----------------------------------------
1.2
----------------------------------------
How many breathes do you take in a day?
How many times can you swing your sword?
How many steps can you take?
Anything and everything a person does is inherently connected at the source. Whether you chose to plow the fields, deliver goods, or take up a weapon, the impulse and energy needed for all human action was the same at its source, the basic foundation of like that all could learn of and call upon.
Its name…
“Reinforce.”
was Vita.
The familiar sensation of flames running through his veins, muscles straining and bones grinding as the force of a hundred swings coalesced into a single strike, a blaze of energy surging outwards as the man in armor took a deep breath, and slowly released the air.
And the monster's head exploded.
‘Might have put too much into that one.’
Sliding backwards, Ghoti felt his arm go number for a few seconds, a familiar throbbing eventually coming back, as if the limb had fallen asleep and was steadily waking back up. Though there was no pain.
Which was a good sign.
Reinforce might have been a simple technique, but if you screwed up you could break your own bones. But if you learnt how to use it the right way, there was nothing you wouldn’t be able to do better.
Need to jump?
Try stacking three jumps together, see how far you get.
Need to run?
Everyone can take walks, now put that hour long walk you took yesterday and stack it all into a second.
There was nothing Ghoti could do that another human couldn’t if they trained for it, he’d just been lucky enough to meet someone willing to smack him around until he learnt how to do it the right way, beating awareness of his own limits and grinding him to paste every day so he could increase those limits little by little.
That was how heroes were made.
Like holding a candle, you could choose how bright or how fast the blame would burn. Vita was everything to humans, and above all else, it represented their hope and single lifeline against the enemies who threatened to overrun their homes and destroy their lives. A single light in the dark.
‘Damn thing must be full of mana.’
He hadn’t expected his attack to actually kill it. But there was a difference between expecting something and knowing it would happen. The monster’s head exploding like a balloon wasn’t on his list.
Well, not really.
Vita and Mana didn’t really mix well.
But that thing must have been chock full of the stuff. Rather than healing, the overgrown turkey was literally regrowing its face, mana leaking out of the exposed bone and bone as it sizzled and new flesh took its place, the smell of viscera strong in the air as more mana leaked into the air.
Hit it enough times and the thing would eventually run out.
But so would he… and way before a Beast that large ran out of mana to put itself back together.
“Shoot!” He called.
Eartips followed the call, the spear of light he’d conjured flying through the air, barely missing the chin of the second head, sinking into his throat with a screech of pain as the creature thrashed about.
Ghoti jumped, heels burning as the wind rushed through his visor.
Reinforce was a simple technique.
Take something. Anything that could be done, then apply the same speed and power of multiple attempts. That was how a simple swing of a sword could wield such explosive power, or how he managed to stop that boar, or run as fast as he did while wearing his armor.
He swung his sword.
Blasting the jaw off of the second head, grunting in strain as the force of the blow blasted him backwards.
“Shoot!”
A fall of fire sailed through the air, exploding in a shower of embers. The beast reared back, pain and light and heat frightening it. Before the monster dragged itself closer, massive wings dragging themselves through the dirt, leaving deep grooves on the ground as the monster scrambled to regain its balance.
This was… too easy.
‘Not an Elemental then.’
A single washed up wannabe like him never would have been able to hurt a genuine Elemental with just a few swings of his sword, no matter how much Vita he poured into it. The giant creatures of mana were just too hardy for anything but an army, or a genuine hero to grapple with.
‘Just an animal, then?’
It was a strange thought, that a simple animal could gain this much mana without the presence of an Elemental. In his land, Mana was an invasive plague, the domain of the Elementals and their spawn, the Familiars who would take in the harmful mana produced by their creators and mutate to become much larger and monstrous.
Could these ‘mana beasts’ be the same way?
And if they were… was there an Elemental?
He hadn’t seen any sign of it
“It’s coming closer!”
Hoping to crush them both with its weight then? Or perhaps trying to get closer to the village Eartips mentioned.
“How many more do you have?!”
He jumped to the side, feet meeting the bark of a tree before bouncing off it as one of the heads chased after it, the other two still healing. Off in the distance he could see the creature’s bloated torso, its wings warped to form large paws, claws digging deep into the ground as it pulled its body along.
How grotesque.
“I’ve recovered somewhat. Keep doing that, its destabilizing its hold on the area!”
He didn’t understand what the elf meant by that. Humans didn’t have a very good relationship with mana. To them it was a sickness of the land. A poison to their bodies. The weapon of an enemy who sought to destroy them all or turn them into aberrations to fight one another.
But to think that there would be someone, anyone, capable of controlling mana in a benevolent way.
To humans, that was nothing short of a myth.
“Reinforce.”
He took a deep breath, holding it for a second. His heart felt like it might burst out of his chest. His skin felt like it was burning with fever. He could feel the strain on every fiber of muscle, every drop of blood as his Vita rippled in tandem with the air as it left his mouth.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Reinforce was simple.
But that didn’t make it easy.
Humans weren’t beings of mana. Their bodies couldn’t regrow like the monsters they fought, nor could they fight for as long as they wanted, mindful of their own stamina as it slowly drained. Using Vita merely hastened the process as they used energy meant for later in an immediate way.
Eventually, they needed rest.
The measure of a warrior was in how many times they could use their Vita. Ghoti, however, could use his vita only three times.
‘One more left.’
He jumped away, bounced off another tree.
The monster followed him.
Ghoti stood his ground, legs straining as he met the screeching maw of the beast with a swing of his sword, the edge failing to cut, but the vita behind the blow strong enough to break the thing’s neck, the impact sending it flying off before hitting the wall of the outpost.
“Magic Arrow!”
He ducked.
An arrow of light whizzed over his head, hitting the monster’s other face as it pounced after him. Spinning around, he felt his arm strain with power, the burning vita leaking out of the gaps of the armor in the form of steam, before it exploded the stubborn monster.
Ghoti let out a breath.
One more.
‘Pinecones.’
Not nearly enough to handle this.
“How many?!”
“One more!”
His friend didn’t look all that well. His fight against the… feathered serpent? had taken the brunt of the action away from the elf, but it was clear that he was struggling to keep up. Perhaps the amount of mana released by the creature was getting so high that it was becoming harmful even to someone accustomed to it.
The longer they fought, the harder it was to win.
More importantly, where were those reinforcements?
‘We need an opening to retreat.’
And that meant doing something unwise.
It was hard, looking for an opening. These creatures had so much mana in their bodies that it was nearly impossible to get a read on their Vita. Ghoti couldn’t foresee what it would do, nor could it sense its thoughts or emotions aside from the overwhelming need to feed and destroy.
He needed a distraction.
“Fire!” he called, feet kicking against the floor as the three heads finished healing. He could use the remains of this technique to get the three of them, blind the heads and then dash away while they healed. He was already at his limit, the sensation of numbness creeping up on his limbs as he approached the beast.
Only there was no fire.
No light, either.
Looking back, he felt his stomach drop.
Hemlock was slumped against the tree he’d been hiding behind. Limp and unmoving.
Shit.
The monsters didn’t let him correct his course, two heads lunged towards him.
‘Salmon’s leap.’
His legs screamed in pain, the force of the jump carrying him over the attacking heads, numbness finally settling. He couldn’t feel anything beneath his knees.
‘Trout’s fin.’
He brought the blade down on their necks, a burst of heat traveling down his arms with the full force of a dozen slashes, Vita rippling violently as the sword met the back of the serpent’s heads.
Severing both at once.
The monster thrashed, one of the stumps swinging wide and catching him mid-air with a heavy blow, Ghoti’s back hitting a nearby tree with a heavy crunch. Steam leaked through fresh cracks on the armor, his breathing erratic and heavy as he lost focus and his control on the life energy slipped.
‘Gotta get it under control.’
His arms and legs felt numb. His sword was gone, probably tossed away when his arms went numb and he was struck.
But they had the opening.
They just… needed… to move!
Crap.
He wasn’t moving either.
‘Alright, alright. Breath. Remember what Teacher said, 'if you can breath you can fight.’ A little hard to do when it felt like your chest was about to pop, or the slowly creeping pain of using his Vita for so long. Like going through a workout, he’d exhausted the strength he’d had for the entire day on but a few moments.
Even without being able to sense it, Ghoti could tell.
The serpent was healing.
It took longer the more damage there was. And having to regrow a whole skull and the other… fleshy bits. It was repulsive to watch, blood leaking and sizzling in puddles as mana gushed out of the open wounds, the decapitated heads melting and rotting away as the Beast finished regrowing its heads.
And turned its attention to the downed elf.
‘Move, Ghoti! Move!’
Wasn’t it seeing him? He’d just taken a chunk out of its body. Why was it going after Hemlock.
He strained his body, drawing in a breath, only to let out a pained wheeze as the numbness of his limbs refused to go away. The three heads slowly, methodically approaching the elf, its hunger rippling into the air with disturbing clarity.
Move!
Come on!
His tongue was heavy inside his mouth. He tried to shout, but found he couldn’t move at all, only to watch as the monster loomed over his friend. Drool dripping down the sides of its mouth, pooling on the floor as it lunged for fresh prey.
Ghoti wished he could close his eyes.
But then… there was light.
And a screech of pain as dozens of arrows rained from the tree line. Piercing, burning, exploding. Ghoti could see them from where he lay, figures standing over the branches and behind shrubs.
Before another barrage of arrows flew at the creature.
‘Serves… you… ri-’
And exhaustion finally caught up to him.
----------------------------------------
“Keep firing! Don’t let it recover!”
The key to killing a Mana Beast was to deplete its mana so that it became incapable of healing or fighting back. It wasn’t something that any single person should be capable of, not without a lot of preparation and luck on their side.
Which was why the Guards came up with a simple system.
If a flare was shot, then all outposts were to converge on the site of the flare and annihilate the enemy using number’s advantage and overwhelming firepower. Something considered overkill when she proposed the security measures a century ago to the previous governor and had to fight tooth and nail to make the old bag of bones sign up on it.
Aspen was happy to see that her concerns were warranted.
She wasn’t happy, however, about the massive freak of nature stomping through the woods of her clan.
Pulling on the string of her bow, the captain’s awareness spread through the clearing. Her own influence pushing against the Beast’s as they struggled to regain control over the surrounding mana. A task helped by the dozen or so others she’d brought with her as their own power was piled together against.
It should have been a tug of war, a desperate struggle against a superior foe.
Instead, the three headed beast was faltering.
‘Was it already wounded?’
The young man who cast the flare had already vanished amongst the trees, running towards another elf who laid on his side a dozen feet or so.
A picture was already forming in her mind.
Had he fought the beast to delay it?
‘Impossible.’ She wrote out the possibility.
The only members of their clan who could accomplish that feat were far and away, huddled within their capital or spread throughout the frontier areas. No hunter called Pineskeep home, and no Hero worthy of their name would lazy their days away in a safe little corner like theirs when there was work to be done elsewhere.
“Ready barrage!” She barked the command, eyes roaming over the battlefield.
But that was second to her nose.
She could make out every scent across the clearing. From the bowmen she’d brought with her to the overwhelming stench of the beast, the gamey smell of the forest animals as they ran away from the fight, and the herbal fragrance of the civilian who’d somehow managed to hold out against the monster until they arrived.
And… something else?
She took a deeper whiff.
‘What kind of smell is this?’
It smelled strange. Sickly sweet and spicy, clinging to the back of her tongue.
Something unknown.
Pulling on the string of her own bow, Aspen felt the struggled for control take a turn as the Beast reared back from their combined influence, no longer capable of calling upon its surroundings for power, she drew upon the mana in the air.
Form.
Harden.
Spin.
Pierce.
Burst.
She let the arrow fly true, and thunder rang through the clearing.