The Master of Uradan

Rohan darted forward with all the speed he could muster. The more he advanced, the more he cursed on his head as this journey was the worst.

First a desert with atrocious heat making his body crumble. Then a terrible attack from a pack of magical beasts, where the only reason was still alive was because the dozen of beasts were too engrossed in their killing.

And finally, this damn place with the cold slowly murdering him while an extremely powerful warrior, strong enough to blow his head with a pinch, was probably chasing after him.

All of that for a legend told by his master who knew nothing about the Barren Lands that could simply be the stories of degenerate hunched old men trying to be mysterious.

Rohan felt that he should have never actually come here. Why did he even accept?

The tunnel he was running through twisted in all directions. He was currently somewhere in the center of this colossal mountain, but he had no idea to know where exactly. Not that it would help him to know anyways. There was no end, and that made his heart leap harder at each step he made.

Suddenly he heard a noise coming from far behind him. His expression fell as his calm face cracked. The warrior had followed him!

He couldn't care anymore. Every second won was a second to live. He took out two mana cores from his soaked bag and held one in each of his hands, where the openings of his first and second meridians were attached.

He sucked the mana inside these cores to make him and rapidly used Charge. A small explosion echoed in the tunnel as Rohan propelled forward. The instant his left foot touched the ground, he followed with another Charge. His consumption was almost fully compensated by the two mana cores, and the explosions of the ground being indented kept sounding one after another.

He left afterimages after afterimage. He dashed forward with all the strength and energy he had and willed his mana to launch Charge after Charge. He knew that the repetitive skills used might injure him, or even damaged his meridians, but he didn't have the choice anymore.

The path was now going up without sign of any secret or any place that needed to use the mana to enter. All there was the thin fragment of ice hovering everywhere, the faint blue light, and the smooth stone surrounding the tunnel.

Rohan followed the road to the right, then to the left. It was still going up, but Rohan had the nagging feeling that he was simply turning around like a fool. Rohan felt despair for the second time in his life. He was running for nothing, waiting for the warrior to catch him.

The only difference between the Supreme Warrior plunging the battlefield into a world of fire, and the Intermediate Warrior chasing after him to cut his body in several pieces, was that it was purely because of Rohan if he was in the current situation. If he had chosen to ignore this damn tunnel in the lake, he wouldn't be there.

Rohan didn't know how many Charges he had made his body bore since the start. All he knew was that the two mana cores were now almost empty, and there was nothing in front of him but the blue tunnel.

His speed sent him darting through the tunnel, and suddenly, the ground disappeared. An indescribable fear crushed his guts as Rohan couldn't control his body anymore. His iris shrunk while his eyes expanded.

Terror spread all over his body. He had never seen something like this. A huge and spacious cave had appeared after the tunnel, which was in the middle of a stone wall.

The ceiling was too high to be seen, and the floor was far below. His powerful body could survive this fall, but Rohan didn't even think about this. The flow of mana in this place was something he had never seen.

In the middle of the cave, a large bloody dome was standing there, taking a large chunk of the place, with a diameter of at least a hundred meters.

This dome was made of red threads emanating a shocking amount of mana, vibrating the air as it circulated the large area it was protecting.

Having surged at his speed, Rohan was unable to control his body anymore. He fell against this strange phenomenon made of red strands of mana flying at high speed.

His instinct screamed to make everything he was able to not touch this strange energy, but he was already in the air. He was rapidly approaching this red dome and in the split second he had, he threw a wind blade. He hoped nothing more but to create a passage for his body to go through.

But it was useless. The moment the wind blade touched the strands of mana, it failed to cut through. Not only did it fail, but Rohan saw that in fact, the spell had simply vanished after the contact, sucked by this strange mana.

He couldn't dodge this thing, he couldn't create a hole in it. Without any hope, his body connected with the threads made of mana.

Pain. A violent cry left his throat. The strands of red mana flying at high speed lacerated his body in a gruesome manner. His armor was useless as it was cut into shreds falling apart. Blood flew everywhere as thin bloody lines appeared one after another on the body of the young warrior, easily bypassing his body of a rank 5 Beginner Warrior. His body luckily rebounded against this solid barrier with the shock, before he crashed on the ground five meters away.

Countless cuts covered his body as blood flowed out, painting the ground of his red liquid. His face, his limbs, his body, all his front was simply a terrible mess of blood. None of the cuts were serious enough to threaten his life, but Rohan failed to stand up.

He had felt as if his whole body was torn apart, the pain destroying his nerves. He couldn't move anymore. He laid there, his limbs pointing in a random direction while his blood still flowed out from his body.

His leather armor reinforced with metal was now completely tattered all over his body and the floor. Without it, he might have been dead the instant he touched this thing.

Fighting against the excruciating pain he was feeling, Rohan straightened up his body, tearing on the countless wounds. A groan passed through his gnashed teeth.

He took out wet clothes from his bag on his back, as well as a dagger. He couldn't lie there without doing anything, otherwise, he might die if he didn't move.

He cut it in several pieces before he tried to stop the bleeding with the long pieces coming from a tunic.

The moment he put the cold makeshift bandages against his wounds, Rohan nearly shouted out loud against this grievance.

It wasn't the first time he had been injured, but it was the first time to this extent. He felt his whole body aching from the terrible pain. The crude cuts tearing apart his flesh felt like countless insects were eating him at the same time.

He could only persevere as he stopped the bleeding from the most important injuries. He had never done such a thing, and he only wet clothes filled with icy water to use. He had resisted until now, but his shouts and curses soon filled the place as Rohan vented all he could.

The red dome was overlooking him while the strands of blood-colored mana circulated.. It was beautiful, but deadly so.