Rushing forward, Luke used Threads of Mana, extending two threads. One reached a downed woman with blood spatter in her brown shoulder-length hair who didn't seem to have anything wrong with her other than a serious lack of mana. The second thread found someone Luke thought was injured, but it turned out he'd just died, since the corpse hadn't vanished yet. To Luke's surprise, mana still remained in the dead person's meta-heart. Unsure how to feel about it, he drained all mana and funneled it to the woman's meta-heart, saving her.

  The third person was a far too young guy who couldn't be more than eighteen. He sat with his back against a boulder, holding both hands to a bleeding wound in his gut.

  Integrated Lucas. Mindwarp. Level 7.

  While Luke got down on one knee in front of Lucas, he extended a thread of mana to a second person lying in a pool of blood right next to them.

  Integrated Dee. Wannabe. Level 8.

  Ignoring the weird class choices, Luke affixed Needle of Life to a thread and began stitching Lucas's wound. It looked worse than it was. A yelp of pain broke his concentration. He let out a curse, and a few seconds later, he'd blocked a few nerve bundles to deal with the pain. Stupid thing to forget, but this was all a bit much, to say the least. While going through the motions of sewing Lucas up, he peered into Dee's mana channels. Quite a bit of her hip was squished, and two arteries had been ripped open. Weaver's Renewal had just come off cooldown, so he used the active skill at great cost to his mana reserves. To replenish his dwindling mana stores, Luke then stole some of Dee's mana before turning his attention back to Lucas.

  Luke winced. He'd over-stitched well past the wounded area when his focus drifted over to the other patient, meaning he had to go back in and undo some of the work, costing him even more time. At least it hadn't hurt the young guy.

  "You should get out of here," Luke said to him before standing without waiting for a reply. Then he stopped himself and turned back. "Just move away from the dragon, OK? Don't go into the tunnels!"

  Lucas's eyes fluttered, and he looked about, as if he had just woken from a bad dream. "What?"

  Powerful words thrummed through the air, loud enough to eclipse even the roars of the frantic dragon.

  Storm above, fury below,

  Lightning’s heart, I make it GROW!

  Crack the sky, strike with might,

  Dragon fall to thunder’s BITE!

  The bolt of lightning that followed shot straight down from the ceiling, rather than from Penny. It glowed white, and it looked thicker than any spell she'd ever cast before. Unable to move away with enough speed, the dragon took the brunt of the spell straight on its lowered head.

  That finally did some damage. Rather than pull its head away and roar in anger, it whimpered and shook, as if dazed. Shadows reached up from below, wrapping themselves around its neck, and Luke caught sight of Curtis charging toward the head, his arms pumping.

  Nymh: "Curtis! What are you doing?"

  Rather than just stand and watch, Luke reached out again with Threads of Mana. His work was far from done. An arm torn off at the shoulder in one Integrated and a vicious burn covering another's legs were next in line. There was nothing he could do for the arm other than staunch the bleeding and use Needle of Life to close the wound around what remained of the shoulder. While doing so, he took in the burn. A disgusting smell of charred meat and burnt hair filled the air, and the poor guy writhed on the ground in pain, screaming.

  Integrated. Thomas. Dancer. Level 7.

  Weaver's Renewal was still on cooldown, but the affected area was too big to use that skill, anyway. Luke wouldn't have the mana for it even if he was topped up, and he was far from that.

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  "Holy shit!" someone right next to him shouted.

  Another pointed up. "Badass!"

  Ignoring them, Luke used Threads of Mana, summoning several threads to quest into Thomas's mana channels. It was all a mess. Flesh and channels were both destroyed, and there were just too many nerves for him to have any chance of blocking them all. Shutting off all pain signals straight from the brain might be an option if he had more time and a lot more knowledge of the central nervous system than he possessed, so that was out of the question. The spine, then. It was iffy, but Thomas didn't have much time.

  Cheers erupted. People clapped and screamed in what sounded like pure relief. Then the sound of Hannah's voice as she screamed a name, but he didn't quite catch it over the thudding of his own heart and the overwhelming clash of sound that was the battle. Focus, he needed to focus.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 13!

  Congratulations! You have reached level 14!

  Not even opening his eyes, Luke clamped down on the nerve bundles in the spine, near the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. This, he hoped, would block the pain signals before they returned to the brain. He'd read something about this by chance in a textbook when studying something unrelated, but this was far from sound medical practice. Then again, that described a lot about what he'd been doing these past few days.

  Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Intelligence).

  Thomas's screams and whimpers stopped in that instant. Interesting. He'd done it!

  "Watch out!" someone screamed.

  That brought Luke out of his focus-induced stupor, and he whipped his head up, expecting another foot to come crashing down on top of his head. It was worse. So much worse. The bulk of the whole dragon fell, as if in slow motion. Catching a glimpse of a couple of people running away was all he had time for.

  The Healer's Moment is still on cooldown (83 seconds remaining).

  With the falling dragon blotting out the light, Luke's world turned just as dark as when he'd been under the protection of Hannah's shadow dome.

  Unable to use skill The Healer's Staff with a broken quarterstaff.

  It crashed down. Luke dropped the pieces of his staff and reached up with Threads of Mana, catching the dragon's belly as it landed on his and his patient's heads. Forced down on his knees, then to all fours, he extended threads to the ground, pushing and straining to keep the massive bulk off of them.

  To his amazement, the act of desperation worked. He wasn't lifting the whole dragon corpse on his own, of course, but his threads held with enough strength to shoulder the weight of a small part of its bulk, creating a sort of dent or inward bulge in its belly.

  A muffled scream reached him from beyond the corpse attempting to smother them to death. "Luke!"

  Milla: "Luke! Are you still alive?!"

  Luke: "Kind of."

  The strain was too much. Even with Threads of Mana, the strength, or lack thereof, in his limbs couldn't keep up, and his body felt like it was being crushed at an excruciatingly slow pace. As if that wasn't enough, using the threads in this way was a drain on his mana, and he found it slipping away at an alarming rate.

  Luke: "Not looking good."

  A thought struck Luke, and he groaned at how obvious the solution was. Rather than trying to stay alive under the massive weight of the now-dead dragon, he took it into his inventory. Just like that, it disappeared. Air rushed in, and the breeze felt good against his face, at least until he remembered Thomas.

  "Shit," he muttered, crawling over to his patient. Thomas still lived, but the margins were thin and getting thinner.

  If he wanted to do anything with these burns, he'd need a whole lot of mana.

  Milla: "Little brother!"

  Luke: "Milla! Heal Thomas!"

  Milla: "We need you up here. Hurry!"

  Not wanting to leave Thomas, Luke reached into his inventory in an attempt to draw mana from the dragon corpse he'd just stashed in there, but that didn't work. All Integrated who hadn't made it were already gone.

  "Mana!" Luke shouted. "Someone get me mana!"

  A whole bunch of people came running in from the sidelines, those who'd escaped the falling dragon and the ones who'd kept their distance. Many rushed up to Luke, but he didn't see anyone from his own party, or Milla's, for that matter.

  Several mana potions were shoved into his face, and he drank one and put the others in his inventory for later use. Thomas wasn't the only one injured.

  Milla: "Luke, come on! I can't keep this up much longer!"

  "I'm going to take your mana," Luke said to the group in front of him as he lashed out with threads. Draining mana from two Integrated, he used it all to restore Thomas. It required a whole lot, but he got it done after switching to new people once the first two ran out of mana.

  Thomas would live.

  Nymh: "Luke!"

  Mateo came running down the slope and gestured for him to follow. "It's Nate, my friend! ?Apúrate!"

  "Nate?" Luke asked, elbowing his way through the crowd.

  Cresting the hill, he saw everyone circled around a wounded person on the ground. A warm glow covered Nate. Milla's healing. Even with that, their wounded friend didn't even stir. His eyes were closed, and his chest didn't rise and fall.