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The night was young, still in the clutches of a fading winter, a comfortable cool wind blowing through the streets as many bars and cafes were filled with people occupying the outdoor tables to enjoy the tranquil night. Muted sounds of people chattering could be heard as jokes were shared and laughter ringing, each table caught within their own conversation bubble. However, the peace of the night was fragile in the face of chaos. A bright flash of light that lingered for a few minutes, consisting of blue and purple beams of light shooting outwards from a deserted alley, was accompanied by the sounds of combat and things being broken or pushed over.
Those nearer to the commotion waited in anticipation, curious about what was happening but they weren’t brave enough to approach the source of the lights and sound. Only after a few minutes of awkward silence did three men seated around a round table, great friends that were sharing about the day over beer, got up from their seats and cautiously inched towards the alley. The ruckus was getting louder and louder and when one of them took a peek around the wall into the alley, he withdrew his head with lightning speed, looking at his friends with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. He struggled to form words before finally shouting only one word, “Run!”
At the same time, the culprits behind the ruckus finally showed themselves. A person, dressed entirely in black, was thrown out of the alley and slammed into a wall on the other side of the street. He dropped to the ground, sitting down on his behind while lightly groaning. The sword in his hand, loosened from his grip after the collision, dropped to the ground with a clang. However, in less than a second, the man had already recovered from the incident and his fingers gripped around the hilt of the sword once more. He pushed himself off the ground with his other hand but before he could even fully stand, a dark flash appeared right in front of him followed by a swing of a sword, decisively ending the man’s life before he could even fully stand upright.
The sword strike cleaved cleanly through the man’s neck and even left a long slash mark on the wall behind him. A huge amount of blood splashed onto the one behind the attack, but at this point he couldn’t care any more about that. His armor was already drenched in blood, a majority of it his own. The sudden burst of strength required to chop down the black-garbed assassin sapped away at his already waning strength. At this point, the man in armor, was breathing in shallow and quick breaths, blood freely flowing from his wounds. But there was no time for him to rest. Almost immediately there were already other men dressed in black leather armor coming for him. They had all stepped through the same portal, chasing after the armored swordsman.
The swordsman dressed in iron armor of oriental flavor was called Da Meng, a general from a far-off country called Great Zhong.
With a grunt, the armored swordsman ran down the streets. The nine men behind were chasing doggedly, the gap between closing quickly. Every now and then, one of them would catch up to the armored man and slash at him. A few of them had already leapt up to the roofs and chased him from above as the street was too narrow for all nine of them to move efficiently.
When the ill-fated assassin had been thrown out of the alley, the tension of the people on the entire street had been building towards its peak. Everyone that had slowly inched forward to satisfy their curiosity about the incident were already on edge, when the sudden turn of events of another man rushing out of the alley to unhesitatingly behead the black-garbed assassin caused the rising tension to explode like a volcano. Everyone were running away from the scene, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs, with those farthest at the back just running in the face of the incoming crowd, seeking to escape the area.
Da Meng’s attempt to escape was never meant to succeed. With heavy wounds hampering his mobility and strength, the initially straight charge had quickly descended into him half running and half stumbling through the streets as he sought to find places of support. Eventually, after leaving a trail of blood behind, the blood loss got to Da Meng and the man collapsed to the ground. Despite that, as a general of his monarch’s most loyal and strongest guards, Da Meng wasn’t wiling to die without a fight.
Fire still burned in his eyes as he crawled back up into a sitting position, leaning back against a wall, as he held up his sword towards the assassins. The black-garbed assassins slowed down their chase and began approaching him slowly, moving to surround him in a semi circle, while three of them stood on the opposite roofs.
“COME!! COME!! I will show you how fierce a cornered tiger can be!” Da Meng shouted at the assassins but they were all professionals. Mere taunting would never work on them, especially with their prey in such a sorry sight in front of them. If they were cruel and patient enough, they could just let the man die an indignant death by waiting for him to bleed out. They kept their silence, showing nothing in those eyes of theirs as they looked at the dying general.
“Eighth Head, take him down. We need to return,” one of the three assassin’s on the standing on the roof instructed, with the order behind heed by one of the men below. The one called “Eighth Head” stood out from the semi-circle and pulled on the crossbow that was attached on his back. An arrow was already nocked, and Eighth Head brought it up to point at the general’s head. Da Meng looked up defiantly up the crossbow, eyes burning with indignation. Being killed in such a way instead of being killed on the battlefield was too much of a humiliation for him.
However, Eighth Head never managed to pull the trigger on his crossbow. Instead, a bolt of obsidian light shot towards him, piercing through the hand holding the crossbow and punched a hole right through it. With a scream of pain, the crossbow was dropped. The first thing the other seven assassins did wasn’t to secure their injured member, but shot their gazes in the direction of where the arrow had came from. What greeted them was a man in a black uniform, holding a large black long in his left hand which quickly transformed to become a huge shield before disappearing.
The incident had already caught the Rune Knight’s attention when the first kill had taken place and Tor was the first one to the scene. Despite not knowing who was in the right and wrong, his first priority was to prevent any more kills, hence shooting that arrow without hesitation at the risk of inflicting a grievous injury on a party that might possibly be in the right or connected to some higher power. But from his instincts and the way the black-garbed men reacted to his initiative, Tor could already sense that they were the bad guys.
As such, the Rune Knight charged at them, calling out his spear and prepared to go head-on against them. The first clash happened quickly, instantly taking down Tor’s confidence by a notch when he swung his spear with his right hand at his target. The casual-looking swing was with his full strength, but the first opponent had easily defended against his blow with a backhanded parry, arm raised, sword tip facing down, while pressing his left hand against the other side of the sword. While it looked simple, this maneuver required the user to have extreme confidence in their own strength. Tor’s expression darkened when he realized he was unable to push his spear further, while the assassin masterfully slid his sword along the shaft of the spear and straightened to stab at Tor’s neck.
Golden scales flashed down the entire length of Tor’s left arm as he hurriedly swung it up, palm outward as the tip of the sword was partially stopped. Tor gritted his teeth as he pushed against the momentum of the thrust, with the blade slowly piercing deeper and deeper into his scaled palm. The combat ability of the assassin was much higher than his, and in close combat, Tor was bound to lose if he didn’t utilize his magic. However, with his hand locked down, there was no way for him to cast his spells, leaving only one spell usable. Wings of golden lightning erupted from Tor’s back, allowing him to instantly and with a flap, Tor teleported away from the assassin. His sudden disappearance caused the assassin to lunge forward unrestrained but Tor didn’t have the time to go back for that guy.
The assassins were made of some serious stuff as two of them leapt at where Tor had reappeared. One of them wielded a huge broadsword that swung through the air with great force, aiming for Tor’s neck while the other thrust his short sword towards his abdomen. He had just used his teleportation spell and he couldn’t use it right after. Gritting his teeth and taking a gamble, Tor could only activate the shield from the Skystone Vambrace he wore on his left hand, summoning a blue light disc above the vambrace. It was a shield of light which Tor chose to use to defend against the incoming strike from the broadsword while he parried the short sword with the shaft of his spear.
Due to the impromptu move, Tor was able to save himself from being beheaded, but the force of the strike wasn’t something that he could negate, especially not when it was such a half-assed move and his attention was split between two simultaneous attacks. The momentum of the broadsword attack threw Tor off balance and from the sky. Tor landed on the ground, back crashing into the ground, right next to the injured general that the assassins were hunting with a groan as he arched his back in response to the pain before getting back up on his feet.
The fight was getting uglier by the moment, and Tor wasn’t even sure if he could call it a fight. Out of the three assassins that had laid their hands on him, each of them had only executed one move each, and each of those moves were so expertly pulled off Tor had only managed to escape by the skin of his teeth. The wound on his left palm that he had gotten when blocking the frontal thrust to his neck was still bleeding while his entire left arm was slightly numb from defending against the broadsword swing.
While he was getting his bearing again, Tor released his grip on his spear, letting it gently drop to the ground. He was in a kneeling position, albeit only one knee, while both his hands were in front of his chest, one facing upwards and the other downwards with a space in between them where a ball of golden lightning could be seen to rapidly grow in size. As he did so, all nine of the assassins, even the one who had been shot through the arm, had entirely surrounded them. Tor had found it odd that none of them of had tried to use magic to dispose of them, but he would take whatever handicap they wanted to throw at him.
With his gaze still on the assassins around him, apprehensive of his actions, Tor resolutely crushed down on the golden lightning ball in his palms. A wave of lightning erupted outwards with him as the center, speedily expanding. A few of them that were caught off guard were struck by the lightning was not only injured but were momentarily paralyzed by the intense electric shock. On the other hand, the portion of the lightning ring expanding in Da Meng’s direction passed through him harmlessly, giving him only a minor tingle and nothing else. However, the group of assassins seemed not to care. While Tor wasn’t going to challenge them in terms of close combat, his usage of magic had made them wary of him, and without proper intel, they were not going to act carelessly. Their main target of killing Da Meng had been achieved anyway, with the man so close to death that he was on his last few breathes was good enough for them.
Like specters, those that had avoided being stunned leapt off the roofs and scooped up their immobilized comrades before disappearing into the night. Tor let out a huge breath in relief but then he quickly recalled about the dying swordsman. Collecting his spear, Tor spun around and quickly moved near the dying general. He stretched out his hands, wanting to inspect the man’s wounds but before he could do, Da Meng caught Tor’s wrists with a surprising strength that he shouldn’t be capable of. Tor didn’t even have the time to put down his spear when another weapon, the general’s katana, was pushed into his free hand and then held shut by Da Meng’s own.
“What are you doing?” Tor asked urgently. “You are bleeding out. Let me help you!”
Tor looked at the dying man and instead of finding despair in his eyes, he saw a blazing determination. The man was resolute in carrying out his duty down to his last breath, not allowing anything to stand in his way. The most unexpected thing was that the Rune Knight himself unable to break free of Da Meng’s grasp.
“No, it’s too late for that. I need you to do something for me,” the general spoke in a calm manner, an impressive feat in his condition. “Please!”
“Okay, okay! Say it then.”
“Tell the Monarch that I’m sorry for failing in my task! In my stead, please help the Monarch break out of his predicament! I’m depending on you!” Da Meng spoke with equal parts urgency and disappointment, and suddenly released Tor’s hands.
“What? Who’s the Monarch? What predicament?” Tor asked in confusion, not knowing what the dying man was saying. However, before he could get a proper reply out of the man, a portal with shining borders of blue and purple light appeared right behind Tor. The surprised Rune Knight wanted to turn his head to look behind him to see what was happening but Da Meng caught him off guard and with a surge of strength, pushed Tor backwards into the portal. The Rune Knight’s shout was cut short as he dropped backwards into the portal, turning back only to see the grim, smiling face of Da Meng as he slumped back against the wall as he breathed his last.
[2503/2503 words]
The night was young, still in the clutches of a fading winter, a comfortable cool wind blowing through the streets as many bars and cafes were filled with people occupying the outdoor tables to enjoy the tranquil night. Muted sounds of people chattering could be heard as jokes were shared and laughter ringing, each table caught within their own conversation bubble. However, the peace of the night was fragile in the face of chaos. A bright flash of light that lingered for a few minutes, consisting of blue and purple beams of light shooting outwards from a deserted alley, was accompanied by the sounds of combat and things being broken or pushed over.
Those nearer to the commotion waited in anticipation, curious about what was happening but they weren’t brave enough to approach the source of the lights and sound. Only after a few minutes of awkward silence did three men seated around a round table, great friends that were sharing about the day over beer, got up from their seats and cautiously inched towards the alley. The ruckus was getting louder and louder and when one of them took a peek around the wall into the alley, he withdrew his head with lightning speed, looking at his friends with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. He struggled to form words before finally shouting only one word, “Run!”
At the same time, the culprits behind the ruckus finally showed themselves. A person, dressed entirely in black, was thrown out of the alley and slammed into a wall on the other side of the street. He dropped to the ground, sitting down on his behind while lightly groaning. The sword in his hand, loosened from his grip after the collision, dropped to the ground with a clang. However, in less than a second, the man had already recovered from the incident and his fingers gripped around the hilt of the sword once more. He pushed himself off the ground with his other hand but before he could even fully stand, a dark flash appeared right in front of him followed by a swing of a sword, decisively ending the man’s life before he could even fully stand upright.
The sword strike cleaved cleanly through the man’s neck and even left a long slash mark on the wall behind him. A huge amount of blood splashed onto the one behind the attack, but at this point he couldn’t care any more about that. His armor was already drenched in blood, a majority of it his own. The sudden burst of strength required to chop down the black-garbed assassin sapped away at his already waning strength. At this point, the man in armor, was breathing in shallow and quick breaths, blood freely flowing from his wounds. But there was no time for him to rest. Almost immediately there were already other men dressed in black leather armor coming for him. They had all stepped through the same portal, chasing after the armored swordsman.
The swordsman dressed in iron armor of oriental flavor was called Da Meng, a general from a far-off country called Great Zhong.
With a grunt, the armored swordsman ran down the streets. The nine men behind were chasing doggedly, the gap between closing quickly. Every now and then, one of them would catch up to the armored man and slash at him. A few of them had already leapt up to the roofs and chased him from above as the street was too narrow for all nine of them to move efficiently.
When the ill-fated assassin had been thrown out of the alley, the tension of the people on the entire street had been building towards its peak. Everyone that had slowly inched forward to satisfy their curiosity about the incident were already on edge, when the sudden turn of events of another man rushing out of the alley to unhesitatingly behead the black-garbed assassin caused the rising tension to explode like a volcano. Everyone were running away from the scene, screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs, with those farthest at the back just running in the face of the incoming crowd, seeking to escape the area.
Da Meng’s attempt to escape was never meant to succeed. With heavy wounds hampering his mobility and strength, the initially straight charge had quickly descended into him half running and half stumbling through the streets as he sought to find places of support. Eventually, after leaving a trail of blood behind, the blood loss got to Da Meng and the man collapsed to the ground. Despite that, as a general of his monarch’s most loyal and strongest guards, Da Meng wasn’t wiling to die without a fight.
Fire still burned in his eyes as he crawled back up into a sitting position, leaning back against a wall, as he held up his sword towards the assassins. The black-garbed assassins slowed down their chase and began approaching him slowly, moving to surround him in a semi circle, while three of them stood on the opposite roofs.
“COME!! COME!! I will show you how fierce a cornered tiger can be!” Da Meng shouted at the assassins but they were all professionals. Mere taunting would never work on them, especially with their prey in such a sorry sight in front of them. If they were cruel and patient enough, they could just let the man die an indignant death by waiting for him to bleed out. They kept their silence, showing nothing in those eyes of theirs as they looked at the dying general.
“Eighth Head, take him down. We need to return,” one of the three assassin’s on the standing on the roof instructed, with the order behind heed by one of the men below. The one called “Eighth Head” stood out from the semi-circle and pulled on the crossbow that was attached on his back. An arrow was already nocked, and Eighth Head brought it up to point at the general’s head. Da Meng looked up defiantly up the crossbow, eyes burning with indignation. Being killed in such a way instead of being killed on the battlefield was too much of a humiliation for him.
However, Eighth Head never managed to pull the trigger on his crossbow. Instead, a bolt of obsidian light shot towards him, piercing through the hand holding the crossbow and punched a hole right through it. With a scream of pain, the crossbow was dropped. The first thing the other seven assassins did wasn’t to secure their injured member, but shot their gazes in the direction of where the arrow had came from. What greeted them was a man in a black uniform, holding a large black long in his left hand which quickly transformed to become a huge shield before disappearing.
The incident had already caught the Rune Knight’s attention when the first kill had taken place and Tor was the first one to the scene. Despite not knowing who was in the right and wrong, his first priority was to prevent any more kills, hence shooting that arrow without hesitation at the risk of inflicting a grievous injury on a party that might possibly be in the right or connected to some higher power. But from his instincts and the way the black-garbed men reacted to his initiative, Tor could already sense that they were the bad guys.
As such, the Rune Knight charged at them, calling out his spear and prepared to go head-on against them. The first clash happened quickly, instantly taking down Tor’s confidence by a notch when he swung his spear with his right hand at his target. The casual-looking swing was with his full strength, but the first opponent had easily defended against his blow with a backhanded parry, arm raised, sword tip facing down, while pressing his left hand against the other side of the sword. While it looked simple, this maneuver required the user to have extreme confidence in their own strength. Tor’s expression darkened when he realized he was unable to push his spear further, while the assassin masterfully slid his sword along the shaft of the spear and straightened to stab at Tor’s neck.
Golden scales flashed down the entire length of Tor’s left arm as he hurriedly swung it up, palm outward as the tip of the sword was partially stopped. Tor gritted his teeth as he pushed against the momentum of the thrust, with the blade slowly piercing deeper and deeper into his scaled palm. The combat ability of the assassin was much higher than his, and in close combat, Tor was bound to lose if he didn’t utilize his magic. However, with his hand locked down, there was no way for him to cast his spells, leaving only one spell usable. Wings of golden lightning erupted from Tor’s back, allowing him to instantly and with a flap, Tor teleported away from the assassin. His sudden disappearance caused the assassin to lunge forward unrestrained but Tor didn’t have the time to go back for that guy.
The assassins were made of some serious stuff as two of them leapt at where Tor had reappeared. One of them wielded a huge broadsword that swung through the air with great force, aiming for Tor’s neck while the other thrust his short sword towards his abdomen. He had just used his teleportation spell and he couldn’t use it right after. Gritting his teeth and taking a gamble, Tor could only activate the shield from the Skystone Vambrace he wore on his left hand, summoning a blue light disc above the vambrace. It was a shield of light which Tor chose to use to defend against the incoming strike from the broadsword while he parried the short sword with the shaft of his spear.
Due to the impromptu move, Tor was able to save himself from being beheaded, but the force of the strike wasn’t something that he could negate, especially not when it was such a half-assed move and his attention was split between two simultaneous attacks. The momentum of the broadsword attack threw Tor off balance and from the sky. Tor landed on the ground, back crashing into the ground, right next to the injured general that the assassins were hunting with a groan as he arched his back in response to the pain before getting back up on his feet.
The fight was getting uglier by the moment, and Tor wasn’t even sure if he could call it a fight. Out of the three assassins that had laid their hands on him, each of them had only executed one move each, and each of those moves were so expertly pulled off Tor had only managed to escape by the skin of his teeth. The wound on his left palm that he had gotten when blocking the frontal thrust to his neck was still bleeding while his entire left arm was slightly numb from defending against the broadsword swing.
While he was getting his bearing again, Tor released his grip on his spear, letting it gently drop to the ground. He was in a kneeling position, albeit only one knee, while both his hands were in front of his chest, one facing upwards and the other downwards with a space in between them where a ball of golden lightning could be seen to rapidly grow in size. As he did so, all nine of the assassins, even the one who had been shot through the arm, had entirely surrounded them. Tor had found it odd that none of them of had tried to use magic to dispose of them, but he would take whatever handicap they wanted to throw at him.
With his gaze still on the assassins around him, apprehensive of his actions, Tor resolutely crushed down on the golden lightning ball in his palms. A wave of lightning erupted outwards with him as the center, speedily expanding. A few of them that were caught off guard were struck by the lightning was not only injured but were momentarily paralyzed by the intense electric shock. On the other hand, the portion of the lightning ring expanding in Da Meng’s direction passed through him harmlessly, giving him only a minor tingle and nothing else. However, the group of assassins seemed not to care. While Tor wasn’t going to challenge them in terms of close combat, his usage of magic had made them wary of him, and without proper intel, they were not going to act carelessly. Their main target of killing Da Meng had been achieved anyway, with the man so close to death that he was on his last few breathes was good enough for them.
Like specters, those that had avoided being stunned leapt off the roofs and scooped up their immobilized comrades before disappearing into the night. Tor let out a huge breath in relief but then he quickly recalled about the dying swordsman. Collecting his spear, Tor spun around and quickly moved near the dying general. He stretched out his hands, wanting to inspect the man’s wounds but before he could do, Da Meng caught Tor’s wrists with a surprising strength that he shouldn’t be capable of. Tor didn’t even have the time to put down his spear when another weapon, the general’s katana, was pushed into his free hand and then held shut by Da Meng’s own.
“What are you doing?” Tor asked urgently. “You are bleeding out. Let me help you!”
Tor looked at the dying man and instead of finding despair in his eyes, he saw a blazing determination. The man was resolute in carrying out his duty down to his last breath, not allowing anything to stand in his way. The most unexpected thing was that the Rune Knight himself unable to break free of Da Meng’s grasp.
“No, it’s too late for that. I need you to do something for me,” the general spoke in a calm manner, an impressive feat in his condition. “Please!”
“Okay, okay! Say it then.”
“Tell the Monarch that I’m sorry for failing in my task! In my stead, please help the Monarch break out of his predicament! I’m depending on you!” Da Meng spoke with equal parts urgency and disappointment, and suddenly released Tor’s hands.
“What? Who’s the Monarch? What predicament?” Tor asked in confusion, not knowing what the dying man was saying. However, before he could get a proper reply out of the man, a portal with shining borders of blue and purple light appeared right behind Tor. The surprised Rune Knight wanted to turn his head to look behind him to see what was happening but Da Meng caught him off guard and with a surge of strength, pushed Tor backwards into the portal. The Rune Knight’s shout was cut short as he dropped backwards into the portal, turning back only to see the grim, smiling face of Da Meng as he slumped back against the wall as he breathed his last.
[2503/2503 words]
