I blinked open my eyes a second later under the onslaught of a river of healing power thundering into me from my Tesla Coil bracelet. It snapped me back to reality, but I wished it hadn’t. Dying would be so much easier. With consciousness, my mind shook off the berserker rage that had swept aside my rational thoughts.

  Even once more rational, one thought still drowned out all others. The Overlord had hurt Ruby. Maybe killed her.

  The thought speared through the pain like a sliver of ice through a firestorm. I seized it and held on with all my flagging strength. My health bar was deep in the red, despite my vast pool of health points, and it kept dropping as the monster tried shaking the life out of me.

  Reflexively, I triggered a full regeneration potion and almost activated Soul Feed’s active drain, despite Fulvia’s stern warning not to tempt fate. I needed that extra healing, but I resisted the urge to use my spell.

  A river of power thundered into me from my bracelet, but even with the extra potion, it was barely enough to keep my health bar from dropping farther. My lower body was shredded and broken. That really ticked me off.

  I managed to find some breath somewhere and roared so loud I tore something in my throat. My grip on the monster’s spike above its snout was slipping, so I triggered one of the Iron Grip potions I’d just gotten from the Graveclutch Mandrills.

  Suddenly Tomas appeared in the air beside the Overlord, shouting with rage. He slammed his sword down, but it only skipped off the monster’s tough scales.

  With a huffing grunt, the Overlord snapped its snout sideways, smacking Tomas just before he teleported away and wrenching me painfully again. Hopefully Tomas dodged the worst of the strike, but seeing the beast knock him aside like an annoying gnat stoked my rage even hotter.

  The Overlord stopped so abruptly I groaned as my broken torso wrenched a final time. Then the beast dipped its head in a smooth motion it had obviously practiced many times. The move slid my body off its fangs, but before I could start falling, it nudged me. Hard.

  The move flung my shattered, bloody lower torso skyward. If not for my unbreakable grip on its spiky horn, my entire body would have somersaulted into the air and the Overlord could have gobbled me up like a kid catching a bit of tossed popcorn.

  Instead, I somersaulted forward, my locked-on grip like a fulcrum, and slammed down onto its snout, which was wide enough for half a dozen people to walk side by side. The impact sprayed my blood all across the Overlord’s pristine scales and that was one strain too much. With a sickening squelching sound, my legs and waist tore away from my upper torso and slid away, falling off the side of the snout, leaving a wide streak of blood behind.

  For a second, the world froze. The Overlord looked shocked his little snack toss had failed and that he’d gotten blood all over his shiny scales. For my part, I tried to process the fact that I’d just lost half of my body.

  Wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’d lost an arm and a leg as a werewolf. I could regrow missing parts. I didn’t need legs to kill the Overlord. I was already lying on its snout.

  A clinical part of my brain noted that I should be freaking out. And bleeding more. And probably spewing a lot of guts all over the place, but none of that happened. Huh. I guess between my regeneration potion, the river of power pouring in from my bracelet, and my fast base regeneration, they were enough to seal off the open wound across my entire torso.

  Good. Back to killing.

  Pushing the pain and shock at becoming abruptly crippled aside, I focused on the one blade I had left. Scalebiter. As fast as I could, I slashed the blade back and forth across the tip of the horn I was still clinging to with my unbreakable grip.

  In one second, I struck 5 times. The Overlord roared and heaved its head up again. That move took it another half second, which gave me 3 more chances to hit the horn, and that sealed the monster’s doom.

  “Scalebiter. Uncommon. Ramp up damage over time as this blade adds 5% extra damage per consecutive hit to the same target while doubling the chances of penetrating defenses, armor, or hide. Stacking.”

  I didn’t care if the first seven hits hurt the thing. With the eighth, I aimed for the base of the horn. Even though I lacked strength to strike hard, that hit severed the hard bone like a hot blade through cream.

  Eight hits. That stacked damage up to 140%, assuming the 5% extra in each hit wasn’t included in the calculation for the next hit. More importantly, doubling penetration was huge. That eighth hit unleashed 128 times the penetration effect of the first hit. That was probably like the difference between firing a .22 caliber target rifle vs a tank cannon shell.

  Just as I severed that horn, I heaved with all my upper body strength, timing the move with the Drake’s instinctive toss of its head, and sent my legless torso tumbling up along its snout. Shouting with pure bloodlust, I slammed Scalebiter into the top of the Overlord’s head.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Shiny, mirrored scales exploded out from the impact point as the blade struck with 256 times its normal penetration power and plunged to the hilt down through the Overlord’s skull.

  The monster roared so loud, the crystalline walls cracked with thunderous reports and huge chunks of the ceiling fell away to reveal rough, black stone beneath. It didn’t act like I’d badly injured it, despite literally driving my sword through its skull.

  “Well, Schumann,” I muttered, realizing the flaw in my plan too late.

  The stupid Overlord’s skull was so thick and my sword so short, it didn’t penetrate enough to mortally wound the beast. The tip might have tickled its brain, but that was it.

  The Overlord leaped into the air, shooting up toward the ceiling, and I swore again. The hard-headed bugger was going to slam me against the roof.

  So I let go of Scalebiter, leaving the sword sticking down into the monster’s skull while I slid down the side of the giant drake’s face. I spit in its eye as I slid past just as the Overlord slammed bodily into the ceiling.

  The impact shook the cavern, knocking more sections of crystal wall and ceiling loose to cascade down right behind me. The monster’s entire body stiffened in shock.

  I laughed as I slid down its neck, cackling like a lunatic. The idiot must have slammed my sword deeper into its skull. It had better not have broken my blade.

  As I slid down its smooth scales, I pulled another item out of my inventory and slapped my hand against the Overlord’s neck. A delicate gold chain snaked around the monster’s throat as the Guillotine Garrote sealed itself in place.

  I fell free, just missing a giant clawed paw that snatched at me a second too late. The Overlord recovered from its self-braining and turned after me, murder in its glowing yellow eyes. It opened its maw and a blinding crimson light formed between its teeth.

  I’d really love to see what incineration breath did, but not on me. So I flipped off the boss and pressed the Guillotine Trigger.

  With a simple soft snicking sound, the golden Garrote chain flashed with light. The Overlord’s roar snuffed out and its head slid free of its neck, revealing a perfectly flat slice all the way through. Its teeth gnashed together a couple times as if it didn’t want to believe it had just died.

  I triggered Loot as I fell toward the floor and, after a moment’s hesitation, I triggered Soul Feed too. Fulvia had warned me not to, with threats of permanent mana channel injury, but Ruby was badly hurt and Scott looked like he might already be dead. We needed healing, and we needed it now.

  The spell activated and I adjusted the area of effect upgrade to share the lifesaving energy with my team. A river of power thundered into me as white mist billowed out of the black cloud Loot had transformed the drake into.

  My mana channels felt weird, but nothing hurt. I’d feared it would feel like breaking something inside, but I felt nothing and lacked the time to worry about it. As long as it worked, I’d deal with the fallout later.

  Before I could splat down onto the hard floor, Tomas appeared in the air next to me, seized me in his arms, and together we blinked high into the air while the falling sheets of crystal smashed to pieces against the stone floor in reports like rolling thunder. Then we blinked again, landing on a clear patch even as crystal shards skittered all around.

  “Oh, Lucas!” he sobbed as he collapsed to the floor with me.

  “Dude, you look terrible.”

  He blinked, not comprehending for a moment. I chuckled. “You should see your face. Thanks for catching me, though. I really didn’t want to take all that crystal to the face, or land on my stump. Totally undignified.”

  An immense cloud of stinking black smoke obscured the ceiling as the Overlord disappeared. The ocean of healing power roiled around us and for a moment, it looked like we’d stepped into a whiteout.

  “You . . . You’re not dying?” Tomas whispered, hope replacing his despair. He looked a lot better hopeful.

  I started to laugh, then groaned, tensing against the very unpleasant tingling sensation as all that healing power, coupled with my innate regeneration, started rebuilding my body. My mana channels were thrumming too, and that felt weird, like muscle cramps inside my veins.

  “What?” he asked, worried again.

  “Give me a minute,” I breathed through gritted teeth. “Growing new body parts itches ten thousand times worse than that time you had that cast on your leg.”

  He grimaced, then stared in wide-eyed wonder as my hips re-formed. “Simply incredible.”

  More like really gross because the healing worked from the inside out, growing an inch of bone, then sheathing it in muscle and tendons and skin and stuff before moving on.

  Tomas started to speak again, but I interrupted. “Ruby!”

  He heaved me into his arms again and sprinted over to where Ruby and Scott lay in bloody heaps. Lana was already there. An empty potion vial sat near Ruby, and Lana was pouring another into Scott’s open mouth.

  Ruby groaned as color returned to her cheeks and the gaping wounds torn through her body began visibly mending. She must have fallen to within a fraction of a point of dying. If not for her Battle Bio Morph, she might have died instantly. Sharing Soul Feed might have just dragged her from the brink.

  Tomas lowered me beside her and even though I was still healing too, I removed my Tesla Coil bracelet and wrapped it around her wrist. I’d captured rivers of power from all the monsters we’d fought, including tons from the two drakes I’d finished off. I’d already consumed a lot of it, but there was plenty left. My healing slowed noticeably, but Ruby’s sped up.

  I dragged my torso around her, straightening her limbs to help accelerate the healing. Tomas moved to Scott just as Lana started pounding his chest and calling his name. She sounded panicked, and the healing potion she’d poured into his mouth leaked out as she shook him. The white, misty energy from Soul Feed flowed around him but did not seem to be getting sucked into his body.

  Oh, hell no. That was a very bad sign.

  Ruby groaned and blinked open her eyes. She started in fear, her body stiffening before I grabbed her hand. “Easy. It’s okay.”

  She looked down. “Lucas?” Then she screamed. “Lucas! Your legs.”

  I tried to explain I was okay and already healing, but she leaped to her feet, despite flinging her own blood all over in the process and nearly fainting from her own injuries. Her Med Kit appeared beside her and she snatched a potion.

  “Drink. It’ll speed up limb regrowth.”

  I took it, but resisted when she tried pouring it down my throat. She looked frantic, but I stopped her and held her gaze, speaking in a serious, calm voice.

  “Scott is nonresponsive. Help them.”

  She blanched, only then noticing Lana and Tomas working on Scott. Tomas was performing CPR, his Earth training kicking in, and he was spouting off a bunch of medical jargon I didn’t understand, but took to mean he was worried.

  Ruby leaned forward and kissed me. Hard and fierce and brief. Then she held my gaze, her face inches from mine. “Don’t you dare die on me, Lucas.”

  Then she scooted over to help the others.

  This one looks really good.