bezel chikn nuggit

“He—” I croaked, my throat dry and scratchy, a foreign, slightly bitter taste on my tongue. “Help!” My voice was so weak and thready, there was no way anyone would hear me, not through what I was now recognizing as sound-proof padding on the walls. What had happened to me? I couldn't remember. I didn't know where I was, had no idea why I was here.

However, the tide of battle began to change. Despite Abner receiving all the damage, Reiss was the one getting tired. No matter how much blood Abner puked up, he kept getting to his feet and charging, while Reiss, after every blast, was breathing harder and harder with a noticeable tremor of fatigue running through his body. Noah decided it was time to end the fight. Once again, Abner, albeit slowly due to all his injuries, hobbled towards Reiss, shouting with resolve. Reiss, scrounging up what little strength he had left, hit Abner with a weak blast, knocking him back only a few feet and kicking up a cloud of dust. Once again, Abner started to get up.

Noah had already made progress in slowing the flow of his mana and his bodily functions, and the headband was helping. His heart dropped to one beat a minute, and he all but stopped breathing. Typically, such a state would be fatal, but the more he slowed down his mana, the more he could forestall damage. Without mana flowing, his cells would stop processing nourishment and oxygen, but they wouldn’t wither and die, for the molecular processes of cell death were also halted. Caught in a near-perfect state of suspended animation, his physical senses operated at the lowest possible level, and he became more attuned to the flow of mana around him, sharpening his spirit senses.