A half moon was in the sky. The light illuminating off the moon caused a light screen to remain on the streets of the city. While giving enough light to vaguely see your surroundings. It wasn’t enough to make out the appearance of the three figures quickly making their way through the back alleys of the city. Because of the enclosed space between the buildings, blocking most of the moon light. Being off the main road, there were very few if any lanterns. The only evidence of life was the thumping of two sets of feet.
While there were three vague figures, one was small like a child, their footsteps were softer than the other that came from a normal-sized adult that was running next to the child. The two figures were running next to each other, with them holding hands. Finally, the last figure at the front was a thin silhouette that made nearly no noise as they moved. What little sound the steps made were covered by the panting coming from the two figures behind the first.
As the three used back alleys in the quiet environment, all seemed to be going well for them. Soon, when they made it to a certain part of the city, they needed to leave the back alleys to enter a trading square. During the day, many could be seen hocking and browsing wares. Yet now at night it was deathly silent, without a single soul in sight. What many didn’t know was there was a black market store not too far from the square.
Because of the very heavy traffic during the day. It hides the presence of those looking to make illegal transactions. No one would notice someone going into a building and coming out with goods, along with the fact, it was very easy to lose a single person in a mass of people. As any good black market operating in a city, they had access to means of coming and going out of the city. With this knowledge, it was very easy to tell what exactly these three figures might be planning by coming here so late at night.
Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t exactly a secret, either. Maybe because of this, once the three figures made it into the open square, the figure at the front came to an abrupt stop. Quickly followed by the two in the back. After a short moment of delay, a number of figures could be seen cutting off the path forward for the three figures. There were a total of nine people. When the nine showed themselves, cutting off most of the escape routes, the adult figure in the back started to shake. Maybe not understanding the situation, the child didn’t show any trembling.
When they left the alleyways, it became possible to see that the two figures in the back were probably mother and child. Sharing a very similar appearance, with blue eyes and soft features. The mother was an exceptional beauty that made it hard to look away at first glance. The only difference between the mother and child was hair color. The mother had blonde hair while the child had white hair. With the looks of the mother, it was hard to notice the figure at the front.
Having a thinner figure than the mother, the woman at the front had light blue hair and blue eyes. With a very common appearance that was easily overlooked most of the time. Only a few of the nine people didn’t stare at the mother or the child and were instead watching the woman at the front with extreme caution. At the moment, the woman had an expressionless face. It gave those looking a bad feeling. Only they were Grade E mercenaries, while the only graded being in the other group was a Grade F.
Once the nine came close, making sure not to leave openings for the three to escape from, the leader unexpected stopped them and had them start to group up together. Because of the existence of hidden monsters, the leader wasn’t looking to become hostile to the woman who only appeared to be a Grade F. He couldn't be positive, but the way she was carrying herself combined with her body language gave him the impression she was very experienced with fighting. So if possible, the leader would like to resolve the issue through other means. Their job was to secure the mother and daughter duo. As for the unexpected guest, it was best to have as few enemies as possible. Especially for mercenaries that were most frequently hired by nobles to do the dirty and dark deeds that happened at night.
With this in mind, it was impossible for the mother and daughter to escape, with the nine now together and in such proximity to the two. Because of this, they no longer surrounded the three and stood together when signaled to group up. As if telling the Grade F woman that she was free to leave at any time. With all this done, the leader spoke after taking a step forward, “Our job is only to secure the mother and daughter, we were told to use force if necessary, I hope that won’t be necessary.”
Unexpectedly the answer that came was silence, with the raising of that bad feeling the leader couldn’t tell exactly what was going on. It was possible for graded beings to have a very vague sense of danger. Yet that was to be expected for any graded being. Unless there was an unreachable gap between the two should a lower grade make an unexpected suicide attack, it was nearly impossible for someone of a single grade higher to come out completely unharmed. Nearly was more emphasized, the lower the grade.
Therefore, so long as the nine were careful even if they needed to offend the woman in front of them, they should be able to leave without much harm. Only having time to think up to here, the leader was surprised by the actions of the woman in front of him. Without any warning, the woman made a throwing motion with her sleeve. With very little light as the moon was being mostly blocked by buildings around the plaza, the man had no choice but to send mana to his eyes as he took evasive action.
With the distance between the two, he was barely able to dodge the attack. Unfortunately for him, not everyone in his group was as cautious. As if knowing he would dodge, the woman behind him that was just sneering barely had time to register what just happened with a delayed shocked look on her face. Looking down she saw that a dagger had appeared stabbing in between her ribs right into her chest where her heart was. While she stood in shock, the other eight scrambled into action. Before they could block off the previously blocked escape routes. This lone Grade F, once again, defied normal logic and started running towards the now eight people.
Making a pulling action, there was a sickening sound followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. In that span of all but a few seconds, a person’s life came to an end. Knowing full well that if he turned his head to see what was going on behind him, the woman in front of him would use that opportunity. The leader had no choice but to dispel some of the mana he sent to his eyes to see better in the dark. Instead, he had to step forward, while he was a nobody working for some low level noble. Before this, he was a mercenary that worked out of Mercury City, the home of the Adventurer’s Guild Headquarters.
Such a place wasn’t a quiet and safe environment. Fleeing the city because it was too dangerous didn’t mean he learned nothing. It was because of his time there, he knew that grades were normally an insurmountable gap between people. Yet at lower levels it was still possible to die to a normal person. Least to say, being only a single grade below. If they were decisive enough and were willing to allow mutual destruction, it was very possible to not just lose but to be killed by someone of a lower grade.
The leader knew that only three of the nine had real combat experience outside of dungeons. The woman that failed to dodge the first strike wasn’t one of them. With a single action, one Grade E was taken down by a Grade F. As the cold sweat started to coat the man’s back, the woman reached him. At some unknown time the woman had reclaimed her dagger that seemed to be attached to some string that was tied around her wrist. So long as he was cautious, he had confidence he could deal with the woman single-handedly. Even with the sense of tension brought about by the woman showing not just a little experience in fighting against actual people.
As the two were about to meet, the woman made a stabbing motion while the man used an upward sideways thrust to try and parry the blow. Both had used their own advantages. Because the woman used a dagger, her ability in extreme close combat was far greater. The man had strength as well as a sword. If he allowed her to get too close, his weapon would become worthless, and the strength with no build up would cause his power to fall by at least half.
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The woman planned to stab the man or get into a very close melee. The man wanted to parry the stab and return a slash after the parry to force the woman back and into a more advantageous distance for him. By the time the two were about to crash into each other, the man was able to parry the dagger. As he began to move the two weapons upward before beginning a counter-attack, there was a change. The woman let go of the dagger, being in the middle of an action, the loss of opposing force caused the man to lose his balance for a split second.
As the man felt danger he watched the woman closely as he tried to regain his posture, yet before he could, he looked on with a pale face at what the woman was planning. Having abandoned her original dagger, she pulled out another dagger, only this time instead of being in her right hand, it was wielded with her left. As the woman stabbed out with the new dagger, the man could only bring in his arm to block the blow aimed at his heart. As the dagger seemed satisfied with inflicting a deep wound on his arm, another surprise was in store.
The man could only look up with horror as the woman’s face remained as cold as it originally was. The dagger that was aimed at his heart started to drift upward as it aimed at an eye. Before the man could match this action or even attempt to dodge, the dagger embedded itself into his skull without any resistance. Once this was done, the woman abandoned the dagger and jumped up as she used both feet to kick at the now dead body.
This action caused the two people on the side that tried to rescue their leader to miss while she flipped over their attacks that came to the sides of the two’s confrontation. The man’s body flew back without resistance, knocking down three people. Two of the nine were now dead in less than ten seconds, while another three were knocked down. This left only four people still standing. The two from the sides tried to keep the woman at busy as the other two standing went for the mother and child. The three that were knocked down were scattering on the ground trying to stand back up in panic and the onset of fear.
Seeing this, the woman gritted her teeth as she leaned to one side and grabbed the outstretched arm of a man with a sword and shield. Being what appeared to be the tank of the group, he was slower than she was by a good amount. Locking his joints by warping her arm in his elbow joint. She was able to offset some of the overwhelming strength the man had as to create more time for her to work. While this happened, the other man had his sword kicked to the side by the woman. It was at this time that the two that went after the mother and daughter arrived at their target.
The one that went after the mother seemed slightly excited as he reached out for her. If it wasn’t for the fact that the noble offered a large bounty on the two, then he wouldn’t have decided to stay after the leader of the group had been killed nearly instantly. Unlike the most of the group, he wasn’t original with them, only working with them for the reward. As far as the woman that was fighting the two behind him. She was a godsend, with each person she killed it caused the man to become more excited. The mission was a shoo-in at this point, with each person she killed the share he would receive would be increased.
Yet because of his excitement, he failed to sense the shadow that was creeping up on him from behind. With one hand around the woman’s wrist, he had a look of excitement and lust in his eyes. Yet before any of his thoughts could come to fruition his expression changed to one of shock as he turned slowly, yet before he could turn around he fell to the ground. In the back of his head was a dagger that had a small string attached to the pommel. As this happened, a scream sounded out from nearby.
Quickly turning around, the mother belatedly realized that the man wasn’t the only one that came for them. Yet, as she turned to look at her daughter, a look of surprise appeared on her face. Her daughter was fine and was looking at a man rolling on the ground with an angry expression. Looking between her daughter and the man on the ground, she quickly realized what happened. Before they went into the alley, their savior had given her daughter a dagger for self-defense. The dagger was now embedded into the man’s groin.
Before she could say or do anything, a loud thump rang out, and she turned to see that their savior was knocked flying. Laying on the ground without moving. At this time, the two that were fighting their savior were standing above her and kicked her a few times to ensure she was really down. The other three that had been knocked to the floor were already standing as they surrounded the mother and daughter duo. With a grim look, the woman couldn’t help but sigh, she knew that their escape had failed.
After a few more kicks, the two regained their sanity. Moving towards the rest of the group, they were about to take the two back to the noble when they heard a bloody cough. Along with the cough came the sound of mumbled words. Yet the words were cryptic. It was a language that was heard by each and every one of them before, it was the language of magic. With a sense of dread, they all turned around with completely pale faces from what they saw.
Magic was a special type of mana usage. While human’s could adapt to almost anything, magic was still a very hard thing to learn. Therefore, most would forego it for physical magic. This was the use of mana inside the body. It was also possible to inject mana into an arrow to create an even greater destructive force, the same was with other weapons. While magic was the use of mana outside the body. Usually followed by using the language of magic, cryptic words normally accompanied by the use of magic circles.
By sending mana outside the body and placing it into a special arrangement, it was possible to cast a destructive spell outside of anything, the same amount of mana could do with a physical magic attacks. The downsides to this was that time was needed and concentration, both of which were extremely scarce on a battlefield. Yet once a spell was cast, the damage was not comparable by any means. Yet this wasn’t enough to cause such fear in the remaining five.
Magic could be split into a large assortment of types. Physical was one and another was blood. Only blood magic was a taboo that was prosecuted heavily against. Blood magic was corrosively destructive. Blood and water magic are two sides of the same coin. Only if the same spell with the same amount of mana was used with water and blood, the results wouldn’t be comparable. Blood magic would win every time. The problem was blood magic could easily eat away at your psyche and cause serious mental problems. Time and time again, leading to genocide.
The magic circle they came face to face with was an alluring crimson color. The woman that was originally laying on the ground started to rise from the ground. She was using blood as support. Twirling ever so slowly around her as she rose from the ground. After standing, the blood continued to rise above her. After it completely left her, it started to congeal together.
Deep fear could be seen on the faces of the five, as well as the mother that was now looking at her savior with conflict. As the blood was congealing into a shape, the five didn’t wait to find out what it was, not a single one tried to stay behind as they each started to run in a different direction. Part of the reason blood magic was feared wasn’t just because it would make the wielder insane, its power was too devastating and outside the norm. Because of their fight, the amount of blood that was available to the woman was staggering. As they fought, a few of the nine had cuts that were bleeding. The creepy sensation of the blob of blood in the air was terrifying enough. The blood on their wounds would fall to the ground and then start to gather below the blood blob. Once below it, slowly levitating off the ground, it would gather to make the blob of blood stronger.
Once the blood started to take shape, they could feel a calling from inside their body. Their own blood wished to leave and enter that blob of blood. This was why, if one was a blood magic user, they needed to be put on a watch list. While it wasn’t illegal to be a user of blood magic, as that was outside their realm of control. Using blood magic was a very serious crime, one that would mean being imprisoned until death. The only people to have used blood magic and been able to escape prison were death row inmates fighting in wars, traded for more freedom.
While dangerous, so long as their crimes weren’t too serious they weren’t treated unfairly, yet they were still prisoners nonetheless. Once the remaining five tried to escape, the blood took the shape of a serpent with wings, letting out a soundless roar. To which the five magically came to a stop. The mother and daughter turned pale when the serpent silently roared into the sky. As the five came to an abrupt stop, the serpent went on a slaughter as it quickly flew to one person after another. Needing to roar one more time before being able to finish off the remaining five.