"Guh!" She groaned.

"NOELLE!"

"…"

Alright, what the actual fuck.

That axe actually broke and stabbed Noelle in the heart, the probability of which should be negligible.

Either she was just unlucky, or that was just her fate.

Wish I had a skill to check her fate right now, but I suppose I don't have the time to develop one at the moment.

Because Noelle's about to fucking die.

"Gah…" She spurted out a mouthful of blood, looked at me in disbelief, and keeled over.

Thankfully, even in the worst case scenario, she should be able to survive for at least half a minute.

Time is of the essence here.

"Azell!" My shout got his attention and stopped him from moving towards the Minotaur.

I can't let him make any stupid decisions here. A single mistake and Noelle will die.

And I won't let that happen. Unless it is what they desire, no one dies on my watch.

"Distract the Minotaur! I'll handle Noelle!" I said as the Minotaur's broken axe slammed into the ground I was standing on just before.

I jumped towards Noelle and landed beside her.

"Gah, kheok…" She was lying on her side, desperately gasping for breath.

"Don't worry. I'll save you, so just hold on for as long as you can."

"Can you heal her!?" Azell shouted from behind.

"Yes! Just believe in me for now! We don't have much time!"

"…I understand!"

Phew, seems like my sincerity got to him. Or maybe he understood that arguing would only waste the precious little time we have.

Perhaps it's a combination of both.

Alright, let's examine Noelle first.

Hmm, the blade seems to have sliced the right part of her heart, along with the lungs.

"Shit."

25 seconds is all I have before she dies from blood loss and drowning in her blood, huh.

Alright. Let's use that.

I manipulated the mana in the air surrounding me, absorbing it through the pores on my body, transferring it through the heart, transforming it and then passing it through my Mana Circuits.

23 seconds.

I started the construction of the magic circle. 7 concentric circles were formed in front of me.

21 seconds. Faster, damnit.

Runes were engraved on the edges of the circles, but-

"Shit!"

The surface of the magic formation crackled. The collected mana dissipated and the backlash hit me due to failure of the spell, dizzying me for some moments.

"This fucking backwards Class 3 world!"

God-fucking-damnit, a spell of this level is too high for both the system of this world and my shit body, huh? What a joke!

15 seconds.

I heard a large boom behind me, followed by powerful gusts of wind.

I sure hope that Azell can keep that monster away from me, because boy oh boy, if he fails...

Anyway, let's try some 'Sacrificial Casting'. 10 years of my life should be enough, while my blood should suffice as the medium.

13 seconds. I'll barely make it.

Alright.

I used Noelle's sword and made several large cuts on both of my wrists. Her eyes 'seemed' to widen as she saw me doing this, but she wasn't in the condition to say, let alone do, anything.

Aight, this should be enough.

I suppose I'll have to do some chanting as well.

"Amorus V Turna!"

The moment I recited the command, time slowed down to a crawl. The gusts of winds hitting my back stopped, and so did the sounds of metal clashing against metal.

I looked back, and yup, Azell's sword was on its way to strike the Minotaur's axe, albeit at a very slow pace.

The only problem was that my head was throbbing so much that it felt like bursting; such a simple spell had overloaded it to this point. I better hurry before it actually exploded and I died before Noelle. That'd be a yikes from me.

Okay, time to get to work.

The blood that had spilled on the ground from my slit wrists floated up in front of me. Using my fingers as paint brushes and the air as my canvas, I started 'painting' the magic formation.

With each stroke my lifeforce dwindled, and so did the amount of time I had left to live.

'Amorus V Turna' was one of the simplest sacrificial spells. With next to no casting time and required calculation, it allowed the caster to cast spells he normally could not use, like spells which were too complex for him or were not allowed by the System his World was running on.

The downside was that it left most of the work to the caster; I had to draw the magic formation from scratch for fuck's sake. The lifeforce it consumed was enormous as well-

Wait.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

…

...

...…

I don't remember the lifeforce consumption being this big. I have already used 10 years of my life but was only able to draw 10% of the formation.

I see, the System is trying to resist.

This is just wow.

I would need 90 more years to complete the spell, and I do not know if I have that much lifeforce. I could, but betting on it probably won't be the most tactical decision.

Shit.

Okay, uhhhh… fuck, I can't cancel this spell because of its cooldown, but as long as its active, I can't use any other spell either.

I can manipulate mana, but I cannot process it to construct a magic spell.

Wow.

Can someone please drop me off at the intersection of 'Fuck this shit' and 'I'm out'?

Seriously, what the hell is this? Goddamnit.

Alright, enough complaining. I suppose I have no choice but to do that.

13 seconds. I should be able to make it. Probably.

I turned around to find the root of our problems. That fucking Minotaur's axe was millimetres away from clashing against Azell's sword. What a motherfucker.

Anyway, as I thought, he'll do.

I dashed to appear behind the Minotaur and placed both of my arms on his back, at the place where his heart was supposed to be.

"There's a weak point here."

The next step, or rather, steps, were fairly simple.

I sucked out all the mana from my surroundings and directly transferred it to my Mana Circuits. Unprocessed mana is, in a sense, poisonous to the body.

So before it could damage me, I moved the overwhelming amount of mana to the Mana Circuits in my arms, instantly flooding them. It was like putting all the water of the ocean in a small stream which could not overflow.

My Mana Circuits overloaded and began expanding at a tremendous rate.

Now all I had to do was create a Mana Field and direct the explosion to where I wanted it to go.

This would, of course, completely destroy my arms, but sacrifices have to be made.

After all, it's up to little old me to save that lass's life.

"Aaaarghhhhhhh!" My Mana Circuits exploded with a deafening boom.

The devastating force of the explosion shattered my arms as chunks of meat flew away, but the Mana Field redirected it towards the target; the Minotaur's heart.

The explosion crushed the Minoatur's defences like a bullet going through a paper; his Magic defence was torn apart while his body was trampled upon.

The next moment, on its chest was a wide gaping hole.

"Hah, hah." I barely managed to hold onto my fasting consciousness. "Sleep now, you have earned it."

The Minotaur took Noelle's heart, so I took his.

As they say, an eye for an eye, a heart for a heart.