Even with the close battle taking place in front of him, Zoran was still able to glimpse back to where the little girl was chained.
Simply seeing the situation made the priest realize what was happening. Although he had taken multiple measures to account for all the possibilities he could think of, he could never have guessed the current outcome of things.
Naturally, he had guessed that the girl’s aunt and some other merfolk might oppose the takeover from the Golden Garden Guild or would simply want to have the little girl back, as precious and special as she was. And so, he sent Eric and the rest to ensure order, while using his hidden card to kidnap the girl and to hide the other defensive measures.
However, what Zoran didn’t account for was a little Hyking creature, a dwarf with a legendary hammer, and a user of the Shadow Sign who seems to have some connection to the girl the priest was unaware of.
Nevertheless, the follower of the Eversun Goddess could now only pray and adapt to the situation at hand.
And that meant…
“Nast!”
“?”
Seeing his boss calling for him, the cloaked runestone user, apparently named Nast, turned his head slightly as a response.
“Take care of that siren quickly and come help me with this filthy worm.”
“... Sure.”
As Zoran went back to sending pillars of light across the cathedral and blocking slashes of shadow waves, Nast took a step forward and began to approach the struggling siren.
Although he had planned to use the little girl as a hostage to stop Riana in her tracks, his new orders required him to finish the job quickly.
Even if the siren still had some fight in her, he thankfully still had a hidden card he could use to speed things up if necessary.
“...”
Seeing Nast walking away from Sana and closer to her, Riana ignored both the pain in her stomach and the rising heat dehydrating her skin. She held her spear up with both hands, letting the sweat pour down her body.
“Just wait a little longer, Sana. Close your eyes and wait a bit more.”
“Auntie…” Sana watched as her aunt got ready to fight, then closed her eyes, blocked her ears and curled up into a ball.
Despite the shivering of her fingers, she kept a tight grip on her ears as she pushed to block out all sounds from around her.
The sounds from both sides that were quickly breaking her heart.
She knew they were fighting for her, even though she could do nothing but watch.
She knew they were getting hurt because of her, even though she kept causing them trouble.
Deep down, the little girl’s heart was breaking apart from the constant problems that came with her existence ever since she had been born.
If only… If only I wasn’t born…
She repeated in her mind. Sana knew that if she hadn’t been here, at the very least, things wouldn’t have escalated to this extent and the ones she cared about wouldn’t be getting hurt like this.
And yet, despite that feeling within her, she was still…
I want to be with uncle and auntie… I want to laugh and play with them again…
It was a simple wish. An innocent wish.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Memories flashed in her mind as she kept her position.
Unbeknownst to her and the others, behind her closed eyelids, her two turquoise eyes were beginning to glow with a slight emerald hue once more.
“Don’t give the little girl false hope, siren. You’ll be dying here-”
THUD!
Wasting no time to listen to Nast’s speech, Riana quickly leaped off the ground and thrusted her spear towards his chest.
However…
“?!”
BANG!
Seemingly out of nowhere, Nast pulled out a revolver gun and immediately shot the siren in the thigh. He had aimed for her chest, but having already dodged light beams, Riana could more or less predict the bullet’s trajectory to barely jump back to where she first stood.
Tsk, this bullet… something’s off about it…
Even though Riana hadn’t been shot by a bullet before, the feeling she was getting from it wasn’t what would be expected from one. It was painful and hot, sure, but inside her thigh, the siren could tell the worse was still yet to come.
It must be another runestone too… This guy…
BANG!
Before she could finish her thought, she quickly dodged another bullet, albeit barely.
Despite her injuries, Riana stayed on the move to avoid any additional bullets that may come her way. She jumped towards the many broken and scattered benches to the side, using them as potential cover before she could try to approach her enemy again.
“Come out, I don’t have time to play with you, siren. It’s useless anyway. I’ve got plenty of runestones and traps on me and I bet you can't even stand the heat much longer anyway.”
Nast tried to provoke his opponent while holding his gun up, but he quickly realized he didn’t have to do that.
BOOM!
“Dammit!”
Another stray light beam came crashing down into the benches, missing Riana by a hair as she jumped up to dodge it.
And that gave Nast the perfect opportunity.
BANG!
“?!”
CLANG!
With a swing of her spear, Riana managed to block the third bullet from penetrating her body, but she was still in the process of falling back to the ground.
And that meant another opportunity.
BANG!
“?!”
“?!”
However, instead of Nast’s gun, another one from the side had shot a bullet. One that missed Nast’s head by a few inches, forcing him to stand in complete puzzlement for a moment.
When the two fighters turned to see who the shooter was, they couldn’t believe their eyes.
“You…?!”
“Sana?!”
It was the little girl with glowing turquoise eyes, holding an almost identical revolver gun that Nast was using.
What?! Did she somehow steal one from me…? But that’s… Nast wondered inwardly as he tried to make sense of the situation.
“Ow…”
However, after a single shot, Sana let go of the gun while trying to hold her wrist, but failing because of the chains on them. The body of a five year old girl should not have to go through that kind of recoil, and Sana’s wrist pain was making sure she knew it.
“You little shit!” Nast snapped and held his own gun towards Sana, forgetting the very reason they kidnapped her for a second. “Where the hell did you get that from?!”
“No!!”
“?!”
Before he could pull the trigger, the gun was suddenly ripped out of his hand by a thrown spear, taking his index finger with it.
“Ugh!! Damn you!!”
Watching his now broken gun land at the back of the cathedral along with the spear, Nast quickly held his right hand, trying to stop the bleeding from his missing finger.
“Sana! Are you okay?!”
Riana called out to her niece, but before she could run towards her, another stray light beam came crashing down in front of her.
“Enough of this charade already!”
Having had enough, Nast activated his Sign as a small gray emblem formed in front of his forehead. At the same time, he took out a blue and sizzling runestone, before holding his other hand up towards the siren.
Riana, on the other hand, having just landed from dodging another light beam, couldn’t do much but stay on the move. The sweating on her body had increased, and she could feel the dehydration quickly catching up with her. Not to mention the pain in her stomach from the first shockwave attack, and the bullet that was still inside her left thigh. It all made her movements sloppy and slow, to the point where the light beams weren’t far from taking her out completely.
“Auntie!!”
As if acting as a signal, Nast used the cry of the little girl to snap his remaining fingers.
SNAP!
Riana didn’t know what was going to happen as a result of that snap, but wasn’t going to wait to find out.
Although she could see the destroyed gun in the distance, for some reason, her spear was nowhere near it. Seeing as it would be behind the supposed altar where Nast and Zoran were safely behind the light beams’ attacks, she gave up on trying to look for it.
Instead, she picked up whatever pieces of sharp wood she could find from the many destroyed benches around her and immediately threw them at Nast.
“How desperate can you get, siren?!” Nast scoffed as he finally seemed to have finished his preparations.
The sizzling effect around his newly obtained blue runestone suddenly disappeared in an instance and zipped through the air towards Riana.
“?!”
No, it wasn’t aiming for her, but for the bullet wound specifically.
Even though she tried to dodge it, Nast redirected the strike to follow her, and to immediately invade the gun wound in the siren’s thigh. The previous bullet still stuck within became a new catalyst for a chaotic element.
“...”
It was just a split second, almost as if time itself had stopped, but all Riana could do in that time was look over at her crying niece and mutter a few words.
“I’m sorry… Sana…”
CRACKKK!!!
Then lightning struck from within her body with no sign of stopping.
“Auntie!!”
The little girl pushed herself forward, pulling on the chains.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
In front of the niece’s eyes, behind the rising steam, her auntie’s vague form was being engulfed in continuous strikes of lightning.
Despite how hard she tried to hold them back, the little girl’s eyes began to glow once more.
She wasn’t sure she would be able to keep her promise to her auntie anymore.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/F6h7vmX.png]