The Undying Warrior's Rewind

4

"What the hell are you talking about?! Who is tracking me?!"

I screamed like an absolute idiot, throwing my arms up to shield my face as I begged her to save me. 

"Geraldine, please! You’re the genius mage! Don’t let that thing crush me! I don't want to die!"

Instead of saving me, her eyes flashed with pure irritation. She spun around and delivered a kick so fast and powerful it felt like getting hit by a runaway carriage. 

The boot caught me square in the chest, blasting me backward. My face hit the dirt hard, coughing up dust, and the ugly guard sword I’d been secretly gripping flew out of my hands, clattering uselessly behind me into the shadows.

"Shut up, you useless waste of space!" Geraldine snapped, completely ignoring me as she raised her staff toward the sky.

Above us, the massive flaming black spear slammed into the roof of a nearby building, shattering the stone structure. 

But the real problem wasn't the spear, it was the creature that had ridden it down.

A colossal, multi-limbed abyssal vanguard beast, dripping with liquid shadow and sporting a jagged crown of bone, roared into the sky. The sound wave alone shattered every glass window within three blocks.

Geraldine didn't hesitate. She threw herself into the fray, her silver staff erupting into a blinding storm of cosmic fire and violet lightning. 

The battle was a chaotic blur. She fought the beast back and forth, dodging razor-sharp claws by mere inches, her robes fluttering as she channeled spell after spell.

I stayed down in the dirt, playing the part of the paralyzed, terrified dropout, but my eyes were wide open. I was analyzing her.

She's struggling, I realized, a cold smile forming beneath the mask of my fake terror.

I knew her peak strength. In our past life, a low-tier vanguard beast like this would have taken her exactly thirty seconds to pulverize. 

But right now? It was taking her ten agonizing minutes of high-speed chanting, desperate dodging, and heavy mana consumption. 

It was completely understandable. She had been reborn here too, saddled with the exact same weak, unrefined teenage mana pool as everyone else in this era. 

She wasn't an invincible archmage yet. She was just a tired girl burning through her limited reserves.

I smirke. Go on. Kill that monster for me bitch! I need its core stone.

With a final, desperate scream, Geraldine unleashed a concentrated beam of cosmic energy, piercing the monster's throat. 

The colossal beast let out a gurgling roar, crashing heavily into the alleyway, its massive body kicking up a thick cloud of dust as its life force began to drain.

Geraldine stood a few paces away from the corpse, panting heavily. Her staff was leaning against her shoulder just to keep her upright, her face pale and drenched in sweat. 

She was completely drained, tired, and weak, her defensive mana shroud entirely depleted.

I didn't waste a single second. The terrified teenager vanished.

I'm a freaking warrior, angry, and done being kind.

I scrambled up from the dirt, retrieved my ugly guard sword from the shadows, and ran straight to her side.

"Ethan...?" she gasped, turning her head slightly, hearing my footsteps. She probably thought I was running to her for protection like a pathetic coward.

I didn't say a word. I just smirked.

Before she could even register the change in my expression, I drove the heavy steel broadsword directly into her back.

Her eyes widened in absolute, paralyzed shock. "Y-You..."

"This is for the vanguard, witch," I whispered in her ear.

I didn't stop at one strike. I pulled the blade out and stabbed her in the back a dozen times, pouring every single ounce of my remaining Tier 1 mana into the blade to ensure it tore through her internal organs. 

Over and over, until the heavy broadsword was completely painted in her blood and she collapsed onto the cobblestones in a lifeless, twitching heap. 

I stood over her, catching my breath, watching the light completely fade from her violet eyes.

She was dead. The great traitor of humanity, executed in a filthy alleyway by the very man she thought she'd disposed of. Poetic justice at its finest.

"One down," I muttered, wiping a splash of her blood off my cheek.

I turned my attention to the colossal beast lying beside her body. Its massive, terrifying eyes were slowly closing as the last remnants of its abyssal life faded. 

I stepped over its twitching limbs, climbed onto its massive chest, and drove my sword deep into its sternum, twisting the blade until I hit something solid.

I reached my bare hand into the wound, tearing past hot muscle, and pulled out a fist-sized, glowing, blood-red core stone. 

It pulsed with a dense, intoxicating amount of raw cosmic energy, the kind of high-grade fuel you could usually only find in the deepest dungeons.

I slammed my palm against the crystal, activating my maximum-efficiency absorption technique.

A crimson vortex of mana erupted from the stone, violently swirling around my body before being violently sucked into my chest. 

The sheer volume of energy felt like a tidal wave crashing into a teacup. My mana circuits stretched, groaned, and then completely shattered their previous limitations.

A loud, resonant hum echoed inside my soul.

Crack.

The boundaries of Tier 1 completely tore open, unlocking the true gateway to my power. 

My muscles density multiplied, my senses sharpened by a tenfold, and the ambient mana of the world began to bow to my presence. 

Finally, the foundation was set.

I jumped down from the beast's chest, tossing the shattered, drained grey dust of the red stone away. 

I looked down at Geraldine's corpse one last time, completely unbothered, before picking up the mysterious blood-red scroll that had fallen from the sky's flaming spear.

I unrolled the parchment. The moment my eyes scanned the glowing abyssal script written inside, my smile completely vanished.

The contract wasn't just a tracking spell. It was a global hit list, and my name wasn't the only one on it.