I was alone, surrounded by people who didn't want anything to do with me. But it was fine. You get used to it. Unless they also suddenly try to kill you. Then things change. And I left. After leaving, I was a prisoner of my own mind with the beings who suddenly invaded me.

Like this, I experienced a kind of loneliness I had never experienced before. Then I met him.

Why did I think I could put my trust in someone?

I Was alone, desperate and grabbed the one straw that suddenly presented itself to me. I opened my heart in that dark cave.

And he just listened. He warned me and tried to help me.

But was it all a farce? Did he just wait for a moment to betray me?

Why did you have to do this to me? Miles?

That's right, the person suddenly standing a few meters away from me... is miles. With his ultra greatsword still down on the altar, with small clouds of dust surrounding it. And he is looking straight at me. With a coldness that makes my intestines feel like they are frozen. Then he raises his sword, pointing at me as if he would charge at any moment. Which he did.

But I didn't have any motivation to dodge or defend.

And so, his sword penetrated my stomach, ripping my intestines out of my body.

Then I just see a slight grin on his face, filled with arrogance and pity. The kind of pity I have when I slaughter monsters. Overall, he just looks triumphant. By now, all my illusions had broken down.

I collect the last of my remaining energy to talk.

"Why?"

'Because you are a danger to us. A threat that can't be allowed to flourish.'

"Then why didn't you kill me before?" I manage to say after much struggle.

'Because I didn't know at that time. But he revealed the truth to me.'

I grab the sword which is stuck inside of me. Only then do I notice it is insanely loud here.

No, it isn't. Those are just the voices inside my head.

/Get yourself together, for fucks sake! I am not ready to die here!/

[You have to MOVE! just jump down backwards!]

{Listen to them, do it!}

/Why can't I take over his body right now?/

[I can't either!]

{Jump! You have to leave this altar!}

/MOVE!/

[JUMP!]

Then and there, an unwillingness to die overcame me. I started to struggle, just to move a few steps backwards. And due to my movement, the pain returned. But I kept fighting. Kept struggling. Centimetre after centimetre, I get closer to the edge.

'Hmpf!' Miles simply snorts with a disgusted look on his face. Then he raises his foot, with which he kicks me off his blade, basically helping me with my goal of jumping. I suddenly saw the Priest stepping out from behind Miles as I started falling.

Then I see everything turn into a hazy blue mess. My vision blurs, and I feel many mana creeping through my body.

{It works! I can teleport us! The altar really was the problem!}

_____________________________________________________________________________

I don't know how long I was out for, but my whole body feels like shit.

I carefully raise my hand and start feeling for my stomach, which should be mostly gone.

[I wouldn't do that if I were you.]

/That's not a good idea./

What do they mean? Then I gently touch something with just one of my fingers.

I really should have listened to them. Just this little touch was enough to send pain through my body, more potent than when I got stabbed.

And like the idiot I am, I flinched. Which made everything thousand times worse.

I was writhing in agony until I got exhausted enough to just lay still.

After waiting a bit for the residues of the pain to go away, I carefully start talking in my mind.

"Why is it so much worse? Did you do anything?"

{This should be my fault. Since you do not have enough mana to heal you, I had to resort to another method. This is a spell used in war. It is made to prolong your life until healers reach you. The downside of this is the pain. You experience a hundred times the pain.}

Fuck, I don't know if I should be grateful or if I should hate her.

"So, what should I do next?"

/We already talked about this, and the only way we see is you get to a higher level. The only way for you to gather enough mana for us to heal you without levelling would be going back to Sanctuary, where the mana is rich, but that would be straight-up suicide.

So we have to bet everything on a wild card./

[Your evolution shouldn't be too far away. We hope this will increase your mana capacity.]

Sounds good, but doesn't that mean...

"So you are saying, I have to fight with my body in this state?"

[I know a spell that suppresses all pain, but with your current mana capacity, I can at most do this for a minute.]

"Can't I just wait for my body to heal on itself?"

{My spell isn't almighty. You have at most two more days if you keep laying here. If you start moving to hunt monsters, I think you might have about ten hours.}

So I have to somehow walk despite this pain, and only when I start a fight, I can suppress the pain for a minute. And on top of that, my remaining time reduces when I move.

Sounds like a fun time. Let's get going.

I collect my willpower for a few seconds, and then I start getting up.

I scream the shit out of my lungs while doing this. I don't even care anymore if any strong monster could hear me. Whatever wants to come should come right at me. As if I have anything left to lose. So I clench my teeth and make my way out of this cave room while leaning against a wall.

And my scream really did attract something. A pack of three wolves already awaits me outside of my cave. "Do it," I say out loud, meaning for Gabriel to suppress my pain. Suddenly I can feel all pain fading away. I instantly cast three fireballs and rushed in, right behind them. Each fireball should have reduced my pain-free time by about 7 seconds, so I have to hurry up.

Like a maniac, I throw myself at the wolf in the middle, which couldn't see me due to the light of the fireball. I ram my sword into its skull from above with my whole body weight in this strike.

My sword cleanly pierces through, and I simply close the system pop-up with a thought, not even interested in what it wants to say to me.

Then I step onto the wolf, pull out my sword and swivel around, ready to fend off the incoming attacks of the other wolves.

First, I dodge the wolf from the left, then I pierce my sword into the open mouth of the other wolf, which is jumping at me from behind me.

The system notifies me of its death.

Without a stop, I instantly throw the wolf's body, which is still stuck to my blade, at its companion.

The two bodies crash into each other in mid-air. The jumping wolf falls to the ground, not yet ready to react to me, who followed right behind the wolf corpse. I come from its left side and swing down my blade with all my might, cleanly beheading the last wolf.

#Level UP#

I hear the system sound out loud.

The first wolf apparently was unique and gave 300 Experience. The other two gave 200 each. Now I achieved a level up and am only 100 EXP short of evolving.

[That was a beautiful fight.]

/I have to agree, although your stats are still low, the frenzy of your fight and the usage of tricks was better than I have ever seen from you./

"I guess, backed into a corner, everyone pulls out their hidden strength."

Then the pain suppression effect wears off, and I suddenly feel how nasty this fight was for my body.

Everything feels at least twice as bad. But I have to persevere.

I put all my 20 points into magic to increase my mana.

This almost doubled my capacity and refilled a bit of it.

Name: Civitas

Race: [Error]

HP: 390/390 | MP:62/110

Class: none

Level: 14

XP: 0/1400

Vitality: 39 | Strength: 39 | Agility: 35 | Dexterity: 35 | Intelligence: 20 | Willpower: 20 | Magic: 11

Available Stat Points: 0

Skills:

Uncommon Sword-mastery (17%),

Common Hiding Skill (65%),

Dragon's eye,

Uncommon Magic Controlling Skill(52%),

Uncommon Illusion Image Skill (1%),

Common Fire Magic Skill (93%)

Innate Talent: [Error]

Evolution Progress: 9.900/10.000 XP

My skill made a lot of progress from this fight just now. I guess these monsters were a lot stronger than I thought. But I couldn't care less right now.

I have to find another monster FAST. I can feel my body breaking down on me.

The feeling of my intestines involuntarily leaving my body is not a nice one.

And to my luck, I can already hear things approaching. The smell of blood and the sounds of battle must've drawn them in.

I hide behind a large rock, and to my relief, the ones who came are old acquaintances of mine.

2 Goblins and a Hobgoblin.

They walk past me towards the wold corpses, so I again give Gabriel a Signal to suppress the pain. Then I approach the Hobgoblin from behind and ram my sword into its neck.

Clean kill.

Even before the body hits the ground, I hurry to the next goblin, but then I suddenly get dizzy.

{I think I miscalculated quite a lot. You have about 30 minutes left. The fights exhausted you more than I thought.}

I cough up blood and have to prop myself up with my sword.

The pain slowly returns, despite the spell, and I feel cold. So cold.

"I can't move anymore..."

[Don't worry, I got this.]

I let him control my pained body for a few seconds, and I saw his astonishment. I guess I can only trust myself and these guys.

I never thought I would ever trust them.

[With this much pain, you still...]

He mumbles to himself.

He only raises one finger from the sword and says a word in a language I never heard before.

Two lightning bolts shoot from his finger and blast the goblins to smithereens.

[The last step is one you have to do yourself. Do you think you can manage? There is no mana left, so the pain is entirely there...]

I simply do something similar to a pat on the back for souls and take back the control. Without moving, which I couldn't, I opened the system.

[...]

Innate Talent: [Error]

Evolution is available!

Do you want to evolve?

[Yes]/[No]

I think of wanting to evolve, but nothing happens.

Do I really have to tap it with my fingers?

Come on! One of my arms, do something!

With a last-ditch effort, I manage to raise my finger enough to tap "Yes".

Then everything goes black.

I'm not asleep, but neither am I awake. I feel like I'm floating in some liquid. It feels... nice.