I sprinted up the stairs ignoring Ray and Herald yelling what's wrong, hoping that Ronia was safe. I heard a glass shattering noise followed by screaming. "Shit they're already there. OI! Over here!" I screamed as loud as I could trying to get the attention of the attackers. Hopefully they would get distracted by me and I would have enough time to get there. I could here thumping behind me, likely the 2 chasing after me. I rounded the corner in time to see a priest in white garb go flying out the door and slam into the wall in the hallway, bleeding from the chest.

"God damnit! Ragh!" I fired ice shards with abandon one after the other at the wooden walls, piercing through them. I would pay for the walls later, right now I had some jackasses to kill. I heard a scream and another priest was backing out of the doorway, with Ronia slung over his shoulder and a light magic barrier. "Ronia! Priest, get over here, I'll cover you!" I kept up my sprint and pulled out my sword while prepping an ice wall. I couldn't use fire spells inside the building as much as I wanted to since the building was made of wood, so ice spells would have to do. The priest looked at me and started backing up while keeping the barrier active, but there was a sudden impact on the barrier. I saw a hooded figure in all black with a black and green mask on. He was wielding a dagger and was slashing at the barrier, sending cracks throughout the golden bubble around the priest and Ronia.

I arrive by the priest when the hooded jackass had hit the barrier 4 times. I sent one last glance at the priest before swinging my blade diagonally at the figure, only to be stopped by another hooded man wearing the same apparel. He was using a sword, aiming to cut my head off in one clean stroke. I backed up and used the spell I had been prepping, the ice wall. A wall made of ice was formed between us quickly and not a moment too soon. I saw 3 other figures pop out of the room where there was now 2 dead priests. I saw the wall already cracking and cursed. "Shit, that wall ain't going to hold for much longer, wheres Ray and Herald?"

I saw them barreling down the hallway and yelled "Theres some jackass'es past this wall aiming to kill Ronia, and probably the rest of us if I'm not mistaken. Herald, block our retreat!" All I got was a nod as Herald rushed forward with his ruined shield, in an attempt to block the hallway. I heard several loud thumps and cracks and saw the ice wall was nearly broken by now. "Thats too damn quick, why can't they take their damn time?" I looked at Ronia and saw the priest was healing himself and the other priest that had been sent flying into the wall. Ronia looked to be in rather bad shape now that I could get a closer look.

She had several bandaged cuts on her arms, bandages wrapping around her stomach and back covering the place she was stabbed, dyed red with blood. I looked at the priest and said "Heal her for gods sake, shes dying over here!" The priest looked at me and started to heal her after making sure his friend wasn't in danger of dying anymore. I heard a loud crashing noise behind me as the ice wall broke. I turned around and saw Herald blocking off 2 of the hooded men, but the other 3 ran past him, going straight for us. The priests behind us screamed and put up barriers of golden light and the mostly alright one pulled out a mana potion, quickly downing it.

Ray met with the third one, sending a deadly thrust aimed at the neck of the hooded figure. Unfortunately they dodged it and sent a swing aimed at Ray's neck in retaliation. It seemed 2 of the figures used daggers and the remaining 3 used swords. I fired an ice spear at the figure closest to me, but it barely nicked their left leg. "Tch, damn aim's off. I really haven't done much pvp lately. Now i'm starting to regret that." I swung my sword at the figure that had gotten within melee range, and started to channel more mana for another ice spear and saw I was starting to get low. "Damn I really need to remember that I don't have a metric crapton of mana anymore." I clicked my tongue in annoyance and reverted to using simple ice shards again. I had to end this fight soon or I would be dry on mana, which wouldn't be good for a magic user like me.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Dodging the dagger thrust at my heart, I channelled mana into my only other lesser tiered spell I knew at the moment. I finished channelling the remaining mana I had into the spell, but not before I got stabbed in the shoulder by a dagger. Groaning in pain I took several steps back and yelled "Chilling Shardblast!". Dozens of stake sized shards of ice formed and flew forwards in a cone shape, careening down the hall with deadly force. Herald had heard me scream that and rammed through a wooden wall into a room nearby, with Ray following shortly afterwards, the person previously fighting him now covered in wounds, but something didn't seem right. The blood looked odd. I couldn't get a good look before the figure was again out of view.

The spell did it's job and cleaned up the hallway rather nicely. Several shards slammed into the bodies of the figures, with the one closest to me taking the brunt of the spell, with 3 shards imbedded into his arms and 1 in his stomach. The ones farther away didn't come out unscathed either, each one taking several shards in the arms or legs. The only downside of this spell was it had very short range. The spell quickly spread out and the rest of the shards were lodged into the walls, with over a dozen shards in them. I then heard a deep and gruff voice from the figure at the back, who had only been hit once in the leg, say something to the rest. I couldn't hear most of what he said but I heard the words regroup and too much time.

The figures all dashed towards the room they came from, and I realized what was happening. "Guys, the hoods are retreating! Stop them!" I took one last glance at Ronia and saw she was getting better and no longer looked like she was going to die any moment, then dashed forwards at the retreating figures. I picked a mana potion off the ground near one of the priests and chugged the whole thing as I hopped out of the window after the retreating hoods. They were already pretty far. "Damn they sure can run fast for a bunch of injured people. Shit, still don't have too much mana after that potion. This headache is killing me"

I shrugged off the waning side effects of minor mana deficiency and tried to catch up to the figures still running. They kept jumping from roof to roof, and split up into 2 groups, one going straight another going off to the right with 3 people. "You ain't getting away from me!" I yelled as I continued to chase the group running straight. I channeled mana and sent 3 ice shards flying before feeling the effects of mana deficiency creeping up on me again. Out of the 3 shots, 2 missed and one hit the lower back of one of the figures, I heard an angry roar and they sped up further, going faster than their already stupid speed. All of a sudden one of them turned around and threw something at me. I dodged out of the way but lost my footing and stumbled, sending myself flying off of the rooftops. I scrambled to grab anything I could and managed to grab a window sill, stopping my fall.

Groaning and cursing the hoods with every curse I knew I pulled myself up and into the window, only to come face to face with a naked woman staring at me in shock. I also froze and stared in shock. Why did I have to grab the window of some woman changing?! "L-look, this isn't what it seems like it is... I can explain." I said that and started to look away from the woman with rather large breasts, who blinked once more before screaming in fear and sending a fist flying into my face. The fist was by no means a punch you would expect from some average woman. No it sent me flying into the wall of the opposite building before I tumbled to the ground.

I landed with a thud and stood up shakily while coughing nonstop. The fall had hurt quite a lot and I felt like shit. "That damn fist hurt more than those hooded figures attacks combined. What woman has that much power in such dainty looking arms?!" I started coughing some more after my outburst and hobbled back towards the inn in pain. God I hope those priests didn't die off. I could really use a heal right about now.