The Thunder Roar

"You truly think that you'll be able to beat me into submission with a sharpened bone?" Zoe laughed, trying to intimidate him.

"I could kill you with it but I won't, you may become an important pawn after all. Tell me the truth about your presence at our inn and I'll let you go." Jack replied while glaring at her.

Looking at each other, they evaluated the menace they represented while clouds hid the stars and brought some rain. The sound of the droplets of water falling down replaced the tense silence which was reigning in their small alley. Smiling wryly, Zoe thought that it would be easy to electrocute him and decided to reply quite haughtily :

"You are speaking like someone important but aren't you a commoner? You have no rights to order me around. In facts, it should be me saying this to you !"

Surprisingly, this made Jack laugh like a madman. The purple haired mage stared at him with a dumbfounded look on her face but remained alert nonetheless and slowly increased the distance between them.

"Child, you shouldn't open your mouth when you know nothing. This is your last chance. Tell me why you were spying on us and who gave you our inn's location. Dead men tell no tales but I won't regret killing one of you earlier than I expected." The immortal announced with a bone chilling tone.

Even if the water hadn't drenched her to the point of being cold Zoe felt like the temperature had dropped suddenly and shivered a little. However, this didn't calm her rising anger either.

"Me? A child? You are kidding me ! YOU are the one who knows nothing, filthy peasant. Blabbering about killing me and my party when you can't even fathom how powerful a mage is was a terrible idea." She roared before stomping on the dirt and making electricity slither like a snake in the water under their feet. This spell was simply supposed to paralyze the immortal and make him know his place.

Yet, Jack had already moved to avoid it since he had seen the mana gather in her leg but had still been surprised by the control she had over her silent spell since usually the electricity would disappear in the ground instantly. Stabbing his sword in the mansion's wall with all his strength, he jumped on it and avoided to touch the electrified puddle under him. Since he couldn't do anything except gripping his sword's handle hard and trying to find somewhere to put his feet on the brick wall he decided to buff himself with a Lifomancy spell.

'Unleashed Onslaught.' He thought and his sword's pummel glowed of a golden hue during a fraction of second. Then, all his muscles tensed up while his breathing got rough. The effect of the spell was similar to his former Lifeform Improvement except that the strength generated was way more explosive and dangerous for its benefactor. While engraving the spell and repairing the destroyed parts he had decided to reduce its duration to improve the effect and add an healing effect afterward.

'I have ten seconds before my muscles start tearing themselves, let's count.' He thought while jumping on the ground and removing his sword of the wall. "One." He said while walking toward her to test his strength.

"Thunder, pierce my foe !" Zoe muttered while all her hairs rose up because of the sudden feeling of dread which invaded her. Focusing on her situation, she continued to cast her spell and threw a bolt of electricity. Its sudden apparition painted the alley in white and it danced from raindrop to another one while darting toward Jack.

"Two." He counted while stabbing his sword on the ground to act as a lightning rod. Since the projectile incoming was basically electricity its speed was so high that Jack didn't manage to retract his hand in time. Gritting his teethes, he endured the shock and ignored the spasms of his right arm while grabbing his sword with his left hand and starting to run toward Zoe.

"Three."

"Appear, lightning wall !" The magician said while quickly casting her spell since Jack was closing in way faster than she thought, moving nearly quickly enough to look like a blur. He was about to lunge toward her when a mesh of electricity arcs appeared between the two walls, creating a seemingly quite painful path to cross. Since these seemed to remain there the immortal looked up and saw that it didn't go up to the roofs.

"Four." He grunted while jumping as hard as he could while he still had his momentum. The time was slowed down for him thanks to his sensory enhancements so he fully enjoyed Zoe's surprised face illuminated by the bluish light of her electricity mesh while he jumped above it. After having landed behind her with a pained grunt he turned around and tried to toss her in her own trap.

However, the mage's survival instinct and her years of fighting experience shone and she dodge his impressively fast hand by sidestepping him before trying to strike back with an electrified palm strike. What she didn't know was that she had managed to avoid him since he had tried to grab her with his half paralyzed arm and couldn't move it like he wanted to do so.

Sidestepping her attack, Jack easily dodged her hand and twisted his body to bring up his leg at her ribs' level.

"Fiv-" He tried to say before an arc of electricity jumped from her hand to his torso, disturbing his breathing and forcing him to reduce the strength of his kick since he had to control some spasms thanks to the electric current flowing his body. Yet, the impact on Zoe's frail body had still been strong enough to push the air out of her lungs before her back hit the mansion's wall. Fortunately for her, she had been smart enough to deactivate her thunder wall before touching it or she would probably have been electrocuted to death.

Some blood tickled from the border of her lips while she rose her eyes up, trying to find her enemy in the darkness of the night while the pain made her consciousness waver. 'This... This might be the end. But I'll never betray you Richy, never. Guys, I hope you'll be careful of this beast in human form...' She thought while giving her all to raise her arms and chant her spell.

"Oh thunder, please heed my call and ravage this place..."

"Six." Jack grunted while trying to calm his diaphragm which was currently moving uncontrollably.

"Destroy my enemies and-" Zoe had to stop to cough some blood and frowned since she knew that she was taking way too much time. "Mark my grave with your mighty wrat-"

"Seven." The immortal coldly said while bringing his sword down, cutting the poor girl's forearms and changing the dirty water's brown color to a dark red one. His breath was rough and heavy as he avidly inhaled some cool air to heal his burnt lungs. 'This was closer than I expected.' He thought while his spell disappeared, leaving him with his battered and burnt body to heal.

Zoe had fallen into a state of unconsciousness due to the massive pain she had felt but was still bleeding out thanks to her two missing forearms. Frowning, Jack moved himself using his sword as a cane and muttered after having coughed some burnt tasting blood:

"Blood magic : Closed Wound." The effect of the spell was as simple as the name suggested it and simply stopped the blood flow on the open ends.

Grabbing the two cut limbs, he used his sword's cloth as a makeshift bag while he carried the mage toward somewhere else. After all, their fight had made a lot of noise and light and Jack expected someone's interruption at any moment. Yet, when the citizens came to see what had happened they only saw blood and scorched marks on the walls.

'Not now... I can't fall now. I need to continue, I'll rest later. Hell, I rested during a few millenniums. Come on little body, we can do it.' He roared in his mind while the drowsiness and the massive stress his muscles had suffered slowly took over his will.

Yet, he still remained focused enough to keep the girl's wounds closed and forced his arms to continue to carry her and his sword both hidden under her coat. He looked more than suspicious but didn't bother himself to cast a Darkness Veil since he had come to know his secret path toward his abode in the slums.

He still had gotten the presence of mind to cover his head with his hood and thanks to the rain the didn't really look that weird unless someone noticed that he was dragging a girl. Yet, this happened often in the slums and no one dared to approach him and his aggressive aura as they knew how quickly you could die in here.

Kicking a random crappy house's door which was isolated enough from the rest, Jack woke up a drunken beggar inside of it who started to speak in gibberish. The immortal simply ignored the man and dropped Zoe on the broken wooden floor before taking his sword. Turning toward the bum in rags, Jack saw him tossing an empty bottle toward him and simply caught it in mid-air since it had been thrown with as much strength as a child. Sighing, he then plunged his sword in the guy's throat to silence him and closed the door to protect himself from the rain.

There was still some water coming down through holes in the roof but it was better than nothing. Turning toward Zoe, he noticed that she was paler than before and after having checked her pulse he started to panic a little. 'It's getting weaker and weaker but she isn't bleeding out... What the hell is happening?'

Scanning her body's mana flow and thus blood flow, he noticed that she had an hematoma growing in her brain. 'Oh crap.' Jack thought before focusing himself. He knew how important the brain was to living beings and how fragile it was thanks to his former experiments. The more he waited the more likely would his information disappear from her memory and he knew it so he got down to work as fast as he could.

His mind was as sharp as he could during his healing procedure : He was currently pumping the blood out of her brain through the thin capillary veins and had to control the flow and pressure to avoid breaking more things than what he was trying to save. Such a precise operation gave him a terrible headache and made his consciousness waver. After a few minutes he gave up and decided to sleep a little since he knew that if he continued he would cause more bad than good.

Sitting on a decrepit chair, he closed his eyes and ended in the nightmarish memories of his darkest experiments. Yet, he didn't budge nor wanted to flee such scenes since he knew that he had to shoulder his crimes. 'Maybe I've paid for them...' He thought while gazing in the distance, away from the blood sea full of corpses he was sitting on. 'This time, I'll make myself sure that there isn't anyone strong enough to make me pay.'

After a few more hours of grim scenes he finally woke up and saw that Zoe was still unconscious.His first breath made him realize how painful burnt lungs were but he quickly got used to it. After all, this physical pain was nothing but refreshing to him after all the emotional one he shouldered.

He had made himself sure that his Closed Wound spell would hold during the night and woke up happy to see that she hadn't bled out during the night. He had also cast a small spell on her arms to prevent them from rotting since he had planned to sew them back if she wasn't an enemy. In this situation, she would have no other choice than submitting.

Yet, he would have to manage to wake her up before talking to her. Yawning, Jack stretched his painful muscles and noticed that he had also over exerted himself and had hurt his mana circuits. 'Perfect, just what I needed.' He angrily growled in his mind before checking her condition.