Their End is Where We Begin

Magnus began to worry as he pulled the left cutting mandible of the lionant against his hip. The man he tasked should have finished by now. If he failed, all the work he did would be useless and the innocent deaths he could have prevented as he delayed would weigh on him forever.

Still holding the six foot tall eighteen foot long lionant by the jaw, he kept his gaze on the trexxil preparing to charge him. A tickle on his brain by his lightning pulse indicated that the behemoth snake would soon strike. The Monsters were starting to understand his patterns and shortly he would be unable to dodge them any longer. The blood soaking his clothing lent credence to his inability to stall for much longer.

At last, the world mana that he had allocated for the man’s task left him. The man had completed his task and obtained the hundred gold coins that the world energy would spawn for him. It had cost Magnus much for the little he needed done, and the man was now quite a bit richer.

Momentarily.

Now, Magnus just had to kill these three monsters and all would be prepared. The dire wolf that circled the edges of the arena would not challenge him despite it’s much higher level. It could tell that something about him felt wrong and it had not survived as the beast of the arena by being foolish.

A pulling velcro sound echoed when a rope of mana separated from his hand to his elbow. No longer supported by the mana, his power over the lionant weakened and as it tossed it’s head Magnus’ feet broke from the ground.

While being lifted, he infused the mana rope with a compressed ice short pulse and swung it through the lionant’s jaw joint. Although it did little damage to the lionant itself, it caused the joint to drastically reduce in durability and applied a freezing status. A hard twist of the wrists as he pulled the jaw strongly against his hips snapped it cleanly.

Unconnected to anything, he flipped end over end with the three foot long serrated jaw in his right hand. After applying a small amount of soul mana to the jaw, a small thunder pulse to his extended left hand rotated him to face the approaching snake. Head to the ground, bent legs to the air he jammed the lionant’s jaw through the bottom of the attacking snakes mouth.

The extra push from his attack flipped him a hairs breath over it’s head, it’s momentum and pain causing all fifty feet of it to slide forward. Now parallel and facing the ground he readied his mana for a long pulse. The snakes tail whipped about to hit him as it streaked past, and he thrust an open palmed strike at the oncoming blow.

The crack of a whip by the tail as it hit him caused his health to deplete an additional thirty percent, if his counter attack hadn’t landed he would have been dead. But now the long pulse traveled up the length of the behemoth snake. Bouncing against the armored skin and dealing massive internal damage. When the pulse reached the lionant jaw, still buried in the snakes mouth, it began to shake. Vibration increased until the durability hit zero, and it exploded.

The shrapnel, mostly contained within the snakes mouth, caused the final fatal damage to it. The snake now laid dead, mangled head buried in the sand as the rest of it’s body continued to twitch. The irritating roar of the crowd was muted for Magnus, only reaching him as an underlay to the sound of vibrating strings.

Falling to the ground, he extended one hand downward to break his fall. He lost track of the fight around him and almost missed the trexxil’s charge. Another minor thunder pulse flipped his legs over his center of mass. Pushed only slightly out of the way, he hit the sand hard just as it’s flared wings swept over him with the hum of vibrating feathers.

Only a few of the iron hard razor sharp feathers had brushed him, but enough of the slash had hit to overcome his defense. His health dropped under ten percent and the outer edges of his vision became coated in solid red. Everything now tinted red, his vision had been imparied.

A quick nature short pulse prevented his death from bleeding. Deciding to finish the lionant while the trexxil prepared a new charge, Magnus lifted his right foot to pound down a land runners pulse. As the wave rippling through the sand neared the lionant’s front paws he dropped his right foot to the ground once more. Warped directly under it, Magnus flipped his bent legs over his torso and rotated his arms to prepare his lunge.

Still roaring in pain from losing it’s cutting mandible, the lionant never noticed he had moved. Powering his hands with major thunder pulses, he prepared mana for an earthen short pulse to go into his combined feet. Just as the lionant realized something endangered it, Magnus activated one of his thunder pulses. Thrusting with massive speed as his knee stuck against it’s neck, the lionant’s four front paws rose from the ground until it lost out and landed on it’s back.

Cutting the power of his unfinished thunder pulse caused him damage, but Magnus quickly flexed his core muscles to twist himself around. Legs now facing downward just as lionant thudded to the ground, he activated the other thunder pulse. Less powerful now, it still shot him downward at incredible speed. Sensing danger, the muscles of the lionant body rippled as it tried to stand, but it didn’t manage to do more half turn when Magnus hit.

The power of the earthen short pulse turned his legs hard as diamond and massively increased his attack power for a few brief seconds. Those seconds were enough. Crashing on the lionant’s neck, he traveled through it completely before slamming upon the sand floor. The smash great enough to toss sand into the air and crater the ground where he hit.

Although he climbed from the hole quickly, Magnus had still been splashed by some of the ant lions blood. The acid in it’s blood so potent that his health fell to three percent before the water pulse could shed it from his skin.

Seeing the trexxil charging once more, Magnus had no time to recover. Setting his feet widely apart, he leaned forward with his hands extended before him. Wrists touching and fingers spread apart, he prepared to catch the trexxil and began charging mana for a nature-light omnipulse. If he didn’t finish this now, he would die.

Jolting from the collision, Magnus feet left furrows in the sand as the heavy trexxil forced him back. His defense not high enough, the damage increased second by second sending him ever closer to death. A few short feet from the wall he released the omnipulse, hoping it enough mana had accumulated. As the pulse shot down his arm, the trexxil sensed something wrong and attempted to retreat. But Magnus would not let go and it only cemented it’s doom.

The pulse hit and the trexxil could only shudder as internal organs were disintegrated. As the pulse reached it’s skin, it’s iron feathers stood straight out and vibrated against each other like a madman’s windchime. Unable to hold on any longer, the feathers exploded sending shards of iron everywhere. Blood leaking from it’s pores, it died staring at Magnus with red hate filled eyes.

Weakened to under one percent of health by the shattered feathers, Magnus’ skill Spit in Death’s Eye activated. Since the dire wolf had no desire to fight him, and Magnus’ depleted mana would not recover for a long time, he also ignored the wolf. Walking to the center of the arena to a cheering crowd, Magnus kept silent. The whole time he had fought not a word had been said, but this silence was ominous.

Reaching the center of the arena, the crowd that minutes before had wanted to see him die cheered for him to fight the wolf. Instead, he took a crystallized mana stone from his soul and built a spell point around it. Looking up at the City dweller’s he despised, eyes promising only death, he activated the point releasing the stored mana within the crystal as a massive wave.

Wave passing through the outer edges of the arena and continuing on, the crowd became deafeningly silent. When the wave hit the resonant mana stones he had tasked the man with placing, they activated and began glowing as they leaked a light blue mist. When most of the stones had cracked and gone dark, the spell circle Magnus had carved into the bones of the building activated. Shortly, the eighth circle spell would go into effect.

Filthy, bloody, burned and beaten, Magnus stared at the silent and apprehensive crowd, his anger burning uncontrollably. His bone deep all devouring hatred for what these men and women had done would let him give no quarter. Give no mercy. When he had finished scouring this place from the earth, only the cries of their souls would echo the night. This would be their graveyard.

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