How to win a fight where the odds are stacked against you even before it begins? The answer can vary greatly depending on the situation of the weaker party.
Breathing heavily, Ragryno glared at the shadow slowly approaching him. His mind was running at full capacity, forcing him to consider every possible scenario of the fight and how he could survive it. With his injuries, he had little chance of surviving a battle of endurance.
An escape attempt would likely end the same way—he would just bleed out. It was also unknown if there were other similar creatures nearby. Perhaps more shadows were closing in on him?
This made his brows furrow deeper, and his gaze grew colder. He had fought in unfavorable situations before, often choosing to flee. If escape wasn't an option, he used tricks or bluffs to suppress his opponent. But this time, he wasn't facing just another lower-class dweller. Instead, he faced a deadly shadow that wanted to tear him apart.
'What do I know about it?'
He decided to observe the shadow. It moved slowly towards him, and he used this opportunity to think more carefully about his plan. Meanwhile, he limped backward, trying not to venture into the dark forest. He suspected that if the shadow entered the forest, it would become much stronger.
'It uses mental magic—that's one, it's slow—that's two... But even so, I don't know its physical strength or mana capacity. I only know it's of the second rank.'
The shadow seemed to be toying with him. It approached lazily, not worried that its opponent might escape. Perhaps it had some form of intelligence, but Ragryno doubted it. Even with its low speed, it could easily lure him into the depths of the forest and finish him off in complete darkness.
But Ragryno had to account for several things simultaneously—his bleeding and mental fatigue. Besides feeling his left arm and right leg growing cold, he also understood he couldn't think clearly after the recent events.
'How do I defeat it?'
Time dragged on slowly, clearly not in the Elf's favor, so he needed to act somehow. What could be the best solution against such an opponent? A ranged attack.
Quickly surveying the area under his feet, Ragryno realized there wasn't even a stone nearby. There was only slightly reddened grass trailing behind him from his bleeding.
'Then I'll test that.'
Despite the intense pain accompanying him, he sped up and moved 5 meters away from the shadow, beginning to circle the clearing. Kneeling down, he let out a painful groan and scooped up some soil with his left hand. He needed to confirm a theory that had popped into his head.
The soil was slightly cold but not firm enough to resist his fingers. Taking it in his left hand, he immediately threw it at the slowly advancing shadow. As expected, the soil passed through it, confirming one of his theories.
'Just great, this abomination is immune to simple attacks?'
The situation was getting worse for him. His usual attacks were narrowed down. The shadow was immune to physical attacks, which meant only one thing—he needed to defeat it with magic. But how to do that for someone who hadn't properly trained in magic and had received it only two weeks ago?
'Think, think, think! This shadow is only your first opponent!'
Meanwhile, the shadow continued its approach. When Ragryno wanted to retreat further, he realized he had made a significant mistake. By kneeling to grab the soil, his leg wound had widened, and the bleeding had increased. The cold was penetrating it, sapping his strength for further movement. If he had been more experienced, he wouldn't have made such a mistake, but despite his fights in the slums, he remained an inexperienced fighter.
'What to do?! Come on, think of something! Otherwise, you'll die just like you were!'
Immediately after these thoughts, Ragryno vaguely felt mana moving through the air towards him. The creature decided to attack him with mental magic again, but this time, Ragryno was prepared.
He couldn't avoid the mana and felt something entering his body. It quickly crawled upward—toward his brain—but since he knew about this attack, he reacted swiftly, concentrating and trying to sense the flow of mana in his body. He discovered that he could control it slightly. Mentally giving the order, his raging mana surrounded the foreign source and, finding no better solution, simply crushed it from all sides.
But to do this, he had to expend a lot of attention and effort, which was a critical mistake during the fight. The shadow was too close, and its blade was already descending.
'Is this the end?'—a thought flashed through his mind as he watched the shadow.
Ragryno saw the sword descending like a guillotine towards his left shoulder. This was the end for him; he had distracted himself too much during the fight and was about to receive a fatal wound.
At least, that's what the shadow thought.
Ragryno did what his brain and instincts decided first to avoid such a fatal blow. He sent mana to his left hand, hoping he could perform this trick once more. At the last moment, a turquoise sphere appeared in his hand, smaller than before but still sufficient for his desperate act.
This wasn't a controlled spell but his pure survival instinct that had been with him since childhood.
The shadow, of course, didn't react immediately. The blade did hit its target, embedding itself in his flesh, but almost immediately, a small burst of light emanated from the tiny sphere in his hand.
The clearing was instantly bathed in turquoise light, and the explosion's force was enough to push the shadow away and, more importantly, break the blade just as it entered his shoulder.
This was the only attack Ragryno was capable of, though it could hardly be called an attack since he was also severely injured. Previously, he had softened the explosion, trying to control his mana flow, but now he deliberately created a bomb in his hand that affected both his opponent and himself.
The Elf collapsed to his knees, gasping in pain. His entire body burned with constant agony, and he was in a state of torment. Yet, even so, lifting his head, he looked at the shadow, which had been pushed a considerable distance away. It hadn't fallen to the ground but was still standing, albeit now unarmed. The small Elf had a tiny chance of victory.
With immense effort, he rose from his knees. Every movement sent massive bursts of pain and only worsened his wounds. His legs shook, his right hand barely managed to hold the small dagger, as if it were the last thread of his life, clutched tightly.
'It hurts so much… Why does it hurt so much?!'
He felt his body pierced by needles and burning all over, but strangely, his left hand didn't hurt at all, as if it were…
'No…'
In disbelief, he looked at his left arm. Or rather, at the stump that remained of it.
The arm was entirely missing from the shoulder. For a few moments, he couldn't believe his eyes, then panic surged through his mind, and he could no longer contain the pain. He fell to his knees again and screamed. His scream seemed to pierce the entire forest, making those hiding among the trees or fighting themselves flinch.
His thoughts became completely chaotic. His brain could no longer function normally, losing all concentration. He had lost his arm, and blood was pouring from it. His consciousness was blurring, and his vision was swimming. He suddenly felt cold and wanted to sleep. The situation in the fight had worsened even further. He had made a mistake, thinking he had a chance.
His thoughtless actions had only made things worse, and his instincts, which he had trusted all his life, had let him down. Perhaps the shadow had planned all this? But how did it know about his abilities? Why did it attack him out of the blue?
What was this cursed forest, and why was all this happening to him? Did the world not want him to reach the capital and live the life he had always dreamed of?
'Damn this world. Damn the people who control it.'
The rage in Ragryno's chest burned with incredible force, his emotions spilling over. Despair, fear, and finally anger. All these emotions made him rise to his feet again. With a trembling hand, he directed his small dagger at the shadow still moving towards him. His eyes no longer saw the shadow, no. Now he stood alone—against a world that wanted him to remain as he was.
'If the world doesn't want me to get something, I'll just take it by force!'
There was no more strategy, only instincts. All of Ragryno's pain was drowned out by his roaring rage, which became his fuel. But he still wanted to survive, by any means necessary. If he had to lose his legs as well, he would use his remaining hand to give the world the middle finger that thought he would accept his death so easily.
He roared and charged at the shadow. Blood streamed from every orifice, turning the once green clearing into a complete crimson. The shadow reacted to him and immediately tried to send its mental attack, but Ragryno decided not to be subtle about it and began to release all his mana from his body chaotically. It was destroying him, but if he wanted to win, it was his only chance.
Soon, he reached the shadow and simply lunged at it. As it turned out, while it was slow, its unnatural form allowed it to wriggle even while standing still. But that didn't stop him. He made chaotic horizontal and vertical slashes, trying to inflict any damage. And he noticed something.
He found it. Her weak spot.
His blood would become the catalyst for attacks on the creature. But there was even less time than he had anticipated. His body was practically no longer listening to him, and all he did were sloppy swipes with his knife, which looked more like a toothpick than a dangerous weapon.
But the Elf was not going to stop. He began waiting for the perfect moment to attack, coating his knife with blood from his deadly wound on his left arm. The Shadow was still trying to resist, sending endless attempts to breach his mental defenses made of mana, but Ragryno was unyielding.
Of course, any mage above Rank 1 would tell him that he was fighting like a complete idiot, just releasing mana from his body, but what else could he do?
He didn't care about them; the most important thing now was victory. But alas, his body was too weak. Soon he couldn't even keep himself on his feet, falling after every swipe. The Shadow had also suffered greatly and was dodging much less.
'Is this really my end? Am I really going to lose to the world?'
The rage was already fading. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he worked, he was always rejected. For some reason, at that moment, he remembered how other slum dwellers often avoided him, calling him cursed because of his different eyes and long ears. They didn't even know he was from another race because they were too uneducated.
'People tend to fear what they don't know, don't they?'
But he had never lost heart; he always fought and tried to prove to everyone that he wasn't just a boy from the slums.
'Enough, maybe I should just stop? Who am I even trying to prove anything to if the world as a whole doesn't care about me?'
The Shadow slowly approached the boy, who was barely standing, trembling all over. His gaze was half-empty, and it could be said that he was already dead.
"Dream on, bastard," the elf suddenly spoke, freeing himself from the mental magic. The Shadow didn't expect this at all, so the next knife strike aimed at its head was its last.
The blood dissolved the Shadow's head, and soon it completely fell apart, vanishing from this world. Even after its death, nothing remained on the ground. The boy only smirked and then, unable to hold on any longer, fell to the ground, instantly losing consciousness.
In his final moments, it seemed to him that the forest was moving, and roots began to stretch toward him as if wanting to devour him.
'And yet I will become fertilizer.'
Ragryno opened his eyes. He was in a strange white space with absolutely nothing around. He realized he could control his body by moving his right hand.
'Where am I? Is this the afterlife?'
He decided to look around but found no signs of anything other than endless whiteness. He had a lot to think about, and this place was perfect for it.
'So much has happened in just a few hours… But I'm generally satisfied. I killed that Shadow, even though I perished myself. Apparently, as I understood it, its abilities somehow affect not only the way of thinking but also the body itself.'
He remembered the scene where he sat leaning against the stove. At some point, the veins in his arm simply burst, causing bleeding. Everything in that fight was… Confusing.
'It didn't attack me back without a weapon, but with a sword, it did. Why?'
If his opponent had fought back at the end, Ragryno wouldn't have had a chance to defeat him. The fight should have ended midway when he lost his arm. He fought for so long despite the constant bleeding… Maybe getting Rank 1 somehow influenced this?
He heard that Rank 1 mages are stronger than ordinary people almost in everything, so he just accepted it as a fact.
But still, he had something to be proud of. He, almost an ordinary person, defeated a Rank 2 creature that should have won effortlessly. Although the whole fight could be called pure luck, there were still moments when Ragryno had no luck at all.
Take the monster's first attack, for example. He managed to interrupt it because it couldn't fully control his body; the resistance was too great, thanks to his mana and partial control over his body. Of course, deciding to stab his leg was a huge mistake, but let's be honest—during the fight, he made too many mistakes.
Why didn't he try to create that small sphere and, for example, press it against the Shadow's body? Simply because he didn't think of it.
'At least I thought of releasing mana from myself, so it couldn't take control of me again. I should have done that immediately and gone on the attack instead of retreating and thinking about the fight.'
In any case, it didn't matter now. He died in battle, but he took it quite calmly since surviving in such a situation was unlikely for anyone. It was unlikely that anyone else could even kill that Shadow if they were in the boy's body.
So he was generally satisfied… But the residue of not achieving what he wanted still remained.
He sighed heavily and lay down on the white space beneath him. It was completely shapeless, so it might have seemed like he was levitating. He didn't even feel any firmness beneath him, but he also didn't feel like he was falling.
'This place is certainly strange, but… What should I do next?'
He couldn't sit in such a place forever, could he?
The boy began to feel panic slowly rising within him and jumped to his feet. He didn't like the idea of being trapped in such a place forever. So he decided to move forward. There were no landmarks around, so it didn't matter where he went.
His steps were inaudible, and he even noticed that he was almost completely naked. At the moment of the explosion, his clothes had simply torn apart, and some remnants were now hanging on him. It was even amusing since he had almost fought the Shadow naked.
'Damn, I hope no one was watching this from the outside; otherwise, I'd die from embarrassment… Oh, I'm already dead.'
This amused the boy once again, and he continued to walk forward. But everything around remained the same.
He had been walking for what felt like a couple of dozen minutes, and his surroundings had not changed at all. Then he decided to switch to running. He wasn't worried about getting tired since he could always sit on the shapeless floor and rest. But soon he realized that he wasn't getting tired at all; his body could run for hours. But every hour made his panic grow stronger.
Absolutely nothing changed, absolutely nothing. The same white emptiness surrounded him, and the boy began to truly realize that he might be trapped here forever… Until he saw something. In the middle of literal nothingness, he saw a small point. It was almost invisible.
But because everything around was just white emptiness, it stood out too much. Hope appeared in his heart, and he resolutely ran towards the point.
He didn't know exactly how long he had been running. He couldn't even really track time, except by counting in his head, which he had managed to learn in the slums.
Hours passed, the point remained the same, and he kept running without getting tired. During this time, he reflected on many things—the entire fight, his entire past life, and even imagined what it would have been like if the monster hadn't attacked them, killing all the guards. He couldn't forget its appearance, and it even made his body tense up.
The Rank 4 monster that destroyed his dreams and goals was to blame for everything.
'If I get out of here, I'll definitely become strong enough to kill it.'
He was curious about how strong this creature was compared to other Rank 4 beings. They were considered almost the limit of power, so most likely, this creature was insanely strong. The boy also realized a simple fact he had reproached himself for some time: it was probably his fault that the creature attacked their convoy.
Most likely, the mana explosion that happened then attracted it, and it decided to check what had emitted that interesting impulse. But was his magic so special as to attract even Rank 4 creatures?
So he spent his time thinking about many things until finally, the point turned into a silhouette, which he approached. Even from a distance, Ragryno frowned deeply, examining the strange creature ahead.
It looked like a humanoid being, with skin that was inexplicably strange. It seemed to be made of lava, emitting a completely new and unfamiliar sensation. The creature just stood still, not moving, but as soon as the boy got close enough, it slowly turned and looked at him.
It was a few centimeters taller than the boy himself. He also noticed that it had something like hair, which was quite long. It was dressed in a cloak the same color as its skin, constantly shimmering, creating the impression of flowing lava. But the most impressive thing was probably what was on its head. The creature had two protruding horns pointing upwards. One of the horns was broken, with a small flame burning on it.
On the creature's face was a strange mask that made it impossible to see its face. Behind it, two long ears could be seen, which were too long to go unnoticed.
"Who are you?" Ragryno asked, approaching the creature and stopping about a meter away from it.
The creature remained silent and looked at him, or at least the boy thought so, as the mask concealed its gaze. It did not react to the boy even when he decided to jokingly wave at it, moving a little closer.
"Hey, can you hear me?" Ragryno asked, hoping that the creature in front of him might respond, but he received only dead silence in reply.
The elf sighed and shook his head.
'Great, just great! I've been running for hours, seeing nothing but these white voids, and now the resident here won't even talk to me! Fantastic!'
The young man spat on the floor and moved closer to the creature, which remained unmoving, continuing to silently watch him.
"Alright, maybe you communicate differently? Or perhaps you know another language?"
He didn't know what to do to get the creature to speak. It just stood there and stared at him, completely still. Then Ragryno decided to take a final gamble and scanned the creature using his mana sensing ability. He wished he hadn't.
As soon as Ragryno did that, he realized that what stood before him was something abnormal. He sensed that the mana within this creature was monstrous; it wasn't just stronger than a rank 4 creature, no, it was several, hundreds, if not thousands of times stronger. A cold sweat instantly covered his back, but that wasn't what terrified him.
No, in horror he realized that the creature had a different, more powerful energy. It wasn't mana but something utterly inhuman, completely evil and monstrous. This energy was filled with endless rage and malice towards something that the creature harbored within itself. Now he understood that his skin wasn't red...
No. The strange energy within him made his skin like that; it literally seeped out infinitely, covering his body.
'Is this... Death itself?'
The boy couldn't think of anything better than to think of it like that. His face went pale, and he didn't even notice how he was trembling all over. His head throbbed painfully, and he felt nauseous. He was ready to faint at any moment, just by looking at the monstrosity. But he couldn't even move, the primal fear overwhelming him.
It became worse when the creature started to move. It slowly lifted its hand, which had been hidden under the cloak it wore. On the creature's hand was a glove with clawed fingers, and it reached towards the boy's face.
Ragryno couldn't move. His body, mind, and instincts were all overtaken by primal fear. He stood before something that could be called a god. He couldn't even properly read its rank, as the creature was beyond the understanding of his mana, and no information helped him.
'Rank 5? No, 6? 8? 10? What rank is this thing?!'
Ragryno opened his mouth to beg the creature not to touch him but only made strange grunting noises. He couldn't even breathe.
His head felt like it was being hammered by hammers, never stopping, until finally—everything around him disappeared, and the world suddenly went dark.
He realized that it had all been a dream, as the first thing he saw was the scorching sun directly above his head. He didn't even realize he was still alive. He immediately got to his feet and quickly began scanning the area around him, searching for the terrifying creature that had filled him with dread.
But around him was only a meadow, completely drenched in his own blood from the previous battle. An unpleasant odor from himself hit his nose, and he covered it with his right hand. He felt incredible weakness in his body, and his head ached horribly, ready to burst at any moment. But the main thing was different.
'What was that just now?'