I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 906: The Two Percent

Adam narrowed his sky-blue eyes on Grum'Thal's trembling feet until they turned into bright slits.

'Focus! Focus so intensely that you won't hear the great shaman's suppressed groans. Focus so you won't imagine how you're tearing him apart. Focus, because if you slip up, if you soften because of misplaced empathy, the treatment will fail. He'll die.'

Relentlessly urging himself on, he controlled the vast flow of mana and qi from the array to dismantle muscles, bones, and the very core of the orc's cells. He worked until the broad feet turned into empty husks of scarred green skin.

Isolating the corruption from the carnage was hard. Extremely hard. A single trace of it would nullify his efforts and Grum'Thal's suffering. He had to eradicate it before rebuilding everything from the remaining sane components.

To do so, he lured the components with smaller streams of life force.

There!

He felt the demonic energy that had contaminated Grum'Thal's thumb chomp on his bait. With a command faster than his conscious thought, he twisted the chomped section of the stream.

It curled on itself, trapping the demonic energy in a microscopic sphere, over and over and over and over again. Dozens, thousands, millions of spheres gliding through the scars of Grum'Thal's flabby skin, into Adam's hands.

The demonic energy tried to infiltrate him, only for his bones to butcher it like a monarch decapitating a vile thief.

The flames pulsing within the scars on Grum'Thal's feet began to fade. His skin slowly lightened from green to pale, finally settling on a coppery brown one toe at a time.

It worked! At least for now. Adam knew that the closer he climbed to the chest, where the demonic energy was produced, the harder the procedure would become. Sweat trickled down his temples, while Lulu wiped it with a handkerchief retrieved from his soul sea as he pressed the purification to the ankles, then the shins.

After he passed the knees, Grum'Thal's suppressed groans grew louder. He shuddered beneath Adam's palms, sweating from every pore.

The corners of Adam's eyes wrinkled as he felt what happened inside. The demonic energy sent an all-consuming surge. It gnawed on the mana and qi that threatened to cleanse its territory.

It was war. Brutal, without concessions.

Veins pulsed at Adam's neck, his eyes blazing as he drew more power from the array. The six beast cores hummed, while the symbols surrounding him blazed like stars.

"Damn you." With a muttered curse, he sent a pulse of energy to shatter the defender's frontline. Then, he shaped the mana and qi into a roaring phoenix that shot upward, always upward.

Wherever it passed, flesh collapsed, skin sank, and he extracted the contamination. He couldn't stop, had to do everything simultaneously, much faster than before, all while the demonic energy distracted him with relentless surges.

As if! He'd never surrender a millimetre of what he had reclaimed! He would lose if he did. Never! Two percent chance of success. The grim probability reverberated in his mind. Not like a burden, but like the wall of a cursed yesterday he had to shatter to offer Grum'Thal a bright tomorrow.

He clutched the orc's wide pelvis, his fingers twisted like the talons of a vulture. The legs took a fair shade of brown, and they would recover with the nourishment of the life force as long as he swarmed the orc's torso.

The moment he did, Grum'Thal's mouth shot wide open. "AAAAAAH!" Unable to keep it in when his genitals and intestines were decomposed into particles, he roared his agony.

Lulu tried to cheer him up, but her voice didn't seem to reach him. Instead, he jerked his head, knocking the table as if that could dull his unbearable pain.

Adam forced himself not to see the seizure claiming Grum'Thal's limbs. Each second wasted was just more suffering. Lulu had to bring three dry handkerchiefs by the time he was done with Grum'Thal's intestines.

Before he could follow up with the stomach, the demonic energy went haywire. It pushed back with twice its earlier might. Even worse, Grum'Thal's red eyes flared with malevolence. He shot up, the bumps on his forehead piercing his skin. Two horns sprouted, while a distorted, leathery wing burst from his back.

Adam's eyes widened as the orc's fingers tightened around his neck. Yet, he didn't pause the treatment. He couldn't.

"How dare you torture me?! I lived in the pits of hell, I survived demonic torture, and I stood shoulder to shoulder with the heroes of the war. I'm Grum'Thal!" Grum'Thal's voice came straight from his viscera, guttural, emerging from a throat wrung by constricted muscles. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Adam clenched his jaw as spit flew onto his cheeks. If only they could tie Grum'Thal... But how? Even now, he felt like poultry in his grasp. Beneath the reasonable orc, the great shaman was a true monster that would have snapped restraints with a yawn.

"Listen well, Grum'Thal." He hissed through his teeth, his mind buzzing just from speaking. "I never lie. Not once. Even when the world is against me, I don't. I promised I'd save you. Do you want to tarnish my honor by making me a liar? Lie back on the table."

Grum'Thal's fingers twitched, clarity returning to his eyes. He screamed again before slumping on his back. "I-I didn't want to." Tears trailed down his cheeks. "Sorry, sorry..."

Amidst Grum'Thal's wails, Adam kept working without a word.

Lulu shivered beside him, finally releasing the breath she had been holding. "That was close—too close..." She wiped Adam's forehead, biting her lip when she saw the bruises on his neck. "That stinky orc. I knew he would do that. That's why the percentage I provided was so low."

Adam shook his head. He knew there would be two major hurdles in this operation. The first being the battlefield—Grum'Thal's body—breaking down before he healed him. The second was that the orc, maddened by the torment, could kill him at any moment.

He wasn't angry. It was normal. At least, he understood that no one wanted to be in Grum'Thal's shoes right now. But he had avoided the crisis. And now, his chances had risen by ten percent... because he was attacking the stomach, and once done with it, the great shaman wouldn't have any strength left to strike him down.