Assassination attempts against me happened often. In fact, they were nearly a weekly occurrence. You would think that the enemies would learn that trying to assassinate someone with precognition wasn't the best idea, but they seemed incapable of doing so. Or, at the very least, they were just too stubborn to back down from their attempts.

The current attempt was very much proof of that second theory. I was, for the first time in quite a while, worried for my life. In most situations, the names of those that tried to kill would be known to me even before they fully decided to do so. So would nearly every aspect of their plan, but against my current assailant, none of that was true.

I didn't even know his name. I hadn't seen it coming.

How?

The only possible reason I could think of was that this lizard was the chosen of the mist. The one that Lady Deventus had warned me about.

I gritted my teeth as I was once more forced to block a direct attack from it. My hands shook from the reverberations of the blow. My feet cratered the ground below as I was pushed down.

A blade of wind appeared from behind me and rushed at him.

Many of its kind followed suit.

None of them so much as scratched him. He was a blur of red energy that I could only keep up with due to the movements of the wind. With a silent grunt, I leaped into the air with a vortex of wind.

Escape was the best option.

Head-on combat was never my fortitude. This did not play to my strength at all. Unfortunately, no such thing was allowed. In a blur of motion, the lizard leaped up at me.

The vortex expanded in size and flew towards him. As I drifted off on a light breeze. The was a sudden burst of wind, and my instincts screamed at me.

I let gravity take its course and drag me down. I just managed to get out of the way of the red death beam that was the lizard. It had moved right through my attack and hadn't been hampered in the slightest.

It stopped mid-air and immediately changed directions towards me. I attempted to move out of the way, but it was too late.

He was too fast.

I doubled over in pain as his fist slammed into my gut and sent me flying into the back wall. My mouth opened in a cry of pain, but no sound was audible.

The area was warded off from sound. The guards assigned to protect me wouldn't enter if they didn't think my life was in danger.

They would never think I was in danger.

They had too much confidence in me. The very idea of me not being all-knowing would be baffling.

I heaved myself out of the wall and jumped to the side as a blade sunk deep into it. I continued to retreat as strike after strike was thrown at me without end.

I had to do something, or this would be the end of me. Dammit, I had just been brought back. There was no way I would be dying this soon.

I was caught off guard as I felt his tail wrap around my leg before I was promptly thrown to the ground. The blade came down at me, but I smashed it aside with my staff.

I couldn't run so I had to fight.

I took advantage of his slight surprise and pushed up on the offensive. Whatever I was hoping to accomplish did not come through. He weaved in and out of every attack and countered with his own. Every strike he threw came closer and closer to hitting me.

I didn't doubt for a second that his blade was poisoned. If a single attack landed, I would be dead. With a blast of wind, I managed to push him back.

Before cocooning myself in a ball of wind, layer after layer of wind was added and condescended. I called upon a tornado from the sky to protect me. I needed time to think.

How were the guards not seeing the literal storm forming or at least feeling the qi? Had this assassin also blocked those things? I felt a shake as my windshields were battered. My mind strained as I struggled to hold them in place.

My thoughts raced through the possibilities. I had never seriously trained myself offensively.

Not to say that I had never trained for an offensive confrontation, but I had been of the mind that fighting anything in these lands was folly. I cursed my younger self for ignoring such a vital skill. I'd focused so much on being an oracle that now that my precognition was useless, I was at the mercy of enemies.

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Again I felt the battering of my windshields. Even as I continued to add layer after layer. They were being destroyed faster than I could build them. I could feel that deathly aura of that red energy, and at that moment, I felt the presence of another assassin.

There were actually two of them? How had they both managed to get past my sight? It had been implied that there was only one chosen of the mist.

Goddess be damned, I was doomed. Handling one had already been a slim possibility. Two was nigh impossible. Especially given that I couldn't see the...

I stopped my train of thought as I focused on the presence of the second.

I could see him.

My precognitive ability wasn't useless. It wasn't the primary aspect of my power that I focused on.

I didn't get his background or any other information about him and what he could possibly do. No like the other assassin, the winds were silent on those aspects but not on all. I could see what he would do.

The way his body moved and the way he breathed held secrets. Every movement of his that disturbed the air gave me more information.

Then a light bulb switched on in my head. It was how I had been keeping up with the other assassin. I hadn't realized it, but I had been fed information. Information that he couldn't block my access to unless he simply didn't affect the air around him.

With that knowledge, I attempted to do something I had never before. I decreased the range of my precognition.

All I'd ever done was try and increase the range. Now that it was rapidly reduced, the difference was as clear as day. I no longer had to make the correct guesses. The information was clear to me.

Now I saw what people were going to do before they did it in a manner that I hadn't before. It was a qualitative improvement, unlike anything I had ever seen.

The lizard was still not visible, but his partner in his sky was. As I brought the range down to cover only the courtyard, I switched the focus from mass precognition to wind analysis.

Just in time as well. The last of my wind barriers was ripped to shreds, and I was blown away by the ensuing explosion. Yet this time, I was not worried. Instead, I smiled.

Victory was mine.

The lizard was given pause at my smile, but I did not push up. Instead, I simply stood in a ready stance and waited patiently. There was a flash and a clang as two weapons clashed. His blade was only centimeters from my face.

The attack was followed up by several others, but each landed further and further away from me.

What had once been an overwhelming offensive on his part turned into a duel between equals. Then finally, it turned into an offensive slaughter-fest on my end.

I rained down blow after blow at him. He had blocked most at the beginning, but as the fight dragged on. More blows flowed past his defenses and slammed against his scales. Eventually, it reached the point in which no attack of mine was blocked.

I fainted just as he blocked and attacked the opposite direction of where he thought I would be. My attacks were like the wind. They simply slipped past his defenses.

I could see the agitation of the other assassin.

He would be entering the battle anytime soon. Good, I welcomed the challenge.

The lizard in front of me attempted to jump back, but I had already grabbed his tail. With a qi enhanced pull, I dragged him toward me before slamming my staff into his face.

Scales fell off, and blood gushed out.

Had there been sound, there would've been a grunt of pain.

I yelled in pain as the scales on his tail dug into my hand. Quickly releasing him and jumping back, I assessed the damage. There were several scales now stuck within my hand. Though none seemed to be poisonous.

With a quick motion of my qi, I was able to temporarily close the wounds.

My attention returned to my assailant, who wore a grin on their face. In the next instant, he leaped from his position and seemed to turn into a red blur.

But he didn't head to me. He jumped past me before stopping himself mid-air and changing directions. My eyes couldn't keep up.

Continuously he jumped around me. I held my staff at the ready.

I barely managed to block the sword strike from behind me before blood escaped my mouth as a kick slammed into my gut.

I managed to stop myself from flying and follow up with a strike, but he was gone by the time it landed. In the next instant, I was once again able to block the initial strike, but another blow to the gut left me feeling nauseous.

But I wasn't worried.

It didn't matter how fast he was going. As long as he disrupted the air, I would eventually be able to predict him. Already I had been able to nearly block his second blow to my gut.

On his third attempt, as he tried to strike from the back. I was able to block the blade and the next attack.

The fourth attempt ended with my staff in his stomach. Blood leaked out his stomach as his mouth opened up in pain. No sound could be heard.

The worry of his partner was palatable, but he didn't jump in.

His loss.

I would simply take them one by one then. My attempt at pulling out my staff was stopped by the iron grip of the lizard. It had a toothy grin on its face. And to my surprise, it pulled itself on the staff and drew closer to me.

More blood continued to gush out, and on the other side, organs burst out as my staff pushed through. I had no option but to let go of my weapon and let myself be pulled away by the wind.

The lizard seemed unaffected by the sudden exit of its organs. In fact, it was entirely okay by the looks of things.

Its movements were not hampered in the slightest. In fact, its movement grew more confident and steady as more blood gushed.

Then to my surprise, it pulled out the staff, and what had been a steady flow was now a veritable stream of blood and organs. Yet, it only looked at them with mild interest before its attention turned back to me.

Even the partner didn't know what was going on if its shock was any indication.

The lizard twirled both staff and dagger in its hands before once again entering a low stance. The red energy that emerged from it contained a much more eerie aura.

I felt chills crawl down my spine.

Then my heart sunk at the mist that poured out from its wound. Those whispers were all too familiar. Those screams and that horrible song transported me back to the void space.

My heart continued to sink further as I realized I couldn't see him any longer.