Chương 26: Hero vs Demon King

Tommy seemed slightly shocked by what his spell had done, and his initial reaction was one of worry.

"Jonny, are you–?" he started, stepping forward.

"So, Hero, you've come prepared!" said Jonny, dusting the snow off his pants.

"Maybe this will be interesting after all!" Tommy hesitated for a moment before the corners of his mouth tilted upward.

"Of course, Demon King!" he said.

"This is your end!" Jonny stalked closer as Tommy held his stick between them. Usually when they played, it would be Tommy approaching Jonny, but the whole dynamic had changed now that Tommy was using ranged spells. It was a new dynamic for Jonny overall, since he had never actually fought someone like this. Anything that wasn't melee was outside his area of expertise, but rather than worried, he found himself excited. Even if it was just a game, not a real fight, it would be an interesting experience.

He circled around Tommy for a few seconds, but he had no idea what kind of opening to look for, so he decided to just charge in. Just like the first time, Tommy used the same wind gust spell, but now that he was prepared for it, Jonny ducked down, getting himself low to the ground to try to reduce the effect of the wind. It did not quite fully work, and he ended up stumbling a few steps back, but he was able to keep his feet.

He ran in again, and when the wind gust came, he dropped to the ground almost fully, diving face first into the snow and letting the wind pass over him before pushing himself back to his feet. When he stood back up, though, he found himself facing a floating ball of snow gathering on the tip of Tommy's stick. Shit! He managed to get his arms up just in time for the snowball to come flying at him, breaking on his arms and showering his face with powder.

Tommy's snowball spell was not the strongest, but that was intentional. Jonny knew it was his "safe" attack spell, and that if he wanted to, he could have condensed the snow down into solid ice. He also could do something similar with a fire spell. I would have lost there, Jonny realized. If that was fire, I'd be screwed. It was a sobering thought, and for a moment, he wondered if his goal was impossible. He couldn't cast spells. He would never be able to do more than strengthen his body.

How the hell was he supposed to compete with people who could throw fireballs? What were muscles in the face of a laser beam? Even Tommy's weak little fireballs were too much for the current him. What about when Tommy formed his second layer? Or his third? Where would Jonny be? Would he be able to compete at all? He didn't even know if he could form layers on his core. Igrette said that body strengthening could make him fireproof, but that was only if he could find a way to overcome his handicap.

Shut up, Jonny, he told himself. That's quitter talk. He slapped his cheeks, and took a deep breath inward, spinning up his mana and pushing it into overdrive, then exhaling to wind it down. Tommy seemed slightly concerned about his spell, so he hadn't done anything while Jonny recovered from the snowball. When he saw Jonny get back into a stance, he leveled his stick and prepared his mana again. Without any magic, Jonny's options were limited. He needed to get in melee range.

He wasn't going to punch Tommy, but if he could just grab him, the game would be over. There were plenty of ways to subdue him without damaging him. He just needed to get close. He charged in again, ducking Tommy's wind gust, but Tommy got smart this time. Rather than trying to blow Jonny away, he made his gust point downward pressing Jonny deeper into the snow.

Jonny reacted quickly, pushing himself back up against the wind, but as soon as he stood up, a snowball hit him directly in the face, and when he stepped back, another hit him in the stomach. Blinded and off-balance, he sensed Tommy gathering more mana, and barely managed to step aside before he heard another snowball whiz past. He dodged two more as he wiped his eyes and regained his bearings, and once he did, Tommy stopped, choosing to sit and wait instead. This was annoying, but also the smartest move.

The further Jonny was, the easier it became to dodge, and the more mana Tommy wasted. If those had been made of fire… He shook the thought from his head and refocused on the task at hand. Ducking to keep from being blown away wasn't going to work anymore, clearly, so he had to try a new tactic. This time when he went in, he waited for Tommy to gather his mana, then dove to the side, somersaulting through the snow and returning to his feet.

It worked so well it was almost surprising, but Jonny was hardly pleased about it. The only reason it worked was that Tommy had to focus his wind into a relatively narrow corridor for it to be strong. If he spread it out, it became too weak to be effective. But as he got stronger, that would cease to be the case. No matter how good Jonny got, he would never weigh more than 200 pounds or so, while Tommy's wind would just keep getting stronger. This solution was only a temporary one.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Another wind gust came, and this time, Jonny chose not to dodge, instead letting him get blown backward so he could reset. He probably could have gotten closer if he wanted to, but he didn't want to win that way. It would have been like if he just used his size to bully a featherweight into submission. Sure, it was a victory, but it wasn't an effective tactic against anyone who actually mattered.

Besides, he didn't know when he'd have another chance to face an actual mage like this, and wanted to make the most of it. So, dodging was off the table, and getting down was easily countered, but as he thought about it more, that was only because the way he did it. He was still prioritizing mobility when he did that earlier, so when Tommy took that away, he was in trouble. But if he just prioritized something else instead, it would be more effective.

He rushed in, and when the wind came, he knelt down, plunging his arms into the snow until his fingers reached the ground beneath, digging into the earth and grabbing tight. The wind pressed hard against his face, but with him keeping a lower profile, and his hands to anchor him, he was able to hold his position. Tommy switched the direction of his wind, blowing down, trying to flatten Jonny just like before, but since he was already in a stable position, it did little.

With his hands on the ground, he had a much stronger base, and the wind hardly did anything. He stood up in time to see a snowball forming, and this time, instead of just tanking or dodging it, when it flew at his face, he curled his muddy hands into a fist and punched it. He imagined it was a fireball, and even if it would still damage him, he would much rather it blow up at the end of his reach than right in front of his face where he had been blocking before.

The snowball exploded against his fist, splattering him with loose snow, and so did the second, and with each one, Jonny advanced a step. Tommy visibly panicked, taking a step back and launching two more pointless snowballs before changing tactics and summoning another gust of wind. Jonny recognized the pattern of the mana, and knelt back down to anchor himself, but he was too slow, and the wind this time pushed him upward, sending him flying backward yet again. I need to stay lower, he thought.

I had to bend down too far. I was too slow. He pressed in again, staying low so that when the wind came, he was able to grab the ground in time. With the wind blowing upward, it was much harder to hold on, but the frozen earth was just firm enough that he was able to hold on. He stepped forward, staying low so that when the second gust came, his hands were already in position.

Tommy upped the intensity of the wind, blasting snow into Jonny's face and body, trying to push him off the ground, but Jonny just dug his hands in deeper. He threw more snowballs, but Jonny just treated them as target practice. Tommy stumbled back panickedly throwing more snowballs to no effect until he gritted his teeth and started casting a new spell. It seemed similar to the wind gust spell to Jonny's senses, so he got down and anchored himself again, but the spell did not fire.

He felt the wind whipping his face, and saw the snow in the air in front of Tommy swirling in a vertical wheel. Oh f– The spell fired, slamming into Jonny's chest, ripping him out of the ground and sending him flying backward. He flew further and faster than any previous time, all the way to the tree at the top of the knoll, slamming into it back first.

With his boosted awareness of his body from Igrette's training, he felt his lungs get flattened, all the air expelled at once, and when he hit the ground, he couldn't breathe.

"Jonny!" he heard Tommy call. Jonny wasn't actually that hurt. He would have a lump on his head, and probably a scrape or two, but he otherwise felt fine. That didn't make it any easier to start breathing again. It had been years since he had the wind knocked out of him, and it had never happened in this body. He got to his feet, holding his solar plexus, unable to inhale. He saw Tommy running toward him, but the other boy slowed to a halt when Jonny took up his fighting stance again.

This is nothing, Jonny told himself. I've fought through worse. Even so, his body wasn't quite on the same page. His heart rate rose, and he could feel a pounding in his head intensifying with every second he couldn't breathe. Strangely enough, his mana seemed to be getting agitated too. Without his breathing to help control, he felt like he was losing control of the cycling. He had burnt a fair amount in the game so far, but not enough to be safe. If it fully expanded, he would be in trouble.

And without being able to breathe, he was struggling to regulate it. Shit, shit, shit! Tommy was hesitating, thankfully, which gave Jonny a few precious seconds to focus on his circulation. He forcibly kept it going, moving faster and staying condensed, but it was unsteady, and he felt like he was on the verge of losing it. Why can't I breathe yet? After the fact, he wasn't sure if it was actually taking that long, but in the moment, he was frantic.

He couldn't breathe, and his mana felt like it was trying to break free of his control, and he was worried he was about to die. He did something foolish that he never would have done in his right state of mind. He forced his mana toward his lungs, hoping to jump start them. The mana resisted at first, before rushing toward his lungs. For a split second, he realized he might have just gotten himself killed causing a mana surge in his vital organs, but then something odd happened.

Rather than running wild in his body, the mana instead rushed directly into his lungs. It passed all around moving in patterns far too rapid and complex for him to even begin sensing them, but there was a pattern. It wasn't chaos like a mana surge should have been. The next moment, his lungs finally started working again. He gasped, inhaling deeply, reveling in the cool sensation filling his lungs.

A wave of relief washed over him, then a second did when he realized his foolish mana manipulation hadn't gotten him killed. Then, he exhaled, and immediately gasped again. There was no mana in his exhale. Just air. He focused his senses on the new breath in his lungs, and the mana that had come in with the air, and his eyes widened as he saw what was happening. The mana entered his lungs, then clung to the walls of his lungs, before being absorbed, and when he breathed out again, the air was mundane.

I absorbed mana! It was not much. In fact, it was hardly anything, compared to his reserves. It would take hours upon hours to fully replenish his reserves with this ambient mana. But he had absorbed it! And just in time, as Tommy was now finally preparing another spell. Grinning, Jonny raised his fists, ready to meet it head on.