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Without Dave and Sam suppressing the now half-blind shaman, it gave the shaman time to cast a spell I had never seen or heard of before.

The skull he was holding, glowed a sickly yellow and a pulse of that same sickly yellow mana flooded down the corridor as I was picking up speed on my way to beat the shit out of that shaman.

As there was no running from the incoming yellow mana, I flared out my aura and mana to try and blunt the effect of whatever was coming towards me. But as my aura and mana came in contact with the yellow mana, while my mana buffeted most of the yellow mana, the portion that got past my mana latched onto my aura and quickly followed it back into my body.

The moment the yellow mana entered my body, I felt it acting in a way similar yet different to aura, it behaved the same but moved a lot faster. When it came into contact with my stamina energy it started eating my stamina and outcompete my aura in its consumption, but instead of empowering me, it just converted my stamina to mana and uselessly dispersed it out of my body.

Starved of stamina energy to burn, my aura petered out, but even then, the yellow mana was still doing its thing in my body. Knowing that if all my stamina was consumed like this, I would fall unconscious if this is left unchecked. So I prepared myself and did what I usually do to off my aura and will my body to stop the production and flow of stamina energy.

If this yellow mana is acting like aura, that means it powers itself by feeding off the target’s stamina energy. So I braced my mind and body for the inevitable feeling of weakness to hit me, and when it did, I almost blacked out, but kept myself awake by sheer force of will and biting my own lip to induce pain and stay conscious.

My body slumped forward and I was brought to my knees at the feeling of weakness and lethargy overtaking my body, the only thing keeping me from face-planting onto the ground was me leaning on my sword that I stuck onto the ground.

As I felt my own weakness, I was so very tempted to release the floodgates of my stamina but I could not, at least not with this yellow mana still in my system. Fortunately, with no more stamina energy to feed on, it was dissipating fast. Unfortunately, through my blurry vision, I could see the shaman walking toward me.

As the shaman closes in, I find it harder and harder to keep my eyes open. Each time I blink, it is a struggle to open them once again… I just need to… stay… awake.

As my consciousness was starting to fade, and all my attempts to keep myself awake were becoming less effective, I took drastic measures. I drew my house’s ceremonial dagger from behind me and stabbed myself in the thigh.

“Hrrgh!!” I stifled a scream as the pain ran through me, but the pain did its job, while I was still weak, I was wide awake, for now. I just need to hold on for a while longer, the yellow mana is almost gone from my system.

When I looked up from my self-inflicted wound the shaman was in front of me, but I was too weak to even lift my hands to do anything.

I then felt my hair being grasped and my head was yanked to face the shaman, as he studied me, he turned my head from left to right, “Seriously? A child? I thought I was fighting particularly tall gnomes.” he then looked down at the hobgoblin brute I just killed and grimaced.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“The Head is not going to be happy about losing these warriors after investing so much.” the shaman muttered to himself before turning to me, “On the other hand, the fact that you are so strong despite your young age and staying awake after hitting you with that curse means you have a strong soul… I am sure the Head would be happy to use such a strong soul in his rituals. For now… sleep.” he said with a cruel grin as he raised his skull foci in his other hand and started charging it with that yellow mana again.

As he was looking for some kind of reaction on my face, the only one I gave him was a smile before I flared my aura, unsheathed the dagger embedded in my thigh, and cut off the hand that was holding the glowing skull.

Before the shaman could even react to his hand being cut off, I shot up on my good leg and threw a right hook at his jaw, as I followed through with the punch, the shaman spun twice in the air before hitting the ground and stopped moving.

“Hawk-Tuah!” I spat on the downed shaman.

“That's what you get for monologuing.” thanks to him manhandling me and giving me more time as he spoke, I managed to stay awake until the yellow mana dissipated from my system and I released the floodgates of my stamina to regain my strength. But even as I felt strength flood back into my limbs, I stayed passive and limp to wait for the opening where I disarmed him.

Now that I was done with the shaman, I turned my attention to the two heads that just ducked back behind the doorway the shaman came from. As I limped my way down the corridor to the remaining survivors, I heard agitated whispering before three people started running, but they were well within my sight.

“Stop or die!” I shouted as I sent an Earth Bullet into the floor in front of them, which yielded the desired result as the three men ground to a halt.

When I reached them, with Eeath Bullets at the ready, I commanded them to turn around and noticed one of them holding the fresh stump of a forearm. This must be the peeping tom that I shot through the door.

“Well… we have much to talk about.” I told the three men.

***

*SMACK* “AHH!”

*SMACK* “GAHH!”

I welcomed Dave and Sam back to the land of the living with a smack each when shaking and gentle prodding did not work, apparently that stamina-eating spell did quite a number on them, especially because they did not know how to manipulate their stamina energy.

“What happened?” Sam asked before yawning the sleep out of his system.

“Well, to make a long story short, after I killed the second hobgoblin brute, that shaman cast some kind of stamina-eating spell that knocked out my aura and ate away at both your stamina, knocking the both of you out. After that, I knocked out the shaman and captured three others.” I said as I pointed over my shoulder.

The shaman was chained up and lying in an array circle that was designed to siphon the mana from whatever was in the circle, and the shaman was the one powering his own siphoning, keeping him nice and weak from constantly being drained of mana. While it was no stamina-eating spell, having his mana constantly drained should give him a hell of a headache.

As for the other three that I captured, after chaining them up and stripping them of anything they could use as tools, I used earth magic to create a small cell for them to stay in.

They asked a few more questions and I caught them up to the current situation. After doing so, I passed them a note that wrote before waking them up, told them of the entrance I interrogated out of my prisoners, and sent them back to the academy to get help while I looked after the prisoners. It's not like I am going anywhere fast with a stabbed thigh… thinking back, that may not have been the best place to stab myself.