Infinite Mana - Chapter 217: The Lesser Evil (Thank you for your support, Dalyse!) (Patreon)

Sharp pain continued pulsing beneath Sieghart’s ribs even after First Aid closed most of the wound. Every breath pulled at damaged tissue, and every sudden movement reminded him exactly how close the Champion had come to opening his entire side. Sieghart looked at the enormous goblin advancing through the ruined street and finally admitted something he had resisted throughout the fight. He could not keep doing this. Another mistake like the last one would probably end with significantly more than a shallow cut.

The sniper was dead, Fatigue Dart was working, and repeated lightning strikes had slowed the Champion considerably. None of that mattered enough when the monster could still kill Sieghart with one good cleaver swing while dozens of smaller goblins closed around them.

He needed to choose between two terrible options. Continue fighting carefully until exhaustion, accumulated injuries, or one unlucky attack killed him, or deliberately use something reckless enough to end the Champion before it received another opportunity. Neither choice sounded intelligent. One merely sounded less suicidal than the other, which was apparently the standard Sieghart had reached after infiltrating an underground city by himself and somehow turning a stealth exercise into urban warfare.

He already had an answer to the problem. He simply hated the answer enough that he had avoided considering it until now, because the distance necessary to make it work transformed one of his strongest spells into a threat against himself. Sieghart took a slow breath while First Aid finished sealing his side. He flexed both hands, felt his knees ache from repeated Impulse use, and watched the Champion lower its warped shield before beginning another charge.

“I’m going to regret this. I just hope future me appreciates that present me was running out of options before he starts complaining about how spectacularly stupid this was.”

The Champion accelerated. Fatigue Dart and repeated Spark attacks had finally taken something from its movements, making every step heavier than before, but its slower charge remained fast enough to pulverize Sieghart if he mistimed what came next.

Sieghart did not retreat. He waited while the Champion approached, watching the shield angle upward and the cleaver remain beside its hip, prepared to attack the moment Sieghart attempted another sideways escape.

Ten meters.

Eight.

Six.

Sieghart activated Impulse.

Forward.

The Champion visibly hesitated. Every previous use of the spell had created distance, so Sieghart suddenly accelerating directly toward its shield disrupted the rhythm the monster had spent the entire fight learning. He crossed the remaining space before the Champion properly adjusted. Then Sieghart jumped, using the end of Impulse and a burst of Wind Magic together to launch himself above the shield toward the creature’s damaged helmet.

The Champion reacted quickly enough to begin lifting its defense, but not quickly enough. Sieghart planted one boot against the upper edge of the shield, pushed himself higher, and reached toward the exposed remains of the monster’s face.

His right hand touched skin. Mana surged. The Champion’s eye widened. Sieghart began forming Giant Fireball directly against its face. There was no distance for proper stabilization, no safe release angle, and nowhere near enough time to complete the enormous sphere normally. Sieghart poured mana into the unfinished spell anyway and deliberately let the structure destabilize.

The Giant Fireball exploded before it finished forming. For an instant, the entire world became white. Heat arrived before sound. Sieghart felt Protection flare around his body so violently that the magical layer seemed to scream beneath the pressure, while the unfinished Giant Fireball expanded between his palm and the Champion’s face.

Sieghart instinctively forced Water Mana through the defense surrounding his left side, desperately trying to counter the heat with whatever elemental influence he could produce before the expanding fire completely engulfed him.

It helped.

Not enough.

The explosion tore Sieghart away from the Champion. His body spun through burning air while the shockwave launched him across the street, flames rolling over his left arm from fingertips to shoulder before Wind Magic finally caught him.

He hit the ground on his back, bounced once, and slid through broken stone until his shoulder struck the remains of a collapsed wall. The impact barely registered compared with what happened inside his arm. Pain swallowed everything. Sieghart opened his mouth, but whatever sound escaped became a broken gasp instead of the scream his body wanted. His left arm felt as though somebody had submerged it in molten metal and then driven heated needles through everything beneath the skin.

He tried moving his fingers. The attempt produced another wave of agony so violent that his vision darkened around the edges. His body began trembling without permission, while a strange cold sensation spread through his chest despite the intense heat still surrounding him.

Sieghart looked down. His stomach twisted. Protection had prevented the blast from destroying the arm completely, but calling the remaining damage severe would have been generous. Large sections of skin from his hand toward the shoulder had suffered horrifying burns.

Some areas were angry red and covered in rapidly forming blisters. Others had become pale, grayish, or black around the worst sections, where the skin looked dry and unnaturally stiff instead of resembling living tissue.

Third-degree burns.

At least across several areas.

Sieghart could not properly feel the centers of some blackened patches anymore, which somehow terrified him more than the places screaming with pain around them. The surrounding nerves compensated enthusiastically enough that his entire body continued shaking.

He immediately activated First Aid. White Mana spread through the arm. Sieghart nearly lost consciousness. Healing damaged tissue forced sensation through areas that had become partially numb moments earlier. His teeth clenched hard enough to hurt while burned skin, ruptured vessels, and damaged structures started rebuilding themselves beneath the spell.

He felt cold everywhere now. Not ordinary cold, but the sick trembling chill that came when pain overwhelmed everything else his body was trying to process. For several seconds, Sieghart could do nothing except kneel among the rubble, keep First Aid active, and breathe through clenched teeth while his vision slowly stopped narrowing.

Then he remembered the Champion. Sieghart raised his head. Smoke covered most of the street. Burning debris fell from shattered windows while smaller fires crawled across wooden roofs and broken carts. Several ordinary goblins had been knocked aside simply from standing too close to the detonation.

Something enormous remained upright inside the smoke. Sieghart’s expression hardened. Then the silhouette moved backward. The Champion fell. Its shield slipped from one hand first, striking stone with a metallic crash loud enough to echo through the surrounding streets. The cleaver followed a moment later as the creature’s knees finally buckled beneath it.

The upper body tipped backward. It struck the ground hard enough to shake loose debris from nearby buildings. Sieghart stared at what remained of its head. Almost nothing recognizable remained above the jawline. The helmet had partially melted into the surrounding armor, while the Champion’s face had been destroyed by an explosion originating directly against it.

One side of the skull had collapsed inward. Charred tissue surrounded exposed bone, and whatever eye had widened immediately before the spell detonated no longer existed.

The Champion did not move.

Sieghart continued staring for several seconds, waiting for the bastard to somehow stand again simply because the fight had conditioned him to expect increasingly unreasonable levels of durability.

Nothing happened.

Sieghart had won.

The realization produced far less satisfaction than expected.

His left arm continued rebuilding beneath First Aid while pain shook the rest of his body. The spell could repair the damage, but that did not erase what Sieghart had just done to himself to secure the victory. The cost had been terrible. He had effectively detonated Giant Fireball against his own hand because every safer option had failed to end the fight quickly enough. If Protection had broken completely, he might have lost the entire arm.

If the explosion had struck his head differently, there might not have been enough left for First Aid to repair before consciousness disappeared. Sieghart looked at the Champion’s corpse again.

“Worth it. Probably. Ask me again when my arm stops feeling like someone peeled it, roasted it, and then decided the problem needed significantly more fire.”

Goblin shouts interrupted whatever relief he might have enjoyed. Sieghart slowly turned. The smaller fighters had recovered. Some had been thrown aside by the explosion, several were burned, and others looked terrified by the sight of their Champion lying dead in the middle of the destroyed street.

They still approached.

More appeared behind them.

Sieghart sighed.

His left arm was still healing. His side remained sore. His knees hurt. His head ached. He had absolutely no desire to continue pretending this was some honorable duel where everyone deserved an equal opportunity.

The first goblin charged.

Sieghart raised his right hand.

A Lava Sphere formed.

He fired.

The glowing projectile struck the goblin directly in the chest and burst across its armor. Molten material spread upward toward the neck and downward across the stomach before the creature collapsed screaming.

Another Lava Sphere appeared immediately.

Then another.

Sieghart stopped counting.

The goblins tried spreading through the street, but molten projectiles followed them. One sphere struck a shield and splashed around its edges, covering the defender’s arm and face instead of stopping against the wood.

Another hit the ground between three archers. Lava sprayed across their legs, forcing all three down before Sieghart fired additional spheres into the group without moving from where he knelt.

First Aid continued rebuilding his left arm while his right hand maintained the bombardment. Healing and killing happened simultaneously, an absurd combination that Sieghart was too exhausted to properly appreciate.

Several goblins attempted another shield formation.

Sieghart aimed lower. Lava Spheres struck the street in front of them, covering the ground with molten material and forcing the formation apart when boots began burning through weakened leather. The moment they separated, more spheres struck exposed bodies. Sieghart no longer cared about noise.

That phase of the operation had ended somewhere around the point when he detonated Giant Fireball directly against an eight-foot Champion’s face and nearly cooked his own arm in the process.

The surrounding street became orange beneath the constant bombardment. Goblins tried approaching through alleys, windows, and broken buildings, only for Sieghart to redirect Lava Spheres toward every mana signature that entered range.

Some fled.

Sieghart let those go.

He was injured, not suicidal enough to start chasing survivors deeper into the city while trying to regenerate an arm that had looked partially cooked less than a minute earlier.

The remaining attackers eventually understood the same lesson.

Their advance stopped.

Sieghart remained among the rubble, one arm glowing beneath Healing Magic while molten rock burned across the destroyed street and the corpse of the Goblin Champion lay several meters away.

His breathing remained uneven. His entire body still trembled. But he was alive.

For the moment, that was enough.