Is it a trick? Lucas wondered, even as the black dots increased in his vision, and it became harder and harder for him to move. Based on everything he knew about the guy, this could be part of his deceit, making him believe there was something wrong with his body. But if it really was poison…

Lucas looked at the placid face of the man in front of him, devoid of all emotion, with his arms crossed. He was clearly done playing, which only increased Lucas’ fears. Could he even do anything if he had been poisoned, as the man claimed?

With this doubt hanging over his head, he felt compelled to try something, and so he immediately activated his life aura and directed the energy toward the dagger wound.

By now, thanks to his skill, his control of the life aura was pretty good. It didn’t take long to gather the life force in that spot and confirm that the man wasn’t lying about the poison.

There was no mistaking it. Lucas doubted his opponent knew of his life aura, and even if he did, Lucas didn’t think he would be able to replicate its effects. His aura worked almost instinctively, it was different from all his other skills. This meant that the invading liquid that was slowly spreading through his body was indeed poison.

Can I stop it? So far, Lucas had only used his life aura to heal wounds, but if there was any way out of this, it had to be through his aura.

Thinking quickly, Lucas began to condense more and more life aura around the foreign liquid, aiming to eradicate it without much success. Fortunately for him, his opponent seemed to have no intention of attacking, as if such action were beneath him, considering he was dealing with a dead man. So he just kept waiting for Lucas’ inevitable demise.

However, despite the apparent ineffectiveness of the life aura to eliminate the threat, it seemed to do well in preventing it from spreading, as it seemed to glue to it, letting only the clean blood flow, but it did come with a price. Lucas quickly glanced at his stamina to see how much time he had left and wasn’t pleased with the result.

He had delayed the poison, but once his stamina ran out, the poison would wreak havoc in his body unless he found a way to stop it.

Despite his best efforts, some of the poison had still entered his system, and even though he managed to see clearly after only a couple of minutes, he still threw up all over the floor, much to the mind mage’s amusement.

Feeling well enough after throwing up, Lucas decided to deal with the most pressing threat: the mind mage. The man was still under the impression that Lucas was slowly dying from the poison, so he didn’t seem concerned, but that wouldn’t last long if Lucas didn’t die soon.

Looking around in apparent despair, Lucas noticed a door to the building behind him and staggered towards it under the watchful gaze of the mind mage. The man did nothing to stop him, a smirk appeared on his face. Lucas didn’t take his luck for granted and hurried his steps. Once inside, he did what he went there to do and punched the wall with both fists, glass painfully falling to the ground. As he picked it up, the mind mage appeared.

“Where are you going? I want to see you agonize in pain before you die.”

This time, however, Lucas’ posture was upright, and he regarded the man nonchalantly.

“Who told you I’m dying?”

The man’s brow furrowed, and his eyes sharpened. Looking Lucas up and down for a few seconds. “How?”

Lucas shrugged. “You think that pathetic poison of yours could do anything to me? It couldn’t even kill a bird.”

“What? It had enough poison to kill a Trupor…” His sentence was cut short as the mage’s confused face shifted to resoluteness in an instant.

But Lucas had already gathered the information he needed, and it was the worst-case scenario. He couldn’t just wait for the poison to lose its effect or hope for the life aura to magically dissipate it. That wasn’t what it was meant for. The fact that it had stopped it from spreading was already luck enough. No, he would need to find a way to properly remove it before his stamina wore out.

The mage, unaware of Lucas’ private musings, thought he was simply standing there, acting casual in front of him. Feeling resentful of someone being so peaceful when facing him, he decided to take a more direct approach, to unsure that man wouldn’t live an extra minute. “It doesn’t matter how you did it. I can still easily kill you.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Of course, a more direct approach to a mind mage involved illusions. As soon as the man made a move, Lucas’ mind snapped back to the task at hand. He hadn’t gone there for nothing after all.

Lucas was sure the man had started back his illusions again, not due to any inner instinct but simply because multiple figures just like him appeared on all sides and started to move towards him.

At that moment, Lucas counterintuitively pressed his hands on the glass shards he had gathered as tightly as he possibly could, feeling a great deal of pain in the process. But that was just what he wanted. The effect was immediate, and it didn’t take him an extra second to locate where the mage truly was out of the corner of his eye. He made an effort not to look directly, instead turning frantically in the opposite direction, raising his arm that was holding the bracelet.

His opponent’s steps were now clear in his ears as well, with the illusion doing nothing to affect them. As those steps rushed dangerously closed, Lucas turned suddenly, and in one swift motion, his regenerated blade pierced right through the mage’s chest and out his back. A second dagger fell weakly from the man’s hand to the ground moments later. It was Lucas turn to smile now, face-to-face with those disturbing, now filled with disbelief.

“I got you now!” Lucas whispered close to his ear.

He couldn’t help but feel a deep hatred for the man who had tortured him senselessly for the past few minutes. It was with great pleasure that he chopped off his head a second later.

Falling to the ground, Lucas focused entirely on the poison inside his body, considering what to do next. Using his life aura to stop the poison from spreading was a new use for it and not something he had thought possible, yet it was the only reason he was still alive.

Lucas considered letting the poison run its course and trying healing afterward, but with it so close to his heart, he didn’t feel comfortable doing that at all. The most likely outcome of doing something so reckless would be him dying before he could do anything at all.

There was another possibility he considered: driving the liquid through his body until it exited from the wound it originally came from. Lucas had no idea if he could pull it off, but he had to try, seeing as it was his best plan. He didn’t want to restart the floor after such a hard-fought battle.

Closing his eyes, Lucas focused entirely on his life aura. He had used large chunks of the aura to stop the poison, and they were essentially glued to it, but since they were still inside his body, the expenditure of his stamina wasn’t as great as it could’ve been otherwise. Which wasn’t to say it was small. With every second, his end drew nearer, forcing him to make a quick decision.

Having made up his mind, Lucas moved the aura through his body like he normally did. The additional “weight” of the poison was palpable, making the task much more difficult, but after some effort, he finally managed to move the damn thing.

The whole process took about ten minutes, but slowly the poison left his body through the wound the mind mage had made on his back. Lucas regretted not having thought about placing a bottle near his back to maybe store some of the poison for later use, but afterwards he saw that along with the poison, much of his blood had spilled, and he doubted it would remain effective for long.

After the process was finally over, Lucas let go of his life aura, just in time as a dizziness from a lack of stamina set in. He had just escaped what looked like a sure death thanks to his life aura, but he was still left pretty injured considering the stab wound on his back and his bleeding hands, one of which had a hole in it from his desperate attempt to leave the mind prison.

Lucas had never underestimated his opponents, but he had to admit this level of difficulty was much higher than he was expecting. Especially because, after all was said and done with the mind mage, he was pretty sure he had just won because his opponent deeply underestimated him throughout the entire fight, regarding him as nothing more than a slightly surprising ant, and his demeanor only changed when Lucas landed the killing blow on him, to one of extreme surprise by how things had turned out.

Just thinking about what that man could do had he taken the fight seriously from the beginning gave Lucas chills. In a way, the man’s sadism had been his doom. It was probably more accurate to say he lost the battle to himself than on account of Lucas merit.

These thoughts made Lucas less confident about his odds of surpassing that floor than he previously was. If there were more monsters like that mind mage out there, and if they were just a little bit smarter to not take him for cannon fodder, could he really best them?

Eventually, Lucas decided to discard these thoughts, seeing as they weren’t helpful in the slightest, and he was still not completely out of danger. With some effort, he rose to his feet and staggered to a nearby window, looking at the street outside. There was no one to be seen.

Lucas had chosen to walk inside to break his blades for the mind-mage to be unaware that he was able to see through his illusions when the moment came, but the fact that it took him out of the open field was a good side perk, as he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t be found during that time he was busy getting rid of the poison.

Sitting back on the dirty floor. Lucas took some time to replenish his strength. Now that the adrenaline had died down, he had to bear through the lingering effects that being poisoned had on his body. Ultimately, he was thankful that he had taken a stamina potion just before finding the mind mage. If he hadn’t done so, he would likely be forced to restart the floor, unable to keep his life aura working for as long as he did.

Now faced with another issue, Lucas watched his stamina slowly recover. He would need about thirty minutes or more before he could drink another stamina potion due to the cooldown.

With the time that he had, Lucas couldn’t help but wonder about the source of the mind-mage’s power as his eyes inadvertently locked on the man’s head. More specifically, his eyes, which were still watching him creepily.

Is that an eye-bloodline?