Amasha was hopeless. He had given up on screaming for help and submitted into a ball.
"Paley..." He shivered with fear as the Fulguron cubs drew near, "Mom..." He clutched the sides of his head. The cub in front of him snapped its jaws and lurched forward to take him all for itself.
Amasha screamed and braced himself. Nothing happened. The Fulguron cubs' growls began turning into whimpers. He felt an intense thirst for blood right in front of him and looked up to see Paley lodging his forearm in between the cub's jaws.
The Fulguron cub tried to bite through his forearm, but its teeth cracked under Paley's rock-hard skin.
"I thought you were out of magic," The mother Fulguron commented, "You must be one of the Vamali, then." Her words didn't make sense to Paley anymore. He no longer heard or saw anything but the prey before him.
Saliva dripped down from his mouth like a rabid dog, and his eyebrows wrinkled so extremely that they nearly overlapped his glowing red eyes. He bellowed and pushed his forearm down into the cub's jaws, pinning it down onto the ground.
The mother Fulguron attacked him to protect its child, but by the time it had gotten within a meter of Paley, he'd twisted the cub's neck so violently that its head came clean off, blasting a shower of blood onto Paley.
The mother hesitated for a moment, trying to process the sight before her. Paley pulled his arm out of the cub's jaws. The skin was torn off where its teeth had penetrated, and the bone was completely destroyed. But it didn't bother him. Pain was second nature to him.
He picked up the cub's head with his other hand and bit into the fleshy part of the snout. His teeth crunched through the muscle and hard bone, absorbing the residual magic energy inside it. The mother Fulguron roared and charged him, but he pierced through its shoulder with an enormous laser of fire.
He could use magic again. One bite of the Fulguron cub bought back nearly half of his mana. He gathered up most of his mana into an enormous explosion of light and heat, setting the forest ablaze. The Fulguron retreated slightly and watched as Paley emerged from the flames, his eyes wide with blind rage.
He clawed at the air, and all eight cubs were flung together into a ball. "STOP!!" The Fulguron screamed. It opened its mouth, and a dense ball of electricity welled into existence. The ball of electricity blasted forwards into a beam of lightning, but it was too late.
Her cubs became a nightmare of blood and guts, blended and swirled about mid-air.
Paley funneled some of the meat and blood into his mouth, leaving the ground bones and organs behind. He had eaten all of their flesh.
"MY CHILDREN!! How dare you!?" The Fulguron's fury was quickly put down by the pure darkness Paley emitted.
"Hungry..." He said in a distorted, devilish voice. He burst forwards and threw an enormous bolt of fire into the Fulguron's head. It slashed upwards but hit a clone.
Paley appeared on its right, blasting another firebolt at it, but it dodged and thrust its paw forward, which Paley easily evaded. It roared and charged up lightning magic in its fur. An explosion of electricity filled the forest, destroying every clone.
The monster had let its guard down. Paley emerged from above, covered in a coating of yellow reinforcement magic. He generated a boulder of rock above him and dropped it onto the Fulguron. He wasn't conscious, so he had no idea he was using two magic types at once.
The boulder hit the tired Fulguron on the top of the head, punching it downwards. Paley tensed his hands in a clawing shape and swung them upwards, conjuring a giant spike of ice where Fulguron's head was falling.
The spike of ice pierced through its lower jaw and burst out of its head. A shower of blood erupted from where it came out, painting Paley a dark scarlet. He passed out from magic overuse mid-air and fell onto its snout.
He won.
He regained awareness a few hours later, taking in his blood-stained surroundings. An awful, raw taste filled his mouth, and the stench of rotting body parts attacked his nose.
"What the hell?" He mumbled to himself, trying to remember what horrible events took place here, but a sharp migraine greeted him every time. The pain and sensation was similar to when he woke up on the riverbank.
He felt strangely satiated.
"Amasha." He suddenly sprung to his feet and looked for Amasha among the thick blood and guts on the ground. "Amasha!" He called out desperately. The trees had been charred black from the enormous explosion he caused, and there was no longer any grass for hundreds of meters around.
Light, labored breathing filled his ears. Amasha lay unconscious under the intestines of one of the cubs. Paley picked him up and suddenly found that every one of his muscles was so sore he felt individual cramps happening everywhere.
"Amasha," He mumbled as he stumbled forwards to get back to the orphanage. He had no mana left. He'd somehow managed to use five times more mana than he had in the fight against the Fulguron.
After an hour of tired limping, he finally reached the edge of the normal forest where the river greeted them. On the other side, the orphans and Madella waited for them. They all wore the same expression. Pure concern.
For some reason, Paley believed they would look at him with disgust and fear. Madella ran across the river, going against her rule of never entering the river with clothes on, and hugged Paley tightly.
"What happened to 'take off your clothes before playing in the river'?" He jested.
"Oh, shut up, you!" She broke down into tears.
"Mom... Am I a bad person?" Paley asked, remembering how apathetically he watched the perverse knight die. He even enjoyed it a little.
"Why would you ask that?" Madella replied as all the other orphans crossed the river after taking their clothes off.
"That knight. The one who wanted to take Jurie from us. I let him die. I liked watching him die." Paley's voice was tired.
"No... You are a good person, Paley. There are people in this world who are bad." Madella comforted him, "But we must never stoop down to their level, okay? You're good. You're really good."
"Paley!" Adimia and Reben got there first, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a little tired."
"Do you want something to eat?" Jurie, Teerom, and Rauba arrived.
"No, I'm- full." Paley had no idea why he was full. He had no idea what he had eaten that pleased his stomach so.
"Let's get you cleaned up, you stink," Teerom patted him on the back and took him to the river.
After washing Paley down in the river and letting him rest a little in bed, everyone began asking questions. Especially Adimia and Reben.
"Did you see the Fulguron?" Adimia asked excitedly. Paley simply nodded to conserve energy.
"Did you fight it?" Reben asked. Paley nodded.
"Did you win?"
Paley nodded.
"How'd you-" "Guys!" Rauba interrupted Adimia, "He's tired! Give him a break," After her outburst, she quickly went back to her shy self. After a silence, Paley gave a short laugh.
"This reminds me of the first time we met." For the first time, he managed to slightly smile. "I'm glad to be a part of this family."
"Of course!" Adimia and Reben exclaimed.
"Likewise," Rauba mumbled.
"I love you too," Bacha added boldly.
"You're one incredible kid, Paley," Teerom said.
"Thanks," Paley replied.
The day passed by quickly. Jurie and Bacha bought him food upstairs, even feeding him. Apart from Adimia chatting with him, nothing else happened. It was at night time when he discovered something incredible.
He suddenly felt his mana surge back into life. It churned violently, making its presence known to Paley every moment. Teerom and Jurie slept on either side of him, so he tried to make as little noise as possible while trying to heal his body.
At least every muscle was slightly damaged, and the bones had deep cracks everywhere. But when he tried to use Healing Magic on himself, it didn't work. The diagnosis phase worked, but the healing phase didn't work.
He no longer had to focus much to perform a spell and felt a strange sensation. An itch to try out a new magic type. Lightning.
He made his way to the spot on the grass where he slept every night, using air magic to float silently on his way.
Once he arrived, he opened his palm and visualized electricity convulsing above it. Nothing happened. He tried again to no avail again. Though after fifty tries, he finally managed to create a spark of electricity.
'The Fulguron used lightning magic to boost its movement speed,' he thought, 'I wonder if I can do that too.' He tried to come up with a spell to fit his objective.
It took him a while to realize the main point. 'It released electricity from its body! Meaning that it became electricity to move that fast? Might as well try' He concluded and faced his palms downwards.
He couldn't finish the spell that night, but he discovered two much better things. First, a mage could turn their body into the element they use - though it was incredibly hard. Second, his mana had grown. If before, his mana was the size of a small bead, then now it was the size of a human.
He lay down on the grass, watching the stars as he drifted off to sleep. 'I'll get stronger. For them.' He thought and fell asleep.