The torchlight flickered, creating huge dancing shadows against the cave walls.
Swish Swish Swish
Arrows tore through the air, coming from shadowed figures on the roofs of the village houses.
The first monster appeared, turning the corner of a building.
Hungering Maw, Lv. ??
The maw was just that, a dark, gaping mouth the size of a dog with tens of insect-like legs helping it move. No face, limbs, or body could be seen, except dark, plump green lips covering finger-sized, white teeth.
This maw had about a dozen arrows piercing it, but it still advanced.
Another one turned the corner, then another and much more.
They were bleeding and injured, but they advanced with silent determination; only the sounds of ‘click-clack’ from their insectoid legs could be heard.
Swish Swish Swish
The arrows kept raining down until the monsters reached the main building—they had ignored the others, probably smelling the large congregation of human meat here.
The doors were wide open, welcoming the monsters to the trap.
They had filled the reception room, only allowing a small corridor between them for the monsters to pass inside.
Khkhkhk!
Haaa!
The first specimen entered; the stone en welcomed it. It got pierced with spears, then two stone men dragged it away to allow space for more.
Standing on the roof, I watched as the streets slowly filled with the maws.
There were dozens of them, but then…
More doors were opened. Catching the attention of the maws, stone men lured them inside the different village buildings before killing them inside.
This was the plan the elder, with the help of Tob, had come up with.
The Maws kept on coming, but as inevitable as they seemed, the stone men stood their ground, defending their homeland.
The Maw stream was diverged into many subsidiaries, each one entering a different building. Still, the main branch led towards this building I was standing on—the largest one.
More and more Maws entered the reception, meeting a grizzly end through the tips of spears; their killers hidden behind shields and newly learnt wall formations.
Unfortunately, the maws’ numbers kept rising until they had to walk atop each other to reach their destinations.
The front-line buildings began to be overwhelmed, and not long after, they fell. Having Maws climb onto the roof by standing on each other, they pincered the stone men inside.
Sallera opened a window from the command room—housing the elder, a high-levelled stone man, and Tob—then started throwing fireballs at the hordes below.
Screeeeeech!
The Maws hated the fire, squirming as it ate at them.
With Sallera’s intervention, the fight stalled, with no side gaining the upper hand, until…
The stone men started to get tired, leading to a rapid increase in casualties.
Tob had anticipated this with the info the elder had provided of previous encounters, so he sent the order: rotate the soldiers.
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The new village men brought into battle fought valiantly, while the drained and injured men rested on the upper floor.
The space was getting cramped with the resting men and Maw carcasses, so the stone men threw the bodies off the building.
At first, the dead bodies created a ramp, stopping the advance of their brethren, but as they piled up more, the Maws used them as stepping stones to reach the roof.
Sallera didn’t allow that.
Using three Mana bolts, she made them drill holes through the hideous beasts.
I joined in on the fun, too.
Creating Mana Bombs—I had no soul power left to make Blood Bombs—I sent them towards the hoards; they tore them apart.
You have killed Hungering Maw, Lv. 67
You…
Primus Mags has reached Lv. 43
As time went on, and with more soldier shifts, I started to notice the thinning of the hoard, but this wasn’t without casualties.
Most of the houses with soldiers stationed in them had fallen, meaning a third of our fighting force was dead.
It was then that the shift was changed again, and this time, Tob joined the fight, standing at the forefront.
Argh!
Ahhhhh!
Khkkkkkh!
Defiant screams and throaty gurgles filled the air, but no matter how valiantly the stone men fought, the Maws just kept coming, fighting without regard for their lives.
The Maws surrounded the building. Seeing that the door was limiting their access to the building, they started to tear into the stone to try to get inside.
When the first new opening was created, Tob gave the order: retreat to the second floor. The fight continued there, and as it grew more intense, even the tired and injured joined, defending their family members on the third floor.
I was shooting Mana Bombs from time to time as I worked on regenerating my Mana.
‘I think we should help down,’ Somani suggested.
I paced around, starting to think the same.
‘No, we’ll need to preserve our Mana to fight the Fleshmancer.’
‘Remember, our goal is to save the villagers, and at this rate, there’ll be no villagers to save once the mancer appears.’
‘And what if he appears after we’ve spent all our Mana in the fight? Who’ll save the villagers?’
Somani kept silent; he had no answer.
Looking at the dark horizon… no new Maws emerged.
Maybe if we kill the current Maws, we can all face the Mancer.
I reluctantly agreed to join the fight.
Entering the building, the heavy blood smell assaulted my nostrils, sending my heart pumping wildly.
A stone child looked my way, gem tears streaking across its face.
Women and children filled this floor. All of them had a look of concern on their faces.
Is this really an act? I couldn’t help but think.
I threw the idea away, leaving it for another, more peaceful time; duty towards myself awaited me.
Running the flight of stairs, I jumped above the villagers with a pump of infusion before barreling into the Maw hoard.
I punched and punched, turning my fists red with blood. With a surge of Mana, I tore a beast in half.
AHHHH!
Everyone stood silent for a second, even the Maws seemed to momentarily halt their rabid advance before…
Khuenw!
Khuenw!
Khuenw!
The stone men cheered before surging forward with renewed fervour.
A Maw tried to take a bite of me, but my infused arm was tougher than its jaws.
I held the maxilla while my bitten arm pushed the mandible downward.
Tear!
The flesh stretched before tearing, but then a Maw jumped onto my back, and another tried to bite my head off, and…
I was surrounded.
I infused the entirety of myself with Mana, eating through the precious resource at a ridiculous pace.
I punched, kicked, cut, and tore, while slowly retreating towards the line of men.
After a gruelling minute, I slid into the embrace of the stone men.
Catching my breath, Sallera approached me.
“I think the Mancer is here.”
Argh, not now!
“If we survive this, remind me to teach you how to effectively control your Mana.”
I nodded.
“Hold the line. I’ll go and defeat it… by the way, where is it?”
Rumble!
The house shook.
A huge mass of red flesh, eyes, limbs, and mouths double Tob’s height impacted against the building.
Many men fell to the ground, giving the Maws a chance to pounce on them.
I steadied myself before jumping outside through a barricaded window.
Fleshmancer, Lv. ???
The creature’s many eyes immediately locked onto me.
I controlled Somani’s body just before he hit the ground, stopping his momentum.
The Mancer hurled itself at me, and with it, the many Maws attacked.
Surrounded from all directions, I went to the only path left…
Upward.
Flying wasn’t as simple as making Somani’s body float upward. It needed intricate control of the body through biomancy to stimulate proper movements that’d lead to desired effects. Meaning, I needed to control every single part of Somani precisely.
With my current capabilities, that was feasible.
I twirled to the right, barely dodging a limb that had too many joints.
The Fleshmancer sent more limbs at me.
I flew by them, passing some while stopping my movement or doing other hard manoeuvres for others.
Reaching the monster’s body, I kicked one of its eyes.
Roar!
The attack had come out of the monster’s body; a blob, made of flesh, separated from a limb and hit me square in the chest.
I impacted against the ground, breaking many bones and taking the breath out of me.
The red flesh blob expanded and flattened, pinning me to the ground.
I tried freeing myself with Mana infusion, but the thing was too elastic and stuck to the ground unbelievably well.
The flesh crawled onto my chin before touching my lips.
It tried to open my mouth.
I clenched my jaws, but was overwhelmed and had my mouth forcibly opened.
What followed was horrifying.
The flesh entered my guts through my mouth.
I could neither breathe nor move, as it started to tear at me from the inside.
The pain was excruciating.
Maws joined in on the feast, eating me from the outside as the flesh tore me from the inside.
I tried to reinforce my insides while fending off the Maws, but it was a losing game, as the moment my Mana ran out, I was dead.
Being inside my body, I somehow managed to zoom in on the creature’s cells—I found that out by accident while following its movements.
They were normal cells, but with Mana strings attached to them.
What is this?
I followed the strings, and they all led to one place: the flesh’s core.
Darkness; my head was inside a maw.
I made my flying bone sword split the maw open, while controlling the other seven bone swords simultaneously to cut and tear into the maws.
Unfortunately, I was still pinned to the ground, but…
I understand.
These creatures neither had normal systems nor even a brain to control their bodies, so how did they function?
Their Mana cores somehow allowed them to function.
It hit me then: the third piece of life I had been missing, Mana, or a Mana core to be precise.
I had previously contemplated creating a creature or a perfect body for myself, but even though I had known that living beings needed beuiding blocks—cells—and a soul to function, an element of life had eluded me.
I couldn’t help but smile, even in this miserable situation.
Life was made of three main things, I concluded: cells, soul, and a Mana core.
How stupid of me.
An idea popped into my mind: a way to advance my Mana manipulation and evolve it in a way that’d align with my objectives.
Creating Mana cores, allowing me to create full beings with souls.
But is it even feasible to create a Mana core?