Joric arrived with a speed that defied his age, his medical kit in hand.
He took one look at the scene—the disabled Vanguard soldiers, Kiera's dislocated shoulder, and Ryu's unconscious form—and let out a string of curses that would have made a docker blush.
"I told you this was a bad idea," he grumbled, but he was already at work.
He snapped Kiera's shoulder back into place with a sickening pop, ignoring her grunt of pain.
"That will have to do for now," he said, before turning his full attention to Ryu.
He injected Ryu with a series of stabilizers, his fingers moving with a surgeon's precision.
The chaotic energy pulsing around Ryu slowly subsided, and his breathing deepened, but he remained unconscious.
"His condition?" Kiera asked, her voice strained.
Joric's face was grim.
"Worse. Much worse. That little stunt of his... it was like revving a cold engine to a million RPM. He flash-forged a connection to the ChainForce, but he melted half the wiring in the process. His neural pathways are fried. His internal organs have suffered micro-burns. I've stabilized him for now, but the decay has accelerated. We're no longer talking months. We're talking weeks. Maybe days."
Kiera's newfound resolve hardened.
"No. There has to be another way. A treatment. A procedure. Anything."
Joric was silent for a long time.
He looked from Ryu's pale face to Kiera's determined one.
"There is... one option," he said, his voice low and heavy with reluctance.
"It's not a treatment. It's a folktale. A forbidden one. It's highly experimental, highly dangerous, and if the Azure Dragon council knew I was even mentioning it, they would have me executed."
He leaned in closer, his voice a conspiratorial whisper.
"It's called a 'Chain-Link' transfusion. It's a procedure from the Old Wars, designed for a situation just like this: when a powerful ChainForce manifestation occurs in a vessel that cannot handle it. It requires a donor. A healthy, disciplined warrior with a stable ChainForce connection."
Kiera's eyes widened as she understood.
"A transfusion... of what? Blood?"
"Of life force," Joric corrected.
"Of the very essence of the ChainForce itself. The donor would link their energy to the recipient, using their own stable connection to guide and repair the recipient's broken pathways. It's like giving him a blueprint, a template for his body to follow. If it works, it could stabilize him, teach his body how to properly integrate the power. It could save his life."
"And if it doesn't work?" Kiera asked, her voice tense.
Joric's gaze was grim.
"If it doesn't work, the feedback loop would kill them both. Instantly and painfully. And even if it succeeds, the donor would be permanently weakened. A significant portion of their own ChainForce would be given away, forever. They would never again be the warrior they once were."
The unspoken question hung in the air.
There was only one possible donor in the room. Kiera looked at Ryu, then at her own hands, at the blade she had wielded with such mastery.
The procedure offered a chance to save him, but the price would be her own power. The power she needed to avenge her brother.