Reforged Chapter 9: Dead Again and Counterattack

Dazed, with the sound of the wind in his ears, Duke woke up due to a sharp pain in his right ribs. In his blurry vision, he realized that the scene had changed from the flickering lights of Northshire Abbey to the pitch-black branches of Elwynn Forest.

"Hey, kid, can you hear me?"

"Ugh..." Hearing the deliberately subdued voice, Duke knew he had no chance of recognizing the speaker. In fact, Duke swore he didn't know this person at all.

Opening his mouth wide, Duke found he could only spit out a bloody bubble, unable to speak. It was only then that he noticed the dagger plunged into his right ribs. The paralyzing poison made him feel less sensitive, but the pain still surpassed the limits of what the poison could numb, causing Duke heart-wrenching agony.

"Kid, I'll let you die understanding. If you hadn't embarrassed Sir Landor Blancdale today, perhaps the Blancdale family might have taken you in for your mage potential, having you guard their gates as a family mage. Heh... too bad for your talent."

"Ugh..." Duke wanted to curse, but the puncture from the dagger allowed a large amount of blood to flow into his lungs. Drowning in his own blood, he couldn't speak due to the pain.

Damn it!

As expected, nobles were no good!

A feeling called regret filled Duke's heart. As a law-abiding citizen, Duke's mindset hadn't fully transformed, so he fell for the trap.

Easily succumbing to their retaliation, a mere Rogue of unknown rank from the Blancdale family took him down.

"Kid, don't think anyone will come to your aid. No matter how strong your talent, if you can't turn it into power, you're still just a fragile little guy. Don't worry, I'll take good care of you." The attacker grabbed Duke's face, forcefully turning his neck and pointing to the hazy distance.

It was by the lake, with several crude triangular houses. There was also a large group of monsters with fish-like upper bodies and strangely humanoid limbs.

Duke recognized them immediately.

"Right! Murlocs!" The attacker laughed maliciously, "A kid unfamiliar with his surroundings, too excited to sleep at night, accidentally wandering into Elwynn Forest and encountering the carnivorous murlocs, only to be eaten alive. Isn't that a perfect script? At least, even if anyone suspects, they can't produce any evidence that it was Sir Landor Blancdale's doing."

Duke's body trembled. Just thinking about his body being torn apart by those sharp, foul-smelling teeth made him feel sick.

Everything went black, and Duke died.

The attacker had overestimated Duke's resilience. Perhaps in his view, commoners could last about twenty minutes.

"What? Dead already!? I wanted to hear your screams as you were devoured alive by murlocs, and then use a magical crystal to record it for Lord Blancdale." The attacker looked disappointed, but soon came to terms with it, "Oh well, I'll just bring back the remains after the murlocs have eaten his corpse, let Lord Blancdale know that he suffered enough pain before dying. That should be good enough."

With that, the Rogue assassin approached, intending to grab Duke's leg, hoist him up again, and throw him to the murlocs.

However, the moment he lifted Duke, he suddenly realized the weight on his shoulder had disappeared.

"Oh, really? Then I'll use the same method against you, and you won't object, will you?" Duke's cold voice, like a wraith, resounded behind the rogue.

The system sprite's voice kept ringing in Duke's ears, even though continuous speech should be slow and time-consuming. Duke was startled to discover that the voice was compressed, just like how an advanced computer could perform countless calculations in a single second. The system's voice transformed into text, images, and even telepathic information that Duke could understand directly.

In the outside world, not even a thousandth of a second had passed.

"Host detected to be in a critical situation. Enemy's reaction time estimated at 0.3 seconds. Spellcasting process ignored... No external elements detected for borrowing, automatically switching to extraction of host's internal mana... Entropy calculation in progress, spell model reset..."

"Special skill [Calm and Collected] activated."

"[Calm and Collected]: A magical talent that allows the user to automatically ignore the casting time of the next non-instantaneous spell, converting it to instant cast."

"System auto-adjustment... Level 1 [Pyroblast] launched!"

Without any chance to react, the rogue was horrified to find a blazing light erupting behind him, and a flame as big as a basin came crashing down on him...

"Bang—" Completely unprepared, the rogue took the full force of Duke's [Pyroblast]! He was sent flying, his entire body engulfed in flames, and let out a chilling scream.

Was it over?

No! Not yet!

Duke didn't know how strong this guy was. Enduring the discomfort brought by the system forcibly launching [Pyroblast], he swallowed the nauseating sensation in his chest and abdomen and started to cast a second [Pyroblast].

Duke didn't know if he would succeed or if he had enough mana, but instinct told him that the rogue wasn't done yet. He needed to follow up with another attack.

The system voice rang incessantly: "Host's internal mana backlash detected. Spellcasting failure rate increased by 38.78%. Automatically balancing fire elemental input... Spellcasting time extended to 8 seconds, spell power increased..."

8 seconds!

Life-or-death 8 seconds!

Given a choice, Duke would never foolishly stand still and cast a fireball for seven seconds. The tragedy was that Duke, the so-called apprentice mage, had only one spell. He had inexplicably mastered [Pyroblast] but didn't even know the [Fireball] that preceded it.

Facing a rogue with high agility and speed and much greater strength than his own, Duke knew his other melee attacks would be ineffective.

His only option was to cast [Pyroblast]!

The rogue was still rolling on the ground, engulfed in flames. Although the [Pyroblast] dealt immediate damage and the flames wrapped around him caused continuous harm, Duke clearly saw the fire weakening.

The moment the rogue regained his mobility would be Duke's next brush with death.

8 seconds! The seemingly interminable 8 seconds finally passed. With Duke's hope of a decisive victory, a fireball as big as a basin was once again launched from his palm.

One detail shattered all of Duke's hopes, as he was horrified to find the rolling rogue suddenly stopped and raised his head. His eyes were wide open, a pair of fierce and expressive eyes filled with murderous intent—kid, I'll tear you to pieces!

Those eyes said it all! To be continued