(Erika's POV)
Pain!
That was the first thing to greet me as consciousness slowly returned, crawling up from the abyss of darkness.
My chest felt as though it had just been struck by a sledgehammer, crushing the bone structure protecting the vital organs beneath. Every breath was no longer a reflex activity but a conscious torture that burned my lungs, as if glass shards were being inhaled along with the air.
"Cough..."
I coughed violently, vomiting a thick taste of rusty iron from my mouth. Drops of warm blood, viscous and salty, flowed from the corner of my lips, dripping onto the cold stone ground.
My eyes blinked weakly, trying to banish the blur blocking my vision. The world spun in faded color saturation. Dark, damp, the smell of wet moss, and a sharp chemical aroma... Pungent Regeneration Vials? The bitter taste of the medicine still lingered at the back of my tongue, leaving a burning sensation in my throat.
Why was I here? My last memory was only freezing cold, the despair as my lungs stopped working due to hypoxia, and Arin's deathly pale face pressing on my chest repeatedly. That face... a face usually calm and calculating, looked so terrified at that moment.
Arin.
The name jolted my consciousness completely, sending danger signals throughout my nervous system.
BOOM!
The ground where I lay shook violently, as if a giant were punching the earth with its fist. Dust and small pebbles fell from the cave ceiling, landing on my cold-sweaty face. That sound was not thunder, nor was it nature's rumble, but the thud of flesh meeting solid metal.
In panic, I tried to get up, forcing muscles screaming in protest to work.
"Argh!" A suppressed scream escaped my lips.
My ribs must be cracked, but I did not care. This pain was just electrical signals, and right now, those signals were irrelevant. I dragged my body, crawling over the sharp rocky ground toward the cave mouth, leaving a drag trail in the cave floor dust.
Upon reaching the cave lip, the sight ahead made my heart seem to stop beating for the second time. Not because of illness, but because of pure horror.
In the middle of the open field littered with scattered Kobold carcasses, Arin was fighting alone.
His condition was far beyond terrible. His entire body was covered in gaping wounds and red bandages wrapped haphazardly. His leather armor now had many parts missing, revealing his undershirt which had turned completely blood-red. He no longer looked human, but like a walking corpse refusing to fall.
He moved slowly, dragging his feet. Every step looked painful, yet he kept moving, dodging the giant fists of a rampaging three-meter-tall Silver Golem. That monster was not just a machine.
CRACK!
Arin dodged a split second too late. His shoulder was struck by the Golem's arm. His body was flung like a broken rag doll, hitting the hard cliff wall with a deadly crashing sound, then vomiting fresh blood in response to the brutal impact.
"NO!" My scream was stifled in my throat, choked by sobs that never had the chance to escape.
Why? Why was it always like this?
The question hit my mind harder than any physical pain. The question dug up old wounds that never healed.
All this time, in the naivety of a village girl just getting to know the wide world, I always thought I would be the one protecting him. I, who had mana, a rare gift coveted by millions, even if only First Circle. I, who should have been the "Mage" to his "Knight."
However, what was the reality?
In the Trial Forest, fighting the Grizzly Bear, I fainted from fear and exhaustion, letting him almost die protecting me with his non-magical body. In the cafeteria, when Karl Benzzi and his cronies insulted me, my lips were sealed tight, my body trembling in fear, while Elena Rhyms had to step forward to defend our dignity.
And now... here... on the brink of death, I was again lying helpless like a spoiled princess waiting to be saved, while Arin destroyed his own body.
I was useless! I was just a burden! Trash wrapped in a mage's robe!
Hot tears welled up in the corners of my eyes, mixing with the dust on my face. An immense shame burned in my chest, hotter than any fire mana. I hated this weak self of mine, always taking shelter behind his back which was now starting to crack.
I saw Arin try to rise again with trembling legs. He tried to lift his sword, but failed. His legs would no longer respond to his brain's commands. His left hand hung dead in a strange and horrifying position.
Enough! That is enough!
Something inside me cracked.
It was not bone, nor was it sanity. It was the wall of fear, inferiority, and self-doubt that had constrained my potential all this time. The wall that said "you are just a village mage," "you are only First Circle," "you are weak."
My hand rummaged through my robe pocket roughly. My fingers touched small cold glass bottles. I downed all the remaining Mana Stimulants in my pocket. One, two, three bottles at once. This dose far exceeded the safe limit warned by the Academy.
However, I no longer cared about those limits. Did not care about teachers' warnings, did not care about my future career.
To hell with First Magic Syndrome! Screw talent!
If I had to die here, if my heart had to explode from overexertion, so be it. That was a cheap price.
I would not let him die alone.
I refused to be the reason for his death.
I refused to be a spectator in the tragedy of my own life.
My hand groped the ground, searching for my oak staff. As my fingers gripped its warm handle, I felt my remaining mana surge wildly, spurred by the illicit drugs now flowing rapidly through my veins.
Anger had forcibly pushed my body past its biological threshold.
"Move..." I ordered my numb legs. My teeth ground together suppressing a growl. "MOVE!"
I forced myself to stand. My ribs screamed in protest, sending shockwaves of pain to my brain, but I severed those neural pathways with pure will. I used my staff as a crutch, walking haltingly out of the cave's shadow into the blinding light.
The afternoon sunlight struck my face, feeling warm yet unable to melt the ice starting to freeze my heart. The forest wind carried the metallic smell of Arin's blood straight to my nose. That copper scent only thinned my sanity, replacing it with a focus that was sharp, cold, and inhuman.
The Silver Golem raised both its hands clasped into a giant hammer, ready to crush the head of Arin who was kneeling in resignation.
I will not let it happen!
I stepped forward. My legs trembled, yet refused to collapse. I stood right in front of Arin, stretching out my left arm, creating a barricade of flesh before the metal monster.
The mana inside my body no longer flowed gently like a river. It boiled, dense, turbulent like magma under tectonic pressure. The emotions I suppressed turned into nuclear fuel. I stared into the Golem's single eye with pure, crystallized hatred.
For the first time, I did not care about the magic theories taught in class. I did not care about ethics, safety procedures, or the safe limits of my mana circuits.
"Do not touch... my Arin!"
I just wanted to destroy that damn thing.
The Silver Golem roared. Its voice was no longer a smooth mechanical hum, but the screech of damaged metal painful to the ears. Its cracked visual sensor spun wildly before locking onto me, identifying a new threat standing between it and its prey.
"Yes, I am your opponent!" I whispered.
My voice sounded foreign, flat, and cold in my own ears. Perhaps it was a side effect of the three Mana Stimulant bottles I had forced down earlier. The chemicals began to take over, suppressing fear and empathy, turning my brain into a pure logic processor.
My world no longer looked normal. The natural colors of the forest faded into gray. Instead, neon blue wireframe lines began to overlay my retinas, mapping the environmental contours. Numbers fell like a matrix rain, calculating every variable of distance, wind speed, air friction coefficient, and enemy material density.
Pain? No, my nervous system seemed to have blocked that signal. Pain was irrelevant data input for combat, so my brain discarded it. I was no longer a human named Erika; I was merely a mana-powered data processing machine.
The Golem charged. Its footsteps were uneven due to previous damage, but five tons remained five tons. Its momentum was enough to flatten a large tree.
"Rest easy, Arin," I said softly, though I knew he could not hear it in his semi-conscious state.
I did not run, or more accurately could not run. My ribs would puncture my lungs if I made sudden movements. So, I would be a sturdy tower, a static turret unreachable by that Golem.
I raised my oak staff. Usually, it took three seconds to cast a Mana Cannon. Arin always bought me that time by risking his life. Now, Arin could not move. Therefore, I had to manipulate time.
Multicast: Open.
Mental Processing Speed: Overclocked.
Stacking: 5 Layers.
"First Circle Magic: Mana Bullet."
Not one or ten. Fifty small magic circles appeared surrounding my body instantly, shining bright like the halo of an angel of death.
FIRE.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
A rain of blue bullets struck the Silver Golem's face. Not a single one penetrated its thick faceplate, but that was not the goal. The law of inertia still applied. The kinetics of fifty impacts per second forced it to raise its arms to protect its vulnerable eye sensor.
Its steps halted. It was held back covering its face, jerking from the relentless barrage of impacts.
"More..." I growled. Fresh blood dripped from my nose, wetting my lips, a sign my brain's blood vessels were starting to burst from mana pressure. "MORE!"
My brain boiled. The mana stimulant burned my nerves, forcing them to work twice as fast, three times as efficiently. My eyes, now seeing the world in mathematical structures, found a gap in its left chest. There was a small dent, the mark of Arin's suicide attack earlier. Behind that iron plate, my calculations said its Mana Core must be located.
The problem was, its chest plate was the thickest part of Silver-Type Golem armor. A regular Mana Cannon would only scorch its surface, spreading heat over a wide area without penetration. And Mana Bullets? Those would only scratch the paint.
I needed something sharper, denser, and deadlier.
Arin's words rang in my head, not as a sentimental memory, but as a line of instruction code.
Pressure equals Force divided by Area.
If I could not increase the Force (Mana) due to the limitations of my mana pool as a First Circle Mage, then the laws of physics gave me another way. I had to manipulate the denominator in that formula by reducing the Area until it approached zero.
I took a deep breath, ignoring the pain tearing my chest. I began casting the Mana Cannon circuit. An energy ball the size of a basketball formed at the tip of my staff, spinning wildly and unstably.
The Golem noticed the mana fluctuation change. Its machine instincts saw the ball as a top-priority threat. It ignored my rain of small bullets, lowered its arms, and ran charging with its remaining strength.
The distance between us was ten meters.
"Compression," I ordered coldly.
I pressed the energy ball with my mind, forcing it to shrink against its natural will. The basketball shrank into a tennis ball. Its color changed drastically, from bright light blue to deep dark blue. The sound around me began to disappear, sucked in by the created vacuum, until the air vibrated due to unnatural mana density.
Our distance shortened to five meters. The Golem's shadow already covered my body completely.
"Smaller... Condense it more..."
The tennis ball shrank into a marble. Its color was now blackish-blue, swirling wildly with a sound like the scream of thousands of angry bees. The wood of my staff began to blacken, smoke billowing from it, turning into charcoal due to extreme mana friction heat. The skin of my palm blistered, flesh roasting, but I did not feel it. Gravity around the ball began pulling small pebbles to orbit it, creating a tangible field distortion.
Our distance narrowed further, two meters. The Golem's fist raised, blotting out the sky, about to crush my body into meat paste.
"SMALLER!" I screamed hysterically, pouring all my remaining life into that point.
The ball shrank again to the size of a pen tip. Its color had vanished completely. No longer blue, nor white. It was a black dot whose specific gravity was so high that light around it bent.
First Circle Magic (Modified): Anti-Material Round.
"Die!"
I thrust my staff forward, aiming the black dot at the dent in the Golem's chest.
TZING.
There was no thunderous explosion. The sound was not a gunpowder blast. It was a high-frequency scream, like a giant tuning fork being struck, making my molars ache instantly and my ears ring painfully until they bled.
A thin beam as thick as a needle shot from the tip of my staff. The beam penetrated the Golem's silver chest plate without the slightest resistance. No impact, no sparks, no sound of tearing metal. The beam passed through it just like that, as if ten inches of metal were mere morning mist.
The Golem froze mid-movement. Its fist stopped a hand's breadth from my face, the wind from its punch ruffling my blood-matted hair.
Silence.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then, a small coin-sized hole appeared on the Golem's back. The beam had pierced through to the rear, puncturing anything in its path.
CRACK...
Cracks of blue light began to spread from the small hole in its chest, creeping like a glowing spiderweb. Its mana core shattered, particles scattering everywhere. The density of the attack was so high it destroyed the atomic structure of the surrounding metal, making the steel brittle as glass.
The giant silver body shook violently, the death throes of a machine. The red light in its single eye blinked once then extinguished completely. Its hydraulic knees wobbled, losing pressure, then the body collapsed sideways and fell with the satisfying thud of dead metal.
I stood there, staggering. My staff crumbled into wood dust in my hand, unable to withstand the load of energy I had just channeled. My world slowly faded, the neon blue wireframes disappearing, replaced by a warm and inviting darkness.
"One..." I mumbled, my lips forming a crooked smile before my consciousness snapped. "...all."
My body gave up. I fell forward, not onto the hard ground, but into the embrace of peaceful darkness, where there was no more pain, no more monsters, and no more fear of talent.