The neck of a Warrior beside The Butcher was cleanly cleaved. The head flew up, spinning through the air with an expression of shock still frozen on its features. Blood fountained from the stump. The Butcher and others nearby were shocked and infuriated at the sudden death of their companion.
At this time, Damian also made his move.
He was not as powerful as a Warrior, but he still remembered the basic techniques to handle Stone Weapons. The spears felt heavy in his hands, heavier than they should have been. His muscles were those of a farmer now, not a prince in training.
But in the midst of battle, there was immense chaos.
Anything could happen.
Men could trip and knock their heads on stone and die.
So if he targeted a Warrior whose back was turned as they did everything to focus on the enemy in front of them...
"Haa..."
He breathed in the scent of blood again.
He took a stance that his body remembered even if his foundation did not. His right hand drew back, the spear balanced perfectly despite the trembling in his arm. He sighted along the shaft toward a Warrior who was pressing hard against one of the Purple Stone Tribe's defenders.
And he put every ounce of force he could muster into the throw.
The spear flew.
Oh, it flew!
Even though he did not have any Mana, he still had to join the battle. This was the only potential chance there was to equalize the playing field and give Uncle Adam a chance to clear out the rest.
And...
SQUELCH!
His basic techniques did not fail him.
The heavy spear found its target in the back of the head of the Warrior. But the skin of Warriors was so thick, so reinforced with Mana, that only the very tip of the spear went in.
But it was still the tip.
On the back of a skull.
"GAH!"
The Warrior roared out at such a grievous injury. Against all expectation, he did not fall. He turned around as if to take down with him whoever had done such a thing.
But the moment he did turn around...
SUI!
The sound of another spear was barely heard as it smashed into his turning head and pierced through the eye socket.
And this time around, his eyes dimmed.
This Warrior fell to his knees and then forward into the mud, dead before he finished falling.
"Rakar!"
The Butcher roared with rage once more.
His eyes caught the one who had done such a thing.
And he saw the feeble and thin figure of a young man already running.
Damian heaved heavily as he sprinted, his hand reaching out to grasp the spears skewering the fallen Warrior. There was no celebration from him. His arms felt heavy. His lungs felt like they were on fire. The taste of iron was in his mouth now, whether from blood in the air or from his own exertion, he did not know.
But he knew this was life and death.
Warriors were powerful, but was there ever a rule that said a normal person could not kill a Warrior?
With the right circumstances, anything was possible.
So he plucked the spears out of the mangled Warrior, their shafts slick with blood and worse. He prepared to find another target.
He-
"DAMIAN!"
The roar of Uncle Adam boomed out like thunder.
Every single hair on Damian rose to attention.
He brought his head down by sheer instinct even though he did not see anything. His body moved before his mind could process, throwing itself toward the earth with desperate speed.
SWISH!
A blade crackling with Mana passed through the space where his head had been. The air itself screamed at its passage. Blue tendrils of power coiled around the stone tip, and where it cut through, reality seemed to shiver.
The tips of his dark hair were cleaved cleanly.
Had he been a second late, his head would have been severed from his body.
A sense of trepidation coursed through him as he tumbled back while grasping a spear. He barely managed to see the blaze of blue not far from him.
It was the enraged Butcher.
The monster had accepted Uncle Adam's spear piercing his shoulder, had used his tight muscles to lock the weapon in place, and had charged over here in a single step to behead the one who dared kill his man.
Having survived was already an improbability.
But Warriors were fast.
Very fast.
It was already shameful that a Lesser Thing had evaded his attack. Filled with rage, The Butcher only struck out again as his voice boomed across the chaos.
"You should've known your place."
His eyes held no mercy. Only contempt.
"The weak should not dare to kill the strong."
...!
The words were a rebuke.
A rebuke to Damian for killing a Warrior.
A rebuke asking why he would even dare to dodge an attack from another Warrior!
The trepidation in his heart buzzed even more as Damian saw the rapid blade pulsing with Mana coming down. The Butcher's muscles coiled with power that could shatter stone. The blue tendrils along his arm burned brighter than before, feeding force into the blow that would end Damian's life.
Behind The Butcher, Uncle Adam was charging forward while being surrounded by other Warriors. His face was twisted with desperate fear!
But he would not reach here in time.
"Ah."
Everything felt like it slowed down.
Damian realized with a crushing weight of reality that this was it.
'Fuck, man.'
He had dreams. He had aspirations. He had anger.
But he simply did not have Mana.
In the last moments of his life, he found himself thinking of his mother. Of his father.
They were both strong Warriors in their own right, but even they were gone. Consumed by the same flames that had taken everything. Killed by the same monsters that had shattered his foundation and left him to crawl through the ashes of his life.
Before he left her, his mother had told him something.
"Live, Little Damian, live. Live happily, and live strongly, okay?"
...!
He had tried.
He had really tried.
He had swallowed his pride and ran. He had been looking for a solution to sense Mana again over all these years. He had planted seeds and pulled weeds and pretended that survival was enough.
'I really did try, Mom.'
He found himself defiant even in this moment.
The blessing of feeling as if everything was going in slow motion ended.
The coming blade swiped across.
PAH!
The stone spear in his hand was cleaved in two, the pieces spinning away into the chaos.
And the tip of the serrated blade pulsing with tendrils of Mana tore apart his chest like paper.
Burning!
Scorching!
Pain spread all across his body as flesh parted and bone cracked and something vital inside him ruptured. His figure was thrown backward like a sack of wet stones, tumbling across the blood-soaked earth until he came to rest against something he could not see.
And amidst all the pain, the one thing he could think of was...
Mana.
He felt the raging Mana rip apart his chest and ribcage. He felt it bring him closer toward Death with each passing heartbeat. But in that destruction, in that agony...
This was the closest that he had felt Mana again in years.
The power that had been stolen from him.
The potential that had been shattered.
For one brief moment, he could sense it again as it tore him apart.
And then, immense darkness came.
Amidst the flash of vibrant blue sparks of Mana, multiple sparks tore across his body. They burned through flesh and muscle without discrimination. They shredded what little remained of his defenses.
And some of them smashed into his heart.
The moment they did, something unique occurred that nobody grasped.
Ever so briefly, if only for a moment...
His heart flashed an extremely pure blue in defiance.
Brighter than the Mana of The Butcher.
Brighter than anything that should exist in the First Circle, or really, any Circle.
A blue so pure it seemed to belong to legends, to myths, to beings who walked when Existence was young.
Ever so briefly.
And then, everything was shredded apart!