I Survived...

"Mana Borrow"

It's a skill that I'm very familiar with. It's a 3 -star skill that my elder sister tried to learn from my father but didn't quite succeed. Although Mana Borrow is a 3-star skill, if used properly, it wouldn't be any less than a 5-star skill.

That was the main reason why Esmeralda tried learning it.

Well, learning a skill was never meant to be easy.

Basically, this skill can borrow mana from the surroundings at an incredibly fast rate with some shortcomings like fatigue and pain as its after-effects.

I didn't have any time to check how exactly the skill worked or to think why I got the skill now, though I had a few guesses about both these things.

Well, it wasn't really a problem as having mana borrow would only make my survival a little possible.

Without thinking of anything else, I simply activated the skill.

'I assume I'll figure out the rest eventually.'

…I had to figure out the rest.

{Mana Borrow}

An unbelievable amount of mana entered my body. It felt like my organs would burst out any moment now. Biting my lips I transferred all my mana into the tip of the spear, then slowly wrapping up the entire spear.

The tip of the spear started glowing an ethereal light and I felt at ease as overflowing mana in my body was slowly ejected out.

'Not now. A little more. More...'

Finally, when the mana surrounded the spear to a great extent, I threw it with all the strength I could muster up from my body.

{Never Miss}

The spear flew with an unbelievable speed and my hand immediately started to bleed from the massive recoil. I didn't miss my target as I used an expendable skill for it and the spear got stuck at the eye of the monster. But well, it didn't really do any significant damage.

'As expected. But I succeeded at what I was trying to do.'

Roaaarrr!!!

The monster cried out in annoyance and looked at me with its bloodshot eyes sending cold sweat down my back.

'Easy boy. Why are you so angry when it's you who started it first.'

{Fireball}

I cast a fireball spell on my second shirt and started running towards the forest at the opposite side of the portal.

Letting out yet another terrifying roar, the Wyvern flew upwards and launched at me with rage.

Gah!!

It felt like I was hit by a 5-star attack spell. I definitely passed out for a second there and after vomiting some blood, I started limping towards the forest again. I took the recovery pills which I kept in my pocket from my backpack. The monster was slowly flying towards me now and I could see it was enjoying the struggle of its prey.

Though it was enough to get on my nerves, I was thankful that it's taking me lightly for now.

'At least my family can escape safely now. '

There was a forest just close by the town hall that I thought of including in my attempt to buy some time.

I ran as far as I could and after reaching somewhere inside the forest, I left my shirt there to misdirect it. I thought I would end up dying in no time but its speed of chasing decreased considerably the moment I entered the forest.

I fell on my knees from time to time and my head was ringing from the exhaustion. But I was able to reach my destination somehow.

The lair of gnolls. At least I hoped that they'd buy me some time.

Roaarrrr!!!!

'Haha. This bastard is fast'

I looked back towards the sky, above all these trees in the forest. Stroking its wings in the air, the wyvern was smiling at me with its mocking eyes and the spear was still stuck in its eye. The gnolls were watching me from the shadows but were too scared to come and face this abomination.

The monster flew towards me again but I started running towards the gnoll's camp.

And at this point, the gnolls had no choice but come out from their hiding. They had to attack the outsiders. Both me and that harrowing Wyvern.

'If you guys don't stop him, you can say goodbye to your house. '

I reached the entrance of the camp but didn't go inside. If I go inside in this condition, I'd die either way.

The monster stopped for a second and prepared to launch at me for the second time, and from the looks of it, it seemed like he wanted to end it for real this time. Some of the gnolls already jumped forward forward fearing the destruction of their camp.

And then a broken spear flew towards the Wyvern's wings. Then another one. And then another one.

The wyvern was continuously attacked by a rain of spears and arrows from all directions.

I didn't know if they ignored me as they thought I was insignificant and couldn't cause them any harm or if they just wanted to deal with the greater threat before.

But it was as I predicted.

The wyvern landed on the ground unable to withstand the rain of attacks and roared with enormous killing intent. With a deep breath I looked into the eyes of the monster and smiled faintly.

"Better luck next time, buddy"

{Self-destruction}

Boooooooom!!!!!

A six-star spell. With a large boom the monster's eye was destroyed and blood was dripping down. I ran past the monster sliding between the two legs and started running back towards the portal again.

A few gnolls jumped at me but I simply dodged or pushed them away. A few attacks hit me too but it was nothing compared to that one attack of that Wyvern.

Rrrrrrrrghhhh!!!

I could see the enraged monster destroying the gnoll's camp, going frenzy with its eyes closed. This time, the gnolls too rushed into the monster with their weapons.

Most of the gnolls didn't even look at me as I passed through their base. They were too captivated by the destruction that laid in front of their eyes.

I exited the forest and could see the portal at a distance. But...

'Something's wrong with the portal.'

The bright blue light of the portal appeared in a very faint bluish white colour. But even before I could see what the problem was, I already received a signal, enlightening me about my limited time here.

And by the time I reached near the portal, I could hear another loud roar coming from the Gnolls camp.

'Looks like it's almost done with the gnolls. I need to hurry'

But as I turned around to look around the portal, my eyes widened and I felt my soul leaving my body with fear.

"H-how?"

Hundreds of people are lying on the ground. Dead.

Severed head, hands, some were unrecognizable, and others simply tangled across with broken body parts.

If the wyvern was chasing me then they should have escaped safely. Since they were all dead, that means...

'Another one?! What!? Why? Out of so many places, why only here?'

I was completely going out of my mind and my hands and feet started shaking too. I thought the situation was really strange as two out of the three Dark Wyverns were in the same vicinity. It was hard for me to believe that my luck was really that poor.

'C-calm down, Owen. You don't have time for all this.'

I started the portal with its destination as the Capital. The portal emitted a faint glow but failed to connect the other side.

'Mana Exhaustion?'

Like all the humans who need mana for using their skills, the portals also require a great amount of mana to enable teleportation. In case of inanimate objects like the portals, the mana is provided by the mana stones, which come off at a great price. So they charge money to use the portal on normal days.

'Not good! The only way to recover from this situation is to use new mana stones. But I don't have any. Did all these people die because they couldn't escape with the portal exhausting its mana?'

I racked my brain hard to find a solution and finally I got something I could try. And sadly, for that to work I needed to rack my brain even harder.

'I need to think of a destination with fewer restrictions to enter but more than enough mana to connect it.'

As two gates at two different places combined make up a portal, a destination with more mana in the surrounding will also provide some mana to the other side if I succeed in creating a link.

And the faint glow from before indicated that a link was created but failed to connect the two places for teleportation.

'It means that although the mana in the Capital is really great, it's still not enough.

Think, think!! Capital is the place with the highest amount of mana in Elysium. A place with mana higher than Elysium? Wait... The elves? But they put many restrictions on their sides so I won't be able to connect.'

Suddenly my eyes lit up as a place that I might be able to slip into flashed through my mind.

'The ancient forest of Derwair! It belonged to the elves before. But after the war between humans and elves, half of it belonged to the humans. If…if I can connect to it…maybe…'

I didn't have the luxury to depend on a maybe though. It was my only hope. My last hope.

I quickly searched for any portals near the Derwair forest. In order to keep up with my friends without my stigmata, I studied hard every day in addition to all that training. Hell, I worked harder than almost all my peers. Of course, there were still some prodigies who worked their asses off like a madman that I couldn't even compare.

But…but … me too. I tried all these years in every way possible. I need to do this.

I didn't know how much time had passed. I think it was only mere seconds but it felt like eternity to me. But I kept searching…

And searching…

And finally…

'Found it'

I was able to locate a portal in the Derwair Forest quicker than I expected. Still someone was even faster.

Roaaaaarrrrr!!!!

'What?? Already...'

I stopped whatever I was doing to look back at the monster for a second. It was slightly wounded near the wings and was staggering a little.

'Maybe the three squads of sequence 3 knights can defeat it now?'

Without wasting any more time, I activated the portal and could see the faint light again. But this time, it didn't stop there. The light was glowing brighter and brighter slowly.

'Not enough. I will be killed before.'

The monster was already flying towards me but I saw that something was different.

'Huh! It's slow. Much slower than before. Is it exhausted?'

Still it wasn't slow enough for me to escape to a safe zone and I was sure it'd kill me the moment it reached here. I doubt that he'd be in the mood to toy with me again after the previous results.

{Mana Borrow}

I played my last card and borrowed all the mana I could from the surroundings and supplied it to the portal. My head again felt like it would split open and organs would burst out.

'More! More! Faster! It's over for me if I pass out here.'

The monster was already reaching closer to me. Every second it covered an enormous distance towards the portal.

.

300 metres.

.

250 metres.

.

200 metres.

.

150 metres.

.

Finally, the faint light changed into a bright glow lighting up the area around me.

'It worked!'

Huup!

Without canceling my skill or looking back to check on how close I was to my death, I jumped into the portal. I could hear something breaking the moment I jumped in. I could only guess it was the portal itself.

'Wait, did I pass through?'

I looked up and saw trees everywhere. I could hear water from a lake somewhere nearby. My right hand was broken and my nose was broken too. Maybe some of my bones were also dislocated and I am sure I have several internal injuries too.

Despite all that, only a single tear drop fell down my eyes. It wasn't about how unfair my life had been but pure gratefulness at this moment.

I closed my eyes and immediately fell down to the ground as the exhaustion reached its limit. I passed out there looking at the sky as I spoke weakly struggling to keep my eyes open.

"I.... I...survived."