But it doesn’t own you anymore.”Her voice cracked. “It felt like freedom.”Jalen leaned against the wall. “Most bad decisions do.”She laughed weakly, then started crying.“I didn’t want to die,” she said. “They told me pain was proof I was alive.”Mira’s jaw tightened. “Pain is just pain.”Terry nodded. “And hunger lies best when you’re desperate.”Later, in the council chamber, the mood had shifted.Not fear.Expectation.A healer slammed her palm on the table. “You sealed fiv
CHAPTER 105 — “THE COST OF HOLDING”
Terry woke choking. Not on air. On restraint.His hand was clamped around the Truth Blade’s hilt, knuckles white, the Heartblood burning against his chest like it wanted out. The Hunger wasn’t raging. It wasn’t clawing.It was pressing.Patient. Relentless.Corvin’s voice slid through the tension like silk over steel. You sealed twelve doors today. Did you think the pressure wouldn’t build?Terry sat up sharply. “Shut up.”Mira was at the doorway instantly, blade half-raised. “You said that out loud.”Jalen groaned from the other cot. “If you’re arguing with the voice again, at least warn me.”Terry dragged a hand down his face. “We need to change how we’re doing this.”Mira didn’t relax. “Meaning?”“I can’t keep intervening personally,” he said. “Every seal takes more control to hold.”Corvin murmured, amused. And yet you will keep doing it.Mira stepped closer. “How much more?”Terry didn’t answer immediately.“That bad?” Jalen asked.Terry nodded once.They didn’t have time to plan
CHAPTER 106 — “WHEN MERCY SHATTERS”
Terry didn’t dream.Dreams required distance.This was proximity.He lay awake on the infirmary cot, eyes open, ceiling stone reflecting a faint violet glow he could no longer fully suppress. Every breath felt measured. Calculated. As if something inside him was keeping score.Mira sat nearby, sharpening her blade, not because it needed sharpening, but because she needed the sound.“You erased it,” she said quietly.Terry didn’t answer.“You didn’t seal it,” she continued. “You didn’t redirect it. You ended it.”“I know.”Jalen shifted uncomfortably. “The city’s already whispering.”Terry finally turned his head. “What are they saying?”“That you saved them,” Jalen said. “That you crossed a line to do it.”Mira added, “That you might do it again.”Silence stretched.Corvin spoke at last, not mocking, measured. You learned the final lesson of power. Not how to wield it… but how to justify it.Terry clenched his fists. “I didn’t justify anything.”You survived it, Corvin replied. That i
CHAPTER 107 — “THE MEASURE OF A MAN”
The beacon pulsed once more, then went dark.Terry stopped walking.The night beyond Valoria’s walls was unnaturally still. No insects. No wind. Even the stars seemed reluctant to look down.Corvin murmured, alert. They’re close. And confident.Terry loosened his grip on the Truth Blade. “Show yourself.”A voice answered from the darkness, not loud, not mocking.“You came alone.”Figures stepped into the moonlight.Five of them.No robes. No sigils. Just people, men and women, armed but not empowered. At their center stood a young man, hands raised, eyes clear.“I asked you to,” the man said. “I hoped you would.”Terry frowned. “You’re not feeding freely.”“No,” the man agreed. “We’re not feeding at all.”The Hunger stirred, confused.Mira’s instincts echoed in Terry’s mind, but she wasn’t here.“Why summon me?” Terry asked.The man gestured behind him.A child lay on the ground, breathing shallowly, veins darkened with creeping corruption.“She’s dying,” the man said quietly. “Sealed
CHAPTER 108 — “THE THIRD PATH BREAKS”
Mira was waiting at the gates. She didn’t ask where he’d been. She didn’t ask what he’d done. She looked at his face once and said, “You almost didn’t come back.”Terry exhaled. “I thought about not doing it.”“That’s not what I meant.”They walked side by side through the waking city. Dawn painted Valoria in soft copper and ash, as if the world itself was unsure which it deserved.Jalen jogged up behind them. “Council’s in panic mode. Half of them think you’re about to ascend again. The other half think you’re about to explode.”Terry winced. “Encouraging.”Mira studied him. “Something’s different.”He nodded. “I didn’t seal it. I didn’t erase it.”Jalen slowed. “Then what did you—”“Released it,” Terry said. “Without feeding it. Without killing the host.”Silence.Jalen stopped walking. “That’s… not supposed to be possible.”Corvin whispered, tight and displeased. You weakened the Hunger’s authority. It will retaliate.They reached the infirmary.Elen, pale but steady, looked up as
CHAPTER 109 — “THE WEIGHT OF WHAT WAS TAUGHT”
The plaza smelled of scorched stone and panic. Not blood. That was worse.Terry knelt where the man had vanished, palms pressed to the cracked tiles, breath shallow. The fractures along his arms pulsed faintly, no longer burning, but aching, like bones that had been broken once and remembered it forever.Mira grabbed his shoulders. “Look at me.”Terry didn’t at first.“Look. At. Me.”He raised his head.Her eyes were furious. Terrified. Alive.“You didn’t fail,” she said.“Yes, I did,” Terry replied hoarsely. “I taught him.”Jalen stood a few steps away, scanning the plaza. “City’s evacuating the lower rings. Whatever he became… people felt it.”Corvin’s voice was quiet now. No mockery. No delight. You gave shape to a hunger that did not know itself.Terry swallowed. “I didn’t mean to.”Meaning does not unteach, Corvin replied.The council chamber was chaos.Arguments clashed like steel. Healers shouted. Guards stood frozen, unsure who they were meant to protect anymore.“He breached
CHAPTER 110 — “THE BURDEN OF ANSWERS”
Terry didn’t sleep. He stood on the highest parapet of Valoria’s inner wall, hands resting on cold stone, eyes fixed on the horizon where dawn should have been. It never came.The sky stayed gray, like the world itself was holding its breath.Mira joined him without a sound.“You felt it again,” she said.“Yes.”“How far?”Terry swallowed. “Far enough that I couldn’t stop it.”Silence stretched between them.Mira finally said, “You can’t be everywhere.”“I know.”“And yet,” she pressed, “you’re still standing here like you’re supposed to be.”Corvin whispered, not cruel this time, clinical. Responsibility is heavier than guilt. It does not fade.Jalen arrived with grim news. “Scouts confirmed it. A whole settlement gone. Not burned. Not corrupted.”Terry turned. “Then what?”“Emptied,” Jalen said quietly. “Life pushed out. Land cracked like something breathed wrong.”Mira’s jaw clenched. “He’s not just releasing Hunger.”“No,” Terry said. “He’s teaching it direction.”Corvin murmured,