Immortal Healer: Immortal Stonekeeper Prequel (2025) Chapter 1: Chapter 1: To Save Them All

Read chapter 1 of Immortal Healer: Immortal Stonekeeper Prequel (2025) by Mercynarie on NovelPedia.

Duncan Ward spent his 533rd birthday doing two things. First, he blew out an unlit candle before tossing it into the mud. And then he saved the lives of two hundred soldiers. “Medic! Medic— Someone, anyone! Help! ” Duncan hurriedly stuffed a golden pill into his mouth and grabbed his medical kit, scrambling towards the cries for help. He squeezed through the narrow, muddy trench that had been his home for the past few months, squinting his eyes in the heavy downpour. A mortar shell struck somewhere close as thunder cracked at the same time, sending tremors through the whole ditch. Duncan cursed as the sandbags supporting the trench walls collapsed under the weight of falling mud, blocking the way forward. Teeth gritted, the man crawled out of the trench as the rattle of machine gun bullets cackled heartlessly over his head. He coughed violently, falling on his face as an artillery shell exploded above him. Fire scorched every inch of his face as the pungent odour of burning garlic permeated his nostrils immediately. His khaki uniform was barely visible through the haze of rain and yellow gas. The British army insignia on his left shoulder was caked in soil, while the Medical Corps insignia on his right had long been torn off. His matted blonde hair was more of a dirty brown from all the smeared mud, and his once electric-blue eyes looked a lot darker now. With a growl, the British medic forced his body to a standing position again. Several bullets pelted the side of his body as though warning him to stay down, but the pain barely registered through the mustard gas searing his skin. Duncan turned to give a pointless glare in the direction of the gunfire before he continued running towards the tortured wailing. A mass of writhing bodies greeted him soon enough, and he dived back into the trench. “Calm yourselves, relief will come soon,” the medic muttered, opening his medical kit to rummage for menthol solution-soaked gauze. “Gah! By Jove…” There was none left. “Help, it hurts…” A blistering hand grabbed him weakly. Duncan’s heart ached at the sight of his fellow malnourished soldiers squirming and clawing at their blisters. Most of them were no older than twenty. All of them looked no younger than forty. None of them deserved this. These men, once boys who played in the yard with sticks and laughed at each other’s silly jokes, were about to be meat for the birds. These trenches, meant to be their stronghold against the horrors of the Great War, were about to become graveyards for the unburied. War doesn’t usually change. But when it does, it always changes for the worse. The medic looked around desperately. There were about two hundred soldiers crammed in this hellhole. To make things worse, they were right on the front lines without reinforcements arriving anytime soon. Their enemy wouldn’t stop the onslaught until they were either pushed back or dead. Turning back was obviously not an option as well, since the bullets flying overhead would catch them on their first step out of the trench. There was only one option left if the soldiers were to live. He didn’t have a choice now. Duncan Ward closed his eyes for a few seconds, feeling his fingertips crackle with energy. It didn’t matter if he revealed what he was; his comrades would probably be too disoriented to remember who he was anyway. Bolts of yellow energy illuminated his veins as Duncan focused his attention inward. Magic shifted from the depths of his soul, surging out into his body like water bursting from a dam. Flashes went off in his head like a crew of overzealous cameramen, and he brought his hands in front of him. Light bloomed around him, healing magic oozing out every pore and rapidly spreading through the entire trench as though it were leaking liquid. To any other observer, it would be more glaring than the blinding afternoon sun. But to the wounded men around him, it was their elixir of life. The soldiers looked at themselves, murmuring in awe as their wounds