Behind Stas, something exploded once again and tumbled across the ground. Smoking chunks of wood and other debris showered the rooftops in front of Ordyntsev, but he didn't dare turn around to look back.
He had other problems now.
The bandits, casting aside any contempt, skillfully flanked him from both sides. Clearly, they weren't about to repeat the fatal mistake of their deceased comrade by launching a blind attack.
Each second of hesitation worked against Stas, as his prana began to return to its normal speed, and with it, his reaction time increased.
Ordyntsev was genuinely terrified. Horror surged in waves that nearly drove him mad, retreating only to gather strength and threaten to topple his barriers of self-control once more.
Unlike the deadly fight with the spearman more than a fortnight ago, Stas was fully aware of the situation now and had to make a decision.
However, no matter the fear he felt, he knew quite well that inaction would surely be his end.
Defense, in his case, was merely a cowardly attempt to die a little later. To gain just a few more breaths of air, to hold on a bit longer.
So, mustering all his courage, Stanislav furiously charged at the bandit on the right, who was armed with a familiar club.
With the ferocity of a man doomed to die, Ordyntsev unleashed a torrent of incoherent but very vigorous and rapid strikes on the thug, who was clearly taken aback by such an assault.
The earthling was hurried by the bandit with the axe approaching from behind.
The katana clinked pitifully as it clashed against the metal inserts of the club. It wept and screamed as Ordyntsev, in a frenzied thirst for life, drained it of all its strength and destroyed the structure of the noble blade.
The club-armed enemy could only block this onslaught of steel, retreating step by step, which was exactly what Stas needed, as it broke the distance with the one behind him.
And at some point, his opponent couldn't withstand the furious assault!
Failing to defend in time, the bandit sustained a deep penetrating cut, slicing off a large chunk of flesh and skin from the outside of his arm, causing it to hang like a freshly cut steak.
But this small victory was marked by tragedy.
An instinctive swing of the club struck squarely on the katana, which had not yet been retracted. Brutally mistreated, it could not withstand such abuse and, with a sad ring, snapped.
A fifteen-centimeter jagged fragment of the once majestic weapon was all that remained in the earthling's hands.
The rustle of sand behind him marked that his second opponent had already closed in on him to a deadly distance.
"A-a-ah!" Stas roared furiously, throwing himself straight into the arms of the thug with the club. At that moment, the bandit was distracted, instinctively trying to press the dangling piece of flesh back onto his arm.
Ordyntsev's ribs exploded with pain when the awkward club strike still managed to hit them.
The man even feared to imagine what would have happened if the bandit had been in full health and managed to strike properly.
However, the earthling, despite the pain tormenting him and his inability to breathe adequately, did not miss his chance.
His right hand with the "dagger" slithered under the enemy's left arm and stung straight into the armpit.
Ordyntsev himself practically embraced his foe, depriving him of the chance to hit again with the club.
Stanislav consciously chose the direction and target of his strike. The last crumbs of prana acceleration were just enough to do that.
The armpit is an exceptionally vulnerable part of the human body. There you'll find the brachial plexus, the subclavian artery and vein, the ulnar and median nerves, as well as blood vessels and lymph nodes.
A blow to the armpit severely affects the nervous system and is accompanied by monstrous pain, causing the opponent to lose combat ability for some time before dying from profuse bleeding.
Ordyntsev, as a medic, honorably passed another test of this new world, using the knowledge that was meant to save lives exclusively for killing.
With effort, the earthling threw the limp body behind him, buying a few more seconds while the bandit with the axe slowed down to go around his fallen fellow.
Prana finally settled down with an imaginary "pfft," no longer giving even a ghost of an advantage.
The axe whistled through the air, forcing Stas to hastily retreat, not allowing him to pick up the fallen club.
Crouching, Ordyntsev fiercely gripped the blood-covered katana fragment and held it out blade-first like a knife.
"I will kill you slowly!" the bandit growled, driving Stas closer to the wall of the nearest building with rapid strikes. Any attempt to escape was thwarted by preemptive axe swings. "Scum, stop squirming!"
The bandit was wary, not knowing that Stas's acceleration had ended. To him, Ordyntsev was a murky figure who sometimes moved incredibly fast and skillfully for an ordinary person.
Also, Stanislav had suspiciously deftly dealt with two of his comrades. Because of this, the bandit wanted to gain an overwhelming advantage before delivering the decisive blow.
In desperation, Ordyntsev even turned to his prana and, unsurprisingly, got nothing from it. He still didn't have enough control over it to use it in such urgent situations.
Moreover, with every dodge and step back, his chest began to hurt more, making each breath accompanied by bursts of agony.
His vision doubled. Stanislav couldn't be called very athletic. Yes, he occasionally went to the gym, but he didn't make anything special out of it.
"Take this!" someone's cry made the fighters slow down, and the piece of wood hitting the bandit in the back involuntarily made him turn around irritably.
As it turned out, Igisaka, having mustered courage, picked up one of the pieces of wooden debris, generously scattered after the clash between the warmasters and the ronin, and threw it right at the bandit.
Ordyntsev wasn't going to miss this incredible chance for survival, which sometimes comes once in a lifetime.
The bandit was about two and a half meters away at the moment. Stas wouldn't have had time to reach him without getting an axe to the head.
So, he had to distract him somehow.
The earthling, dropping to the ground, scooped up a handful of the grayish sand with his left hand and then flung it with all his might right into the hated face of his opponent.
The bandit instinctively struck the sand with his axe, helplessly cutting through it, but the grains, rustling against the haft, successfully reached his eyes.
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Stas immediately lunged forward, following the sand.
'Danger!'
Ordyntsev barely managed to brake and throw the upper part of his body back when the bandit, swinging blindly with the return motion of the axe, almost cleaved his sternum. If someone had captured the image at that moment, one might think Stas decided to play Hawaiian Limbo.
Regaining balance, Ordyntsev pounced on the enemy before he could swing his formidable weapon again.
Stas's left hand almost gently exposed the left side of the bandit's neck, tilting his head to the right, after which the earthling mercilessly plunged the sharp katana fragment into it. Blood spurted out.
The handle of the axe hit his back powerlessly.
The earthling wasn't satisfied with the first strike, so pulling the fragment out of the wound, he delivered another powerful blow alongside it.
The bandit couldn't withstand the second blow to the neck, causing his legs to buckle.
With revulsion, Stanislav pushed away the last enemy, then shuddered as he examined his blood-soaked clothes.
As a surgeon, Ordyntsev was constantly dealing with this crimson liquid, but it's one thing to do so while wearing rubber gloves and quite another when your chest and stomach are sticking to clothes wet with warm blood.
The pain in his ribs flared up again, causing Stas to groan and wince. His muscles ached from such wretched treatment.
Despite all this, the next second Stas took a full breath of air.
And it tasted incredibly sweet to Ordyntsev - after all, he was still alive.
"Master healer, are you alright?" Igisaka, trembling, ran up to Stas. It was clear that he was nearly losing consciousness from fear, and that decisive throw had utterly drained his mental strength.
How did he even manage to hit?
Ordyntsev buried his displeasure as deeply as possible and smiled kindly at the lad.
"Igisaka-kun, there's no need to worry so much. They're dead, and you behaved like a true hero, saving my life. If it weren't for you, I'd be lying here with a split-open head. Thank you," Ordyntsev said the last part quite seriously.
"Oh, you flatter me, master," Igisaka was taken aback and actually blushed to his ears, not knowing where to put his hands.
Now, Stas looked at him much more favorably. Although the craftsman was a coward, in the crucial moment, he managed to overcome his weakness to intervene, and how!
The earthling preferred to repay his debts. Living in Irkutsk taught Stas the skill of real men – always keep your word.
That city, like many other eastern cities, was like an icy crucible that forged people, weeding out the weak.
Another thing is that in those places, there is another saying: "In the cold, the mean freeze and leave; only kind people remain."
As someone who moved to Moscow, Stas had mixed feelings about the second saying.
"What's happening over there, master? Do you know who is winning?" the craftsman peered in horror toward the ongoing battle between the renegades and the ronin.
And this time, Ordyntsev could understand the lad's fear.
Because someone among the fighters - most likely the warmasters - knew some fire techniques, flames cheerfully danced on parts of the destroyed houses, threatening to turn the city into a fiery, all-consuming cauldron.
Since most structures in this world were made of wood, urban fires became one of the most horrific disasters.
Needless to say, the arsonists were subject to the most terrible and cruel tortures, on par with killers of daimyo relatives. By local standards, it was hard to imagine a more despicable crime than arson.
In the heat of their fight, the combatants went so far that the nearest houses were not only peppered with torn holes from techniques but had collapsed entirely, burying those foolish who were still inside.
The dust stirred up by quick movements and strikes swirled like a gray shroud, hiding details and allowing only the rapid clatter of blades and hate-filled shouts of techniques or battle cries to be heard.
Ordyntsev bent down and picked up the bandit's axe, and after thinking a bit, he didn't hesitate to find the broken piece of Kensei's katana.
Stas really hoped that if the latter survived, he wouldn't feel too offended by the earthling.
Despite all the fury of the fight, it actually lasted no more than five minutes. However, if Stanislav had already finished, the ronin's battle was not yet subsiding.
And that meant that soon the local yoriki would arrive in the company of very angry samurai.
And Ordyntsev seriously doubted that they would be satisfied with excuses like his desire to simply stroll around the city.
"Oh, it looks like everything is calming down!" Igisaka cautiously drew Stas's attention.
And he was right. The dust clouds gradually began to settle to the ground, revealing the destroyed houses. In general, if one looked closely, only a couple of houses were severely damaged, while the others just had slits in the walls or sooty roofs.
And shortly thereafter, a sight of the fighters themselves was revealed.
First, Stas's gaze lingered on what the ordinary bandits looked like. A mess – that was the only way to describe this jumble of bodies and clothes.
As the earthling suspected, Kensei, without much thinking, just threw a powerful cutting sword technique their way, simply bisecting a large part of them. The rest suffered a weakened blow, which nonetheless still cut them open, granting them a fair share of anguish before death. This was evidenced by the bodies that managed to crawl away a little from the pile of corpses.
The renegades themselves dodged successfully and then engaged with Uramasa in combat.
The first renegade - the one who stayed silent before - sprawled in the middle of the street. Behind him trailed his own intestines and a thick layer of blood – the warmasters' vitality played a cruel joke on him, not allowing him to die immediately.
As for the ronin and the last renegade, they were found rolling on the ground, trying to finish each other off with bare hands.
From their movements, Stas understood that each had already spent their prana reserves, and their own strength was also running out. Swords and daggers lay discarded at a distance.
Because of this, neither could gain the upper hand. First, the ronin would mount his opponent, pummeling him with a barrage of blows, and soon after, the traitor would end up on top, doing his best to strangle Kensei.
"Take it," Stas handed the katana fragments to the stunned Igisaka.
He himself, without saying anything else, rushed forward, cautiously swinging the axe and trying to get used to its balance.
In his life, Stanislav had chopped wood, but he had done it a very long time ago.
The man just hoped that this skill was like riding a bicycle.
The warriors, absorbed in the fight, did not notice the healer approaching from behind, which proved fatal for one of them.
The renegade, entering a frenzy, once again mounted the lying-in-the-dust Kensei and skillfully beat him in the face. Uramasa shielded himself with his elbows, but it was apparent that he was already adrift and taking too many punches to the head.
Apparently, the renegade had a much larger prana core and managed to conserve bits of energy that helped him deliver much more powerful blows.
The warmaster's fist rose up, intending to smash the samurai's face into a bloody pulp, when unexpectedly, from the side came an axe strike.
The blade, guided by the unsteady hand of the healer, grazed by, removing part of the scalp and giving the enemy's skull a good shake.
The warmaster toppled over like a sack of potatoes, but then, as if spellbound, began to scramble on the ground, trying to stand up.
However, Stas, fully aware of the warmasters' abilities, was already there.
In the heat of a wild mix of fear of death, anger, and bloodlust, axe strikes rained down haphazardly.
Ordyntsev didn't look where he was hitting, just making sure that the pain in his ribs didn't drive him crazy, and that the force put into the blows didn't weaken one iota.
And although Stanislav knew that his opponent was probably already dead after the first few blows, he couldn't stop - the memory of the warmasters' capabilities was so strong.
"Hey, healer. Quite a beast you are... Stop chopping him up. He's been dead for a while."
With a groan, Stanislav plunged the axe into the dead body one last time and left it there. Straightening up with a crunch of his spine, he painfully grasped his ribs.
Ordyntsev began to suspect they were broken. However, a cursory examination revealed no suspicious crunching. Perhaps they were just cracks or severe bruises.
Kensei had already gotten up and now stood tiredly, leaning on the odachi stuck in the ground. The ronin's face was dotted with swellings that threatened to turn into magnificent bruises in time.
At that moment, Igisaka cautiously approached them, extending the katana fragments to Stas under Kensei's gobsmacked gaze.
Ordyntsev's brain suddenly snapped into full gear.
"Kensei-san, I am terribly sorry for the loss of this splendid blade. It has the blood of all three robbers on it, and only thanks to it am I still alive. I understand your anger, but please remember, just a couple of minutes ago, I saved your life," Ordyntsev rattled off quickly, nodding at the dead warmaster.
Uramasa obediently looked at the renegade, then shifted his sluggish gaze back to Ordyntsev. An awkward silence hung in the air.
"Ha. Ha-ha. Ah-ha-ha!" The awkward laugh that burst from the ronin's throat gradually turned into a boisterous guffaw, joined by Stas's own laughter and, shortly after, the staccato laughter of Igisaka.
Each of those present was venting the pent-up rage and bloodlust that had previously found no outlet through their laughter.
"I've never met anyone like you, healer!" the ronin wiped away a tear that appeared from his remaining eye. "To justify a broken samurai sword by saving the life of the samurai himself – isn't that the height of madness? Luckily for you, healer, I'm no longer a samurai. And I'm surprised that you're even alive. Besides, you're right, even though I was supposed to be saving your life, you saved mine instead."
The ronin's face lost all its mirth.
"It's a miracle I didn't face yet another disgrace in my meaningless life. I'm glad you survived, strange healer," to Stas's surprise, the ronin bowed slightly to Ordyntsev. The earthling hurried to return the gesture of gratitude with his own bow. "The remnants of my honor are still with me, and I am grateful to you for that. But darn it, we need to get out of here before the yoriki arrive. They know me and will have far too many uncomfortable questions."
The trio, quickly gathering the discarded sheaths and blades, hurried away. Moreover, realizing that it was all over, locals began to gather at the site of the battle with buckets of water to extinguish the fires.
Ordyntsev was determined to finally find these shadow Sumada members.