Glenn took a quick second to gather his thoughts, closing his eyes and opening them again. Liara was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, so beautiful she could be put on the same pedestal as Onnea herself, a goddess. The young man calmed his heart, flustered. Even though Sahro called her a Black Heir, she had a much lighter skin tone than him, an olive tone of skin lightly tanned by the sun. She had long, white flowing hair and deep golden eyes, her lips and jaw finely drawn like a fine piece of art. Her expression was cold, and there was only emptiness in her beautiful golden eyes. Her arms were frail and malnourished, and yet, the sight of her was still breathtaking. And as all Black Heirs, she had a white mark on her forehead, only hers was a cross. A very simple cross that reached into her white hair and went down to her nose, gleaming with a strange and mystical white energy.
'A princess. She should be a princess or something, right?'
The young man suddenly shook his head and slapped both of his cheeks under Sahro's confused gaze.
'Wow, phew, this is dangerous. Alright, let's get down from our high horse here...'
'A dog in runt...but I can understand it this time.'
"Damn...just damn..."
The sound of the two voices echoing in Glenn's head reminded him of one of the main reasons why he couldn't commit to romance or any other type of relationship involving “intimacy”, killing any desire or nascent love. He sighed and rubbed his face under his mask, before bowing slightly toward Liara.
"...I'm Happy. It's not my true name, but it'll have to do for now. It's a pleasure to meet you," He politely presented himself, his face still hidden under his wooden mask. Liara's eyes drifted over his mask, the beautiful woman's lips remained sealed for now. Glenn moistened his lips, before shrugging.
'She was imprisoned in a cage two minutes ago, of course, she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. And it's not like we had the time to deal with that, anyway!' The young man suddenly remembered the urgency of his situation and turned toward Sahro, who was groaning while holding his stump.
"Sad, we need to get out of here. Do you mind explaining to me where the exit is?" Glenn asked with a tense voice. Sahro grunted and shook his head dejectedly.
"That's the thing, there's isn't one. For us, I mean. Shit, that's why I didn't want to make a mess of things!" The Black Heir spat, coughing in his mask. Glenn's eyebrows rose, wondering what was wrong with his friend, when he heard the sound of more incoming people. He winced and hurriedly cast a Silence Curse bubble around the group, before using Gravity Manipulation to lift the team to the cavern's ceiling. He quickly spotted a dark hollow wide enough to welcome three people and moved the whole group there.
As soon as his foot touched the ground, Sahro fell on a knee and grabbed his stump, grunting painfully. His mask slipped off, revealing his face distorted with pain, his eyes bulging as he bit down his lips bloody. Liara went and sat against a wall, hugging her legs as she watched silently. Glenn hurriedly came to his friend's side, at a loss for what to do.
"The hell is happening to you?!?" panicked the young man, before gritting his teeth and ripping the clothes covering the stump. Sahro's invisible, lightning arm shocked him to the bone, but Glenn pushed through it and revealed the stump, finding it to be deep blue. Foam dripped down from Glenn's mouth and he pulled out his hand, gasping for air.
"Shit, hah, your lightning is, hah, way too powerful!" Glenn muttered as he took his mask off and wiped off the foam. Liara glanced at his face, freezing in shock, her eyes wide open and her mouth agape. Sadly, the young man had no time to care about the cold lady's emotions currently, and he pressed his left hand on Sahro's shoulder, treating whatever was plaguing the stump. A horrible pain shook him to the core, making him feel like his skin was peeling off him, and he couldn't help but stop the treatment, coughing out blood.
'Wait, you're pushing too far!' Diamanes warned with a worried voice, followed by Nelg.
"Doesn't matter! Push through the pain and heal the bastard! Shit!" The sword panicked as it watched helplessly his host suffer the pain. Glenn gasped for air, his heart racing incredibly fast. He gritted his teeth even harder, making his gums bleed from the effort. He grabbed his dark robe and ripped a part of it, rolling it up and shoving it in his mouth to bite on.
'Huff...alright, here I go!'
Glenn pressed his left hand on Sahro's shoulder again, starting the treatment once more. The pain came rushing down in his veins, like fire burning him from within. He felt like pliers were used to tug at his guts, playing with them like some kind of play dough. Flashes of white suddenly blinded his sight as a deafening noise shook his ears. Nonetheless, Glenn knew Sahro was still not healed, and he kept on pushing, even though he couldn't see or hear anymore.
All of a sudden, the pain disappeared, alongside the deafening noise and the blinding white light. Glenn blinked and fell back on the ground, drenched in sweat. He weakly took the rag out of his mouth, his jagged breathing witness to the effort he had just spent on healing his friend.
'Incredible. This is incredible. What the hell is wrong with you?' Diamanes asked, half in disbelief and half in anger. Glenn chuckled weakly and tried to lift his head from the ground, but found himself so weak he couldn't even though so.
"Ahhh..." Glenn tried to speak but couldn't, his tongue so stiff and his jaw so locked in he couldn't even produce a syllable.
"...This is insane. A miracle. What the hell have you done?" Nelg echoed Diamanes' feeling, in awe. Glenn couldn't help but be extremely curious about the CPR results, the reactions of the voices in his head making him want to know them even more. Suddenly, he felt something pick his head up and straighten him up, making him lean against a wall of the cavern. He strained his eyes to see that Liara was the one to give that grace, her golden eyes filled with incomprehension and admiration, nothing like they were a few minutes before.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
'A few minutes before? You have a problem with time, don't you?' Diamanes snapped out, startling Glenn. Nelg sighed, continuing where Diamanes left off.
"...It's been three hours or so since you started the treatment on Sahro."
Glenn blinked, before chuckling with a hint of despair.
'I'm kind of getting used to it, now. Haha...of course I wouldn't see time pass. Sorry guys, you know what they say!'
The young man's eyes weakly drifted from Liara to Sahro.
'Time flies when you're having...' Glenn's eyes widened as he watched a physical manifestation of thunder in place of Sahro's missing limb, crackling with blue electrical sparks. The Black Heir was staring at his arm like he was seeing a ghost, his face pale and his expression awestruck.
'...fun. Well, just for this reaction, this was worth it. Now, if you guys don't mind it, I think I'm going to go in a quick Meditation and gather my strength back because I don't think I can go to sleep now, can I?'
And without letting Diamanes or Nelg reply to that, Glenn closed his eyes and dived inside his Mana Heart, enclosing it from any exterior distractions. He watched the Second Mana heart from afar, Nelg pulsing with the strength of a First Circle. Nelg's Mana Heart seemed to have grown slightly brighter, but perhaps he could be wrong.
Without wasting a second, Glenn concentrated and emptied his mind, resting as he gathered his strength back. He used that time to review the fight, remembering the asteroid ring he had conjured out of a need for defense.
'...How did it work? I just pulled some rocks nearby and made them gravitate around me. Maybe like an asteroid belt?'
The young man pondered, remembering the reaction of the asteroid belt after he had infused it with Nitrogen. It had become much tougher against the rock projectiles, stopping them easily, but was like paper in front of the spear-wielder knight. All of the opponents had probably been either at the Second or Third Circle and their equivalent for Aura. Thankfully, there was no Magi, nor Grand Chevalier. If there were, it might have been much harder to fight the bastards off.
'I need new spells, some that are more polyvalent. Also, I think I need to concentrate on more defensive means, and by that, I mean to explore the capabilities of that asteroid belt thing. Can it just pull rocks in, or can I perhaps also pull projectiles? That would be so cool...'
Glenn's mind trailed off as he peacefully gathered his Mana back. Using CPR this way had been extremely expensive, much more than he would have ever expected. Well, he had only tried using it on small wounds or headaches, so how could he have known healing a cut-off limb could be so difficult?
'...It kind of makes sense, though...Heh, at least Sahro seems to be healed for now. What I want to know, now, is whether Holy Blessing could have helped or not. So far, it feels like it gives a nice buff, and also creates sentient rocks, but that's another story. I need to test whether it has healing properties or not...'
His Mana was filling back up leisurely, not too slow but not too fast either. The young man thought back once more to the fight.
'...Maybe I should have tried to have Diamanes gobble up their spells. But it's a little unintuitive to just let me get hit for the sake of new spells, even more when considering that these were "basic" School of Words spells.'
Glenn winced before chuckling to himself.
'School of Words or not, I could have died there if I wasn't careful. I'm strong, but not strong enough to allow myself to feel content with myself. I need to strive for the Fourth Circle, become a beginner Magi, and explore more the potential of Astral Sorcery.'
Right in the middle of these thoughts, a voice suddenly intruded into his peaceful rest. Glenn frowned, confused.
'How is this possible? I'm meditating, I shouldn't hear anything, right?'
And yet...
"G...enn!" A voice echoed in the distance, coming out of nowhere. Glenn rubbed the corner of his eyes, before suddenly understanding and turning toward Nelg's Mana Heart. In the distance, floating inside a silver armor, was his physical copy, waiving its arms madly while shouting as loudly as it could.
"GLENN!! CODE RED, CODE RED!!!" Nelg shouted with a panicked-stricken expression. Glenn understood the message directly and hurriedly came out of his Meditation, snapping his eyes open just in time to see a huge rock fall in his direction. Reflexively, he used his Gravity Manipulation and reversed the fall, the rock flying back the way it came from.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!?" Glenn shouted, taking a second to reconsider his surroundings. He was being carried on someone's shoulder like a potato's bag while screams and cries echoed all around him.
"Finally! Take care of them, damn it!" Sahro spat through his teeth before deflecting a bold of lightning with his electrical arm, absorbing it and throwing it back. Glenn blinked, realizing they were currently running away from a literal army of people, all shooting spells and Aura blades at them.
"You bastards! You freed all the slaves!" One of the pursuers called out angrily, followed by the crowd behind him who roared hatefully. Glenn touched his face, finding it covered by the wooden mask, and sighed with relief.
"Okay. Let's do this, then!" The young man grinned and held his right hand forward, charging it with Mana as fast as he could. A Blackhole appeared in the young man's palm, pulsing with the hunger of devouring everything. The light was pulled toward the Blackhole, making their surroundings twisted and dark, the rules of reality bent in front of the might of Glenn's spell.
The young man grinned and almost shot out the spell, before choosing to experiment and try making it even more powerful. He gritted his teeth and added the properties of Sun's Touch to the Blackhole, transforming it into a literal pocket sun. The heat burned off Glenn's clothes and skin, forcing him to shoot it out. He felt his Mana drain out at insane speeds, the fiery Blackhole advancing in their pursuers's direction. It pulled its surroundings toward it and reduced it to ashes in the process, like a true vortex of destruction.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?" Someone in the crowd screamed before being pulled into the Blackhole and incinerated to death. Glenn grinned and openly laughed, despite the strain the spell was putting on his Mana.
"HAHAHA, BURN YOU FUCKERS, BURN!!!" Glenn exclaimed excitedly, before turning back toward Sahro and shooting him a thumbs-up.
The Black Heir grunted and jumped in front of Liara, blocking another lightning arc with his arm.
"We can't stop now!" Sahro shouted, before pointing in front of him, "...I'll try and clear the way! Liara, keep up with us! Glenn, take care of those slavers bastards!"
Glenn scowled as he continued to input the Mana he had barely just regained into his spell. His reserve was dwindling dangerously, and he couldn't help but wish to not use Overload if possible.
'Each time I used this fucking technique, I almost died! I'm tired of almost dying, goddamn it!' He thought angrily as blood began to come out of his ears, the strain of the spell starting to take its toll.
Liara seemed to be able to defend herself quite well with a sword as she cut through spells and foes alike with Sahro's sword. The Black Heir must have lent his sword to her in the urgency of the situation. Suddenly, Sahro took a sharp turn, disturbing Glenn's concentration and making him lose his control of the fiery Blackhole. Without Mana, it fueled itself with its surroundings but stopped moving. It grew and grew before exploding with a blinding flash of red, throwing their pursuers off their feet and incinerating them to death.
"Brace yourselves!" Sahro shouted, and before Glenn even had the chance to ask why, they jumped into a teleportation portal, Liara grabbing Sahro's hand at the last second.
'This sure looks like we're going to end up somewhere funny again...' Diamanes grumbled as their surroundings twisted and changed.
Glenn gritted his teeth and ignored him.
Why couldn't the damned hand shut up?