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123-Moonlight Battle

Sarah’s first strike had missed. But, maybe due to the fact that it was basically just the first of many to come, Elmer discerned from her apathetic regard to her failure to connect that she was not giving up her attacks there. It was also quite evident how hellbent she was on shutting him up.

Had he grown to blabber too much?

Lightly preventing her sword from falling below Elmer’s midriff, Sarah quickly loosened her left hand’s hold on the hilt of her sword, putting an end to her two-handed grip. Then she twisted her right wrist, and while pulling back her left elbow, in order to increase her reach, sent a swipe towards her opponent’s stomach with speed and precision.

But just like her first attack had ended in failure, so would her second.

Perchance it was owing to the confidence Elmer had already been pumped with before his battle with Hanky’s family had ensued, but even though he was exhausted physically and spiritually he felt he would be able to correctly pinpoint every single move the nonchalant Sarah would throw his way.

She wasn’t slow. No. She was far from that. If not she wouldn’t have been upon him in less than a second despite the distance he had put between himself and the porch of her home. It was just that her speed was greatly reduced before his eyes. To him her movements were comparable to that of a deer when pitted against a cheetah.

They were worlds apart. Incomparable.

But even with the difference in speed between both of them, Elmer knew escaping Sarah’s latest lateral swing was practically impossible by jumping backwards or moving to his sides—she was already far too close. Therefore, he pinched his fingertips together, aligning them into one single point—like a crane’s beak—strengthened his wrist and bicep, then cocked his hand downward and jabbed it into the top of her forearm just before her blade could arrive at its destination.

Immediately, Sarah’s wind-like swing stumbled onto a roadblock, and her nonchalant expression faltered.

Elmer’s unexpected method of attack forced the young woman to grit her teeth with a grunt of sharp pain as her fingers loosened and her wrist involuntarily dropped, causing her sword to fall to the narrow gravel pathway they were on.

Quickly taking hold of the initiative, Elmer swiftly retreated a few steps backward before the damage his attack had caused would subside. But just as he did, his newly found awareness sense tingled gently, warning him of an approaching danger.

Although, Elmer was not filled with a heart-gripping fear or its likes.

He calmly looked over his left shoulder in that regard and saw the figure of the sharp-mouthed Ted approaching. And as he did his breath caught for a split second and his eyes bulged beneath his pale mask.

Still, it was not fear. It was simply shock; shock at what was of the boy’s current state.

Ted was now of an appearance that reminded Elmer of the stories he'd used to read on moonlit nights at Meadbray. Stories of the offsprings of man and wolves: Werewolves.

The boy had donned the mien of the iconic fictional predators. Messy overgrown hair, as well as the trademark bountiful sideburns, along with a pair of vertical silver pupils that glowed brighter than the half-moon in the sky above.

The only thing missing from Elmer’s gaze were Ted’s fangs. But those too did not stay hidden from him for too long, since as he nippily turned forty-five degrees and evaded Ted’s pincer strike—which was formed from the ravenous claws on his right hand—the boy bared his fangs in a seethe from his mother’s side while on all fours. After that, Ted picked up Sarah’s fallen sword and handed it back to her. She seemed to have regained control of her right hand again.

Elmer only laughed at the sight. A somewhat suppressed one.

He was actually pleasantly surprised. After all, as the big fantasy enthusiast that he was, he’d just learnt of the existence of something quite amusing.

Werewolves were real.

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“Do I still need to ask?” Elmer loosened his muscles and took a step forward, moving back to his prior location—the gravel pathway—from the lawn edging he had shuffled upon while retreating from Sarah. “Mind telling me what you all are?”

“Extractors!” Hanky was the one who had voiced—unmistakably. “Now stop your constant asking and give yourself up for death. I’m not one to fancy continuing ruckus.”

“Extractors, huh?” Elmer cupped his chin as he tilted his head to his side.

He knew nothing about such people and what or who they were aligned with. But that was to be expected, considering how he was a corrupted one who had been banished from carefreely seeking information on the world of Ascenders, or rather, in view of the whole ‘extractor’ schtick he had just been exposed to, the supernatural world.

At least he’d come around to finally extracting an answer from them. Now he had a starting point for further enlightenment.

But before that…

Elmer carefully studied his opponents once again, now including the Were-twin of the name Ned who was still unmoving—though already baptized in the hairy form of a werewolf—at his position…

He had to take care of the Hanky household first.

“You know, there’s no way you—”

“Just shut your mouth and fight!” Sarah cut Elmer off from his attempt to resolve things peacefully as she launched herself toward him with a single push of her body off the ground.

Again, repeating the same move as her previous failed attempt, she slashed horizontally from her left, seeking to disembowel. But this time… She was not alone. Were-Ted had joined in on the onslaught as well. And with the speed they had approached with, they quickly trapped Elmer within their confinements.

The Reaper saw the play at hand though. He had not been the only one being studied during his first bout with Sarah.

He had noticed that her first attempt to take off his midriff had been to gauge his abilities. Of course, if the attack had worked they would have accepted the outcome, no worries, but gauging his powers had obviously been of the most importance to them.

After coming to that realization, Elmer had immediately fallen upon the possibility that the only information Hanky and family possessed on him as the corrupted one who was a serial killer was that he was a corrupted one who had become a serial killer.

They knew he was an Ascender but had no knowledge on his Echelon. If they had known he was an Echelon 9 who had killed two Ascenders and a corrupted one in a night, they would have come at him in full force from the get go.

Elmer was glad they had taken the route they’d taken though. It might have been tougher for him if they had done things the other way. Now, he might not even need to use Fate’s Mirage to defeat them. Unless he just wanted a play at it.

He unenthusiastically looked at the paper in his right hand while two attacks came at him, the most troublesome just ahead of him with a slender metal swishing through the air in an horizontal arc from his right, and the other, formed from the predatory claws of a young boy not even up to Mabel’s age, aimed at his head.

After an exhale as he confirmed that he was yet to reverse time, Elmer gracefully shifted backward from Sarah’s slashing attack, leaving her biting her lower lip in evident frustration.

She needn’t beat herself up; after all, compared to them, he was a calm wave personified.

And as if to prove that thought of his right, Elmer slightly bent backwards, evading the charge of Were-Ted, which was seemingly meant to counter his prior dodge, and caught the little boy’s attacking hand like a clamp to a tender plank of wood.

Were-Ted winced and whimpered for a second in pain as Elmer turned him around in the air to come face to face with The Reaper’s smiling pale mask while dangling him like a soaked cloth of rag.

“Let go!” It was Sarah’s roar, and Elmer obliged, retreating once again from the cluster of mother and son.

Although, he had successfully confirmed another point.

While he had been holding Ted high up in the air, Elmer had glimpsed a pained expression plastered on Hanky’s face. The marksman had been unable to fire his shotgun at him.

Yes. Sarah and Ted were not the ones to deal him the final blow. That job was left up to the head of the Hanky household: Hanky himself.

Unless…

Elmer suddenly turned around and shot a piercing gaze at the window to the left of the bungalow where Ned was lodged in silence and stiffness.

“Why have you not joined the attack?”

Elmer knew the answer to that question was going to come from no one, so he decided to find out for himself.

A frightened and anxious scream suddenly erupted into the air from the lips of the nonchalant swords lady: Sarah. But by the time it came it was too late.

The Reaper was already towering before Ned like a looming mysterious entity in the deep dark cloak of night. He was like a character out of a horror story.