I composed myself and I dodged the orb as it zipped by me, aimed at my head with each motion. "Ready?" I said to Luke as I got in a battle stance. "No, but let's do in anyway." Luke replied with a slight smile. I lunged for the man and he rocketed the orb at me again, this time aiming it at Luke. "Dodge!" I yelled as the orb whizzed by. Luke tried to dodge, but he was unsuccessful and his leg got crushed. He began to writhe in pain on the floor, and I saw that his health bar quickly shot down by 20%.
"That must've hurt." I said trying to lighten the mood so he wouldn't stay in shock. While I was speaking, I dashed towards the man again and he began to panic when he saw me unleash my aura. He tried aiming his orb at me again, but with using aura in my eyes, I went to dodge it. When I got up close to my face and I was about to dodge the orb, I saw that the orb wasn't aiming for me. It was aiming for the Luke who was incapacitated on the floor in pain.
I steeled my will, and then I focused all of the aura in my head and I took the orb head on. It felt like I was hit by a semitruck. My head was ringing but I realized that everything around me seemed to slow down, and I quickly realized why. The aura in my head, just like how I used it to make my eyes process things quicker, now it was used to completely amplify my cognitive abilities. I saw the orb come for me again, but this time I knew what I had to do. I used aura around my legs and head, and then I took one last leap towards the adversary. I got up and close, then I unleashed aura into my arms and weapon and I swung with all of my might. He tried to use aura to defend, but my aura-enhanced club smashed his head into a flat top.
He died instantly, and the orb also dissipated. A orb cane out from his body and it seemed into my body. It felt like I had an epiphany and like I could do anything. I felt overflowing power in my body and I knew it subconsciously. I finally hit rank 2. My excitement faded quickly when I remembered that Luke was like a sitting duck on the floor. I went back over to where he was. "You good?" I asked with a joking grin. "What do you think?" Luke replied with a mangled leg. "Here." I said as I went to the shop and bought a health potion. "I thought you were saving for rank 2." Luke said with a weak smile. "Thanks though." He continued. "I actually just hit rank 2." I said proudly. "Nice." He said unsurprised. "You aren't shocked at all?" I asked. "I kinda had other things to worry about." He said looking at his leg which was healing in real time. "These potions are insane." He said.
"I might buy some more." I said. I bought 5 more to save for emergencies. I had about 20 points to spare, so I bought some weapons with the choose weapon option. I got a new shield, a platinum shield either emerald engravings on it. It looked absolutely stunning. "So what do you want to do now?" I asked. "We already achieved our goal." I continued. "Wanna just hang out for the rest of it?" Luke said. "Sure." I replied. We left into the bushes again, and we stayed their for the last few hours of the challenge.
We heard some voices outside of the bushes, so I went to check it out. I saw a massive group of at least 40 people, and I listened in to their conversation. "All of unlocked aura!" One man said happily. "Nice! Hey John, how do you use your skill?" Another man asked. "All I have to do is imagine my power being used, and it unleashes itself when I need it most." He replied. "Has anyone seen Mark?" A woman asked the group. "I haven't seen his orb or heard from him for a while." She continued.
"He'll be fine." A man said. "He's probably just hunting people down from far away. He's too strong to just die, especially with his skill." He continued. I blinked back into the bushes and I told Luke of everything they said. "They have another rank 2 aura user? And there's 40 of them?" He said surprised. Let's stay in the bushes for safety, we already completed everything that we needed to." Luke said. I agreed and we waited just a bit longer. "Congratulations! You passed!" A window showed when the timer ended. "You got 51 killed total, amazing work!" The window said. "The remaining 15 points you have will be converted into 1.5 platinum! Enjoy!" The window said. Everybody was suddenly teleported back to the exact same place they were when the game started, as if no time had passed at all. I looked outside in the night sky and I was thankful fo get a second chance at life. I slept, trying to relieve the exhaustion of constant fighting for a whole day.