More than a small portion of Iraleth's psyche wasn't willing to forgive Ciara for her deeds, and the paladin's fingers twitched ever so slightly as the girl murmured delirious apologies. Chunji's words passed through the curtain, and she briefly mused what his reaction would be if he was aware that the paladin was looming over the witch right this second, contemplating murder.

It would be so easy, and yet, despite all Ciara had done and had the potential to do, would still be wrong. Oh, Iraleth was more than certain of Ciara's guilt. At this point, even if she somehow wasn't an Umbralist, Ciara was an uncontrolled, ravenous beast that was a danger to everyone around her. If Iraleth had defeated her in the field, she would have put her down without question.

But this wasn't a battlefield. They had the luxury of higher-ups and proper judgement. Someone experienced who could actually come to a reasoned conclusion. But Iraleth doubted Ciara wouldn't be condemned in some way. Whether it be confinement or execution, letting Ciara go free would be horrendously, irresponsibly dangerous.

...She still wanted to be done with it now. Hildegunde's draining could have been prevented if Iraleth hadn't placed any measure of hope in Ciara, if she had just gone full burn from the start and felled Ciara with the Inheritor's light. Everything that had happened since the end of the duel was her responsibility to own up to: for hesitating to eradicate the scourge of darkness.

Iraleth raised one hand, staring down into her palm as Ciara continued to lie in her hospital bed.

"I'm such a damned fool..."

Chunji nodded, but the problem was where to start. Otis provided him with the Doctor's insight and seemed to have an idea of how to proceed. As much as he wanted to protest, they needed to take a risk to ensure Davil's survival. First, Davil required to be examined further to gain an understanding of what exactly happened to him.

Otis was fitting that it wasn't a curse. Chunji had checked for any obvious ones and checked to see if there were other wounds. The only source of injury was the wound in question. "They're no traces of a curse," Chunji confirmed with Otis. His newly gloved hand became bloodied as he tried to prevent any more of Davil's body from escaping.

It seemed that Otis didn't have a spell that scanned a person's body. Otherwise, he would have already cast it by now. That left to use Ethos to identify the root cause, the problem...

I am nearing my limit.

Essence Rebound was imminent. Judging from the amount of essence he used today, Chunji had a rough estimate that he had a few seconds before entering rebound.

His eyes cried out in pain as he closed them. "I will use my Ethos for the remaining time I have left today. If the situation devolves, I won't hesitate to enter rebound." With a simple briefing, Chunji channeled his soul's spoken words.

"透过现象看本质"

In the blink of an eye, the world flickered. The gaze was lowered onto his peer's body. In the next, the world returned to normal.

There was a soft grunt from Chunji as he breached the edges of rebound. What he had seen was troubling. "Otis, I have identified the source of the Stagnation." The gloves were removed from Davil and Chunji's hands and dug into his pockets. Retrieving a small vial, he applied it to his new gloves and began applying it to Davil's body. The small was particularly acrid.

What was he exactly applying to Davil's body?

Snake Oil.

Sacrifice was one of the core principles that Chunji had been taught as an occultist. In a land where the fear of Death had been alleviated, people from lands far from the sea worshiped the concept of Death.

Death had a purpose. To give back what was taken, to start anew with a blank slate, to weep for what was lost.

The Great Lotus Serpent had died for the sins of its followers and returned to a more powerful state. Gone was the Divine Beast and returned to as a Guardian Spirit. The recipe created was in honor of their Guardian Serpent and a reenactment of their first sin.

The Snake Oil would inflame Davil's body, but what it did was needed for the moment. It'd eat away at the concept of Stagnation and weaken it. While not as good as a potion, it would allow Otis and him leeway to restore their classmate. There was one additional factor that was a benefit of this potion.

Luck.

Chunji believed that the snake oil brought luck when used. It was the one key factor that they needed to preserve the unknown. Life and Death were decided by skill, but luck was the unknowing factor influencing such situations.

"There's an unknown, purple substance in Davil's bloodstream. It is slowly approaching Davil's heart as we speak. As for the second, the Umbralist's blade had left fragments within the wound. The most reasonable conclusion is that the substance and fragments originated from Umbralist's blade."

The question was, how would they deal with it? If Chunji had any spare essence, there was a chance that he could have flushed out the substance and fragments from Davil's body. But he didn't. He would need to use tools from the clinic to do what his lack of essence cannot.

"Otis, if you have a procedure, please tell me. Error is unacceptable." They both needed coordination on this unknown, complex problem they found themselves in. It was a test with the thinnest of nets that could hardly be called safe. Chunji looked at Otis with his reddened retinas to hear confirmation.

"Did I stutter?"

There was an edge of irritation in Otis's tone as Chunji decided to completely ignore what he had said. What was so difficult about keeping Davil stable? Did essence exhaustion affect the bespectacled idiot's ears as well as his eyes? But what was done was done. Even though the Strigidae had prepared to begin running tests to test his hypothesis, he had to admit that Chunji's Ethos was faster. It was some form of poison after all, one that was traveling from the stomach to the heart at a rate that was nevertheless much slower than the flow of blood. It wasn't spreading or diffusing in the way that Otis himself would have expected; the manner in which it traveled was unnatural.

In which case, even the stagnation of blood-intake and essence-recovery were just side-effects meant to distract from the real issue: the stagnation of the heart lead to reduced heart rate, which would ultimately cause a cardiac arrest. Fatal, certainly. Or, if it could corrode metal, perhaps it would melt through the heart upon arrival, after having suppressed its 'corrosion' essence up to that point?

Hmph.

That was the problem with cultists. They spent too much time on theatrics without considering practicality. Otis himself could probably concoct a faster-acting poison that was just as lethal. As for coming up with an antidote for one though...

"I don't have a procedure. I'm not a doctor." His tone was flat. "Go find Doctor Kann and let him know what we found. I'll look into the foreign substance further."

It was no longer a needle in a haystack. Now that Otis was aware of exactly what and generally where the unnatural substance was, he could do a refined search. Murmured incantations clarified the nature of the world around him as he dove into the sea of essence that comprised a human being. The world was made of essence, and everything contained essence, but if that substance was only partially melded into Davil's blood, then it should still have a distinct outline. Two human beings hugging each other did not become a singular entity when viewed through a mage's eyes. A spear became a stick and a steel piece, if one changed their perspective.

They needed to learn more.

And Otis loved learning.

...

That being said, he did have at least one procedure in mind.

They could exsanguinate Davil until that poison was drawn out. Worldly problems were answered with worldly solutions, after all.