That unbearable pain finally ended, but everything before my eyes was pitch-black. Had I reached the end of another life? Ah, this life had been short, but it had been pretty interesting. Just as I was wallowing in self-pity, a light appeared in the darkness. That had to be the Order God. He must have come to take me back. I hadn't even completed the task he'd given me.
Hahaha, I didn't even know what the task was. He'd said I would know when the time came... Wait, how exactly had I died? I'd clearly been meditating in the training space when a spear and a sword suddenly pierced me from behind. How was that possible? As these thoughts echoed through every corner of my mind, the light ahead grew larger and larger. Suddenly, light flooded everything, and I found myself in a white room.
Wasn't this the training space? What had happened here? Why was I back in the training space? Hadn't I already died? Suddenly, tremendous fear welled up inside me. I couldn't understand anything that was happening. Just then, the spear that had pierced me flashed through my mind, and I began looking around frantically. As I turned around, a spear pierced my stomach and came out through my back. Damn it, that hurt.
Again! Agonizing pain began reverberating through my body. I was paralyzed. I couldn't move, and I couldn't see clearly either. There was a humanoid outline in front of me, but I couldn't tell whether it was a person or something else because my eyes couldn't focus. It was like looking through frosted glass.
As I struggled to draw painful breaths, rage welled up inside me, and my strength began to return. Fueled by that rage, I tried to grab the shadow in front of me, but the spear kept me from reaching him. Still, I lunged forward with all my strength, feeling the spear push farther through my body.
I reached the shadow and grabbed his arm. My eyes began to focus. Was this what they called the final flare before death?
I could see clearly now, but I couldn't believe my eyes. He was the bandit leader I had killed in the forest, and he had turned me into skewered meat for the second time. Just then, another bandit swung his sword down at my head, and everything went dark again.
Once again, I sank into pitch-black darkness. A light in the distance began approaching, but the fear and panic in my heart didn't diminish. Instead, they grew stronger and stronger. Before I could work out what was happening, I found myself in the white room again. This time, I immediately looked around and saw a group of bandits standing about five meters away. There were too many of them.
The leader with the spear quickly closed in and thrust at me. I panicked, but I still managed to cast the defensive spell Quersumby (Oak Shield) in time. A layer of bark-like armor covered both my arms from wrist to shoulder. I crossed my arms in front of my chest in a defensive stance.
The moment the spear's tip struck my right forearm, I felt as though I had been hit by a truck. The blow sent me flying several meters backward. The difference in strength was too great.
My heart kept pounding as though it would burst out of my chest, and there was a deep dent in the armor on my right arm. I drew the dagger from my belt and quickly closed in on the bandit while deflecting the spear with my right arm. I wanted to slit his throat immediately, but I noticed another bandit swinging a sword from my left, so I had to step back while swinging my dagger.
My dagger sliced the bandit's throat, but it was only a superficial cut and did no serious damage. Attacks were landing on me from every direction. I couldn't let them surround me.
So I cast Sambrar (Fog Cloud), trying to put some distance between us, but they continued attacking without any fear. They were clearly attacking blindly, unable to see me. As I ran backward, my back hit a wall. I had reached the edge of this damned room. I couldn't stay here, or they would surround me.
I activated my thermal vision skill and watched the bandits. They ran around blindly in the darkness, occasionally even colliding with one another, but they slowly adapted. I had calmed down a little, but I still couldn't hear anything except my own heartbeat.
Meanwhile, I began preparing two Tegonden (Earth Shards) spells. Just then, a bandit spotted me and charged. I had to cancel one of the spells because I wouldn't have time to finish preparing it. Unfortunately, all that mana went to waste.
I cast Letagon (Entangle) with my free hand, tripping a bandit. I drove my dagger into his neck, then snatched the sword from his hand. At the same time, I hurled the Tegonden (Earth Shards) spell I had already prepared at two bandits standing in a line. One died, and the other's legs were badly torn apart.
The moment I released Tegonden (Earth Shards), the spell's speed broke through the wall of fog for a few seconds, allowing four bandits to see me. They began charging at me, not attacking in an orderly fashion like in the movies, but rushing me all at once. I used two buff spells, Volhen Keli (Aspect of the Cat) and volhen gryves (Aspect of the Bear).
I now had 7.3 strength and 7.5 speed. My stats were higher than usual. I didn't know whether this had anything to do with the fight-or-flight response. As the bandits approached, I cast Letagon (Entangle) on the enemy in front. He tripped and fell to the ground, causing the two bandits behind him to trip as well.
While the other three tried to get up, I met the bandit attacking me, rolling away from his diagonal attack from the left while severing his Achilles tendon with my dagger. The bandit fell to the ground, then began swinging his sword wildly.
So I had to take another step back and failed to finish him off. Meanwhile, I turned toward the bandits who had fallen. They had already gotten up, so I ran toward them and threw my dagger at the one in front, striking him right in the throat.
Before the remaining two bandits could react, I closed in and used jelmāz renigon (Lightning Touch) on both of them. I had never used this spell before because it only worked within five meters, but it was truly lethal. I used it because I had calmed down somewhat and realized I was wasting too much mana on second-level spells.
I only had 25 mana left, but there were still six healthy enemies and one injured enemy. Just then, the bandit whose Achilles tendon I had severed staggered to his feet, but he couldn't put weight on his leg. So he began hopping toward me.
"You've got to be kidding me!!" They were like the Wights in the stories Old Nan told the children of House Stark, monsters that knew neither fear nor pain.
I picked up my dagger from the corpse in front of me and threw it at the bandit trying to hop toward me, hitting him squarely in the middle of his forehead.