The Master of Uradan

In front of Rohan was standing Jared, watching him with a slight smile on his face. Between them, ten Wind Blades, each almost a meter long, were hovering in the air. Then without any more dialogues, the wizard threw them all toward the warrior.

Rohan panicked in his mind, as ten invisible blades were sprinting in his direction. He couldn't retreat. It was already too late. He couldn't dodge them all either, not with his slow speed.

So he chose the worst solution he had, which was also the only one he had at the moment. He needed to be faster than ever. He needed to cut off the head of this wizard in a single blow. He needed to use everything he had.

That was why, without considering any result, he gathered all the mana he had in his core. All the mana he could control, he compressed it at the extreme, then in an instant of craziness, he threw it all toward his right leg. All he wanted now was to Charge forward.

There was a reason why each skill of the Beginner Warriors was using 10 mana. It was because it was the capacity of the meridian, it was the mana that could fully fill the whole meridian. Less, and the skill couldn't be launched, more, and it would be foolishness.

A loud explosion shook his body. Rohan, smashing his foot against the floor with all his might as if he wanted to cripple himself, used Charge with all his points of mana. An extreme pain appeared almost immediately as the mana was penetrating his meridian. It filled it in an instant, before the excess made it swell on itself.

Then, in a loud intern explosion, his mana sipped into his limb, filling it with a mighty strength. Cracks were starting to appear on the fragilized meridian, menacing to break at any moment. The terrifying pain made Rohan flinch on himself as his foot touched the ground, but he gritted his teeth to support it.

After this explosion, the sensation he felt was incredible. His heart nearly left his chest. With a speed which was almost breaking each of his bones under the pressure, Rohan shortened the distance between himself and the invisible blades coming his way with a single step. As the mana was still strengthening his leg without dissipating, Rohan stomped a new time the floor to disappear from his place.

Not even half a second later, he did it again to change his direction, then again, and again. Each time he was feeling as if his leg was breaking in thousands pieces. Each time he felt as if his whole body was breaking apart, as if every bone of his body was reduced in ashes.

Jared widened his eyes and opened his jaw from the shock he felt when he saw nothing more than a silhouette flying in the room at such a speed, and before he could do anything like drink another potion, the young monster was in front of him.

He had dodged all his ten blades in such a perfect way that Jared was feeling empty. If he had kept up with his strategy to wear out the warrior with his defensive and offensive spells, he was sure that he would have won. A bitter smile appeared on his face.

Rohan's face was still calm as ever as he seemingly teleported in front of the stunned wizard, and only a serious light could be seen in his eyes even though he was experiencing an unimaginable pain. Taking advantage of the speed he had, he thrust his sword forward.

All Jared could see was a light of white and red mixed together piercing through his belly. The attack was so fast that he didn't feel anything more than the shock of the force repelling him tens of steps back.

Then, he felt it. A cold and warm feeling coming from his belly, spreading in his whole body. Following it, a sharp pain invaded his mind, making him lost for a few seconds. Shivers attacked his limbs, making him lose all sense of the world around him, all, but a terrible cold. Numbness spreaded in his legs causing the wizard to fall on the floor, making him lose sight of the young warrior wobbling on himself a few distance from him.

The strength and the speed put behind the blow was so intense that the wound was larger than the blade, and even with it inside his body, blood flowed out and formed a pond of a red liquid around him, permeating the area with a disgusting metallic smell.

His sight was darkening, and soon, Jared couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't feel anything. In the end, he should have rested near his master instead of coming to this hell place.

Rohan was watching as Jared was slowly dying in front of him, lying in the blood with the handle of his sword pointing to the sky. A terrible exhaustion seized him and spasms kept making his leg tremble on itself, as a throbbing pain spreaded inside his whole body.

Suddenly, he threw up on the floor, a mix between a dark red blood and small gray pieces, as thin as grain of sand. He knew he didn't have the time anymore.

He quickly came near the corpse of the wizard and sat up, without minding about the blood under him. He fought the need to sleep, and searched inside the bag reposing on the floor, still attached to his previous owner. Inside, he took out three weak mana potions as he only had one on his own. Then, without wasting more time, he opened them before he gulped them all in one go.

He felt the liquid going through his throat and shouted in his mind to go faster, as if it would change anything. Slowly, his mana was regenerating, filling his mana core. After a few minutes of a stressful wait, Rohan finally began his tough operation.

He didn't mind the pain he was feeling, and sped up to send the mana into his meridian stretching toward his right foot. This one was badly damaged, and if he didn't repair it as quickly as possible, it would become really dangerous.

The mana came inside his meridian, and flowed inside. But it wasn't as smooth as it was supposed to be. Cracks were filling the whole link, and small pieces of the meridian had fallen inside it, creating obstacles for the mana spreading toward the end. Each time Rohan would see a crack, he would use a small quantity of his mana to repair and consolidate the damaged part. Each time he saw small particles resting inside his meridian, he would use his control over the stream of mana to push it out by the cracks. These actions were furtherly damaging the structure of the meridian, but he didn't have the choice.

If only one of these pieces rested in the meridian, the flow of the mana would never be smooth, and if he tried to use his skill, the pieces would pierce the walls of the meridian, so it was better to get rid of it earlier.

The pain made him gnash his teeth, while groans escaped from his mouth from time to time. It was without a doubt the worst experience he had never felt in his short life.

After what seemed to be years for Rohan, he finally snapped back from his trance, and let go of a mouthful of dark blood. A large amount of grain of his meridian were inside this blood, as it was all there was inside his body. Normally, he shouldn't have any more problems.

He sighed. Right there, it was truly dangerous. He had already read stories about warriors using too much mana to launch a powerful attack, but after it, they didn't repair it or couldn't do so. And what happened was that the meridian would crumble on itself, breaking in countless pieces.

The results were of course the inability to use this meridian anymore, and thus it was a fall in the rank of the warrior, but the major risk was that the limb would be corrupted by the large amount of the consolidated mana that was the meridian, and thus necessitated to be cut off at the end.

But what Rohan didn't know, was that it was far more dangerous than that. The actual chance to succeed at using the mana combustion wasn't to be taken lightly, and no warrior would want to try it.

His leg was still injured, and his whole body was still under stress due to the extreme speed at which he had moved, but at least now, he was safe. He let his back fall on the floor, soaking it with the blood of the wizard. He thought that, from now on, he would be accustomed to do such a thing.

He had kill.

At the end, he still had killed two people that night, for his own life. Actually, it was more true to say that it was for resources, as it was only for this reason that he had come here in the first place.

Thinking about this point, he suddenly remember where he was. Maybe it was wicked on his part to think about that just after killing someone, or maybe it implied that killing someone was becoming a norm. But anyway, the thought that he was in the middle of a room obviously used by a wizard made him feel excited.

He sat up before standing on his shaking legs. It would surely be impossible to fight for a time, but it wasn't what he wanted to do. He glanced around him. The tables were all knocked down on the floor marked with long scratches done by the spells of the wizard, with broken plates everywhere.

There didn't seem to be anything of value in this room, and he should probably be used previously to make experiments. Following this thought, his eyes turned toward the few doors on the sides. Behind one of them, would surely be lying a lot of magical items!

His only magical items he had on him right now was the Essence Stone, and a few indestructible empty vials. It wasn't enough to please him at all. He bent to stretch his hand toward the corpse of the wizard, and without standing on ceremonie, he snatched the bag. There were only a few weak mana potions inside, and another one. One that he had never seen, with a faint green glow inside.. He put everything in his own bag, and without taking back his sword, he headed toward one of the closed doors, moving with difficulties at a snail pace, feeling the worst pain ever alongside a waited bliss.