Twelve Seconds – Rufus

Four seconds. I rushed towards the beast, my body moving purely on instinct. I knew I didn’t have any chance, but if I ran away, I would die just as quickly. The only way to live a bit longer was to push forward. Aster ran off towards the right side of the beast, so I circled around on the left to catch it in a pincer attack. Though, it was more that the beast couldn’t wipe us out at once.

Five seconds. The beast charged up its breath again. I didn’t know how long we had, but I was sure I could get in one attack before it fired. Emma still had the last fire crystal, but I didn’t want to use it yet. If I missed, we would die – it was practically a guarantee. Even if I did use it right now, the fire would burn us alive. Either that, or the smoke would suffocate us – the opening in the cave wasn’t big enough to vent the chamber.

I jumped into the air, aiming a punch at the beast’s shell. There were cracks between each of the pieces, but I didn’t have the precision to aim at them. I was hoping I could pummel through a bit of the shell, or at least knock it off balance.

Six seconds. I punched the beast’s shell with all my might. A burst of wind, more explosive than any I did before, shot out.

That was unexpected. The tailwind plus the fused knuckle protected my right hand from any further damage. It still hurt like hell though. Was the mana so dense that it was affecting our strength? But we couldn’t use our mana when walking down here. There had to be some sort of condition, but I didn’t have time to figure it out.

The backlash threw me into the air, blowing off the loose pieces of dirt and gravel, obscuring the beast from view. That extra power should’ve done something… right?

The dust quickly dissipated revealing… not a single scratch. There might have been a scuff mark if I looked close enough, but that was all.

Seven seconds. I landed back on the shell, but I had no other ideas. Maybe I could aim a wind punch in-between one of the cracks? That might work…probably. The beast turned its head towards the ceiling as I contemplated. A chill crept down my spine as my instinct took over again, running towards Aster. If I stopped for a moment, Aster would die. Die from what though? How did I know that? It wasn’t long before I had my answer.

Aster was off-balance on the other side of the beast’s shell; half of her sword stuck between the gaps of the plates. I threw a punch towards her, releasing an explosive gust of wind similar to the one I hit the beast with. She looked upwards, and I followed her gaze slightly, still rushing. The beast shot off another beam of light. It was absorbed and redirected by the crystals on the ceiling, hurtling directly towards Aster.

Luckily, my wind punch managed to reach Aster before the light did, pushing her partially out of the way, knocking the sword hilt out of hand. However, everything from her waist down had been vaporized. She wasn’t in pain, but there was no way she could fight anymore. I quickly grabbed Aster, tucking her under my arm, and jumped off towards Ai and Emma.

Eight seconds. The beast was simply toying with us. If it could bounce the beams off the crystals, then it could hit anywhere in the cave, including multiple places at once. However, it chose to pick us off one at a time, tormenting our minds. It was as if we were fighting an omnipotent being – a god. The beam didn’t even damage the beast in the slightest, and its attack was powerful enough to vaporize anything! What irony.

There was no way we could survive now, no matter how hard we tried. We didn’t have a return crystal to escape. The best I could do was make a last stand with the fire crystal. Even if Aster had her lower half, she wouldn’t be able to make it out without being obliterated.

“Sorry,” Aster whispered, her expression fraught with regret. She was trying to regenerate her body, but it was much slower than usual. I was sure a few minutes had passed since she was hit, so the beast had to be doing something. She was trying to help out where she could, throwing needles as I retreated, but it wasn’t doing anything. I only hoped that Ai could do something with her vines to get us out of this.

Nine seconds. I reached the barrier Ai put up. It wasn’t particularly tall, so I was able to step over it. Seeing Ai and Emma, I instinctively grimaced.

Ai’s eyes were unfocused as she laid on the ground. Everything below her knees were gone. One of her hands was outstretched, commanding the vines even as she teetered on the edge of consciousness. Meanwhile, some of her vines were heavily damaged – a few were broken off, unmoving. The vines couldn’t handle the shockwaves from the beast’s attack.

Emma was directly behind her, sitting on the ground, frozen in shock. Her clothes were slightly covered in dirt while cuts littered her skin, some still bleeding. Although her eyes were focused on the beast, the rest of her body wasn’t responding. She looked like Aster’s normal state: still and lifeless.

They were worse off than Aster, and she was missing half her body. I had a few scratches, excluding my right hand, so I was the only one able to fight. However, there was no way we could survive another blast. I would have to risk it all on the fire crystal.

Ten seconds. I ran over to Emma’s rucksack and rummaged through. There wasn’t any time, so I threw out anything useless. Items flew out the bag from ingredients to pots and pans. There was even a gold coin in one of the front pockets, which was surprising, but I didn’t have time to be shocked. I found the last healing potion in one of the middle pockets.

“Aster!” I yelled before tossing it over to her. I kept searching and found the fire crystal near the bottom of the bag. It must’ve been knocked out of its pocket.

Eleven seconds. Aster’s body was regenerating faster, but it was still too slow. There was already a white light shining at us. It would be close. I tossed the crystal into the air and continued running forward, making sure not to catch anyone in the line of fire.

And then, my feet stumbled, caught one behind the other. Crap. I was falling. My punch was going to miss the crystal. Of course, I managed to screw up at the last moment.

They said when your life was about to end, you could see it flash before your eyes. I didn’t believe that at all, but I found myself thinking about my past and the mistakes I made. We didn’t have any return crystals, we were severely underprepared for this exam, we rarely had time to take a break to recover our strength, and many other blunders I could think of. I wanted to be strong, to stand up and protect the world. But was I, were we, so blinded by our strength that this result was inevitable?

Even if that were true, that wasn’t going to stop me from trying.

I wanted to be a hero, after all.

“OOWWWWW!” I could feel my body reorienting itself. Ai’s vines were adjusting my position, directing my fist towards the crystal. Her eyes had a bit of sharpness to them; a needle poked out of her funny bone.

“You owe me for this Aster!”

A brief smile crossed my lips. Even as I fell, I put more force behind my punch, using my wind magic to accelerate it faster. My arm popped out of my shoulder’s socket, but I didn’t feel any pain. There was no time to. Everything boiled down to this moment.

My punch reached its apex of strength and speed, making contact with the fire crystal, shattering into dust. A moment of silence followed as my body hit the ground.

Then came the wind. It shot towards the beast with the force of a tornado, catching all the loose dirt and rocks and tossing them around at speeds faster than sound. It looked like a sea of gray had taken over my vision. The only ones my eyes could catch were some of the larger rocks.

The gray was instantly replaced with purple. Flames coming off the crystal were so hot that my right arm vaporized, even with the knuckle fused to my hand. The flames grew higher and hotter with each passing moment. It turned into a natural disaster of its own, barreling down towards the beast like a tsunami. I was in awe of the sight. The aftermath would definitely kill us.

I glanced back and saw Aster had regenerated up to her hips. She might be able to finish regenerating her whole body before the beast attacks. Ai, meanwhile, was already raising her vines higher to protect us from the flames. She had finer control of her mana now, so she could probably apply some fireproofing techniques to the barrier. I kept my eye on the fire wall, but I saw no signs of the beast emerging. My attack likely wouldn’t kill the beast, but at least it seemed to do something. I let my guard down slightly, preparing to weather my own attack.

Twelve seconds. A bright beam of light shot through the flames, destroying them in an instant. It didn’t provide any resistance against the attack whatsoever; the beast had simply swiped away a puff of smoke. Off to the side, I could barely see the beast smiling, unharmed.

Then, my vision went white–