' What the hell is that boy doing? A minute is already up, I can't hold this forever even with the power of the time stone. He needs to get moving and get that last piece now!' Angakok thought as a frown formed over his face.
Time and time again Max had proven his worth in front of the old shaman god which was why Angakok had believed that despite the physical pain the boy would find a way to get the job done this time as well.
It seemed like he had gravely miscalculated the power of a star and his own protection, the boy on all fours on the surface of the star engulfed in a sea of flames and was not moving a single muscle nor taking in a single breath of air.
' After all this effort, am I going to lose my vessel here? ' Angakok wondered as he panicked and pushed his own body beyond its limits to lift up the restriction of gravity that the star placed on Max's body even more.
Angakok was absolutely not ready to let Max die here, the boy had already promoted himself on the path of the perfect warrior all the way to tier5 and had a tremendous body with a special bloodline ability.
Even if he tried to find another like Max in the wide universe or tried to cultivate one from scratch, without inherent talent and a lot of luck they might not be able to reach the heights that he did, not to mention the time that Angakok would need to spend to make it happen.
" Arghhh, COME ON BOY! FIGHT" Angakok shouted although he knew that it was pointless as there was nothing but the vacuum of space between himself and Max since both of them were now in different air bubbles.
Max was also acutely aware of his predicament, despite the overwhelming pressure of gravity being exerted on his body, he could still distinctly feel the strong pull on his right arm towards the direction of the final piece of the Agni-Astra as the other two pieces embedded in his arm seemed to have a natural attraction to it.
Even with Angakok pushing past his limits and alleviating the pressure on Max's body by a small margin, the best that Max could do was push his muscles to their maximum potential and barely manage to stand upright on the surface of the star.
Max gritted his teeth and tried his best to take a step and managed to barely move forward about 3cm when he realised that even if he pushed himself like mad and did walk at a snail's pace, he was never going to reach the location where the final piece was lodged into the surface of the star in the few seconds time that he had left.
Even with his blood manipulation skill, to make the blood reach his brain against the gravity was a struggle and he was pretty sure that the souls of his shoes had long melted and he was now facing irreversible damage on his feet because of the nuclear fire on the surface of the star.
Despite his extremely high fire resistance, he was not the fire god himself and did not have perfect fire elemental resistance. With a powerful enough flame he could be hurt and the surface of the star just happened to be one such powerful fire that could hurt him.
' 30 seconds left ' Drax murmured in Max's brain as he reminded Max that he was on the clock.
For the time being no physical pain mattered because if Max did not manage to get the Agni-Astra in the next 30 seconds he was going to die a horrible death anyways.
His vision doubled and with little blood flowing to his brain he felt dizzy as he locked onto the small shiny object between the sea of flames about 40 metres away from him.
There was no way he was going to make it across by walking in-time so he decided to throw a hail mary and hope for the best.
There was one spell that he had chosen during his tier2 promotion test that he precisely chose for its utility in stealing treasures, but never needed to use it until now.
A spell that seemed to be a wasted choice of a tier promotion test reward, however, was his only hope in this dire situation.
Extending his hand forward towards the last piece of the Agni-Astra with great effort, Max felt the throbbing pain in his arm that was threatening to break off from his shoulder and fly towards the last piece by itself as he used the only non-combat related spell in his entire arsenal.
[ Retrieve ]
Max willed his entire body's strength behind casting this spell as he tried to pull on the connection already established between his arm and the last piece of the Agni Astra urging it to be pulled towards him.
Suddenly the pull between his arm and the last piece increased exponential as he could acutely feel the pain in his right shoulder as he felt some muscles being outright ripped apart from the force.
His already numb mind could not handle the even more mind numbing pain as his doubled vision began to have major black spots dancing inside as he finally tethered along the edge of unconsciousness.
' I guess this is it then…. The end of the road for Max the dragonslayer, after everything I've been through it seems like this is end of the road for me.
I've lived my second life to the fullest, but maybe this is as far as I go.
Forgive me brother, Hazriel, I know I have unfulfilled promises, but my body's hurting bad, I think I'm going to sleep for a while ' Max said in his own head as he gave up hope and accepted his impending fate.
—--------
/// A/N - We have slipped to number 11 in GT rankings so I've decided to start a small incentive to boost us back up.
For all gifts received in the next 24 hours this is how the bonus structure will be.
Magic castle = 2 chapters
Spaceship = 3 chapters
Gachapon = 4 chapters.
Let's get our spot back ///