Nymh: "The foreleg, Curtis, foreleg, you stupid bastard!"

  With one in their party down for the count, the rest of them rushed toward Curtis, hoping to help before the dragon attacked again. The monster pulled back a little, readying for another strike, but a barrage of lightning bolts from Penny pulled its attention away while someone else from Milla's party used what looked like telekinesis to pick up rocks and hurl them at the dragon's head.

  The telltale glow of Milla's healing enveloped Curtis before Luke made it over there, and the Reaver's health bar filled up. From that rush of vitality, Curtis's body got to work healing the many wounds. Luke had just enough time to get a thread of mana into him, which gave a good sense of how this other type of healing worked. The healing energy, or whatever you wanted to call it, from the spell spread through the mana channels, leaking out into the physical body to restore it. This happened all over, even in places that didn't need healing, though that wasn't many in Curtis's case.

  At first glance, it was an amazing effect, and Curtis stood and stretched up in what felt like an instant, his health bar full and from all appearances his injuries healed, but Luke, who could see beneath the surface, knew that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.

  Internal bleeding, crushing injuries, a punctured organ, and even broken bones remained, though not for long. The healing was quick, but not as quick as one might've thought if you had nothing more than the naked eye to judge what had happened. Milla's healing was quick and worked from a distance, but it allowed Integrated to fight on while still being injured. This could lead to even more severe wounds, but in this case, the trade-off was worth it, considering they had to throw themselves to the side to avoid being stomped by the dragon.

  Panting, Luke got to his feet, made sure his friends were fine, then took in the scene. The monster stood above them, and its scaled body eclipsed the light still hovering near the cave ceiling. It attacked again and again, relentless for a brief moment before having to stop, perhaps due to its many minor injuries or just from sheer exhaustion.

  People screamed, a few from exhilaration, but most out of fear or pain. Their eyes were wide, and more than a few cried. All in all, this was not a good place to be.

  Milla's healing helped several people, but even more remained, and the repeated attacks just added to the long list of injured. While Curtis, Nate, and Hannah followed Nymh's order to attack the left foreleg, joining a large group of people already doing the same, Luke focused on the ones needing his sort of attention.

  With Weaver's Eye almost useless due to the overload of information, Luke just rushed up to whoever was closest. A broken leg meant a quick fix and on to the next. Dead. After a quick moment to breathe, the onslaught of wails pushed his attention from those lifeless, staring eyes. Next, a ruptured liver and massive internal bleeding. Two different people. Weaver's Mercy kept the bleeding one teetering on the brink between life and death just long enough for Luke to go in and use Weaver's Renewal to restore the organ. All these active skills required mana. So much mana. To make up for it, he borrowed from those around him, both the wounded and those who were not. While he ran between the many downed men and women, old and young, a thread of mana latched onto them, draining a little mana from each one. Not enough for them to notice, he figured, but it gave Luke enough to continue his work.

  His next patient was a pale-faced woman in her fifties who must've been caught under the dragon's foot, because her leg was crushed to paste.

  Integrated Lilian. Assassin. Level 6.

  "Hey Lilian, I have a friend who's an Assassin."

  "What?" she croaked, her eyes dazed.

  The pain was getting to her. An easy fix, that. Even with the pain gone, she didn't come back to herself, not fully. That leg wasn't salvageable, not without spending all his mana. Even then, he wasn't sure it would be enough in this case. Luke wanted to tell her, to make sure she understood that she'd have to go on without it, before amputating the limb, but that might not be possible in this case.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Milla's bloom covered Lilian, and Luke watched in stunned silence as the damn leg started reforming itself. A gruesome sight, with plenty of popping bones and squelching meat being put back where they belonged.

  Milla: "Sorry, didn't mean to steal your patient!"

  Luke grinned.

  Luke: "I'll forgive you this time."

  Nymh: "Silence on the broader channel! There's a blasted dragon to kill!"

  Milla: "You have to send to me specifically, little brother."

  Luke: "Like this?"

  Milla: "There you go."

  Milla: "Watch out!"

  Luke looked up just in time to see a raised, massive, three-fingered, clawed foot coming down on his head. After a pitiful scream and his immediate instinct to throw himself to the side, he remembered the patient. The Healer's Moment provided a brief respite to think, but pulling coherent thoughts from the chaos inside his head wasn't such a simple task with an enormous foot coming down on his head.

  Glancing down at Lilian, who was now wide awake and conscious of what was going on around her, including her own imminent death, Luke couldn't just leave her behind. With time running out, he discarded the idea of using The Healer's staff. While it might still work with the quarterstaff broken into two pieces, he couldn't make that gamble, not in a life-and-death situation. That left Threads of Mana.

  That was the plan, the whole of it. Threads of Mana. Straining, one thread reached Lilian, and he pushed to wrap it around her midsection rather than just her arm, since that might just yank it off, depending on how strong the threads were. Reaching that far took a lot out of him, but even with his managing it, he was far from done. Two more threads extended from his feet just as The Healer's Moment ended.

  Luke pushed.

  The dragon's foot crashed down with terrifying speed and weight, sending up a cloud of dust and gravel. A killing blow without a doubt, but Luke and Lilian were nowhere near the impact zone. They hurtled through the air, just over the ground, limbs spinning, to land in a heap, skidding along the stone ground to hit every rock in the whole cavern. Pain lanced into his hips, back, and head. Luke saw stars as he sat up, shaking his head. He and Lilian were both alive. Hurt, but alive, they found themselves almost right below the center of the dragon's belly, near where a couple of Integrated huddled in fear.

  "Ow."

  A warm sensation spread through his body, and Luke felt his mana channels overloading with healing energy. Looking within himself, he saw it move from the metaphysical world into the physical, healing him. Sharpness of mind returned in that instant, and he looked up to see Lilian getting to her feet, her health bar rising with the same speed as his own.

  Luke: "Thanks, Milla."

  Milla: "That was so cool! What did you do? You and that old woman just went flying!"

  Luke: "I'll explain later."

  Milla: "Sounds good, because you're needed back at that leg. Go, go, go!"

  Nymh: "Luke! Get back there!"

  They didn't need to tell him twice. Luke was up and running even before Nymh berated him. At this point, almost all his active skills were on cooldown, and once again, his mana was running low. Such a pain in the ass. The glow of Milla's healing spread from person to person in a large clump of people following the dragon's foreleg while the monster lashed out again and again with jaws, fire spells, and even with wide sweeping attacks using its tail. It wasn't standing still either. While not limber in the state it was in, the injured dragon shuffled to the side and back, trying to get in position to strike at the nagging Integrated.

  Spells, arrows, and bullets rained down on it from afar, and Nate, along with a bunch of other tanks, did their best in keeping everyone up close safe, but the murder machine's health refused to drop to zero. When Luke approached the foreleg, he saw it was a mess of shallow wounds with light red blood seeping out of its injuries. The Integrated were damaging it, but not much. Far from enough.

  Rather than focus on the monster, Luke turned his attention to the injured. Milla's healing had slowed to a trickle, which must mean her mana was running low. A long, horrible wound that'd cleaved a guy's shoulder deep enough that it had to have punctured a lung and broken half his ribs yawned open. Did he get grazed by a claw or something? It didn't matter. Within a second of reaching the patient, a long-haired, black guy in white sneakers, basketball shorts, and t-shirt, Luke had stolen almost eighty percent of the injured's mana. Using it all to brute force heal the wound saved his life, so the guy couldn’t be too upset about the missing mana.

  That done, he looked up. So many more Integrated were injured. An ocean of them. If he wanted to keep up, he couldn't deal with them one by one. Steadying his breath, Luke reached out with Threads of Mana, deciding that he needed to divide his attention. Faster, he needed to go faster, or the still rampaging dragon would win.

  Faster. Faster!