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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/arekban on 2024-11-24 04:01:38+00:00.

Synopsis: Markus is summoned from Earth by evil beings looking for a ‘weak and primitive’ creature to use as sacrificial entertainment. What they got instead was a human. Immediately after arriving, Markus awakens to an ability so rare, so powerful that it makes every god on Firrelia desperate to recruit him as their new champion.

Learning to control his innate mastery over mana, Markus will devour the very essence of any monster, demon, or god that dares get in his way, determined to never lose his freedom again.

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Markus was a being of pure energy. That’s how he felt. Detached from his worries. Divorced from all concerns. His body was anger and vitriol and light, and the darkness he stood to purge quivered in response to his stolen strength.

No. Not stolen. Claimed.

And Markus had claimed this power for one sole purpose…

He reached out with broken blade, arm extended, leaping into the air once more. His glaive carved a solid line through the creature’s neck, causing yet more blood to spill from it, sizzling against the sand below as it fell.

Markus was power. The strength he held within him almost felt as if it should burn, but he was so thrumming with impossible energy that he could scarcely register pain.

He only felt adrenaline. A reason to keep attacking, to keep cutting into this thing, to push harder, to inflict more damage, even as he was repeatedly rebuked—his arm was broken in three places the last time it had shoved him away; he healed before he’d even reached it again.

Markus initiated another attack. He traded more blows with it. He was stronger and faster than he’d ever been before, by a wide margin, too, and with the Divine Mana at his disposal, he was able to breach the enemy’s defenses…

But this creature was still stronger. He hated admitting that. It took him so many repeated attempts and so many near-lethal injuries before he was finally able to accept that it was only the advanced healing factor his overcharge seemed to have brought about that was keeping him in this fight.

Every attack he weathered healed him right after it damaged him. The energy from the blow compounded with the injury, and the two cancelled each other out.

At first, there’d been no struggle. No pain. It’d been effortless to keep going. To keep carving through yet more of this monster, little by little, chopping and stabbing his way through its defenses and slowly exhausting it with each unfettered assault.

After his tenth time shattering his bones from the force of being smashed down into the sand by this immense titan, he was starting to recognise just the slightest bit of resistance forming within his body.

It wasn’t quite pain. Not yet. He still had plenty left to give.

Only…

Attacking the way he was didn’t seem to be doing enough damage. He had the durability and the speed to get on top of this thing and hit it, but in a question of endurance, it was beginning to look as if the worm would easily outlast him if this were to keep up too much longer.

Drathok continued to lend support with arrows and occasional melee strikes, but he was unable to penetrate the creature’s divine barrier. The element in its raw potency seemed to be a real dampener on his abilities as well as a major weakness of his, and Markus was becoming increasingly cognisant of that fact the more he witnessed the demon attempting to intervene.

And yet he still tried anyways.

Markus needed to think something up. He’d avoided using his abilities thus far, not wanting to incur whatever penalties his toxicosis would bring about for him and similarly aware that half of his powers wouldn’t even work with the level of Mana Poisoning he currently suffered.

But he needed to do something. Brute force wasn’t working.

The monster smashed yet another hole into the arena’s wall, causing yet more of the stands to crumble away and cave in on themselves.

It wasn’t compelled to attack Markus, nor Drathok. Without Randall here to corral it, it didn’t seem to be beholden to anything.

If it decided to leave, to inflict death and havoc upon the city…

Thousands might die before anyone else stopped it. Maybe good people. Not everyone here had to be a death-loving freak, after all…

Markus couldn’t have reservations in a moment like this. He needed to fight with his abilities, use his strengths.

He ran forwards and leapt into the air.

He imbued his weapon with Divine Mana as he cast [Triple Strike], stabbing three times against the monster’s throat and then following up with a fourth and fifth strike further up, immediately utilising Thrust King’s compound passive at the peak of his jump to activate a compound between [Acid Slash] and [Detonate] as he pushed his blade inside and tried to ride down the creature’s throat all the way to the ground.

Explosions ricocheted from the end of his blade for but a second, but began to stall as his blade became stuck around five feet from his initial point of entry, snagged against a hard, immovable scale that dug into his arm.

He attempted to drain the creature some more from where he dangled, but he was launched off into the sand below before he could take more than a drop of life from the bastard thing.

He attempted to spring back to his feet as he had before…

But he felt dizzy.

Vertigo.

Nausea.

His head didn’t like what he’d just done…

He felt a hand grasp his. He was being yanked back to his feet.

Drathok withdrew his hand with a wince and a rising tinge of smoke, as if burned by Markus.

Drathok stared at him as the worm writhed and shook in place, the blood flowing freely from its burnt neck beginning to slowly cessate, almost as if it were intentionally clotting it, the tissue becoming increasingly necrotic and still with each passing moment.

It was beginning to cope with its injuries.

And Markus’ were all too quickly beginning to catch up.

It was sheer vissicitude.

“Hey,” Markus said as he was pulled up, as he stared at the horrible motherfucking thing which was at least halfway through recovering already. “Was there a plan for killing this thing? Something you were gonna do before I decided to turn around and throw myself in the hole with you?”

“That,” Drathok said, pointing at a cylindrical object on the floor that somewhat resembled a fucking bazooka. “I was going to try to stop it with that. Or at the very least, slow it down.”

“And that is?..” Markus asked as Drathok floated the strange object closer, noting how many runes were grafted all over it.

“A mana cannon,” Drathok answered.

Great. He was right. A fucking mana cannon.

That sounded dope.

He snatched the thing from midair immediately.

He immediately felt a presence within. As if the weapon itself had attached itself to him, its runes glowing right and blue.

“Okay… how the fuck do I use it?”

“You force your mana into the cylinder and then fire it out of the end. Ideally, you hit your target, too.”

Yup. Sounded like a cannon alright.

“Using it is a death sentence,” Drathok continued. “These weapons are imperfect, and it will continue to take from you until you die. Once you begin to feed it mana, it will only continue to continuously drain you until—”

Markus ignored him, aiming the bazooka and firing a beam of golden light right at the worm like it was a fucking gatling laser.

He smirked as he immediately cut the beam off. His capacity had dipped by about 200%. His heart ached a little.

“Hey! What were you saying?!”

Markus wasn’t being facetious. He literally couldn’t hear shit over the sound of the cannon firing.

And the worm had a new hole in its chest. It looked… angry.

“Mana manipulators…”

“Drathok?!” Markus yelled through his ringing ears. “You were telling me something about how this thing works? Right?”

“I… just do that again!”

Markus blinked. “Really? Just like that?”

“Yes!”

“You’re sure?”

“JUST SHOOT IT.”

Well, shit. Didn’t need to tell him twice.

Markus loaded up the cannon with more Divine Mana and fucking fired.

Boom. Hit that thing square in the… was it the chest? He’d called it a ‘chest’ in his mind just now. It was a long draconic worm. At some point the front of it had to stop being its neck, right? Or was it all neck?

Body?

Markus shot it in its body. Each shot used anywhere between 50 and 200% of his Divine Mana depending on where he cut off the charge-up. It didn’t take very long at all to get to that point.

Drathok seemed astounded at his results. He supposed that watching someone shoot divine power from a fucking cannon probably looked pretty impressive.

Markus watched as the worm finally bridged the gap between them and attempted to slam down on top of him.

His first instinct was to jump back, but it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t locked in place, but this thing started to feel incredibly heavy as soon as it was time to start moving, almost as if it wanted you to just stand in place and fire it repeatedly until you were done.

It was impossible to dodge properly. Markus took the strike full-on.

…he barely remained standing. He had a Giant’s passive to thank for it. Guardian. A passive that specified a Constitution increase while standing within a small area for a long time as its sentinel, with its bonus increased if he …

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