I could tell Lancy was putting all his power into the strike. Sweat was starting to run down his face as he was trying to move his sword, but this was the only chance I had. I focused all my Ki into the palm of my hand allowing me to touch the blade, I wasn't going to let go.
The problem was this left my whole body vulnerable. I didn't have any Ki protecting any other parts of my body. My face began to burn. It felt like it was going to melt off.
...
The notifications kept sounding off in my head. As more notifications sounds came, the fire started getting weaker.
"What is going on?!" Lancy shouted as he tried pulling back the blade.
Lancy then started kicking my body again and again. I started to cough out blood but I wasn't going to let go until I had absorbed all of the fire.
"You dog! Why won't you just die?!" Lancy was still hitting me trying everything he could to get me off the sword.
Finally, the notification sound stopped. I let go of Lancy sword causing him to fall back a little. I was badly hurt. My gauntlets were dented beyond belief and I could feel a warm liquid between the gauntlets…most likely my bones were broken inside. My face was now half burnt from the fire and a few ribs had broken from the kicks.
Everything I did relied on this one moment. There were two things I was unsure about. First whether mana eater would work on a beast crystal weapon. If I took the elemental attribute from the weapon it would basically be useless. Now that this worked, I needed to check one more thing.
I punched my two fists together and started to focus. The gauntlets started to shine an orange-red and were getting hotter until eventually, flames covered my entire arms. From my shoulder to the outside of the gauntlets, to even the fingertips, it was all wrapped around in flames.
The second thing was if I was able to infuse my Ki with the elemental attribute. In theory, Mana and Ki were the same things. Just how people used mana to create fire. Now that I had fire Ki and mana. I could use this to activate the cells on my gauntlet and create a fire weapon of my own.
"You really are a demon. We were right to try to get rid of you."
Lancy tried to use his sword to gather the flames around my gauntlets, but his face dropped. Mana eater was a skill that absorbed the fire. It didn't suppress it or borrow it. It was more like stealing and adding it to my own body.
I dashed over towards Lancy and knocked the sword out of his hand then grabbed Lancy by the face and lifted him in the air.
"No! No! No!" Screamed Lancy.
First Lancy's face began to melt. Then his entire body was burnt to a crisp. The power quickly faded from my body and I collapsed to the ground.
Gary started to slowly walk over towards me. He wasn't in the best of shapes either.
"Ray! Your arms and face look pretty burnt. We need to take you to the hospital." Gary said with tears falling down his face.
I wanted to reply but my lips had been partly melted together.
Then suddenly, shadows started to form I could vaguely see a human figure. Then the shadows started to get clearer and Sir K appeared.
"Gary! Where are the attackers?" He said urgently.
"They're all gone" He replied, "But Ray needs help."
Sir K then quickly examined the scene around him. There were fire marks and ashes everywhere. The trees were formed in a circle but had gone a slight black colour due to the fire. All that was left of the attacks were their equipment.
Sir K went and picked up an object of the ground. It was a piece of the red mask that Lancy was wearing.
"So, it's them. I need to inform Wilfred."
As Sir K was busy examining the scene, four black sash knights appeared. They were the third-year students. They picked up Gary and me and started to take us off somewhere.
My eyes were tired and my whole body hurt. All I could do now was close them.
When I eventually opened my eyes again, I was in a familiar place. The white bedsheets the clear ceiling…I was in the hospital again. I could feel something heavy on my leg and when I looked down, Slyvia was sleeping on my thigh.
"She's been there all night" Gary said.
As I looked to my left, Gary was also in a hospital bed. He was covered in several bandages but this was a normal occurrence for us now.
Just then, Slyvia eyes started to open.
"Ray…" She said, as a little bit of dribble ran down the side of her mouth.
"Ray you're finally awake." Her face then went bright red as she noticed the dribble coming out of the side of her mouth.
"How long have I been asleep for?" I asked.
"It's been three days."
Then I went to touch my face. I remembered several burn marks. My lips had even melted together but I was speaking perfectly fine. Then when I looked at my hands, I noticed they were completely fine as well.
"Don't worry you're all healed up."
"But how?" I asked.
"That's the thing Ray, we don't really know. Your body just started to heal itself. The burn marks, your internal injuries, everything. The doctors were in shock. Your body is strange. The readings they found…it's almost like you're a…" Slyvia stopped right there.
"Like what?"
"Your body, it heals like a beast would. As long as your given enough time to rest, your Ki will naturally start to heal all your wounds."
Slyvia then looked me in the eyes.
"Ray, I saw your body when you came in here; we all did. We thought you might look like that forever. What happened to the two of you?"
We then proceeded to tell Slyvia everything that had happened: how three men in red masks came to attack us and how one of the masked men was Lancy. Slyvia didn't look at all surprised by this.
She had told us when the fire had started, she had been attacked by one of the masked men. They went straight for the whistle. When they went looking for Lancy, he was nowhere to be seen, leaving them no choice but to head to back to the city.
As the three of us were telling each other the events of what happened, the hospital's room door opened. I was surprised to see all our roommates enter the room. But not only that, Kyle and the two red-headed twins had also entered the room. I recognized them from the dragon knight training. Once all of them had entered the room, Sir K followed behind them and closed the door.
What on earth was going on?