I was the last man standing. Just like I always thought it would end. I just didn't consider how painful seeing my friends die in front of my eyes would be. It hurt more than any flesh wound and wasn't going away.
Maneuvering among the buildings. It was once again a gigantic complex of structures connected to one another, to the point, it all looked like a single massive structure. With apartment rents, tunnels, elevators, and all the communications jammed all together.
I thought I had found a decent angle to attack, so I jumped up to land on the highest spot around. I saw the overlord in blue, but next to him was another wearing brown, and the third wearing red.
Both had to just arrive since they didn't have any marks on them, signaling participation in any violent conflict. This meant I had to finish off the other guy in red, whom I fought before.
- Fuck - left my mouth, before the structures around me came to life.
It was as if everything suddenly became like water, raging moved by a terrible storm. And, for some reason, that storm hated me.
A tsunami wave raised in front of me, and behind me too. More were coming from the sides. All focused on burry me alive. I escaped with a powerful jump, just to get blasted away by a burst of electricity.
I slipped away using a barrier, just to see a meteor shower raining down from the sky. Suddenly everything was on fire, and the temperature was rising. I knew this magic because I already used it once.
There was no other way, but to close the distance and stick to the three as close as possible to avoid the wide-range attacks.
Butt-naked, with only a weapon in hand, I paved a way for myself with plates made out of void essence,e and charged right at them, swinging my blade from a distance, using 'Hunting strike' to create some chaos among them. Otherwise, they would blast me off my path.
The guy in red ejected a barrier to prevent the kinetic energy of my attack, but they still found a way to get there and strike each one of them. Wounded, they only got more pissed off. Suddenly it felt like heaven and earth were against me.
The partially melted construction materials erupted from the ground, combining with the meteors and flames already in the air. Add to that the electricity, and you will get the lovely mix I could enjoy.
I had to pierce through all of that, to make it to the three, then I just started swinging. Piercing through the barriers the alien in red was producing, and trying to take down the one in blue. At first, it felt like I couldn't do shit. The only benefit was that they were too busy defending, and dodging, to attack me.
But then I slowly realized I'm pushing them back. A scratch here, and a scratch there, were slowly blooming like the first flowers heralding the coming of spring after the freezing winter.
The whole planet underneath us was boiling. The temperature was horribly high, and yet the four of us still tried to kill one another.
I had to unless the full repertory of my skills, tapping into anything I could think of to keep myself fighting at that speed and ferocity. My body was falling apart, despite the incredible regeneration, and the occasional burst of healing energy I dumped into myself when I felt like I was about to lose.
The situation evolved to a point when they just couldn't keep trying to slow me down, hoping for the magic, and anything else they were able to come up with from time to time - a lightning strike, ray of scorching energy, telekinetic attacks, or regular punches - would work. They had to switch to offense on a full scale.
It was a devastating exchange. Any barriers and veils of psychic powers I could surround myself with were easily broken. I was getting terribly damaged and had to keep healing myself to the point my powers were drained out completely.
But they were taking hits too. Terrible hits. Life-threatening ones.
It ended with us landing on the raging sea of lava. They froze part of it, making an obsidian platform for themselves, while I created my own from void essence.
I was blind, and deaf at that point. Half of my face melted off, so you could see the skull underneath. Most of my bones were broken. Shattered to the point that they didn't provide any support at all. The muscles tensed so hard that they would put steel to shame were supporting me in my efforts to stand.
I lost my left arm.
I couldn't really move the right one either. Thankfully my fingers were gripping what was left of the pudao I stole from one of my golems. At that point, it looked more like a short spear than anything.
The situation was doom. I was only staying alive because of the 'Dreadnought' skillset, because 'stuff from the 'Evolutioner' and also the other classes, weren't able to keep up with the hostile environment around.
We turned the planet into hell.
Hell, that was killing all of us. At that point, the one who could keep holding on would be the winner, but I was very much unsure if I could continue doing that. I was empty. I couldn't heal myself anymore or even do anything else.
Fortunately, they seemed to be in a similar situation, since nobody was even trying to attack. We just stayed in our position, glaring at each other, expecting the other side to fall on their face before we would.
But nobody was. A mix of iron will, and resolve was keeping us standing, even when we couldn't really do anything else but die.
I was glad that my mind allowed me to see without the eyes because thanks to that I could actually observe them. See the same struggle on their faces, as the one I was currently fighting with.
"Just keep standing. Don't fall. You can't fall. Not now. Everything you ever carried for relies on you standing", I kept repeating to myself.