Her expression suddenly changed, as she began to lose speed, and began to stumble towards me. I quickly reached out and grabbed her hand, and upon seeing her back, my face instantly darkened. Thinking for about a second, I formed a plan, on what I should do...

I quickly placed her on the ground, face down, and tore open the back of her pink shirt, exposing a nearly fatal wound in her back. I had to work quickly here and time was precious. First, I converted some mana into pure ice mana, and injected it directly into the flesh of and around her wound, without letting it take form as ice. This would freeze her wound, giving me a few extra minutes of time.

Just as I finished doing this, 7 people appeared around me, with faces of delight. Then an 8th figure walked out from in the crowd.

*clap* *clap* *clap*

"Thank you for saving her, now hand her over to me, Jon..."

"Dious! you b*stard. How dare you do this. And you even have the gall to order me to 'hand her over' ? What is she a, prize?"

"Hah, don't make me laugh, boy. Give her to me, and nobody gets hurt, or else..."

"Or else what?"

"Nothing. You know, besides the fact that there is a whole orphanage full of children, ripe for the picking. It would be truly regretful if something were to happen to them. Maybe a slight nudge while exploring the mountains, or accidentally falling into a well and drowning. You know, accidents, they can happen to anybody. Hehehe hahaha."

"Are you threatening me?" as I was formulating the best strategy to get out of this encirclement, without harming Shem any further.

" Oh... Yessss.. hehe" giggled Dious.

"I was waiting for you to say that!" Saying this, I threw my flash-bang in the air. What is a flash-bang? Well, it is a personally designed mana magic. It is formed on a simple understanding, Opposite elements, cancel each other out. If you take fire and water, even though they are meant to cancel each other out, one will always overpowers the other. In this case, water would remove fire completely. Similarly, the ground removes electricity completely. If we apply the same logic to light and dark mana, the light mana should remove the dark mana. However, If you change things up, by taking a large ball of light mana, and cover it with a thin but rigid film of dark mana, then the light will continue to build pressure of the dark barrier, until it explodes with a loud sound, revealing the even brighter light mana inside, thus creating a flashbang.

While it was still being activated, I quickly closed my ears and looked down, and began my charge towards Dious. As soon as I noticed the floor brighten up, I looked straight at Dious, who has his eyed closed and ears ringing, like the other seven members.

'Good, the plan worked, but I need to finish this quickly, I only have between 1 minute to a minute and a half before those 7 begin to come to their senses.'

While making my way towards Dious, I extracted another drop, and converted it to lightening mana. By the time it reach my skin, I had reached Dious, and had twisted my body, to get the maximum force from this swing, and kicked Dious at the side of his knee, making it cave in and his foot was now bent the wrong way. While this was happening, The lightening, mana tried to escape, but I controlled it to for a single strike at the person who seemed to pose the largest threat to me. He was instantly knocked out. Next I blasted myself into the air with some mana reinforcement, while producing a fireball in each hand, along with sending more mana into my muscles and bones, so that my attacks are even stronger, enough to kill a grown man.

Now, I have to finish this before the effects of the flashbang wear off. So I launch both the fireballs at the man to the left of Dious, while transferring some more mana to my hands. The fireballs nearly burnt off his skin, but he was still alive. In incredible pain, but very much alive. I need to reduce their numbers fast, and in a way that would take a healer very long to fix, preventing them from gaining back their numbers.

I unsheathed my brand Death Saber, and stabbed him right in the heart, while twisting my body for a round house kick to the head, His leather armour cut like paper, as the Death Saber went in deeper. When the kick landed, his body flew out of the Death Saber and to the left. However, at this point, one of the men took out a stick and pointed it at the sun-like orb, while chanting. I knew something was going to go wrong, So I bolted towards him, with Death Saber in my right hand, and a fireball spell in my left. I was also sending out a tendril of pure mana into the air. Just before I could reach him, or throw my fireball at him, a jet-black arrow formed in front of his staff, and sped towards the flash-bang, since the bang was already over. Just as that happened, the mage jumped and hid behind one of the other men, who were all now looking at me with bloodshot eyes. This was it, do or die!

I feinted an attack towards the swordsman in front of the mage, as I threw my fireball backwards, to the one in assassin gear behind me. Being an assassin, the person didn't have any armour, except a thin black shirt and pants, along with two daggers and their holders. Taking the attack directly, the assassin was thrown back several meters, with both his hands burnt to a crisp, and a gaping hole in his chest.

'Haha, how do you like my overloaded fireball! I increased the mana in it, while continuously compressing it, leading to a fireball with 2.5 times the power of a regular one'

4 down, 4 to go.

I was about to run into them, guns, I mean magic blazing and all, but I suddenly changed my mind. I decided to stall for time. Putting Death Saber back in its sheath, I created an ice mana ball, an ice ball, and a fireball on the other. As soon as they were ready, I launched them on converging paths towards the man in front of me. He easily dodged it, but that was exactly what I wanted. The fire and water collided, creating a massive explosion of steam, acting as a smoke screen.

Next I quickly sent some more mana into the mana tendril that I had initially created, and while doing this, I sent ice mana into my left eye and fire mana into my right eye. This way, my left eye would see everything that is cold, and my right eye would see everything that is hot, effectively creating thermal vision. Using this, I could see the magician invoking a spell, mostly a wind one to move the mist away. with this, I can see that he is at least a level 2 mage.

Hmmm, fighting him head on would be a problem. Let’s defeat some of the warriors first. Deciding on my plan, I moved towards one of the visible humanoid heat signatures and launched my blade into the centre. However, now that the effects of the flashbang are gone, although their coordination is ruined, their skills are still very much there, and so he dodged it. Not completely though, Death Saber is now imbedded deep into his arm. with this, I switched holding Death Saber from my right to my left hand, which had a lightening spell ready. Using my sword as a conductor, I fried the insides of the man to medium rare. Pulling Death Saber out, I could see another figure rushing towards me, mostly after hearing the screams of his teammate. I quietly took a few steps back, allowing him to run right past me in the mist. Just as he was about to pass me, I threw my sword at his leg, lodging it deep into his calf, as he fell from the severe pain.

What he saw next was terrifying, a brat, about the age of seven, was wielding lightening magic in one hand and fire magic in the other, while leaping into the air, ready to blast him to oblivion! And that is exactly what I did, I stunned him with lightening magic, and then set him of fire. Alright, 2 to go.

Just as I was preparing to attack, a strong gust of wind blew away the mist, revealing everyone. The two remaining men were now enrage beyond words. The swordsman madly charged at me while the mage began preparing another spell, but I was not about to let him. I threw Death Saber at the mage with all my strength, as I dodged the attack from the swordsman. Unsurprisingly, the mage dodged my throw, but his level 2 spell was cancelled, and he should be suffering from the backlash... When a spell is cancelled by the user in a rush, there is backlash to the body, which becomes slower, and use of mana becomes harder for about 1 minutes, I would say for a level-2 spell. This cannot be explained through conventional methods, and even mother does not know why it happens. Well, the reason is simple, as provided in the game manual, there is a time penalty for cancelling a spell yourself, because the mana, which was not in the complete form of a spell, is sent back to the mana pool. If someone else dispels your magic, it means that they extract the mana from the spell structure and disperse it in the air. Therefore there is no penalty when this is done.

Anyway, I sensed danger coming from behind me and so I jumped backwards, dodging the attack from the first swordsman, only to find that another swordsman, he one who I had only electrocuted and left there had recovered almost fully, and was charging at me. I needed to dodge this, but I was mid-air, and invoking a spell would take too long.

While I was in despair, I suddenly heard a clang sound, instead of feeling the cold blade of a sword cutting me in half! It was Krog, he had finally appeared. That son of a b*tch, always waiting for a cool entrance!

[SM: I'm pretty sure that your thing dude]

"Haha ha, I made it! Why do you run so fast Jon?"

"Forget that, let’s get this a**hole, he stabbed Shem in the back, I need to get to her quickly!"

"WHAT!!! THIS F*CKER DID WHAT!!!!!" Yes, Krog has a crush on Shem. I think any boy my age would. She is a red haired beauty. Well, any boy besides me. I feel like we have some other connection, something I can feel innately. A bond stronger than love or hate...

Anyway, Krog just went crazy on the dud, I now feel sorry for him. Describing his state now would put me on the list for 'gory' imagery, so let’s just leave it at 'A fate worse than death, a fate so bad, they cannot have a funeral, because his body was no longer a body'

I quickly turned to Shem, and ran to her, checking her pulse.

*lub-dub* *lub-dub* *lub-dub* *lub-dub*

"Phew, its faint but she is alive." I quickly got to work, injecting light magic into her body, starting from her heart, allowing her circulatory system to do the rest. I carefully removes the dagger, and a few shared of broken bone and steel using my detect magic, and then I gradually defrosted her would, allowing the light mana infused blood to heal he body in the way I imagine it. Unexpectedly, I was extremely proficient in healing magic. This was due to all the diagrams of the human body from biology class. While all of this was happening, and Krog was continuing his relentless shield bashed on the already mutilated body, I hear a hysterical laughter. Quickly turning around, I spotted the mage, pointing a staff at me, with a fire lance on it. If I dodged, Shem would be killed, and if I didn't we both would die. Carrying her with me would take too long, and he would have launched the spell at us by then.

But I had prepared for this. After receiving the backlash, the mage went into hiding, using concealment spells to the best of his ability, preventing me from spotting him. So, I had to use this risky method to lure him out.

By now Krog had realised the situation and was charging at the magician, and the magician was getting ready to launch his spell, "DIE" he exclaimed.

But just as he was throwing the spell, 5 ice spikes went into, and through his head, instantly dispelling the spell he had cast, and killing him on the spot.

"Phew, that was scary!" Saying this, I sent some more mana into the tendril, and a 'thanks for helping' along with it.

Krog reached the mage and shoved him way with his shield, and sat down beside Shem. Seeing the wound heal with his eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, we heard f\multiple footsteps around us, and many shouts could be heard as well. I enhanced my hearing with mana and hear them, "Master Dious told us that there would be a man and an injured woman, but there are two here. Are these the correct people?" "Just arrest them, we'll leave to rest to the city lord!" another voice said.

A smirk crept up on my face, but Krog's face was as clueless as ever.

"Don't move! You are under arrest! You have no rights! come with us or die!" shouted a man who looked like the captain.