“Argh!!”

  The demon queen’s claw pierced my chest.

  I let my guard down while tending to the other members of our party who were defeated and dying.

  “Do something, Arthur!” I shouted to Arthur, the hero of this party.

  The blonde-haired man stood frozen. His sword trembled, and his legs wanted to give up.

  “Do something or all of us will die!”

  “I couldn’t move!” he shouted back.

  This was helpless, our hero was a coward. The other members lay dying on this cold dirt of the Lost Continents. We had just come to this continent 4 weeks ago. Unexpectedly, we were attacked by the demon queen herself and were defeated.

  “I’m sorry!”

  Arthur ran away.

  I saw disappointment on all of our party members’ faces. Their only hope now was me. I still could fight in my condition like this. My passive skill Second Life is activated. But I could only fight for another day.

  “Fire 3!”

  A huge fireball flew from my staff toward the demon queen. Realizing that I was still alive, the demon queen flew high into the sky to evade my attack. My magic missed her, now that she was still in the air, I had a chance to revive the other party members.

  Nearest to me was Dina.

  Quickly, I ran toward her dying body and used Revive on her. A glowing soft light enveloped her. Dina slowly regained her consciousness. The pale white skinned, red-haired woman finally awoke.

  “Thomas!” She was shocked when she looked at my chest.

  “There was no time, go fight the demon queen and give me time to revive the others!” I said to her while cupping her cheek. “Focus!”

  “Yes!”

  Dina picked up her sword and parried the demon queen’s dive attack from the sky toward me.

  “Go Thomas!” she shouted.

  “Just surrender!” the demon queen shouted. “Without the Hero you were impossible to defeat me.”

  “No! I believed in Thomas!” Dina put out her strength and knocked back the demon queen.

  She charged forward giving me time to run toward Grimaldi, the tanker of our party. Using all of my strength I ran toward his dying body.

  “Thomas... we should believe in you, is it?” the brown-skinned man with curly hair tried to joke. “Arthur was really a coward...”

  “Revive! For now try helping Dina!”

  Grimaldi’s dying body recovered. The brown man stood up, picked up his shield and hammer, and joined Dina.

  The last one to revive was Fuyu, our marksman in this party, who was also Arthur’s girlfriend.

  “Thomas watch out!” Dina shouted.

  I saw the demon queen’s figure slip through Grimaldi and Dina. Too fast, I did not have enough time to react.

  “Argh!”

  I saw my left arm fly and detach from my body.

  “With that determination, I think you should have been the Hero.” The demon queen laughed.

  “Ahahahahaha!”

  “Your kin sent many hero parties and all of them perished on my land! Ahahahahaha!”

  Grimaldi jumped and hurled his shield toward the demon queen. His attack hit her head. Agitated, the demon queen charged toward Grimaldi. The seven crystals of Earth that were now in her hands recovered and started attacking Dina and Grimaldi.

  I could reattach my arm using my magic. But if I did that, Fuyu would die and I would run out of time. Thinking of my friends’ safety, I ran with barely any strength toward Fuyu’s body.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The purple-haired girl lay motionless on the ground. Her stomach was pierced by the corrupted seven crystals of Earth attack. I saw that she was still breathing, there was still time to revive her.

  “Revive!”

  Fuyu recovered again. I grabbed her magic guns near her and gave them back to her. “Fuyu, wake up and help the others!”

  “Right Thomas! Where was Arthur?” she asked.

  “He ran away, leaving all of us alone!” I answered with a grim face.

  “Watch out Thomas! Ah shit, she kept targeting you!” Grimaldi warned me.

  But it was too late.

  SLASH!

  Now my right arm detached from my body.

  I thought this was the end for me.

  Not bad though...

  “What a nice fight, I enjoyed it. This was the first time I saw a saint mage who had a spirit like you,” the demon queen smiled in triumph.

  ZAP!

  Another crystal attacked Grimaldi. Now he was fried leaving only ash as his remains on the ground of this barren dimension. The demon queen split herself into 10, outnumbering us. Dina and Fuyu were defeated by her shadows.

  The demon queen lifted me into the air.

  “Now for all of you three, I wanted to give you a second chance.” The demon queen planted something in my chest.

  A sharp pain and burning attacked me. My chest tightened and something started moving strangely inside my body. I tried to hide the pain but it did not take me well.

  “Second chance?” I wondered after panting and nearly fainting.

  “I was too old right now to conquer your realms. My plan to conquer this realm had taken a toll on my body. I needed you and your friends here, while being in the hero party, secretly destroying the mankind crystal for me,” the demon queen continued. “I could give you overpowered skills or whatever you wanted. But in the end, you would come to the Lost Continent, revive me so I could have a newer fresh body instead of this old woman.”

  “And I would make you three my new henchmen. You three seemed stronger than my previous henchmen. I could provide you with anything you wanted here.”

  “Accept it Thomas, I wanted to take revenge on Arthur,” Fuyu said. Her green eyes glazed full of determination.

  Fuyu’s condition was not good, the demon queen’s shadows effectively beat her. Her arms were broken, and her feet were gone.

  “Do it Thomas, I still wanted to live...” Dina pleaded to me. Her condition was not good either, she was restrained to the ground by the demon queen’s shadows and a trident stabbed her on her back.

  “Remember our promise...” Dina said weakly, almost sounding like she would faint the next second.

  Seeing the girl I loved in pain, I had no choice but to accept. Though I hated demons because they took away my happy family when I was a child. But right then, to survive, I accepted her offer.

  “Send me back,” I said, accepting her offer.

  “Good boy,” she said and put me down. Her hand slowly reached my hair and patted my head.

  “Your status, your memories, your skills would remain the same. Same for both of you,” she glanced at Dina and Fuyu. “Remember your main task was sabotaging mankind and the Hero.”

  “Hmmm, with my current strength, I would send you back to before the time you graduated from the Imperial Mage Academy...”

  “Yes, we knew.” Dina said eagerly. “See you at Brisk City, darling... I would be at the same place you found me.”

  “Come and find me...”

  A black hole appeared over Dina, slowly her body vanished into thin air, leaving Fuyu and me there.

  “I guessed, see you later at the academy. I would find you, Mr. Soon to be Saint.” Fuyu smiled. She went the same way as Dina.

  “Now we were alone,” the demon queen said. “For you, I always wondered what would happen if a saint who possessed divine power mixed with cursed power.”

  “Just send me back,” I begged. Deep inside my mind I still couldn’t believe it that I would accept an offer from a demon.

  “And your body seemed compatible with it,” the demon queen muttered. “You were going to be my greatest experiment so far, Mr. Saint.”

  “Enjoy your regression, never forget your true mission of helping me.”

  Another black hole appeared. Slowly I saw that the demon queen turned into stone and crumbled to dust. Did she really want us to help her and revive her?

  The black hole swallowed me whole. After experiencing darkness for quite some time, a gentle tap woke me up.

  “Thomas?”

  “What?!”

  Startled, I opened my eyes. Trying to understand where I was, my head spun trying to search for clues. This blue and white wall, this room was my dorm at the magic academy. Was I really experiencing regression?

  [Thomas, Lvl 120, Elemental: Light and Darkness]

  HP: 1250/1250

  MP: 1950/1950

  STR: 185

  INT: 585

  AGI: 240

  My status was still the same as when I was before challenging the demon queen.

  “You looked like you saw a ghost...” said my friend who woke me up. “You didn’t want to get punished by Mr. Lansah in the morning right? Go wash your face or join the morning exercise.”

  “Thank you,” I said to my dorm mate. Trying to hide the fact that I was regressed.

  Jumping down from my bed, I quickly grabbed my towel and took a bath in the male bathhouse. The layout of this male dormitory was still the same. A hint of nostalgia hit my mind. I really got my second chance. This time, I would take the lead and not let Arthur be the leader of our party.

  Arthur you coward. Your friends were dying fighting the demon queen and you ran away?

  After taking a bath, I decided to spend the morning in the front garden. Mr. Lansah told me that I could skip this morning exercise because it was my rest day before the tournament claiming the saint title.

  “Thomas?”

  A familiar sound called me.