Chapter 60: The Lonely him

This person fell from the highest mountaintop. The moment his body made contact with the ground his flesh 'splattered'. His eyes balls retreated to his eye sockets and all of his organs made a slapping sound. His head that he turned as hard as steel shook his brain badly. His heart somehow managed to survive by transmuting it to wood by the last second.

He somehow managed to keep his consciousness but the impact made him unable to move. His ligaments were torn and all his joints were broken. He was bleeding and his intestines are almost out of his stomach. His bones were cracked and all of his four senses aside from his sense of touch stopped working for awhile.

He was lucky enough to survive the fall. His condition was so severe that he may as well wait for death to come. But due to his persistence in defibrillating his heart and keeping his mana flowing around that he is still alive. His ribs poked his lungs and the acid on his stomach was piling up in one location. He shat himself and bile were piling up on his throat. He somehow didn’t choke on his own vomit by moving his broken jaw.

Every second he would feel his heart slow down but he keeps on pumping it. The mana he has could heal his body but he is using it to keep his brain and heart working. Converting his mana into electricity drains him. His unable to make his mana heal due to his veins clotting and that there was so little to do.

It took hours for his eyesight to return. The brunt impact of falling made him lose his vision. He could see the sky but he was unable to move his head. His left hand was on top of his chest. He was still bleeding and he could feel that gallons of blood have already left him. This made him anemic but he could see now. He fortified his mind and pushed his intestines inside his stomach. After that, he cauterizes his wound by converting his mana into a fire and using it to seal the wound on his stomach.

Using his mana made him unable to defibrillate his heart. He prayed that his heart palpitated and luckily it did and lasted until he was able to forcefully pump it back. That act made him still unable to use his mana. He tried activating his magic crest but it only gave him enough fuel to heal his left arm. Using his left limb he started moving his ribs. It hurt and he almost blanked out. But doing so made him able to breathe with less difficulty. He could feel air flowing inside his nose and mouth.

His spine was definitely broken. He turned his body into steel but still, it wasn’t enough to fully save him from the impact of the fall. The only thing he could do was to wait for his energy to come back and use it to heal his body.

He started healing his internal organs after a while. Then after hours of agonizing, he began to heal his right arm. After healing his right arm he used his limbs to drag himself out from the open moved into this little spot that is located under the mountain.

Dragging his body caused him almost to blank out ten times. He somehow managed to lean his body in the walls of the cave and looked at his badly damaged body. His legs were the one that was the most badly damaged. Both were facing the wrong direction and he could feel like it would take sometime before it can be repaired. His fingers were broken and moving his body to the cave broke it further.

Somehow he could feel his mana flowing rightly. His head that was turned to steel went back to normal but an aching sensation replaced it. He had little mana because he was keeping it to sustain his heart and brain. He still made his heart to wood and doing this made him able to pump it.

He still could not move and the pain made him unable to scream or utter a sound. His vision was flickering and only through persistence and sheer willpower that he somehow kept on being alive. If anyone would see him right now he would look like a splattered corpse that was constantly being sewn by threads of mana.

He had no light in his eyes. He heard no sound. He could only feel pain and the occasional blistering cold coming from the trees that he sees in front of him. His nose began to function as he keeps on regenerating and because of that, he could smell his vile self.

Blood, feces, and bile mixed together that he wished that he couldn’t smell. The ‘smell’ somehow made the predators steer clear off him but still, there was no assurance that they would not attack and feast on him. He could only heal himself and then keep his heart going.

Healing and healing and healing. That was all he could do. His body was a literal mess and there are severe problems that he still needs to fix. He only is able to do this because of his transmutation and converting mastery. His foster father imprinted this knowledge into his head and if such knowledge wasn’t present then he would have died.

His body was broken but luckily he was alive despite his grotesque state. His splattered body was forming back to normal but his skin was giving a tanned reddish color. He was draining his energy and converting it into healing energy while also making electricity to pump his heart steady.

He already shat most of the ‘things’ in his stomach. The smell was rather bad but he endures out of the wish to stay alive. He really didn’t want to die. Not because he liked living but because he owed his life to someone. He didn’t want to throw his life away like a waste.

So he endured.

...

He didn’t know what day or time it was anymore. In his mind the only thing that mattered was that keep himself alive. He asked himself why he was still breathing but that thought would disappear in his head once the fear of death creeps on him. He was alive but barely.

Usually, in tales, a kind Samaritan or a passing stranger would find him and somehow help him in his dire need. He would be helped and somehow recover through the stranger’s kindness. But being so deep inside a nameless forest near a nameless mountain makes such encounter impossible to happen.

This made him sad.

Unlike the tales or songs, he was left alone in this place. There was no hero or savior that appeared to help him from his suffering. There was nothing but the trees and himself who is barely alive. This saddened him greatly that he felt his heart ached painfully.

His heart wasn’t that injured but still, the cruel reality made it ached harder than it should be. He was alone and clearly, there was no one that would save him. His heart was rather brittle as glass and because of this that he can only sob quietly in this remote place.

Sob, and sob, he could only cry his heart out while shakily healing his body. His legs were rather broken and he estimated that it would take weeks to somehow heal his legs. And even with that, there is no guarantee that he would be able to move. His hips got shattered badly that it would also take weeks to recover.

He stared at the forest. He saw the pool of blood where he fell and there he just stared at it until it dried. The hours kept on going and sooner he saw his blood dry. The smell coating him was getting worse and his mouth was so dry that he could only rely on his mana to hydrate himself.

What time it was, he didn’t know. He only noticed the sky getting darker and getting brighter. His thoughts were not in the right and he can only care about sustaining his life. His energy would flicker and burn out once in a while. Like a candle, he would burn out and then suddenly lit up. His flesh was already sewn and the disgusting ‘splattered’ look he had was gone.

His limbs were badly mutilated and his face was the only thing unchanged simply because of how he turned it into steel. He was getting better slowly but still the pathetic bloodied look he had didn’t leave him. His outfit was cut all over and ragged. The blackish color of his cloak that he wore when he fell also got dyed red. The blood dried on it and it was impossible to wash it out. It was getting colder and with his mana used to heal himself rather thin. He can only endure the cold.

Time passes by and slowly he was able to feel his upper body function. His lower body however still seems like it was gone. His ribs got a bit healed and overall his organs were not bleeding and he wasn’t shitting as badly before. He felt like his breeches had less shit in it.

Everything is a bit better. He can endure it.

...

His mouth was at least dry but his stomach was empty and he was rather weakened. He could now feel his legs so he tried standing up. He managed to do so but the way he walked like was a toddler. He started walking away from the spot he holed up for god how many days and looked for anything that resembles a stream of water. He walked around the tree filled forest and along the way he heard something growl.

When he turned around he saw a shadowy figure pounce at him. The figure bit on his left arm and he felt the fang of the animal dig into his arm. He shouted in pain and he then out of panic used up his mana and constructed a sharp pike and stabs it on the neck of the animal. He repeatedly stabs the animal until he felt the blood of the animal wet his face.

The animal was ferocious. It mutilated his left arm and left him to bleed again. His teethed clattered madly and tears flowed out of his tear ducts. He endured the pain and then sits near the dead animal that he recognized as a panther. He waited for his energy to recover before healing his mutilated arm.

After waiting he then turned to the panther and without even thinking he started gutting the panther and devoured the panther meat raw. He was so hungry that it didn’t matter if the meat was cooked or not. He just ate the raw meat of the panther until his stomach was full.

He still smelled like blood and feces so he stood up and drag the panther around with him until he finds a small pond. Arriving in the pond he removes his armor and threw his breeches around. It was filled with his shit but still, he needs to wear it again. He was still feeling the wound he suffered for how many days and that is why cleaning himself up in the pond took longer than expected.

He had nothing to wear so he turned the Black Panther’s skin into clothing and then washed his shit filled breeches until the pond he used to clean it in was dirty brown. He felt sorry for the pond for a while before moving away and gathering some wood to burn. He then made a bonfire and warmed himself up.

There was still some meat from the panther so he roasted the meat and ate it while enduring the cold wind. It was already night. There were stars in the sky and there were snowflakes falling gently down. Seeing the snowflake he sticks his back closer to the tree and hugged himself.

It was so cold and lonely in the nameless mountain that he could not help but made a bitter smile.