One Last System

My barrage shot up... and sank right into the monster's throat.

Looking at the entire situation from below, I could only stand in awe of what I was capable of.

It appeared as if an entire layer of reality lifted up. A strange kind of dense fog rushed into the monster's mouth, a fog that one couldn't be aware of unless it was suddenly lifted.

And then, my spells exploded.

BOOM!

The shockwave of the attack exploded the monster's jaws away. Sadly, within the enclosure of its teeth, mouth, and earth below, I couldn't avoid the brunt of the explosion myself.

'Fuck,' I thought, kneeling down under the pressure of my own attack.

It was just a force of rebound, yet it easily slaughtered nearly half of my evolved wardens.

'Keep going,' I thought, bitting down on my lips as I raised my head and continued to pump my mana into the remaining structures of the Mage's Tower.

For the first time since I became capable of using that spell, I learned that it actually had its limits.

Tic.

[Integrity of the Tower: 73%]

A new kind of status flashed before my eyes. But to be honest, I didn't need it.

I could see the damage to my triumph card at a glance.

"This isn't going to be easy," I whispered, refocusing myself on the monster ahead.

Paying attention to the system would be akin to suicide.

Not now.

Because despite unloading nearly a third of all my remaining mana, all I achieved was pushing the monster away.

"ROAR!"

I dug my feet into the ground. The pressure wave that came with the sound of the monster's cry nearly knocked me out. It attacked in several dimensions, from trying to topple my stance through assaulting my hearing sense all the way to sending all the nearby free mana into a disarray.

All the pieces upon which I built my Mage's Tower were crumbling one after another.

The things I deemed paradigms of the world proved to not be as reliable as I expected them to be.

'At this rate...' I thought, gnashing my teeth together.

The gianormous bear rose up, standing on its hind legs. It rested its front paws over its belly.

Just by standing upright, the monster easily inserted its castle-like head into the clouds.

'Now that I think about it,' I froze for a second, suddenly noticing an abnormality. 'How come I'm just accepting a sky-high bear as an opponent of mine?'

It was only a momentary shock, a realization lasting no more than a blink of my eye.

But it forcibly changed my perspective.

'I can't win in a slugfest,' I thought, retracting all my energy and condensing it on keeping my Mage's Tower up.

If I were to trade blows with this monstrosity, I would need my engine. And even then, the cost of doing so would be enormous.

'I can't risk it,' I realized, shaking my head at the same time as I shook off my daze.

New energy flashed in my eyes as my lips formed a small, cheeky smile.

"If I can't fight," I muttered to myself, watching how the monster started to raise its paws, clearly preparing to crush all of my resistance with a simple stomp. "Then I need to deploy the ultimate secret technique," I thought, my lips quivering.

Right now, only two emotions ran through my soul.

Extasy caused by the high-risk bet I was putting my life on. And then the immense terror of doing so.

"I hope I won't get copyrighted for saying that," I muttered to myself, looking sideways, not bothered by the incoming attack whatsoever.

And then, the massive bear attacked, dropping its paws and the weight of its entire upper body right at me.

I raised my head, staring at the incoming doom.

The enormous weight of this insane beast crushed right through my Mage's Tower. All the arrays and formations that I deployed to ward off this attack were obliterated in a mere instant.

Everything that made my Mage's Tower what it truly was would simply vanish upon the contact with the slam.

But there was one thing that didn't require me to use the hardware I deployed. One skill that was insanely hard to level up and even harder to handle.

A glint flashed in my eyes, my bet about to lock-in.

Then, the attack struck me right into the chest, ready to flatten me against the ground.

***

"I NEED TO DO SOMETHING!" Mia screamed out from the bottom of her imaginary lungs, bashing her imaginary hands against the imaginary wall.

Stuck in the strange world of mana, she could only observe the events unfolding before her very own and unconscious eyes.

But no matter how hard Mia tried to break free from this world, her power would prove insufficient.

'I cannot match the amount of mana of this world,' Mia thought, gritting her teeth.

Even though she had no real body in her current state, she could feel drops of blood trickling down from her palms, cut open by her imaginary nails.

Right above her, she could see Arthur getting pummeled by the monster.

Mia's heart nearly stopped when the bear first bit Arty's position. Yet, the relief she felt when Arthur somehow managed to recover was quickly soured when another attack came.

And this time, it connected properly.

For but a second, both worlds stopped for the girl.

The world outside froze as if the technique responsible for displaying it had crashed. But even the world of mana that she was in ceased to move forward as the heavens ordained.

'My power is no match to the power of this world,' Mia thought, stuck in this frozen second.

She could clearly feel just how insignificant her own spiritual energy was when compared to the ocean of mana that surrounded her in the form of clouds.

And the more she attempted to force this world to let her out, the stronger its defenses would become. The more energy she would use in her attempts, the more energy this world would return right at her.

'I won't be able to free myself in this way,' Mia thought. She couldn't tell it with her reason, but she could somehow tell that the freezing of the time was about to end.

'Then, I need to use the energy of this world against it!' she came to a conclusion.

There wasn't even a hint of worry for her own safety in Mia's mind.

Right now, with the devastating attack connecting with Arthur's chest, she could care less about the stuff like her own health or life.

'Don't you dare,' Mia's eyes widened as she opened herself up and channeled the nearest cloud through her own cultivation.

The second she did so, a strange force appeared, pulling forward all the nearby clouds of energy, threatening to burn through Mia's paths in a mere instant.

'I won't make it, not in this way,' Mia thought, gritting her teeth.

And then, as if she was struck by a bolt of knowledge from the heavens above, Mia froze.

The energy continued to flow right towards her, filling her body and soul to their limits in an instant.

Then, Mia's lips formed a small smile.

And then she dropped all resistance, allowing all of this energy to freely flow through her.

"Go," Mia whispered, directing all of this massive energy into a single task of breaking the seal of this space open.

Both of the worlds around her picked up their pace. The space of the spiritual world she was in started to tear apart.

But it was all too slow.

***

The attack connected.

It was something that I had no other choice but to allow. Because the very force that was aimed to crush me was the force, I needed to not only escape but also save both Mia and Hera from the danger.

The attack connected.

But despite all the weight behind it, it could only travel at a set speed. Despite its immense strength, the bear monster wasn't all that swift.

I allowed my knees to bend, leading my body at the very same speed as the attack, crushing on me from above.

By the time I came close to losing my footing, I had finished matching all the variables.

'Disturb.'

The one element of my Mage's Tower that the bear's attack didn't affect was the sphere of influence around me. Even with all the formations gone, for but a brief moment, I could still control any and all events within that space.

Obviously, there was bound to be a limit to a power like this. Just like my Mage's Tower, blocking a hit of a certain strength would require energy equal to the force of the attack.

That's why, rather than canceling the power behind the slam...

I slightly changed its angle.

In the mere instant that my body collided with the monster's paw, I distributed the vector of the attack.

The strength that was supposed to squash me suddenly pushed me to the side. The force aimed to crush me, kicked me out of the area of the attack.

And the majority of the force of the attack... was cut right in half, making the monster's paw slide in two directions at the same time.

'To think that something like this didn't even consume that much of my mana,' I thought, flying away at an increasing speed.

'UGH,' a dull breath squeezed out of my lungs when my back struck a random tree.

It felt as if all the water contained within my cells suddenly decided to leave my body and attack the border of my skin.

"Fuck," I cursed underneath my breath.

I somehow managed to survive. But this unlucky landing just cost me my last bit of control.

Despite all my efforts to stand up, I had absolutely no physical strength in my left.

I fell to my knees, coughing up blood right below me. From the stinging pain in my chest, I could tell I had broken at least two ribs.

'Is this the end, huh?' I thought, a strange, dull feeling numbing my senses and consciousness alike.

My upper body leaned forward. Only thanks to my last-ditch attempt, I managed to shoot my hand forward, resting the weight of my body on it before I would dig a ditch in the ground with my face.

Taking a deep breath, I brought my chin up, stealing a glance at the monster.

It was limping on its front leg, the outcome of my counter. But it was about to strike me down. And this time, I had no strength left to even mount any defense.

I was out of moves.

"ROAR!" the monster cried out, bringing its paw up, set to end me with the same limb I injured before.

"NO!"