Damned Healer-Chapter 117: Number One Enemy

Darian stared straight into those eyes without flinching—neither of them said a word. Five seconds passed, then the judge let out a heavy sigh and gave a signal.

Suddenly, the golden glow in the room started to shift and twist. Everyone in the courtroom felt the movement of the blessing, focusing on different spots.

"No..."

"What the hell?"

"Wait!"

Exactly twenty people in the courtroom were instantly engulfed by the judge’s blessing. Their words stopped, along with every movement and trace of power. It was a unique variation the judge had developed—completely sealing the targets.

Among them were Freon and several of his allies.

Everyone else had pure hatred in their eyes. They’d always hated Freon and his clan, but they thought he was just a greedy piece of shit. A bastard, sure—but they figured he at least played by the rules. But... he actually had the guts to betray all of Earth?!

Earlier, while everyone was watching the last scenes of Raon’s mission, Darian had just enough time to look into the past karma of the most suspicious ones. It didn’t take long—he saw the whole picture clearly.

They’d been meeting in secret from time to time, in hidden places within the Empire. There, they used some kind of long-distance communication device to talk with people from another planet.

Obviously, they were using insanely powerful concealment artifacts—stuff that altered not only their appearance but even their spiritual fluctuations. They went to extreme lengths to make sure no one ever found out, no matter the cost. And even if something went wrong and the truth leaked, they looked like completely different people during those meetings.

Those secret spots were where they made their plans, and every decision they made caused major shifts in their karma.

Since they weren’t the ones directly carrying out the dirty work, Darian could only see their discussions—not the actions themselves. But thanks to Meru’s training, he had learned how to observe hours before and after those major karma shifts.

He saw dozens of figures gathering. Sadly, only twenty of them were present in that courtroom. He could expose the ones here because he was physically seeing them—but the others would walk away free.

In short, they were selling information about all the clans within Earth’s empires. With enough money, you could buy data from people in other Empires too—not just from the local region.

That’s how, in the Divine Protection Universe—where everyone converged to train—these people were being hunted down. And the killers knew their blessings and abilities in detail.

Darian understood just how terrifying it was to have someone know everything about your blessing. With that kind of knowledge, plus enough time and resources to prep the attack, it was easy to kill someone—especially in that universe, where everyone only had a third of their full strength and a deadly weak point: their Summoner.

Other planets were using this to slowly chip away at Earth’s power. Not that Earth was some big shot—it was a mid-tier planet at best. But in the war between weak planets, anything goes.

With important people dying all the time, high-level missions with big rewards became way harder to complete. After too many failures, it wasn’t just the Empire that got punished—Earth as a whole did. And the best missions would start going to other places instead.

It was a slow bleed strategy.

Freon and his clan, along with a bunch of others, were getting a ton of resources in return for all this. At the same time, they were weakening the Empire they lived in—and eventually, they’d be able to make their clan bigger than the Empire itself.

Not just that—they might even manage to take over everyone else on Earth and become the ruling power over everything.

Even if Earth ended up being the weakest planet in the whole universe because of it, as long as they were in charge, they could rebuild it all and claw their way back—at least, that’s probably what they told themselves in their twisted little minds.

Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn about screwing the whole planet over, as long as they ended up on top. For them, it was better to be king of the poor than a nobody among the rich.

Darian gave the supreme judge three key pieces of info.

First: five underground locations where they held their meetings. Super hidden spots, sealed by specific artifacts. Places that should’ve been basically impossible to find through normal means.

Second: where those people kept their disguise artifacts.

Those artifacts had to fuse with the user’s body to create a perfect disguise. After being used, they’d hold a faint record of whoever activated them. So if someone investigated later, it’d be easy to figure out who wore what. That’s why hiding those items was crucial for the traitors.

And once you had those artifacts in hand, you could use other tools to read the leftover spiritual traces from the meeting locations. Of course, those traces were masked—but if you had the disguise artifact, you could match it and know exactly who had been there.

Third: what kind of rewards they got from other planets in return for the info. And it wasn’t pocket change—many of the artifacts they received didn’t even exist on Earth. Some were exclusive to certain Empires and never sold to the public at all.

So with the meeting spots, the disguise artifacts, and the foreign gear in their possession, there was no doubt what was going on—and enough proof to arrest every single one of them.

After that, all it took was using memory-reading artifacts on them to figure out everything they’d done.

As soon as the courtroom was sealed, dozens of soldiers entered in sync, chains in hand. Their faces were twisted with fury. You could tell they wanted to tear the traitors apart, but first they had to get every last piece of information out of them.

With Freon and the others rushed out, a heavy silence filled the room.

Darian let out a long sigh. He knew Freon’s fate would be way worse than his son’s. The Empire wouldn’t kill him right away—they’d drain him dry, get every bit of info and usefulness out of him, and make damn sure he didn’t collapse before that.

’Mom...’ he murmured in his thoughts, a bitter satisfaction washing over him. The revenge for her death was finally complete.

But this "victory" only revealed a deep, dark hole. A crack that showed just how rotten things might be on Earth. People like Freon were probably everywhere, and tragedies like his mother’s probably happened all the time.

Avenging her wouldn’t bring her back—and he realized this was all just a personal win. Darian clenched his fists. The words of his master, Meru, the ones that had made him question his true goals, echoed in his mind louder than ever.

He had to change the system—change Earth itself... even if it meant using force. Otherwise, he’d never be able to save anything, because the karma being created would eventually poison and destroy everything. That was the law of the world.

The High Humans couldn’t be allowed to keep doing whatever the hell they wanted. A new chaos had to shake the system—one triggered by his own hands—even if it turned him into Earth’s number one enemy.

And now, thanks to what he just did...

He’d definitely caught the attention of every traitor still hiding out there. His life was about to get insanely dangerous, with everyone scrambling to figure out how he pulled this off—and how to get rid of him.

Lucy and Lucius, obviously, would be in the crosshairs too. Darian had to make sure both of them grew fast—fast enough to become damn near impossible to kill.