The guard commander bowled into his men as he flew back, he and two of his men landing on the ground as a jumble of armor and limbs. I stood above them on the stage, flaming pole in hand. I’d pulled the pole out of the rift bag tied to my belt just before the commander had got to me, and the sudden extra reach the weapon gave me caught the man off guard, letting me land a hit before he could.
“What are you imbeciles doing?!” the commander yelled at his men as he struggled to get out of the tangle he and the two other guards had found themselves in. “GET HER!!” he shouted again as none of his men moved.
Jolted into action, the rest of the guards finally caught up to the situation, all of them clambering up onto the stage and rushing at me at once. Glee took hold of me as I watched the men approach, my mind taking a back seat as instinct took over.
As the spear-wielding men closed in on me, I stepped forward and leapt up, igniting the Flux around my feet to give me enough air time to clear the men in front of me. Soaring over them, I laughed wildly as I brought down my pole directly onto the head of the just-freed commander. Before he even knew what happened, my flaming pole struck the top of his head, knocking him unconscious instantly.
I landed smoothly on the man’s breastplate, bringing him down to the ground as I crouched above him. Immediately, the two guards on either side of me attacked, but I danced through their jabs without even looking at them. The wealth of experience I had in close combat put me head and shoulders above the guards, and it was almost child's play to dispatch the both of them.
Grabbing the spear of the left one, I yanked him in close to me and headbutted him in the helmet as he stumbled forward. His iron helmet was tough, undoubtedly, but my skull was far harder, and the man was sent reeling back while I was left with a small mark on my forehead.
Immediately whipping around, I parried the other guard’s thrust once again, this time closing in the distance to land a palm in the man’s gut. As my palm collided with the armour of his torso, the explosive pearl I’d prepared detonated, sending the man flying backwards.
By the time I finished taking care of the three, about three seconds had elapsed since I’d begun. That much time, it seemed, was the perfect amount of time needed for the nobles to realize that they were not going to be protected by the guards. Panicked screams rang out as a sudden stampede began, the nobles pushing and shoving as they scrambled to be the first ones out.
I wanted to savour the sight of the nobles running like startled animals, but the guards behind me didn’t give me the time. I ducked just as a spear came soaring at the back of my head, my Flux Sense warning me the moment the tip of the spear got close to me. Thanks to it, the blade went sailing over me, burying itself in a seat in the first row.
I whipped around and zeroed in on the man who’d thrown the spear, giving him a taunting smile. That was about all it took for the men to charge me again, even the man missing his spear. I counted a total of eleven men running at me, and this time, I could tell they were serious. They were all mages, of course, and with the nobles having cleared out of the room, they were no longer hindered by their presence. Having decided that I was a threat to be taken seriously, they all called upon their elements as they ran at me.
Five ice, three fire, and three earth, I counted, feeling an undaunted excitement rising in my chest. They would be powerful, no doubt, but I was more than confident in my flames, and my experience in the Border Forest. Over the few weeks I’d spent in Wolfhaven, I’d gotten a sense of the general strength scaling of adventurers, and I knew where I stood in it. And the guards weren’t even close.
Scarlet flame tendrils curled their way along my fingers as I analyzed the coming enemies, my eyes darting across them as I ran through possible paths of attack. By the time the scarlet claws had fully formed, the guards were on me, and I was ready.
I leapt at the men, dodging around five different thrusts as I closed in on the man in the middle of the charge, an ice mage. My pole struck out like a viper as I got into range, hitting the man twice on his ice shield before the third strike broke through and caught his shoulder. The superheated tip of the pole slipped between the plates of his armor and sizzled against the leather behind it. The man screamed and stumbled backwards, but I had no time to chase after him. Immediately after attacking him, I ducked, letting an icicle whiz by right where my head had been.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
As I did, a flame-covered spear barreled at my back, but I rolled out of the way before it could catch me. Popping up to my feet immediately after, I pushed back into the group and lashed out with my pole. Sticking myself in the middle of the group was dangerous, I knew, but it reduced the advantage their superior numbers gave them, because only the ones close to me could attack without accidentally hurting their own. That lowered the attacks I had to worry about to about three at a time – and that was much more manageable than eleven.
My body was a blur as I danced between the guards, always sticking up close to at least one of them. Orange flashes lit up the space as flame trailed after my movements, clashing with ice and dirt and more flame. The guards were more skilled than I’d given them credit for, but I was still better. Even as reinforcements eventually began to pour in from the doors to either side of the stage, I remained unscathed, becoming an almost thoughtless beast of flame and terror that moved from one target to the next without rest.
The guards tried all sorts of tricks to capture me, from ice cages to Artes meant for restricting and slowing movement within a space. But no matter what they tried, I broke through with simpleminded ferocity. Within thirty minutes, the theatre had been reduced to an unrecognizable mess. Not a single seat remained, nor the stage. I, on the other hand, was still completely untouched, a tornado of flame constantly spinning around me as I fought.
Still, as much as I was dominating the fight, it became apparent that it was not trending towards my victory. There seemed to be an inexhaustible source of guards somewhere outside the theatre, because since the first batch of reinforcements, there hadn’t been a span of five minutes before another arrived. And since some stubborn part of me still refused to let me kill people, I wasn’t thinning out their ever-increasing numbers very well.
Of course, there wasn’t a scrap of pity within me for any of the men – they were facilitating a practice I despised more than anything in the universe – but still, I couldn’t bring myself to take that last step. That didn’t mean, though, that I was holding back much. Any man who stepped within a meter of me would leave with some kind of life-threatening injury, without fail. My hands were slick with the blood of the men I’d clawed, and those who had been spared the claws suffered intense burns all over their bodies by the time I was done with them.
Still, the guards had a batch of battle healers present, so the men I knocked down were usually back up within a matter of minutes, but I didn’t mind much. It only meant that they were up for another round of torture, and I didn’t mind dishing out the pain they’d no doubt inflicted on so many others.
It was at the forty-five-minute mark, though, that things took a drastic turn. I was dealing with a particularly durable earth mage, who was already bleeding from three different places where my claws had torn gashes across his skin. But the man fought on like he couldn’t feel the pain, chasing after me with his giant stone hammer even when I tried to disengage and move on.
I was crouched in front of him at the moment, poised to strike while he attempted to bring his massive hammer on top of my head, when all of a sudden, a flash of white light zipped through the room, striking the man directly on the side of his head. The man dropped to the ground immediately, dead before he hit the ground. The dark hilt of a dagger stuck out from the side of his head, the blade buried entirely in the man’s skull.
The brutal efficiency of the kill shocked me still for a moment. To throw a dagger with enough force to bury the entire length of the blade in someone’s skull, especially from a whole room away, was not an easy feat. Beyond the pure show of strength that it was, it demonstrated absolutely no hesitation for killing someone – something I could not yet even fathom.
The only person I knew who fit that description walked into the room at that moment, immediately stealing the attention of every person in the room. Although Ren rarely preferred to be the center of attention, today, it was impossible for him not to be. The terrifying air that oozed off of him was suffocating, so lethal and bloodthirsty my body subconsciously reacted like it would facing a predator.
While the guards watched, frozen to their spots, Ren’s figure blurred slightly before he appeared in front of the closest man to him. Ren’s black blade flashed out before the man could even react, impaling the man through the throat and killing him instantly.
Ren freed his blade with a kick to the man’s chest, turning his closed eyes to face the rest of the room. That finally kicked the men back into action, all the ones closest to me rushing at me again while the rest began to attack Ren.
But where I’d shown mercy, Ren had none to give. He moved like a wraith, blade flashing as he bounced from one body to the next, not even giving the men time to gang up on him.
Understanding that something had gone wrong, I kicked up things a notch too, and called down a much larger tornado of flames around me, dousing all the men near me in bright orange flames. Screams rang out as I dashed through the encirclement the guards had set up, grabbing the boy's dagger before making my way to him, knocking out anyone in the way as I did.
We met in the middle of the hall, Ren splattered all over in scarlet, behind him a bloodbath, and I trailing dying flames, an inferno burning behind.
“Zayr's men swung by,” Ren said by way of greeting, his grim face and words dropping a stone of dread in the pit of my stomach. “It’s not good. Let’s go.” With those simple words, the boy turned back around and made to leave the room. I followed after him, picking my way through the dozen and some dead bodies Ren had left in his wake, a gnawing sense of foreboding growing in my gut with every step.