Endurance

 the sounds of musket fire, followed by the smell of black powder fills the air. Two forces clash together, steel blades meeting wooden shields. Screams of rage mix into this ferocious symphony accompanied by the final breaths of many. 

I fought on.

Magical lightning cracked as it connected with spherical barriers of blue light, deadly poisons rained from the clouds above only to be dispersed by a large gust of hurricane winds.

I fought on. 

Three foes stood before me, a shield bearer and two mages. Both of these mages were aware of my presence having erected their violet and cubic reality barriers that could stop nonmagical attacks instead of their usual light blue sperical barriers designed for mana based attacks. The shieldsman stood between myself and the mages standing at a towering 3 meters tall, covered from head to toe in black plate armor, with large heavily spiked pauldrons. He carried a massive tower shield followed by a wicked looking flail, shaped to resemble a human spine. Compared to the lightly robed mages he came off as a much more intimidating foe. He strode towards me aggressively, preparing to take my head off with an arcing swing.

He fell in a single shot of my flintlock.

The moment he swung I simply tucked under the blow, shifted behind him, and shot my flintlock straight into the back plate of his helm, piercing through it.

After dealing with the shieldsman, I drew my Sabre and dashed towards the 2 mages, only to be greeted by spouts of flame engulfing the nearly the entirety of the side of the trench I resided in. However, unluckily for them, fire happened to be my specialty, and I simply summon a coat of magical flame around my body to repel the heat outwards. With their own flame spell hiding me from their sight, I started to cast my own spell. 

I drew upon the words of power required and cast a 3rd level explosion spell directly next to both of their heads. Managing to catch them off guard and slay them on the spot. 

After defeating my most recent opponents I immediately set to work on reloading my flintlock, which was a tedious process, all the while observing the ongoing battle.

Hello, My name is Ray, I'm a 16 year old soldier of the kingdom of Fireheart. I often am told that I come across as an average looking lad with lame features and black hair. Right now I'm currently engaged in a large scale border battle with our neighbor the Empire of darkness.

I joined at a young age in comparison to most, the standard age for joining the military was 20 years of age, but I had my reasons. I was originally a musician and apprentice mage studying in the kingdoms capital Breven at the national magic academy. I had gotten that opportunity because of how successful my family was, my father a special forces squad leader, my 3 brothers all members of the royal guard, and my mother a renown alchemist. However, things had changed after the initial attack on the capital by the empire of darkness which started the war between our nations. The royal castle was suddenly attacked by the empire of darkness's arch mages with almost no warning, and in the process my brothers and most of the royal family as well, were immediately slain. Although that was not the only strike force in the capital. The method remains unknown, but somehow the empire of darkness had found a way to control monsters, and with this , a huge wave of ogres and demons struck the city, slaughtering everyone in sight. Mother wasn't even aware of the attack before she was skewered by a a demon's spear. I however was protected by the academy, which was easily able to repel all the approaching monsters, and managed to survive along with my father, who was visiting at the time. The loss of our family however, drove us both to rage, I immediately left the academy and joined the army, determined to avenge my family. My father was a bit more unhinged unfortunately, and in his blind rage he tried to kill the wave of monsters that had slain his wife. He died valiantly after almost single handedly pushing back the monster wave.

My training in the army was next to nothing, as there was a desperate need for soldiers on the front lines and I was shipped to combat in just a few days after joining. Luckily however I had a few tricks up my sleeve, not only was I an apprentice mage capable of wielding magic, I also had grown up in a military family and had received plenty of hands on training using firearms and my trusty Sabre I had named Billy. For my first battle My load out consisted of leather armor, a musket with 20 shots, a flintlock with 8 shots, and my Sabre enchanted with a liquid repelling rune, to keep blood from dulling the blade, along with 4 black powder bombs.

Now you might be wondering how I was able to convince the army to let me join as a standard soldier even though I was 4 years under the age limit and also a mage apprentice, which is considered a valuable resource. The answer is simple: Money, lots and lots of money. I gad spent my entire family's wealth, and had sold all of my families properties in order to bribe the officers of the army into letting me in.

Why you ask? Another simple answer: I didn't want or need the money, I had lost all of my family to the empire of darkness and craved revenge, money was simply a tool to achieve that goal.

Why did I join as a low ranked solider instead of as a mage? In order to catch my enemies off guard, no one expected a mage to be wearing the same uniform as a common solider, and this fact let me get the drop on enemy mages who didn't expect me to fling spells back at them. 

The first battle had started, and after fighting for what seemed like hours, and after the most recent clash of our forces, I was separated from my allies and now am continuing to hunt down enemy mages to try and deliver as much of the revenge I crave upon them as I can.

And that's how I ended up In a dirty trench behind enemy lines, surrounded by corpses

And who knows what else. so far the enemies I've fought have severely underestimated me, but in the future I was definitely going. To be facing some truly powerful opponents if I wasn't careful.

So for now I'm fighting on , I shall not be defeated, I shall not be restrained. I shall forever Fight On! Revenge will be mine!