One Last System

The dragon didn't mind carrying me all over the place. Yet, when it noticed the pillar of light erected nearby, its body twitched...

And then it swung its wings to the front, killing its momentum only to swing around in the air and rush to escape.

'What?' I thought, shocked by the explosively sudden change in the situation.

But I couldn't waste any time hesitating. I knew how fast this dragon could travel. And right now, it was pretty clear that it wanted to rush away from the pillar of blue light as soon as possible and as far as it could!

"Thanks for the help!" I shouted, standing up on the dragon's back only to lower myself to my knees before jumping off my temporary mount.

'Should I use it again?' I thought when I looked down to the ground.

It wasn't a jump that would kill me... But even a cultivator of my level would struggle to safely land from so high up!

'I guess I will just have to toughen it up,' I thought, forcing more and more of my mana into my flesh and bones.

The air whizzed in my ears as I continued to accelerate for a few more moments before the evergrowing air resistance balanced out my acceleration.

THUMP!

As soon as my legs touched the ground, I pushed my mana down my body before dispersing it around like a ripple on the face of the water.

It didn't help much. I could still feel my bones cracking under the pressure as I bent my knees to alleviate some of the stress.

'FUCK,' I cursed under my breath, infusing most of my pain into this word before breathing it out.

And then, just like that, I landed about a mile away from where I saw the pillar of light appear.

Only a mile away, yet still a mile away.

My legs screamed out in pain, every last cell making them up, barely capable of dispersing the pressure of my landing. And yet, I ignored the pain, stood up, and turned my face towards the blue pillar of some strange power...

Only to stare at it as the energy powering the pillar ran out, causing the entire thing to simply vanish into thin air.

'I need to move,' I thought, ignoring the pain in my legs as I rushed ahead.

Thankfully, running a mile a distance wasn't much of a challenge. While a normal human would take several minutes to cover that kind of distance, I managed to cross it with just a few leaps.

'Where is she?' I thought, actively scanning my surroundings. It was also at this moment that I started to regret destroying my spear.

It maybe wasn't the strongest military asset that I owned, but it still allowed me a greater versatility in a potential fight.

"MIA!" I shouted, caring not for potentially attracting the attention of the people I was wary of.

I wanted to make sure she was safe; this was my first and foremost priority. Whether or not that would lead to another fight to the death?

Right now, I couldn't care less.

Hearing no response, I started to move around the place, looking for some clues that could lead me back to my girl. And while there were hardly any visible marks on the nearby hills, I could sense a weird peculiarity with local mana.

According to the natural flow of magic in the air, there should be a black hole several tens of meters away, hidden in a local thicket of trees.

'That's weird,' I thought, turning my sights in the direction the peculiarity was coming from. 'I don't recall noticing any abnormality like that before,' I thought, making my way in the suspicious direction.

I pushed the bushes aside... Only to see three bodies lying unconscious directly on the ground.

"Mia!" I shouted, rushing to one of the bodies. Even though she was lying on her stomach, I could still recognize the general shape of her body.

"Are you okay?!" I asked, burying my knees in the ground when I landed on the right by her side, reaching out to check her state.

I raised the girl by her shoulders only to put the side of my head to her chest.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound of her heart was weak and slow, but I could definitely hear it.

"You are still alive," I muttered, feeling how all the energy vacated my body. Hugging Mia in my arms, I needed a moment to finally straightened up my thoughts and calm a tiny little bit down.

It was also then that I finally calmed down enough to pay attention to the surroundings.

'It's all intact,' I thought, realizing another peculiar element of the situation.

The bushes and trees all around didn't seem to be affected by the pillar of blue light that I saw before. Yet, contrary to the normal world, my mana vision allowed me to see the true scale of devastation this pillar of light caused.

'It's gone,' I thought. 'All the mana in the area, was it consumed by that pillar?' I attempted to formulate a guess as I looked around.

And then, my eyes fell on the two bodies that were in the same state that I found Mia to be in.

'Are those the guys the dragon fought with?' I thought, my eyes darkening.

The dragon helped me a lot. I also helped that dragon recover from the cursed wound those people likely inflicted on it.

Yet, I couldn't care less about those things. Even though killing them would likely score me some brownie points with that dragon, I couldn't be bothered to think so much ahead.

'There is no denying that it's Mia who invoked that pillar of light,' I thought, raising to my feet with Mia's lifeless body in my hands. I then put the girl to a peaceful rest by one of the many trees before moving back to the bodies of people who fell victim to her outburst.

I kneeled down on one of my knees before grabbing the first of the two bodies by its throat. And as I raised back to my feet, I made sure to bring the unconscious man high enough to start choking him out.

It didn't take long for the man to wake up, proof that a threat to his life was enough to shake the trauma off his mind.

He managed to open his eyes and look down at me...

"You picked up the fight with the wrong girl," I said with a soft smile; before using my mana to accelerate my fist, I then smashed right through the man's chest, punching his heart out of his ribcage.

A rustling noise came from behind.

I dropped the body without any care in the world and turned around.

"You fucker..." the other man came back to his senses as he attempted to stand up.

Seeing his state, I didn't bother to rush anything. Instead, I slowly approached him before sending him flying with a simple kick.

"I'm not going to kill you, fear not," I informed the man as a gentle smile appeared on my lips. "That privilege goes to my beloved."