The Boundless Prophecy

Chapter 1 (1.2 Guardian Hall of Emergencies)

Wallace halted the twirling motion of his quill, grasping it firmly in his right hand once more. Setting aside his half-drunk Snowdrop tea, his focus returned to the codex, particularly the graphical depiction of the suturing technique. Despite the detailed written descriptions, he knew nothing could surpass a well-illustrated image.

A sudden ringing sound outside his room jolted Wallace, prompting a furrowed brow as he strained to listen. The abrupt clamour, continuous and urgent, signalled that this was no false alarm. It had been some time since he had responded to an emergency call. Such a call implied either a mass casualty scenario or a severe outbreak of disease. Anyone who heard the call was expected to report to the Guardian Hall of Emergencies immediately.

The emergency hall held no place of fondness for Wallace in this sanatorium. Situated in the basement, it required a swift descent from the fifth level.

Flinging open his door, Wallace spotted Thernon and Caren hastening toward the stairs, likely emerging from their office as Wallace had been. In a fleeting exchange of glances, the grim expressions on their faces forbade any discussion about the nature of the emergency.

They swiftly joined others already streaming toward the staircase.

As they reached the basement and exited the staircase, Wallace was met with a throng of native creatures gathered at the emergency entrance.

It took a moment for Wallace to decipher the chaotic scene before him.

Amidst the uproar, he observed imps shouting at nurses, enraged werewolves pounding on the door, and fresh blood staining the entrance floor. Nurses worked fervently to clear a path for healers while preventing others from entering.

Wallace hadn't frequented the emergency hall, but the sight signalled that something was amiss.

Moving past the nurses, they opened the door.

What awaited inside was both arresting and deeply unsettling. Wallace furrowed his brow, his gaze flitting from patient to patient in the hall.

"Please! Prioritize those with life-threatening injuries! Summon the surgeons and secure all the operating theatres!" Sage Nethmond, head of the emergency hall, bellowed amidst the chaos. Wallace wondered how much of Nethmond's directives were heard by the others.

Chaos engulfed the room as everyone clamoured at the top of their lungs.

Imps arrived with severed limbs, open chests, and gaping wounds. Werewolves bore skull fractures, exposing raw brain matter. Elves suffered with wooden sticks impaled in their eyes. Nearly fifty individuals, each afflicted with injuries of varying severity, moaned in agony, screamed in terror, or wept in fear. Wallace, no stranger to healing, found himself in unprecedented territory.

Taking a deep breath, he rolled up his sleeves, steeling himself for action.

Approaching a werewolf with an axe lodged in his right chest, Wallace observed the heavy rise and fall of the creature's laboured breaths.

Blood oozed from the grievous wound, trickling to form a crimson pool on the floor, the axe's handle outlined by the pooling blood.

Two junior healers, Wei and Oprei, looked to Wallace, their eyes expectant for guidance. Both possessed at least two years of experience in the sanatorium.

Setting aside his curiosity about the cause behind the chaos, Wallace directed his attention to the injured werewolf before him.

Crouching down, he carefully assessed the wound.

Alongside the obvious chest stab, the creature bore several other deep lacerations, particularly severe cuts on the legs. Aware that removing the axe here would lead to severe bleeding, he promptly instructed the junior healers to transport the patient to the operation theatre.