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I started the fight once again with a one-two push that sent paving stones on either side of me flying at the lizardmen, but in response, I hit nothing as the two of them disappeared almost instantly, leaving behind two webs of cracks on the ground where they once stood.

My eyes went wide as I remembered enough anime to know what was going to happen next, and I threw myself forward into a roll and swiftly turned around to see the two lizardmen with four sickles dug into the ground where I was standing.

But I only saw them for a split second before they disappeared again, leaving those web of cracks on the ground.

Thinking fast, I gathered mana in my palms and clapped them together above my head, releasing a clap that sounded like thunder that unleashed a strong pulse of wind, and just in time too, as the pulse of wind threw off my two assailants midair, sending them flying over me as they waved their arms around in an attempt to regain balance midair.

As they went over my head, I turned around and punched the air in front of me, shooting out a gout of fire wide enough to engulf the two of them, but the first lizardman saw the flames coming and managed to do something about it.

Before my fire reached them, the first lizardman kicked the second in his side, sending them flying in opposite directions and smashing into the alley walls, but avoiding my fire blast altogether.

But as much as I would have liked to follow up with another few blasts of instinctive magic, I was starting to feel the drain on my mana, it was not long since I picked up Professor Sageira’s way of performing instinctive magic, and it was taking up a lot more mana than the way I do it, but I cannot argue with the power and instant casting speed, when compared to my efficient yet slower version of instinctive magic.

I could not risk running out of mana here, not if it would cause me to lapse in concentration, so that meant no more big flashy instinctive magic like the fire I just shot out, at best, I would have to save my mana for small and precise shots.

As they fell to the ground and were recovering, I dashed forward, past the spot where I planted my sword on the ground, and yanked my sword out as I charged the first lizard man a few meters away.

Before he could properly get his feet under him, I struck with a downward swing that he caught with both his sickles, but that forced him off his feet again and on his butt.

In order to finish him off fast, I kept him on the defense with repeated strikes from above to keep him distracted and brought a foot forward to step on his left foot. The moment I made contact with his foot, I sent lightning instinctive magic out my foot, not enough to kill, but just enough to seize up his muscles while his sickles were protecting his head, giving me just enough time to reverse my grip and plunge my sword into his unguarded chest where the heart should be.

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“NO!” I heard from behind me, and I turned just in time to see a sickle spinning through the air, and hitting me on the right shoulder. I hissed in pain as the sickle dug into my rented leather armor and cut me.

This hit threw me back against the wall, but before I could recover, the second lizardman kicked me right through the wall, and as I was sent rolling, I felt my aura almost buckle and wink out even as I crashed into other things as I rolled to a stop.

As I scrambled to my feet, I saw that I was in a dark and dust-covered room that looked like an abandoned bar or restaurant, and as I got to my feet, the figure of the second lizardman came rushing out of the cloud of kicked up dust, his remaining sickle clutched with both hands as he brought it down on me.

I dodged to the side as the sickle came down and cut up the wooden floor, and I used my dodging momentum to grab a nearby chair, spin around, and smash it down on him, but besides stumbling him a step, it showed little effect.

He then swung his sickle at my neck and that's when we started exchanging blows in earnest.

At first, his movements were almost a blur to me as I tried to defend myself, taking cuts on my arms and legs, but as I took advantage of the furniture strewn all over the place to keep my distance, I slowly got used to his speed.

Now I am not saying that I could match his speed and power after he consumed whatever it was to buff them, but I could now see he had a pattern of attack and I was using it to avoid hits or throw things in his way.

Once I got somewhat used to his attack pattern, I decided to make a move to end this.

Throughout this fight, I have been on the retreat, so I had to turn the tables on him, and in this case, quite literally. As I kited him around the room, I waited until the end of the current attack combo he was trying to hit me with.

On his last strike, I dodged, hopped backward on a table, rolled backward off of it, and when my feet landed on the other side, I kicked-flipped the table at his face.

Naturally, I was not expecting a table to stop someone like him as he split the table down the middle, but what he sure as shit did not see coming was me being right behind that table as my sword punched through one of the split halves and nailed him right in the shoulder of the arm that was wielding the remaining sickle.

We both fell to the floor with half a table separating the both of us, and the moment we hit the floor, I drew my dagger with my other hand and went straight for his head, his only defense was to bring up his forearm which my dagger impaled but stopped at the hilt, keeping the tip of my dagger mere centimeters away from his neck, and even with my full bodyweight pressing down on the dagger, it still just amounted to the bodyweight of a child and he was slowly pushing me off.

I had him on the ropes and I was so close to ending it, so I disregarded my low mana and released lightning through my dagger, into his body, just as I did with the first lizardman, making his muscles seize up.

But even if he seized up, that just meant his body was stuck in position and so was my knife. So before I was totally out of mana, I released the grip on my sword and used my free hand to hammer down on my dagger’s pommel repeatedly, making the dagger point close in and eventually pierce his neck, and I only stopped until I felt the sensation of the lizardman’s spine being severed.

Only then did I stop the flow of my mana and slump down on the dead body, feeling a bit woozy from the rapid depletion of mana.

Unfortunately, the world refused to give me a break as I heard the shouting of men and clanking of armor. I got to my feet and started rummaging through the lizardman’s body.