Cause I’m Still Standing

"Still standing huh? Fucking monster." He says.

I am about to give him a one-liner of my own but I can't help but ignore the robotic lady in my ear.

The prompt gave me a yes or no answer, so of course I answered yes. But then another question that somewhat scares me pops up.

The popup lingers there for a moment as I try to understand the implications of what it's trying to say. I still answer yes. This time there is not another prompt but instead, it confirms its activation.

I stand there for a second expecting something but I don't feel much of anything. I check my stats panel to see if there is any change and sure enough.

"What are you doing? You finally accepted your fate" I hear the wizard say pointing a staff at me.

"Geez dude give me a second." I retorted, focusing on the thing still stuck in my leg.

So next I gata remove this thing real fast. I pulled the ice shard that was impaling my leg. I throw it to the side.

"Damn kid, either you don't feel pain or you're really determined to beat me…" He says wincing a bit.

"Welp I gata figure out where Mara is one way or another."

The old man chuckles. I frown slightly knowing what he's going to say.

"She is dead, you know. Never even had a chance."

I ball my hands into a fist. "Yup, I know," I say, feeling more blood falling off my face. I wipe it away but only see clear tears being whipped away. "Still means I have to kick your ass though."

Her fate has been sealed for quite a while now. You know I thought that it would be nice maybe for some closure or something? When it comes from the killer's mouth it does help reality a little.

"Hmm even knowing that you still have a fighting spirit, don't you? I don't get it. What do you have to fight for? What is your motivation?" He asked me.

I complete my stretches. I find myself almost chuckling to myself at his question. My motivation huh? I wonder if I should tell him what that really is?

"I'll tell you later," I say, finishing my stretches.

With that, both of us seem to come to the conclusion that talking is over. I hear him chanting soon after we're done talking.

So I guess it's time to show off what I can do as well.

In front of me, I hold out my arm casting… Well, that's strange my fireball I was about to cast imploded before I could do anything. I try again but again the result is the same. My fireball seems to expand way too fast until it eventually implodes on itself.

"What's going on?" I ask myself.

I hear a robot voice explain. However it's not the normal robotic voice I'm used to, rather it's a more edgy version.

"Persistence," I ask.

Thinking about it there is a bunch of stuff I have randomly had memory of yet I'm sure I didn't do. Seeing how I was busy being depressed and everything. I wonder if this Jade person and Persistence are dating? She definitely likes him, or me? Whatever.

"I see, so what do I do?"

With the time-sensitive moment, I find that kind of hard but attempt anyway. With my hand, no, with my pinky I try to concentrate my mana into the spell. With the small spot for combination, I can feel the mana struggle to overwhelm itself.

It forms almost struggling on itself. Conforming and wobbling, threatening to fall apart but, it doesn't. I am able to maintain, cast, and fire the fire spell, and in just the nick of time as it collides with a spell from the opponent causing a small explosion the middle distance from us.

Putting the idea aside that the sphere is all you need I go back to this implanted memory to understand what he is talking about. A shape huh? Well, why not try that fire arrow the wizard used a bit ago.

Normally I imagine all the mana collecting into one spot, but I mean if I imagine that shape as an arrow I think I can-

In front of me, I have a fully casted fire arrow floating right there. Dam, I guess this persistence skill makes me way better at something like this. Well alright then time to fire this baby off!

"Go Blazing Arrow of Death!" I shout.

The wizard seems taken aback by this and is forced to cancel chanting and move out of the way. The arrow, much faster than any ball flies at a high speed past him catching only a bit of his outfit on fire which is quickly put out.

"What kind of chant was that? How on earth did you copy my spell?" He asks, blowing out the remaining ash on his outfit.

I ignored him and asked Persistence, "What now?"

I bump my fists together with a bit of mana causing a spark. "I like that idea"

I already know this guy needs time to cast any spells which gives me a much bigger advantage at fighting him with spells. As long as I keep him preoccupied he won't be able to do anything.

"Go Gatling Barrage," I say as countless spells start launching towards the wizard.

The spells that I send at him aren't very strong but I make sure there are a hell lot of them. I make sure to make them varied so as to stop any chance of him catching on too fast. The countless number of spells I send at him speed across the field.

It seems to work as the wizard is forced to dodge with surprising speed. It's then I notice small amounts of mana to push him in whatever direction he wants. When did he cast such a thing? Must have been during the start of our fight.

No matter what, he still can't cast anything when he's running around so much. Oh god!

I jump to the side barely dodging a wave of ice shards that land on the ground. That old guy is still chanting while on the run? Well then.

"Take Frontal Assault!" I say changing tactics.

I make sure to make the attacks much bigger and stronger this time. More mana? No problem. I'll make it so huge you can't dodge it!

So I watched the colorful assault blocking any chances for movement, and one aimed right for him. I see the impact land right on target followed by the explosive sound of the attack. Bingo!

I stand there waiting for all the dust to clear from my attack. For some reason I think I still see something inside there, it's kinda bright actually. Is that guy still alive? 

The light from inside the dust only gets brighter until in only a moment I see it shoot through the smoke revealing itself as another spell coming right for me. Unable to dodge, I try to think of a way to avoid this.

Thankfully an unexpected earth wall appears in front of me dispersing the attack. This must be Persistence's help.

You know I'm getting real sick of this guy…

I quickly rush away from my old cover, my goal closing the distance. With a tremendous amount of speed, I didn't even know I had, any spell that was launched at me missed for a land mile. It does take a bit for him to start leading his shots but even those are blocked from earth walls protecting my pursuit.

The closer I got the harder it was to dodge everything but eventually, I was right there. However instead of him doing what I expected he gets in this weird fighting stance. Time for close combat I guess.

Which I seem to suck at for some reason, my pure speed and strength are enough for me to throw some dangerous blows but all of them seem to either be nearly dodged or countered.

As this close combat encounter continues I can feel myself getting the upper ground. My movements become more refined. It feels as if I'm learning at an above-human pace. My strikes became not only faster but also more refined. I wonder if this is the effect of persistence.

My strikes strike true nailing his shield again and again getting stronger with each hit until it finally breaks. I doubt he'll have the strength to regenerate it once more.

Realizing his shield has been destroyed I see the next thing I wanted to. Just like before the old man jumps backward away from me revealing a dozen glowing orbs.

I smile to myself. Knowing the danger these things hold I waste no time snatching up each and every one of them in the air. Before they all explode in my hand I try to chuck them as hard as I can at the wizard.

Once the old guy realized what I was doing I could see his face turn to pure fear. I see him try and block his face but it wouldn't nearly be enough as all of those flashing orbs explode right in front of him.

After the explosion, I decided to take my time walking over to his body which was again lying in a small crater in the ground. What I see is slightly disturbing. His arm was completely torn off. The bone ripped and stuck out while the-

You know what his arm was gone, let's leave it at that. I nod my head as I decide to keep my perception of my destruction simple. I mean I didn't even talk about what his leg looks like.

I watch the arm that doesn't look nightmare-inducing reach up sparking with mana. I prepare myself for whatever might come next but… Nothing happens. The sparks fizzle out and his arm falls to the ground.

"Im all out huh?" I hear him say.

"I guess so..." I respond…

I watch him struggle to move but he is unable to. He looks over at his arm and then never looks at it again.

"One of the 4 heavenly mages, defeated by just some kid, what a joke." He says winching in pain.

"I guess so…" I say not knowing what to say.

He looks at me for a moment. "You know I sometimes wonder if our first summoning was actually successful. I would sometimes think, what if the heroes we summoned first were out there? What if we didn't fail the summoning?

I take a moment to realize he is talking about me and Ren. Meaning that we are heroes and that we were summoned…

The old man continues "I then would wonder what would they be like? Out there by themselves. Would they even survive out there?"

I watch him cough up a scary amount of blood.

"I guess now I have my answer, don't I? Now that I get to see the failed to summon hero. I would say it feels nice to meet you but-"

For a second it looks like he might never speak again. The long pause makes even the soft breeze seem loud.

"The pain I'm feeling right now is kind of excruciating, so it would be nice if you could end that already."

And so with one with the person I hate the most lying on the ground. I give him mercy and with a slash of my sword. I end the old man's suffering.