Pandora Unchained - B1C89: Secrets of Life Mana

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Stephan asked Sorin as Marcus's body lit up with light green runes. The runes were complex and originated form his bones—a trait shared by all bone-forging cultivators. It was from these empowered bones that mana shields were generated, and mana circulation outside the body was facilitated. "I'm not going to lie, Sorin. The odds of us being able to beat him aren't great."

"Still better than Gabriella's," said Sorin. "If it were just the meridian opening tinctures, I'd put her odds of survival at 30%. The influx of death mana will greatly increase the potency of those poisons and weaken her life mana affinity. I can't be sure how everything will interact, but I'd bet my life on her odds of survival being less than 50%. Conversely, I'm 90% confident in being able to save her if I can get in that room and draw the poison out of her."

"Then let's hope he's just book smart," said Stephan. "Cover me." He launched himself at Marcus, who'd pulled back into the long and wide corridor, seemingly uncaring about the life mana shield blocking the operating room. Metal-coated claws smashed through a hastily assembled life shield, but not quick enough to catch Marcus as he expertly dodged and kicked away the armored bear.

Stephan smashed into the wall. Hard. Marcus was about to take advantage of his dazed state to stab him with a knife when he suddenly stopped; Lawrence's short sword pierced through where Marcus would have been, forcing the rogue to pull back before the physician could counter-attack.

Marcus turned his attention back to Stephan, but three arrows shot down the hallway, distracting him He responded to Gareth's barrage by summoning a tall wooden staff and spinning it, deflecting two arrows, and taking a third to the chest. He then rushed forward, barely avoiding a fireball as it detonated near his prior position and colliding into Sorin.

Sorin's bones cracked form the impact, though he managed to twist his arm to strike Marcus in the side using Viper Strike, injecting a large dose of acidic poison, and melting away a mass of flesh.

Stephan had now fully recovered from his dazed state; he jumped in to engage Marcus, but the physician, having had enough of the bear, slammed his staff into the ground. "Serpentine Guardian!" he shouted, injecting a large dose of life mana into the staff. "Tie that bear down!" The staff knocked down Stephan and wrestled him to the floor before he could so much as touch Marcus's robes.

Dealing with Stephan took a lot of time and energy. In exchange for tying down Stephan, he took three fire bolts and two arrows to chest. The fire bolts were deflected by his robes, as was one of the arrows, but the second arrow drew blood.

Encouraged by the wounds they managed to inflict, Sorin tossed a poison spear at Marcus and attacked him along a curved path according to Gareth's instructions. This allowed Gareth to fire off a Power Shot and for Daphne to launch an powered fire bolt while Marcus receive Sorin's charge.

Yet before their attacks could land, Marcus's body suddenly sped up and dodged. His dagger pierced into Sorin's shoulder, cutting through bone and ligaments, but missing his organs. "I would have thought that you of all people would know that physicians should never be underestimated."

He then pulled back just as Lawrence appeared and parried his short sword using his dagger. He's using his superior spiritual senses to predict our attack patterns, thought Sorin. His speed and strength are also very exaggerated. Is he surpassing his limitations by manipulating his body using life mana? Such a thing was impossible for a one-star physician to do, but that was not necessarily the case for Marcus, a two-star physician.

What's worse, Marcus seemed to be able to shrug off all their attacks. Whatever poison Sorin launched at him was immediately purified, while any wounds caused by arrows or fire bolts that managed to bypass his robes were immediately healed over with life mana. Sorin's own acid-laced attack had already been neutralized.

Fortunately, Sorin had a secret ally, and just need to buy him a few seconds. This time, he approached Marcus cautiously and coordinated with Lawrence for a simultaneous attack. A split second before they struck, Sorin activated Cobra's Gaze and engaged in a spiritual collision with Marcus. Both sides suffered damage in the process, but Sorin had Lawrence to back him up, and as a result, Marcus was unable to avoid either of their attacks.

It was during this exchange that Lorimer finally managed to gnaw through the snake staff entangling Stephan and set him free. The bear, having experienced nothing but failure at the hands of Marcus, attacked him with a fully empowered Lunisolar Paw. Cornered and wounded by Lawrence and Sorin, Marcus was unable to avoid Stephan's taunt skill, and was therefore forced to meet the attack head on.

Despite Stephan's great strength, he and the physician were evenly matched. But during the exchange, Sorin was able to stab Marcus thrice in the back, injecting a heavy dose of manabane poison into his bloodstream.

Lorimer took advantage of this disruption to crawl through Marcus's shielding and gnaw at the man's flesh. "That's enough playing around," said Marcus. "Life drain!" Sorin suddenly felt a large chunk of his vitality leave him and leave every one of his companions and pour into Marcus. The wounds they'd inflicted instantly healed over.

"Vampiric spells? Really?" said Sorin. "You realize the Medical Association really frowns upon those sinister spells, don't you?"

"You speak as though you actually respect that politically charged regulatory body," said Marcus, summoning his damaged staff back into his hand. "You of all people should understand that they're a bunch of short-sighted fools."

Sorin agreed with that assessment. Truth be told, vampiric spells weren't particularly nefarious—they just came off that way to a significant portion of the population. The ban was imposed to preserve the image of physicians, who preferred to avoid combat in the first place.

"It looks like all the old tricks are on the table then," said Stephan, smacking a healing potion on his chest. "Life syphoning. Body amplification. Also, it looks like he actually knows how to fight. I hope you have something up your sleeve Sorin, or we're cooked."

Sorin glanced over to Gabriella, whose body was now covered in small black veins. "You go. I'll stay."

"That isn't how this sort of thing works," said Stephan.

"And I still don't think you realize how outmatched you are," said Marcus. " I would prefer to avoid the death of a member of the York Clan, if possible, and would like to avoid killing you as per the wishes of the Grand Elder, Sorin, but I'm not against killing your other three party members before disabling the both of you. Snake Staff—Coil!"

He threw the staff over to Gareth and Daphne like a spear. The archer tried to deflect it with an arrow but was unable to stop it. Daphne, on the other hand, gave up on intercepting the staff and opted to launch a fireball she'd been charging at Marcus, damaging both Sorin and Stephan in the process.

"Naïve," said Marcus, appearing from the smoke. His body was burnt, but his flesh was rapidly regenerating. "Let's first deal with the member of the York Clan. Concussive Strike!" He flitted over to the bear with a speed that defied the limitations of bone-forging cultivator and slapped his hand on the side of Stephan's head. The bear crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

"You're very difficult to lock onto for a rogue, but don't think that you're impossible to detect," continued Marcus. "Spiritual Paralysis!" The attack knocked Lawrence out of Marcus's shadow and opened him up to a lethal dagger strike—one that Sorin predicted and intercepted by stabbing his dagger towards Marcus's unprotected heart.

"Lorimer! Now!" shouted Sorin as Marcus turned around and grabbed Sorin's neck.

"Reee!" the rat, who'd been lurking in the shadows, erupted into flames and jumped onto Marcus's back.

"Get off me, you filthy vermin!" snarled Marcus. He tossed Sorin at a nearby stone wall and grabbed Lorimer before he could dig too deep, then proceeded to drain what little vitality the rat possessed before throwing him down the hall, half-dead.

"Lorimer…" said Sorin, picking himself up. The rat wasn't dead, and Sorin could still feel his life flame. But his companions were falling one after another. Lawrence was now unconscious, and Gareth and Daphne were following in his footsteps. Thankfully, none of them had received fatal wounds.

"As you can see, this was all quite pointless, Sorin," said Marcus. "If it were anyone else, I would teach a harsher lesson, but it's like I said: the Grand Elder is quite interested in your situation, quite possibly because of your cultivation technique and the knowledge you've acquired. You also possess the purest blood of the Abberjay Branch.

Realizing he was sorely outclassed, and that Gabriella's life hung in the balance, Sorin could only go all out. He took out a flask of stimulant poison and chugged down its entire contents, ingesting a quadruple dose in a single instant. He shuddered as his metabolism sped up and his body's natural limiters were released, enabling him to unleash forty percent more strength and speed than normal at great cost to his endurance.

What followed was a fast-paced exchange of blows. Marcus naturally came out on top. He was stronger and faster than Sorin and could purify and heal any poisons or injuries he suffered. "Well?" said Marcus after they'd exchanged fifty odd blows. "Are you ready to give up and accept your situation?"

"Not quite yet," said Sorin. If it were anyone else, he'd take the pragmatic approach. Unfortunately, this involved Gabriella. He took out a pill bottle and popped out a pitch-black pill. It was none other than the Violent Awakening Pill, the poison pill he'd obtained from Hope when he'd requested a way to exceed his human limitations.

Marcus's eyes narrowed when he saw the pill. "That's a taboo poison pill, Sorin. Are you sure you want to eat that? I sense thick demonic energies inside it – there may be no recovering from consuming it."

"You're not leaving me much of a choice, are you?" asked Sorin. "Or will you move aside and let me detoxify her?"

Marcus's eyes narrowed. "You can't begin to comprehend how valuable this experiment is. How valuable she might potentially be. If my predictions are accurate, this won't just open her Conception Vessel, but also activate her dormant constitution. There's no telling how powerful she'll become as a result of this."

"And you're willing to risk her death to accomplish this?" asked Sorin.

"I am, and she is too," said Marcus. "This is beyond you and I, Sorin. If the Kepler Clan gains such a powerful life cultivator, our enemies will not be able to keep knocking us down. We will awaken the potential of the entire continent and reclaim the land that humanity has lost."

"You're insane," said Sorin flatly. "Even Sirius, the butcher that he was, realized his limits in the end."

"You're the insane one," said Marcus. "What is a single life, one willing to sacrifice herself, compared to the good of the entire continent? A great battle is coming, Sorin. The Evils are stirring. We must be prepared to face them in battle."

Unfortunately for Marcus, Sorin didn't care much about reasons. Not because a life was at stake, but because it was Gabriella's.

She had done far too much for Sorin. She was the light that had lit up his grim world when everything seemed hopeless. She had given him the courage he needed to move on and to approach Hope like many desperate people had before him.

Without her, he would be nothing. Without her, he would be on his last legs and might have already succumbed to his internal injuries.

He, therefore, didn't hesitate to toss the Violent Awakening Pill into his mouth and absorb its potent corruption. His aura soared, and strength that far exceeded the blood-thickening realm filled his body.

"You said it was impossible for a blood-thickening cultivators at my level to defeat you," said Sorin. "Let's put that theory to the test, shall we?"