There was a brief moment of stillness and silence as the guards stood, weapons raised but armourless at the also unarmoured John. This was broken by the blue light of mana as he began writing the runes for a cone of death. Just as he finished the rune for death, a sword passed through it and bit into his arm. John staggered back from his attacker, using earth manipulation to create a small buckler shield from the stone floor. Where the rune had been bisected by the sword, a black smog burst out, pitting and corroding the blade, forcing the attacker to drop it and pick up the dropped dagger from the floor.

The others began to rush around John, flanking him, sending the occasional jab towards him that he caught on his makeshift shield or by creating earth barriers. He tried to impale them with earth spikes but having seen his earth manipulation they were too wary, fatal injuries turned into grazes and glancing blows and John was accumulating wounds of his own. There was a large slash across his back that was making it difficult to bend and dodge.

He was going to be killed if nothing changed, so he started manipulating the shadows around the room. This wouldn't have been able to manipulate both at the same time if not for the merging of his manipulation skills and even now it was mentally taxing, he dodged fewer blades and his health was already below the halfway point.

Just as a sword cut across his thigh, making it difficult to move, a wave of darkness crashed into the battling group. All of their movements slowed as the almost suffocating shadows descended upon them and they were each robbed of their sight. This included John as he was too injured to focus enough on manipulating the shadows so that they avoided him.

His earth shield clattered to the floor as he dropped to one knee and began using the life rune to heal himself. He barely got his health back up past half when he heard the footsteps of the guards encircling him draw closer as they tightened the circle on him.

Staggering back to his feet in the pitch black, John used the static on all of the cloth in the room and amplified it, creating a ball of lightning that he sent out in front of him. He felt the direction of the lightning shift as it was drawn towards their blades and the smell of burnt hair and charred meat filled the room. He knew it wasn't enough to do more than stun the two guards it hit but it was enough for him to rush to them and use earth spikes to finish them off.

His mana was down to about half and he hadn't even taken out a third of them. Keeping the darkness in place was also draining his mana quickly and he didn't want to risk using a death spell as they are expensive and might not get all of them. He began to draw runes in the air, a combustion spell empowered by growth and strength. He could feel the white-hot flames in front of him but could not see them and willed it to fly in the direction he had run from. The ball struck something and there was a massive explosion of fire that flung John across the room and into a wall.

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After a few seconds of laying on the floor battered and dazed, he pushed himself to his feet. The explosion had severed his concentration and dissipated the darkness. Two of the guards had died, leaving charred corpses, one was on the floor bleeding from a stab wound that must have been inflicted in the dark and the other 4 had likewise been flung around the room. Checking on his health, John barely had 10% left and he could feel it.

Much of the furniture had caught fire and was filling the room with smoke, making breathing and sight more difficult. He manipulated the wind so that the smoke condensed around the guards who were just getting to their feet and began to manipulate the fire and fling it towards them. Unable to see and already injured, two of them went down but in his haste to finish them he had used all of the fire in the room.

The other two guards started staggering in his direction and his mana was dangerously low so he stopped manipulating the smoke and started forming a rune. One of the guards daggers struck him in the arm before he could even finish the first rune, having been flung by one of the guards, not doing much damage but interrupting the spell. John picked up two swords from the corpses of the guards and flung one towards the one approaching him on the left.

With a careful manipulation of wind, the blade stuck deep into his side, causing him to fall to a knee just as the other closed the distance. Their blades met with a clang and they both winced from their injuries. Gritting his teeth John flexed and used his superior strength the send the man clamouring backwards. He quickly recovered and they rushed to meet one another once more.

John was stronger but this man was clearly faster and more agile, Johns blade was turned instead of blocked and the two were fighting to land the smallest cut on the other. Their swords met and clanged dozens of times, their injured bodies struggling to cope with the strain as they both stumbled away from each clash. After regaining some mana and a lot of quick movement, enough static had built up in their clothing that John was able to pull it into his blade.

The jolt of electricity was enough to open a hole in the guards' guard and John leapt on the opportunity, driving his sword up through the ribs of the gnome. John looked him in the face and saw the contortion of pain disappear from it as his muscles relaxed and his life left him.

Breathing heavily John looked at the corpses of the guards around the room. As he was about to sit, a searing pain went through his leg and he looked down to see the guard he had thrown the sword at, at the start of the fight, had crawled over and drove it through Johns' knee. The guard had his head removed for his trouble but John's vision was full of spots and he crashed to the ground.

With 2 health remaining and barely enough mana for a single cast, John drew the life rune and then blacked out.