Mana Rush
The Dahlia Flower Portal Gun was Towering over me—I have decided to call it so. Above the portal, is a small opening that revealed the sky. And a few meters away is a very peculiar person. He was wearing what seemed to be an indigenous tribal wear that mostly only covered his important parts. He was toned and muscular; on both sides of his waist were gleaming, heavy, machetes.
He sat down on a large rock and set down a bundle of twigs and logs, making a campfire.
The crackle of the dancing flame lit up the damp and cold cave. Smoke began to crawl up to my nose, making me wince. I gave out a sigh as I looked up at the machine that Kolin decided to put his faith in.
The world he—we—came from, Auel; we left it in grave danger. I have come to accept it. I died after all, it is not up to me now, but to the people still living there. Kolin thought otherwise.
Auel is in a state of war—a war between the manifestations and mortals. Not every God is in this; I'm quite certain it's a faction of the Evil Gods since I knew nothing about it until before I was killed by Kolin.
My sanctuary, the bamboo forests, and the tree of life, there, I met a mortal with absolute rule over mana—that blind child.
Before I dived more into my thoughts, I heard a shuffle. The tribal-looking man stood up, seeming to look around the cave. After shiting his head around, he sat in a lotus position, 'Meditating,' I thought.
My eyes widened, and my body reacted on its own, flinching. The man suddenly lit up in a blaze of the similar flame of the crackling bonfire. That's when I realized, he has his own mana field. I could only feel it now when he used magic. Then it started growing until it reached the barrier of my veil.
He opened his eyes and looked my way, squinting. Standing up, the flame surrounding him condensed on his fist.
'How does he know magic?!'
He blasted the blazing ball of flame in my direction, evaporating the pools of water on its way. I simply waved my hand to deflect it. He squinted, his mana field growing larger until it encompassed the whole cave, including the dahlia flower.
"Hey, I'm not—"
I was cut off as a ball of flame barreled towards my face. It vanished a few feet before reaching me. He squinted, again, proving his keen senses.
"I'm not an enemy."
"But you are like me."
"What?" I frowned in confusion.
VWOOM
A whirling vibration reverberated in the wide cave, accelerating. The high pitch was deafening. I looked back and saw the dahlia spinning its axis, sucking out our mana. I tried getting ahold of it, but to no avail; my control was unstable.
"Grah!" The man grunted in pain, his mana was meager compared to mine after all. However, I soon felt it draining my energy too. It was way too fast for me to react.
I noticed changes. A light came out of the center of the flower, pointing to the sky.
CRACK
An audible breaking sounded, and I saw a seam in the sky. The small wound was bleeding blue, tangible, and pure mana. It was so compact, that it fell to the Earth and seeped into it.
A breath escaped from me, making me realize I had not been breathing for a while now. It was just too fast. I turned at the man, "Hey—"
"Arghhhh!" He shouted, and I visibly saw mana being drawn from him, and mana being absorbed by him. It was a loop of pure mana cycling around his bruised body. I was sure that had I not been stronger, I would be in the same situation as him.
Immediately, I thought of calling out to Kolin. Or I tried. I realized that the mana around me was not my mana field. It's atmospheric mana—so pure and heavy.
I tried willing it to my desire, but it was significantly harder than manipulating my mana field.
"Tch! Guess I'll have to take care of this one," I spat.
I gathered the meager mana I had from the inside of my body to patch up the bleeding wound in the sky…it just sucked it up.
"Uek!" I groaned as I felt the tug of the energy from me. I quickly closed my reservoir, but the flow was too great to stop.
Soon, it was my breath flowing out of me. Lacking both mana and oxygen, I began to stumble. All at the same time, the portal gun was still doing its thing, cutting through space and time.
Then I saw the man, veins popping out of his red face, his hand was fixated like a blade. With uneasy and wobbly steps, he ran to the portal, gathering fire attribute mana in his bladed hand.
I was surprised by his strength.
He stabbed directly into the beam source. With a deafening boom, it exploded, taking his whole arm along with it.
Both of us were sent flying through the vast cave. I couldn't register what I was seeing at all. I just remember something sharp piercing through my back before I fell on the floor head first.
I lost consciousness. But not before feeling fresh and crisp mana flowing in me.
I chuckled.
Tobin
As I stood in awe, I felt it. A massive amount of mana was coming this way, overwhelming my senses. My ears were deafened by a high-pitched noise only I could hear, and my eyes watered because of reason unknown.
However, it seemed as though I was the only one who felt it. Suddenly, a confused voice pointed something out.
"Oh, what's that?"
Although I was the only one who could sense it, it was not just my imagination: a bright, blue-white light, a small dot in the sky. It was visible to everyone. At first, I thought it was just the sun, but it was rising from the wrong direction.
It seemed to be getting larger by the moment, which made it feel like it was going this way. Lux noticed my agitation and tapped my shoulder gently. When she saw where I was looking, she turned in that direction and paused, her hand still on my arm as she tightly squeezed it.
I think she understood that my reaction was due to my heightened senses.
As I felt her warm touch on my arm, a sudden jolt ran through my body, making me aware that I had been holding my breath. The sensation was akin to emerging from the depths of water after a long dive, gasping for air. My palms were slick with sweat, and my legs trembled beneath me, betraying the turmoil of my heart.
"Tobin," Lux called out, catching Seung's attention too, "What's going on?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," I replied, "but I have a bad feeling about it." Although I couldn't quite put my finger on it, I knew it wasn't good.
In the distance, I heard a loud gust of wind, sounding like a plane flying overhead. It wasn't long before we felt the air pushing on us, and the loud boom that followed.
Instantly, I felt all my muscles stiffen. I would assume the same happened to Lux as her grip tightened enough to cause discomfort on my arm. My breath escaped from me as I felt a rush of mana like never before.
I could see that Lux was in distress, her face was red and she seemed to be struggling. I held onto her tightly, thinking to myself, "This will be over soon."