One Last System

Once again, my body exploded in pain as the pure mana flooded my system, flooded my insides, and flooded every last inch of the area I controlled within the Mage\'s Tower.

Once again, I felt like every last inch of my skin came into contact with the very sun, the very origin of the power called spiritual energy by the locals and mana by me.

But this time, I didn\'t bother trying to wrestle control over the totality of this power. Rather than that, I allowed it to flow freely through the pathways I created during the early phases of my cultivation.

And just like when I wanted to quickly reach the Outerpost, my newfound energy reacted to my deep wishes.

My energy exploded outwards, raising far higher than my mage\'s tower could.

\'What the hell,\' I thought when my mind once again forcefully expanded to cover the new areas that I could tell were now under my control. Yet, contrary to the perfectly shaped area of Mage\'s Tower, this new space that my new form covered was unshapely, failing to keep the basic geometrical figures.

I looked up, curious to see what exactly was going on. I was prompted to do this by the sudden change of expression deep within the dark eyes of the monster as it raised its head and looked way above my head.

"What the fuck…." I whispered to myself. Despite looking at my new form from the inside, I could still roughly tell how it looked to everyone outside.

In an instant, I allowed my full mana to enter the engine, where I mixed it with the other kind of energy. As a result, my entire body appeared to expand a hundred times.

Obviously, my flesh remained the same. But right now, my physical body was just the seed of a construct made purely out of mana.

An avatar of sorts.

\'Let\'s see….\' I thought, gently raising my hand. And just like I hoped, my avatar followed the movement, moving the mass of mana shaped like its arm up.

A grin crept up on my lips.

Despite my body burning due to the overexposure to the kind of energy that I have yet to find out how to handle, I couldn\'t stop the happy satisfaction of a boy receiving a new toy.

\'Now then,\' I thought, moving my eyes on the monster ahead. "Let\'s dance!" I shouted, sending my right first forward.

The hit connected. Given how long I spent practicing the same simple boxing technique, it wouldn\'t be a stretch to say that I managed to master it. And now, for the very first time since I transmigrated to this world, I found great use in this field of expertise of mine.

POOF!

Just like when I used bolts to find this violet mana-born monster when my avatar\'s arm struck the monster…

Both the arm and a huge chunk of the monster\'s energy canceled each other out.

The violet mana didn\'t disappear. It simply ejected itself from the general mass of the monster, locked by my pure mana of mine.

\'Isn\'t this the best way to get more of this new power?\' I thought, noticing the opportunity.

Right now, I was on the clock. With every second, I was burning through the precious and extremely limited stockpile of the violet mana I scoured from the last battlefield.

And judging from how unimpressed the monster appeared to be by my attack, this fight wasn\'t going to end any time soon!

\'Let\'s get to work, then,\' I thought, this entire internal exchange taking less than a single second in the real world.

As such, rather than trying a new technique or approach, I simply followed up on my boxing technique, pulling my right hand back and using the swinging momentum in my shoulders to throw my left fist.

Once again, a chunk of the monster split apart from its main body, only to drop a small distance away. Yet, as it was coated with a thick layer of my pure mana, the instant attempt of the monster to take it back proved to be futile.

\'That\'s good to know,\' I thought, forcing my mana back to my real body as I rushed towards the monster in my physical form. Yet, instead of clashing with it, I sneaked under its belly, extending several barriers over my head in case the monster would drop its own weight down on me.

I didn\'t linger in this dangerous position for long. With how the two kinds of energy interacted, I dared not to push my luck too far by just staying underneath the monster. Instead, now that it could not track my movements, I rushed to its back.

If I wanted this fight to keep on going, I had to be able to keep up the pure-mana producing process. And in order to keep it up, I needed two components. I had the mana of this world in abundance, being a cultivator reaching the peak of how much one could grow. On the other hand, though, my supply of that violet energy was extremely limited.

In such a situation, how else could I look at those chunks of the monster I blasted away as anything else but precious fuel for my magical reaction?

I dared not to hold back my speed. The second I emerged from underneath the monster, I pushed my speed to its limits only to jump right into the first clump of the foreign mana.

At first, the layer of energy that coated it prevented me from reaching the prize… But upon a single thought of mine, this barrier dissipated allowing me full and unrestrained access to my target.

"Roar?" the monster finally figured out what I did and jumped up. Yet, instead of turning around midair as I expected it to do, the monster proved that trying to put it into the frame of my expectations was the most naive thing to do.

Instead of turning around, the monster\'s body warped. And in a second, what appeared to be its butt before, now grew up another head while its former head disintegrated and merged back into its general mass, turning what was formerly its front into its back.

\'Wait, if it could morph like that….\' I thought, baffled by the sight as I rushed towards the other piece of the violet energy.

And then it dawned upon me. Yet, it was just a little bit too late for me to react in an effective way.

"EXPAND!" I shouted, more to myself than to anyone else.

It wasn\'t a skill. I had no skill that would allow me to expand my sphere of influence. Right now, it was nothing more but a gamble, fueled by how this pure energy seemed to respond to my every wish so far.

The monster dropped down. What I initially took for an attempt to turn around was actually its own way of retaliating.

My pure mana rushed out, spreading away from the sphere of influence of my Mage\'s Tower. Then, it suddenly grew so fast I could no longer track its movements with my eyes.

Yet, the second the dropping monster sent a powerful shockwave of both physical and magical nature to every direction around itself, my mana solidified, forming an inverted cone with an open top and flat bottom.

The energy reached the constraint that I constructed… But instead of fighting it off, it bounced off the wall of pure mana. Once redirected, the shockwave simply blasted upwards, wasting all the destructive potential of the attack by turning it towards the clouds.

"Everyone, run!" someone finally came to their senses, ordering a general retreat.

\'Stupid,\' I thought, rolling my eyes.

The feat that I just achieved barely put a dent in my mana. And now that I didn\'t need to worry about this wondrous reaction running out of fuel, I really didn\'t feel like holding back.

"Even if you didn\'t do it intentionally, you harmed my girl," I whispered right into the monster\'s face, unbothered by it, barring its fangs just at me. "And that calls for punishment," I added, no longer bothered to hide my voice.

Right now, I couldn\'t openly use Mia\'s name, even though I wanted to do it. Doing so would put her in too much of a danger, not only as someone who could be considered my weakness but also as someone who I was on a first-name basis with.

\'And I can only guess how the locals will react to my appearance here,\' I thought. I wasn\'t naive enough to believe that saving the lives of all the people gathered here would save me from those very people trying to either persecute or outright threaten my safety and freedom!

I took a deep breath, forcing those useless thoughts aside. Right now, I had no time to think about others. Mia was the only exception to this rule, yet now that I separated the monster from everyone else with that dome of mine, I no longer had to concern myself with Mia\'s safety.

I raised my head and looked right into the fangs of the monster. Then, prompted by some inner feeling, I smiled.

"Are you ready to rumble?!" I muttered silently under my nose while using the very same excited tone that the original creator of this sentence used.

I didn\'t need to lift my formations and arrays, nor did I need to prepare my wardens or the mage tower. I had it all prepared before I even descended upon this battlefield. And now that I secured the fuel to power up my engine, there wasn\'t a single reason to keep on stalling this fight.

"Now then, let\'s save whoever you keep inside," I said openly before raising the palm of my hand. This gesture prompted all my bolt launchers to assemble themselves in a circular formation right above my head.

And then, one by one, with a tenth of a second of delay between each of them, my bolt launchers started to shoot.

This time, I had no real hopes for my bolts to do any good. The monster\'s size was just too damn great for it to even feel bothered by my attacks. Yet, I didn\'t need to do any real damage with this action.

For but a second, the monster\'s attention went towards my bolts, proving that this opponent of mine was perfectly capable of assessing the field of the battle. But what appeared as a sign of caution for the monster itself was the window of opportunity for me.

And so, without even a hint of hesitation, I ramped up the processing power of my magical reaction or a magical engine, given how I was in dire need of some mighty-sounding name. And just as the monster\'s attention returned to me, my body was nowhere to be seen anymore, shielded in my avatar\'s thick clumps of mana.

"Die, you damned dog!" I shouted, throwing a punch forward.

Using the avatar was insanely inefficient. Yet, for every piece of magic that I wasted just by using this form, the monster ahead would lose another chunk of its magical flesh.

And every time it received my attack, this monster would end up leaving a drop of precious fuel down on the ground.

\'Let\'s see who can keep it up longer!\' I thought to myself before immersing myself right back into the fight.

And then, another meteorite went right above my head, only to disappear beyond the horizon a second later.

I was aware that the monster before me wouldn\'t be the last one. Even though it was bigger than the one before, it still was way smaller than the entirety of that meteor.

And that could only mean one thing.

Despite how bad my situation was already, I was now living on borrowed time! Because the second this place would be swarmed with monsters just like the one in front of me, I would no longer be capable of protecting myself, not to speak about anyone else!