These dead won't trigger the spell and the bullet would just pass through them. I can use him. This boy, if I push him a little farther away from me and use the spell on him, the rings formed will have a significant delay for me to time regeneration and survive burning, Silas thought as he looked at the boy.
He kept casting Advanced Fireball to keep the horde at a distance. Using the spell, Silas maneuvered toward a wall, this way the walking corpses could only approach from the front instead of all directions. Silas didn't want to be circled by what seemed like more than a thousand walking dead bodies.
His mana was running low, ten more minutes of casting would deplete his reserves, and he had to make a choice. He wanted to use the boy's life force to trigger the Burning Rings of Death. In this way, he could survive by casting regeneration. He had enough mana to cast the destructive septa-spell followed by the Regeneration spell at the moment, but it would not last for long.
He was ready to use his plan, to sacrifice the boy for his own survival. Why would he not, after all self-preservation was his priority, or so Silas had mistakenly thought. As much as he found this to be the most realistic and plausible plan of survival, he couldn't bring himself to push the boy toward the approaching horde.
"I must be a madman for thinking this." He let out a deep sigh.
"Listen, boy, do as I say. I will clear a path for you on your right. As soon as you see an opportunity, run for your life. These creatures are unable to sense you, they have been behind me the entire time," Silas said, patting the boy's head.
The boy was confused at first, but he didn't ask any unnecessary questions. Although he had many, like "Is that magic?" or "Why can't they detect me?" or "What about you?" he kept them to himself. He knew very well that distracting Silas could prove fatal.
Silas turned to the right, aiming at the approaching creatures, and blasted off big balls of fire in quick succession in that direction. The fireballs cleared the entire path, creating an opening, an opportunity.
The boy did as instructed by Silas. He quickly ran to the right with all his might. He didn't know where to go or what to do, but all he cared about in that moment was running away as far as possible. Maybe he would die from suffocation in a few minutes, but he couldn't care about any of that.
When one sees a thousand walking corpses approaching, corpses that emit an aura of death and bloodthirst, hungry enough to devour anything in their way, monsters with only one intention—to kill—then he does not think about what he should do. The fight-or-flight responses go numb, and the only response sent to the brain is fright.
For someone as young as the boy, surviving this long was a miracle. The will to live was stronger than the approaching fear. One could say his fear of death reigned over all other fears, leading to such a strong will. The boy ran without looking back, as far as possible, and soon he was out of Silas's vision, partly because of the thick dark smoke.
After the boy had run sufficiently far away, Silas finally exhaled deeply. He could already feel himself suffocating. Though there were spells that could protect him from suffocation, his mana reserves were very low. He finally decided to use his last option.
He shot three fireballs, one forward and two to his sides, to push back the approaching horde. He then took a stance, forming a gun with his thumb and index finger, and aimed at his own leg. He was planning to use his own life force to trigger the spell.
This was very dangerous. Not only would this mean he would constantly be burning for a few seconds, which the spell index described as feeling like swimming in molten lava, he also wouldn't have enough lag to time the regeneration.
The regeneration spell did not provide any pain-killing effect, which meant that during the few seconds it took to heal completely, the individual would continue feeling intense pain.
There are 99 spells in the index, and none are able to help me in this situation. Partly because half are completely useless, and partly because I am running out of mana, Silas thought. He was slightly annoyed, because he had believed that as a septa-wielder he was basically the strongest. Now, in an actual combat situation, he realized how wrong he had been.
As Silas had lost all hope of survival and was about to resort to his last option, a flaming fireball approached from the side and hit the horde of creatures. It was a small fireball, a tier 1 spell. As soon as Silas saw this, he quickly changed his stance and cast a fireball himself.
Two masked figures appeared from the created opening. They continuously cast fireballs. Though tier 1 fireballs were weak and could only take out one or two creatures at a time, having multiple people casting them drastically increased the firepower.
Silas felt a new hope of survival. Although he was a little shaken by the fact that he had been about to cast a septa spell in front of two unknown wielders, his fear wasn't that they would catch him. It was because he might have turned these wielders into ashes.
The newly formed group of three wielders slowly cleared the horde with fireballs. Although the fireballs were weak and the creatures kept approaching without pause, they were doing quite well at holding them back.
One of the masked wielders handed Silas a bottle filled with an unknown liquid, a shade of bluish-green in color. The masked wielder gestured for Silas to use it on his body. They couldn't speak, so they could only convey it through actions.
Silas was confused, but he didn't bother refusing. Survival was more important. He flipped open the bottle lid and dumped the entire thing over his head. It was his first instinct.
The wielders pointed in one direction and signaled Silas to shoot a fireball at once. Silas used his tier 1 fireball, and one of the masked wielders used a tier 3 advanced fireball. This created an opening in the horde.
"Run," the masked wielder, shouted as he started running toward the newly created opening.
Silas followed without a second thought. To his surprise, the creatures were unable to detect him anymore. Silas, who was also a manalogy freak, was fascinated by the sight. The group of three was practically running between the creatures, surrounded on all sides, but they weren't being attacked.
It was then that Silas realized what the bluish-green liquid of unknown origin actually was. It was a liquid that masked the manacules being emitted around a certain area. The walking corpses were not after flesh or blood—they had become mana-corrupted beasts and were drawn toward high manacule densities.
Silas, being a septa-wielder, attracted a lot of manacules around him, which also made him a prime target for the mana-corrupted corpses to hunt and attack. This was the reason he had been cornered by what felt like thousands.
The newly formed group of three finally arrived at some ruins. They climbed up the wall and entered a floor above the ground level. Despite having withstood several impacts, the floor was tough, and Silas finally felt at ease.
The mysterious wielders then removed the gas masks that covered their faces. The first was a woman with red hair and sharp eyes, shorter than Silas by an inch. Silas, despite having turned eighteen, wasn't very tall himself.
The other was also a woman. When Silas finally saw her face, he recognized it instantly—the blonde hair etched in his memories came into view, along with the beautiful face and eyes that seemed to see through one's soul. It was the same gaze that resembled Silas's own.
"Mom?" Silas's eyes widened in confusion.
Sophia Velor had arrived to save her only son and had successfully managed to pull him from the mouth of death.
As Silas took in the sight, he couldn't believe his eyes, and questions flooded his mind. But before he could say anything, his vision darkened, and he struggled to breathe. He had removed the makeshift mask, which had already become useless. Silas wanted to use regeneration, but his mother was standing in front of him at that moment. Before he could decide what to do, it was too late.
The only thing Silas managed before blacking out was pointing in a direction as he said,
"A young boy ran in that direction."