Lev had the smallest of reprieves to reform his armor and enchant it with enhancement formation while using as little mana as possible. The armor appeared soundlessly and with practically no mana cost after taking his regeneration into account, not attracting the downed monster's attention.

The enhancement formation was carved in similar silence as howls reverberated throughout the empty grassland, painting a horrifying picture as the warg tried to claw off the infection.

He still hadn't attracted its attention since the healing had stopped too, which opened up one, singular chance of escape in a burst of speed. Lev didn't give himself a moment to doubt himself as more and more blood flowed out of his body. He flooded the armor with lightning just as the enhancement was powered to full, reaching maximum speed in a blink.

With all his might and training over the previous years, he threw himself back and up as strongly as he could while never letting the warg out of sight.

Perception failed him immediately. In a blink, the monster was no longer lying on the ground but staring at him with fangs bared. Lev didn't waste a moment and threw himself to the side, and not an instant too soon.

The monster's sheer lunge completely disrupted his flight with the shockwave it produced, even while missing him, throwing Lev back to the ground. Before he landed, he still clung onto a diminishing hope that someone would maybe save him and created a lance as quickly as he could and infused it with a massive surge of fire mana. Windkeep was still hours away, but he still launched it high above in the direction of the city, praying to Monarch and the goddess that the explosion would be seen.

Red and Orange dominated the sky as the lance exploded, also revealing the warg that was on its way back and running on solidified air. Lev threw himself to the side again, dodging the warg's crash by a hair's breadth before running away for all he was worth.

It's impossibly fast in a straight line, Lev noted, brain whirring to come up with something, anything to save him from the death sentence hot on his tail. My best shot is to slow it down and try to blow up its limbs.

Running for his life remained the priority still. Sherron would be able to down the monster in seconds, and that was his lifeline. No matter how strong Lev was, killing a monster triple his level was simply impossible, especially when the two evolutions between them were considered. The mere seconds he had spent with it were enough to know that his projectiles were never going to catch it.

The warg proved the point by rushing him again, this time even faster than before. Once more, only his extreme Perception saved him as Lev barely tilted out of the way, just in time for the claws to carve three new deep gouges on his back instead of cleaving him in two.

Blood spurted out in a shower, immediately destroying the crumbling hope of fleeing with a new wave of agony. Healing mana coursed through his body in spades, but the damage was far too intense for the undirected basic healing to fix entirely. Most of it was going to his amputated arm to staunch the bleeding and close the stump, only worsening his chances.

Lev wasn't given the time to get up as jaws clamped down on his left leg. The warg lifted him up and bit down, destroying the armor with contemptuous ease, before slamming him back down on the ground.

He coughed out blood, on the brink of losing consciousness. Survival instincts took over, urging him to do what he did best. Without second-guessing himself, Lev jabbed his remaining right arm into the monster's infected injury when it brought him up again and pushed it in as deep as he could.

A pained yelp escaped him when the limb sank much deeper than expected, stunning the monster with debilitating pain when his hand gripped its rib. Immediately, the growths and pus took notice of the new victim to infect. Lev's mind lost all remnants of rational thinking when they squirmed closer.

Lightning surged out of his pool in a wild, untamed torrent. He didn't even try to aim it, all his brain wanted was to dump as much of the destructive mana into the warg's body as he could and get the wriggling fungus away from him.

The mana obeyed, disintegrating his flesh and bone as it surged deep into the warg's vulnerable insides, wreaking havoc. Lightning exploded in an eruption of gore and boiling blood, burning off most of his face and destroying one of his eyes, just as the monster spat him out to the side and completely tore off his leg. The invisible facemask that he always kept on also disintegrated, sacrificing itself to save him from much worse.

More of his precious life-force streamed out of the battered body. Both of his arms were missing, and now so was the left leg that the monster gulped down without even noticing.

Barrier threads wrapped around the bleeding stumps as tightly as his fuzzy mind could manage. His attack had done nothing but minutely slow down the warg that still hadn't taken notice of him beyond its deafening howls and wails.

Death was nigh, but Lev's slowed mind wasn't even focused on that. His brain was stuck in the past, repeating all the precious moments he had shared with Orianna, Sherron, and Alec. They had spent only a negligible portion of their life with him, but to Lev, it was all the reason he needed to give it his all to survive and return to them.

Imagine, a hollow, silent chuckle escaped his lips, along with a spray of bloody mist. Dying twice without finding love. How sad is that?

He wasn't ready to die yet, no matter how impossible the alternative sounded. There was still so much more to learn, so much to gain, so many hugs to tease out of people still, especially Orianna. That alone was enough reason for him to summon his armor and fly up again.

Monstrous eyes locked onto him faster than he could perceive. A plan was slowly taking form in Lev's mind, and he put it into action by forming barrier domes around him, as many as he could.

Normally, his barriers only lasted six hours, which he had always considered a downside. But for the foe in front of him? Even six seconds was more than enough.

The warg shot forward, pushing through all the barrier domes as if they were made of paper. Despite that, Lev dodged in the nick of time. His mind was always faster than his body, and he was going to rely heavily on that. Feedback from where the monster shattered the domes let him know of its location, allowing him the briefest of instants to evade successfully.

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Unfortunately, Lev was far too slow and weak to do anything but that. Instead of limiting himself to the ground, he darted upwards and formed spheres of barrier around him instead. Several took shape in a split second, and Lev squeezed the Barrier Carving skill for all it was worth and enchanted the spheres as fast as possible.

Predictably, the monster took a few seconds to right itself after its failed lunge. The moment it pushed past the pain, its gaze immediately landed on Lev by detecting his aura and mana usage.

He unconsciously swallowed and prepared himself and dumped buckets' worth of mana into the durability runes. His eyes couldn't hope to see the monster's movement yet again as it impacted the first sphere, almost not slowed down at all by the collision. Shattering the barriers one by one, Lev watched with a wide eye as the tip of its claws passed through the armor on his face like a hot knife through butter, missing him by the smallest of margins.

The lucky dodge merely allowed him another chance at defending himself, but it also revealed another detail, one that Lev immediately latched onto.

It's bleeding out. Hope blossomed in his chest after seeing that, and so did vengeance. It can be killed.

More spheres appeared around him as he stopped caring about the mental damage. His mental faculties were stretched beyond anything he had done before as walls joined in, covering him from all angles while healing mana slowly patched up all the loose ends, slowly stopping the bleeding from his missing limbs and eye.

Only a few of the constructs were enchanted when the monster decided to use a spell for the first time. Lev, who had summoned his glaive and was mentally manipulating Stargazer's blade to try and counterattack, could only infuse it with a massive amount of earth mana to match the approaching wind.

The attacks clashed mid-air, blowing away all of his spheres from the shockwave and throwing him back for dozens of meters. That just barely saved his life again as he flew out of the gale's trajectory, evading its massive area of effect when the earth slash crumbled and removed the resistance in its path.

Lev ignored the tears still streaming down his face. Much of his body felt cold, but his mind was still sharp, fueled by raw hatred and the desire to live. Lances took form around him as they were freely infused with fire and lightning, before Lev launched them at the monster lying prone on the ground, shuddering in pain. It was fighting two battles, but he still wanted nothing more than its pain to worsen.

His breath got caught in his throat as the monster blurred out of the way and appeared in front of him in a blink. Where its eyes were unfocused before, now it wanted nothing more than to tear him to shreds.

Shit, Lev didn't have the time to move out of the way and risked it all. Stargazer was already in front of him to launch another slash, and he positioned it to block the approaching claws. All his mind focused on keeping Stargazer in place while his armor moved him out of the way.

Time seemed to slow down again when the glaive met its outstretched limb. Only for a brief moment, the warg seemed to be having difficulty, but then the claws cleaved through Stargazer entirely, destroying all the enchantments and any hopes of using it again.

Lev's mind went blank at seeing his trusty, precious companion shatter into pieces. She had deflected the attack as best as she could with her life, leaving him another miraculous chance to make something out of his swiftly dwindling existence.

"Curse you…" A growl tore out of his throat as Lev tried, and failed, to clench his fists, only sending a wave of searing pain through his body that further fanned his anger. Done with running around, he lowered himself to the ground and pulled out all the stops, even if it would kill him.

Barrier walls formed around him as the monster found his bearings and turned to him again. Lightning imbued all of them as dozens came into being in a few seconds, creating a maze that the warg paid no heed to.

That was fine. Both of them were on a timer, but it was the warg that had it worse. Lev's only successful attack and the infection destroying its body were ensuring it fell quickly, and he had no qualms with abusing that.

It charged. Lev braced himself as it shattered through his walls without slowing down, only taking minor amounts of damage from each collision. The sheer number allowed him to trace its location through the feedback and evade its attacks. But this time, he retaliated with all he had.

As the warg was nearing his location, Lev was preparing the walls in the opposite direction. Torrents of fire mana infused all of them, as much as the small time frame allowed, and they came together to explode where he expected the warg to be. All of his walls rushed the warg's successfully predicted position and blew up in one gigantic blast on top of its body.

Lev kept healing himself and flew away to buy himself more time, knowing the battle was far from won. He was betting all his hopes on worsening the warg's infected injury, which was going to take much more than a single attack.

The small gap also allowed him- He belatedly remembered the ring still present on his severed arm, along with the healing potions in it, making him grit his teeth and redouble his creation of constructs around him.

An ear-splitting roar, loud enough to make him see stars, cleared all the flames at once as it rolled through the area. It revealed the heavily breathing monster, mostly intact but with a noticeably worse injury.

Lev's hope rose at seeing its profuse bleeding, only for them to plummet when he noticed the look in the monster's eyes. He immediately forewent the previous strategy and created lances by the dozen, for it was the only possible method to injure it further.

They were only infused with a small amount of fire and lightning when another gale rose, this one far larger in scale but less potent. Lances rained down on the approaching attack in vain, exploding without accomplishing anything.

Lev overloaded his armor as best as he could and crossed its barrier arms in front of his face. Closing his eyes, he prayed for the best as the wind impacted him head-on. Just behind the gale, he could feel the monster getting closer as lightning infused his armor like a blue river falling into it.

It's over, Lev shed one final tear as the massive open jaw of the monster neared. But he hadn't given up. The warg was going down with him, no matter what. It was too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely, for its mutation was obviously still underway. He wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise.

Several different orbs rested at the edge of his manipulation range, away from him, to sneakily gather lightning in them for as long as he could. All of the stored mana was teleported to his armor's arm in a large stream, pushing its limits of conductivity for all they were worth.

Still… I wish I could hug Orianna one last time.

All hope was lost as time slowed down, not because of some skill but because he was living his final moments. The jaws almost bit down on his crackling arms, outstretched to reach the infected gash on its body. It was too late however, and all he could do was detonate.

… Then the monster abandoned its move and abruptly turned its head in the direction of Windkeep with wide, wary eyes.

Lev pounced on the momentary distraction and hurled himself at the massive cut on its body, burying both his barrier arms inside and channeling all the lightning mana into them. Raw, visceral instincts guided his actions as his battered skinsuit threatened to give out under the massive torrent of mana, utilizing every last drop he had in his pool.

It didn't matter that he was going to blow himself up. He redirected all that lightning from his armor to be released inside the monster, regardless of whether he died in the process. Only a single thought echoed in his failing mind as Lev bared his teeth in a bloodied grin despite the numbness in his being.

Die.

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