Chapter 122 - Saved? (Patreon)

This time all my attention is on the Rogue Revenant and oscillating mana appears around my hand as I let the monster reach me.

I'm slow, my body barely boosted, as I only focus on enduring the disruptive skill of the Templar and it does come. With the help of [Focus] and [Mana Manipulation], I'm able to endure it and barely dodge a stab against me, at the same time I too, attack, my hand aiming right at the monster's body.

Four seconds until the Templar disrupts my mana again.

The Rogue dodges by tilting but I send a short burst of mana through my body, taking a small step back and barely avoiding another stab at me. I twist my upper body and dodge a kick aimed at my chest. The monster is faster than me, but I continue to look through its attacks while the Templar, who is much slower, is getting closer.

Three seconds remaining.

The oscillation flares up more and I kick at the monster, to which it dodges slightly to the side, stabbing towards my face. I tilt my body a bit, letting the dagger slightly graze the side of my neck. What is another small wound at this point?

Two seconds remaining.

I send another burst of mana through my body and this time I feign my attack, making the monster dodge to the side. Only then do I use another short burst to change the direction and slash against its neck. Seeing that it won't be able to dodge, I feel the monster collect the mana, wanting to swap the place with the Templar.

One second.

[Disruption] tears apart the skill and my hand separates the monster's head from its body in exchange for one more deep wound on my left arm that uselessly hangs along my body.

My heart beats once and with the force of my will, I send a shockwave of kinetic energy towards the Templar, throwing him away from me, only to be immediately hit by a disruptive skill that makes me lose my strengthening for a moment and the pain I'm used to so much again hits me.

But this time I do not run.

Two more heartbeats and another cone of kinetic energy hit the Templar, barely causing some damage, only denting its armor. The monster seemingly slashes through the attack.

How the heck is this even possible?

I grab one of the Rogue's daggers from the ground and I send my mana through it, making it oscillate along the blade. The Templar reaches me and sends another wave of disruptive energy at me and I throw the dagger towards the monster.

The skill targets the dagger and disrupts the mana on it instead of hitting me, which makes the monster tilt its head in a surprised motion.

Got you, you fucker. This time my [Disruption] hits the monster and its armor loses its glow to my extreme pleasure.

How does it feel?

Three more heartbeats later, I release all the kinetic energy and the monster's head explodes. A long, shaky breath escapes my mouth as I lean against the chimney.

With closed eyes, I regulate the mana going into my Kinetic Mana heart and continue to use it as much as I'm able to increase my endurance. While slowly getting to the edge of the roof, I just fall down, barely able to absorb the energy of my fall and even falling down to the ground on my knees.

But I force myself up and get to the spot where I saw the marks and start tracking them to the hideout.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - Ehm, I might need some help. I'll leave my mana signature near one of the hideouts.

Someone sends a message about noticing some fight far away and will look around there, but my vision is blurry and I barely see the name and close the community. It's silly in my current state but even asking for help is hard for me and usually, I would just try to suffer through this all on my own.

It's stupid I know. But I am stupid.

I'm the most stupid person on this goddamn floor. Well, maybe with the exception of Lily. She is also extremely stupid. Who the hell sacrifices their arm for some maniac even knowing that they can restore it?

At a speed that could be barely considered crawling, I find the hideout and get inside, carefully closing the door in a way the natives told me.

Outside, further away from the hideout, I leave one of the mana stones I found after filling it to the brim with my mana, which might help people to find me.

Inside of the hideout, I fall down on my ass and lean against the wall that's nicely cold and then I tear and cut apart the usable clothes and tie them around my wounds. I don't know how much it will help but I'll try everything I can.

Then I quickly glance through the notifications that Im barely able to read.

[You have defeated the Rogue Revenant - lvl 113]

[Lvl 89 > Lvl 90]

[You have defeated the Templar Revenant - lvl 116]

[Lvl 90 > Lvl 91]

[Redistribution - lvl 20 > Redistribution - lvl 21]

[Disruption - lvl 17 > Disruption - lvl 18]

[Oscillation - lvl 22 > Oscillation - lvl 23]

All the stat points are already invested in constitution, but damn, it's not helping much. Meanwhile, I regulated even my first construct, Reinforcement, and I'm sending as much mana to it as I can, hoping that reinforcing my body will help a bit together with the Symbiotic Transference of [Redistribution] that I actively use to keep my endurance higher.

And now I need to stay awake and keep my skills running. I can't even use as much mana as I would like because of my circuits and my weak body.

But hey, there is one good thing. Thanks to my increased constitution, the tiny scratches I got while crawling here are healed.

“...”

Yay?

Forcing myself to stay awake, I start examining my body and trying to replicate Lily's or Hadwin's weaker healing skill. I take the tiniest amount of mana and start sending it towards one of my multiple wounds, I continue to try to replicate what their skills did. I try to do it by “feel”, I try to do it more logically.

I even try to use mana to close my wounds by creating thin threads. It partially works but the thin threads disappear the moment I stop focusing on them.

Then I try using [Armament] to and instead of armor try to create some sort of bandage around one of the wounds on my arm. It works surprisingly well but the moment I stop focusing on it, it slowly disappears.

Interesting, I should be able to create longer-lasting mana creations in the future so this could be interesting to work with.

“...”

A few seconds later, the pain hits my body and I realize that I dozed off and the Symbiotic Transference stopped working. I quickly shake my head and burrow my nails inside my closed palm to force myself to stay awake.

This is dangerous, in the future I'll have to try to create a construct that would keep using energy from the kinetic mana heart and turn it into endurance. Or I could stop being a dumbass for once and pick a passive, trait, or something that would increase my endurance or regeneration, that would be nice.

When I try to open the community I'm unable to do so. It's getting harder to focus on anything other than keeping the Symbiotic transference running and I even had to reduce the amount of mana Kinetic mana heart is getting as I start being unable to control even the smaller amounts that I did use up until now.

It's getting colder and through blurred vision, I watch my right arm shaking, my mouth filled with the rusty taste of blood. Of my own blood.

The hideout feels empty, dark, and cold. Just a small, dirty room somewhere in abandoned parts of a massive city on the third floor of the tutorial.

So that's it? Is this the end?

If it is, it's a pretty shitty end.

With my eyes closed, I let the image of Lissandra show in my head. The most powerful person I've met up until now. Not only when it comes to raw power. She easily had the strongest will out of anyone I've met up until now in my life.

And for that only, she was beautiful.

Remembering her last moments, I get on my feet and stand up, I'd rather die outside, than here in this damp room.

Mana starts moving around my body as I open the door, sending a wave of [Perception] as far as I can and feeling three presences.

Nice, they feel strong, dying to some random rat would feel terrible.

I take a step outside of the hideout and then everything becomes black.

***

When I open my eyes the first thing I see is the ceiling of the hideout I tried to leave and some blurred face in front of me. I just notice the black hair.

Huh? Lily? Goddamn girl, I love you.

But as I start checking my body I realize that the mana that flows through it isn't the warm mana that Lily uses. It's different and it somewhat strengthens my body in a similar way my skills do, it also calms down my mana and stops it from going wild.

The person doing it is extremely skilled, that much I can tell.

I force myself to blink multiple times my vision slowly focusing and the face in front of me unblurring.

And here I slowly recognize Sophie. She is saying something while stopping my mana from going wild and strengthening my body.

Before I realize what I'm doing, I swing my hand and punch her right in the middle of her face, sending her backward with a bleeding and broken nose.

***

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