Chapter 44
Four Against Four (Part 2)
While Lexton was fighting his battle against Schwarz, Arkay was having his own battle for survival. While the cat boy was capable of handling himself in difficult situations and had survived some truly dangerous situations, this was completely out of his league. Surviving against regular guards was one thing, but this was far from that. Now he wasn’t dealing with just one but two elite warriors from The Four War Maidens. To put it in perspective, it was like a tiny mouse taking on two fully grown lions.
“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise, huh? Our bad infiltrator turned out to be a cute little kitty,” Yin of The Four War Maidens said with a sadistic grin on her face. “I wonder how he will cry when I break his bones slowly…”
“Stand back, Yin. This one is mine,” Blair of The Four War Maidens said while directing a small glare at her comrade. “Remember that it was me who sniffed him out in the first place. I believe it is only appropriate that I get to enjoy killing him.”
“Oh, don’t be like that. You know you have a natural advantage for detecting people with that nose of yours, so it isn’t fair,” Yin said in a grumpy tone. “How about we make it a contest? The one who gets him first, gets to do whatever they want with him. Sound good?”
“...Fine.”
As the two War Maidens were having their discussion, Arkay was listening to them while trembling in fright. He had heard stories about The Four War Maidens and how terrifying they could be. In a way, he would be lucky if he was simply killed by these two, as surviving would mean that he would suffer horrifying torture for days, to the point death would be a mercy.
Knowing that there was no way for him to actually win, Arkay decided to go for the best option he had, which was running away. Without wasting a single second, he cast invisibility on himself and began running away.
“Hey! Our toy is trying to escape!” Yin shouted. “Not fair! If you’re gonna play, play until the very end!”
“Stop whining. The toy won’t get away from us,” Blair said as she took off running after Arkay. “Besides I know exactly where he is.”
Blair of The Four War Maidens was of the canine people, a race similar to Arkay’s except she was a god person. This gave her better senses than other races, especially when it came to the sense of smell. Thanks to her ability, she was able to track Arkay with absolute ease.
The dog woman took out one of her swords and swung it at a low angle. The place she was aiming her blade was where Arkay’s legs were, but the cat boy was able to jump over the slash, thus avoiding the loss of one of his limbs.
However, he was far from safe, as Yin soon came at him as well. The blonde had a crazed smile on her face as she threw a punch at Arkay, hitting him right in the gut. The blow was powerful enough to send him flying to a nearby wall, where he landed on the ground and coughed up blood.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t break on me just yet!” Yin said mockingly while chuckling to herself. “We’ve only just gotten started! Try your best to give us at least a bit more entertainment before you go dying on us, okay?”
The blonde brawler proceeded to walk up to Arkay before proceeding to step on him. The cat boy knew that his tormentor only wanted to hear him cry out in pain, so he simply grit his teeth and did his bear it.
“Ooooh, a tough one, aren’t you?” Yin said while laughing. “I wonder what it will take to finally break you? Perhaps I should break one of your fingers? Or maybe even tear out one of your eyes?”
“Yin, I’m afraid we can’t stay here and play around,” Blair suddenly said. “We need to finish up here quickly.”
“What? Where the hell is this coming from now?” Yin asked, annoyed over her fun being possibly interrupted. “Don’t tell me that you’re trying to stop me from enjoying myself just because I won our little contest!”
“No. I’m saying this because this isn’t the only intruder we have,” the dog lady answered. “Judging from the smells I’m getting from him, there are at least three others out there. While Schwarz could have encountered the other three, we don’t know that for certain. There could be at least two others still sneaking around somewhere. We should go and find them before they cause anymore destruction.”
“Eh? Really? Can’t we just leave that to Ray? I’m sure she won’t mind getting a chance to play as well,” the blonde suggested. “I wanna take my time playing with kitty over here.”
“As much as I’d like that, we can’t. Remember last time we let our playing get in the way of our work?” Blair asked. “We were forced into guard duty for a month. No missions. No battles. Just guarding the general while hoping something interesting would happen. Do you want that to happen again?”
Yin frowned, but knew her comrade was correct. If they messed up here, they would have to face such a horrid punishment again. As much as she hated it, she needed to wrap things up here quickly or she would risk not getting any fun for a while. She wasn’t so shortsighted as to ignore future prospects for enjoyment, just to have a bit of fun today.
“Alright. Alright. You win,” the blonde said with a sigh before looking down at the cat boy she was stepping on. “But can I at least take care of this? I promise it won’t take long.”
“Fine. But it better be quick,” Blair responded with a sigh.
Grinning madly, Yin took her foot off Arkay’s back and picked him up with one arm. She dangled him up in the air while he tried his best to ignore the pain he was in and glared at her.
“That’s a good look you get there, pal. Shame I won’t get to enjoy it more. I really like to take my time with the cute ones,” Yin said before suddenly wrapping her arms around Arkay in a tight bearhug. “But I’m at least gonna do my best to enjoy this!”
With her declaration made, Yin began to tighten her hold on Arkay, squeezing him tighter and tighter. The cat boy could feel how he was slowly starting to get crushed as the pressure increased. He could feel his bone beginning to creak and internal organs starting to get squished, which resulted in pain shooting through his body. Despite his best efforts to not show it, Arkay’s face ended up twisting into an expression of agony and fear, as a cry of pain escaped from his mouth.
“Yes… That’s what I like to see and hear. Good to see you didn’t disappoint my expectations,” Yin said while licking her lips in sadistic satisfaction. “Let’s see how long until you begin to-”
The threat was suddenly cut off, as a large stone flew at the War Maiden, hitting her right at the side of her face. While it didn’t manage to cause too much damage, the shock and pain were enough to cause Yin to stagger enough for her to let go of Arkay, dropping him to the ground.
“OW! What the-!?” the blonde War Maiden yelled in pain as she held her face. “WHO THE HELL HAS THE GUTS TO DO THAT TO ME!?”
“That would be me,” came the reply from a voice that Arkay recognized. All eyes turned to see Ryle walking towards them, who was shooting a murderous glare at the two War Maidens. “You two have some nerve picking on Arnie.”
“Why you little…”
“Yin, stand back,” Blair suddenly said as she stepped forward and drew her swords. “You already have the cat to play with. Let me deal with this one.”
“Hey, don’t get in my way here!” Yin shouted back. “That punk just threw a rock at me! There’s no way I’m gonna let that slide!”
“You don’t seem to get it. You’ve already claimed the cat as yours. One of the rules in our group is to divide playthings equally,” the dog lady said before giving a slight glare at her companion. “Our would you like me to tell Ray how you tried to hog all the fun for yourself?”
For a brief moment, Yin’s face turned pale at the mention of their group’s leader. Whatever it was that had happened with her, it made the blonde War Maiden terrified of the consequences of what might happen, if she didn’t back down now.
“...Fine. But you better make her suffer for what she did,” Yin grumbled.
“I was planning on doing that, regardless,” Blair replied before charging towards Ryle with both swords drawn.
“Hey now, I think you’re both underestimating me a bit here,” the blonde fighter said, a bit annoyed by the way the two War Maidens seemed to not think of her as much of a threat. “If you do that, you’ll just end up dead!”
Ryle ran towards the canine woman, aiming to give her a roundhouse kick to the head. However, just when they were only a couple of meters away from each other, something happened that took the blonde fighter by surprise.
What looked like another person seemed to suddenly rise up from Blair’s shadow that swung two swords at Ryle. It was only be mere millimeters that the blonde was able to avoid the blades of shadows, but the sudden attack had thrown her off. This gave Blair an opportunity to strike at her opponent. This time Ryle wasn’t able to fully avoid the attack, as one of the blades was able to leave a cut on her forearm. She also fell on her back, leaving her vulnerable to attacks from Blair, who wasted no time in going for the kill.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
A flurry of slashes and stabs were aimed at Ryle, who only barely able to avoid any deep wounds. Her body was still left with numerous smaller cuts, almost one for every attack that had been aimed at her. The attacks would have kept coming, had Ryle not been able to give a swift kick to her opponent that caused her to back off a bit, thus allowing Ryle to get back up.
“I gotta say, you’re quite the pain in the ass. The worst one I’ve had in my life,” Ryle said as she was trying to catch her breath. “But I’m not about to go down that easy!”
“We’ll see about that,” Blair said with a smirk. “I’d say I’m about to prove you wrong on that.”
Before Ryle could ask what the canine woman meant, she heard something approach her from behind. She did her best to avoid the attack from behind, but was too late to do so. The blonde let out a pained scream as two blades slashed at her back, leaving a large bleeding cross mark behind.
“What the hell!? Who-!?” Ryle asked as she looked behind her to see the figure that had appeared from Blair’s shadow earlier. Now that she could take a good look at it, she realized that it looked just like Blair herself. “The hell is that thing!? Your weird twin or something!?”
“It’s my doppelganger spell. Do you like it?” Blair asked in a cocky tone as she went to stand next to her shadowy clone. “They say that there is strength in numbers. Thanks to this, you don’t face just one opponent with me. Instead you face two at the same time.”
image [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/887455675029012491/1056531956592021564/Ch_44_Pic_1.jpg?ex=66000c8f&is=65ed978f&hm=94fdff9b0887fcc6f8423c98c58abc75c5199ae51ae47e46af1d12c5d7d03b22&]
“So you’re a coward that doesn’t want to face their battles alone then? Fine by me,” Ryle asked as she got up despite the pain her body was in. “Doesn’t really matter all that much, though. Put as many losers together as you want, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still losers.”
“That’s some big talk coming from someone who is almost dead,” the canine woman said with a chuckle.
“I might be hurting, but I’m far from dead. I’ve still got a lot of power here,” the blonde fighter said as she got into a stance. “Besides, the only reason you ever got any hits on me is because you caught me by surprise. That won’t be happening again.”
Not believing Ryle’s tough words, Blair charged at her with her clone. A storm of expertly handled sword strikes rained upon the blonde, aiming to cut her into tiny pieces. But much to Blair’s shock, none of her attacks were landing at all. Instead, Ryle avoided each attack with ease, only making small movements to get out of the way of an oncoming strike.
Having not expected this much difficulty in her fight, Blair was starting to get agitated. This caused her to attack more wildly and uncontrollably, which made avoiding said attacks easier for Ryle. Eventually, this led to an opening that Ryle was able to use to strike at the doppelganger by first ducking underneath a slash before delivering a powerful open hand strike to the shadowy figure’s jaw, knocking it down. Without giving her opponent a chance to recover, Ryle delivered a powerful kick to its head, crushing it and causing the doppelganger to disappear into black mist.
Seeing her copy get destroyed put the brakes on Blair’s attack, who finally realized just how dangerous her opponent actually was. Taking a few steps back, the canine woman started to think about her next move more carefully.
“What’s the matter? You sad that I took out your little backup dancer?” Ryle asked with a cocky smirk. “Well, you shouldn’t feel too bad. Judging by its moves, it wasn’t really worth much in the end. Guess you should have gotten one based on someone better, huh?”
Despite the mockery directed at her, Blair kept herself calm and composed. She knew that getting riled up by an opponent’s trash talk was only going to get herself killed. Besides, this wasn’t her first time in a battle nor was it the first time someone was trying to provoke her. She had plenty of experience to keep her cool.
Instead, the canine woman surprised Ryle by smirking. Before the blonde fighter could ask why she had such a confident look on her face, Blair summoned a new doppelganger that rose up from jer shadow and stood next to her.
“What the-!? Didn’t I just crush that thing!?” Ryle asked with wide eyes.
“You did. It was honestly rather impressive,” Blair replied. “However, even if it has a body, a doppelganger is still just a spell, not an actual living being. Did you really think that I wasn’t going to be able to simply summon a new one?”
“Geh! You’re starting to remind me of a certain scaly smart-ass!” the blonde said in an annoyed tone. “You shouldn’t be getting too cocky just yet! I broke your little life partner once and I can very well do it again!”
“I know. That’s why I’m going to change tactics a bit.”
Instead of charging towards Ryle, this time Blair sent out her doppelganger to circle around their opponent, until it was standing behind the blonde fighter. With their preparations now completed, both Blair and her doppelganger got ready and began slowly inching closer to the enemy between them, until coming to a sudden stop at a certain distance.
Ryle glanced between her two opponents and cursed under her breath as she realized what they were doing. The distance they had taken was just enough for either of them to make a quick dash towards her to get into attack range, but far enough for them to quickly pull back as well. As for Ryle, if she were to try and attack either one of them, it would leave her back open for an attack from the other one. In short, she was trapped.
As Ryle had suspected, her two opponents, began to use hit and run tactics. Right after one attacked, they would back away, letting the other one go for the offensive in turn. To make it worse, Blair and her doppelganger were quite fast on their feet. If Ryle tried to break out of their flanking, they would simply follow her and continue their attacks. While no major injuries had been suffered, Ryle was slowly starting to lose her stamina. A prolonged fight was clearly in the favor of her two opponents, so she needed to find a way to end things fast.
“What’s the matter? Having some trouble?” Blair taunted with a smirk. “If you give up, I’ll grant you swift death. How does that sound?”
“Thanks for the offer, but I have to decline,” Ryle said as she glared at the canine woman. “Giving up is for losers and I’m not about to become one.”
“Brave words! I wonder if you can keep up the act for long!?” Blair kept taunting as she once again dashed towards her opponent with blades swinging.
Avoiding the sword strikes was starting to take its toll on Ryle, who was trying her best to come up with an idea for a counterattack. An idea suddenly came to her mind, but it was going to be a gamble, as she hadn’t tried anything like it before. Not to mention, there was also one other opponent that she was going to have to worry about. Still, Ryle knew that she needed to do something or else this would only end in her own defeat.
Much like her special move that she had shown to her comrades, Ryle began to gather her ki, but not into her arms this time. Instead, she began to gather it into her legs. Once the gathering of ki was done, she launched herself like a missile at Blair, aiming a powerful kick at the canine woman’s body. Blair could just barely bring up her swords to block the oncoming attack, strengthening the blades with magical power. This allowed her to not get hit by the attack, but the kick was so powerful that it sent her flying backwards to a wall behind her.
Blair fell to the ground as she coughed up blood. She looked up to see Ryle charging towards her, intent on finishing the job, but the sight of her doppelganger coming up from behind the blonde made her smirk. Blair was certain that her shadowy clone would cut down her opponent before she got too close.
However, the canine woman was shocked to see Ryle suddenly turn around and give a powerful roundhouse kick to her doppelganger that blasted off its head. Just like before, the summoned copy disappeared into a dark mist, leaving nothing behind.
Wasting no time, Ryle continued with her charge towards Blair, but the canine woman still had some tricks up her sleeve. This time it came in the form of her body seemingly sinking into the shadow of a nearby building, almost like it was water.
“Wha-!? Hey! No running away!” Ryle yelled as she saw her enemy disappear before her eyes. She immediately began to look around, desperately trying to find her. “Did you get scared from me kicking your ass or something!? Show your goddamn face and I’ll make you wish you had never shown it to us in the first place!”
Blair didn’t show up, as she was using her ability to move through the shadows. This was a unique spell that she had learned, which had made her a very deadly opponent in The Four War Maidens.
All four members each had their specialty. For Schwarz, it was the use of magic. For Blair, her specialty was not just tracking, but also stealth. Numerous people had fallen to the canine woman’s blades without ever even knowing what happened. Because of this, Blair was often sent out alone as an infiltrator and assassin to take out key targets, before the other three arrived on the scene.
Moving around inside the darkness, Blair found the perfect place to strike at Ryle, which was right below the blonde fighter’s feet through her own shadow. The canine woman had learned from experience that often the last place anyone would expect an attack to come from was below themselves. Anticipating an easy victory through this method, Blair prepared her blades to strike at Ryle’s legs.
However, as she swung her swords, they hit nothing but air, as Ryle simply jumped over the attacks and landed behind Blair. The canine woman turned around to strike again, but was too slow with her attack, as her opponent used another kick to break her swords in half. Blair could only stare in disbelief at what had happened to her weapons.
“H-How…?” was all the canine woman could mutter, still in shock.
“How did I know where you were? That’s easy. When I can’t see them, I use my nose. It never fails,” Ryle said in a cocky tone. “Trying to be all sneaky against me was a big mistake.”
Unwilling to take such humiliation, Blair raised what was left of her swords for another attack and with a feral roar tried one last desperate attack. Unfortunately for her, it was all for nothing, as Ryle proceeded to give her the beating of a lifetime, starting with a hook to the face, followed by a kick to the gut, before being finished with a powerful roundhouse kick that sent Blair flying.
The damage from those last few hits had done a number on the canine woman, who struggled to get off the ground. Blood was dripping from her head and her vision was blurry as she tried to steady herself.
Seeing how her opponent was still alive, Ryle decided to go and fix that. She began to move closer to her downed opponent, but was stopped in her tracks by Blair’s comrade.
“HALT! Don’t even take a step closer to her!” Yin yelled from the side while holding on Arkay. She had one arm wrapped around his body to hold him still, while her other hand held his neck, ready to tighten its grip and crush his windpipe. “If you don’t want anything to happen to your little friend here, I recommend you don’t make any sudden moves!”
“You cheap dirty-!” Ryle cursed before quickly calming herself, knowing that lashing out would only get Arkay killed. “Fine. I’ll do as you say. Just don’t hurt him.”
“You don’t seem to get it. You’re not in the position to make demands,” Yin said with a grin as she tightened her grip on Arkay’s throat just slightly, causing him to wince in pain. “Make just one wrong move and little kitty here won’t have enough lives to save his ass.”
“No. I don’t think YOU get it,” Ryle said as she glared at the War Maiden. “You so much as harm a hair on him and I’ll make sure that you both will be begging for death.”
Despite being a powerful veteran of several battles to the death, something about the threat sent slight shivers down Yin’s back. For some reason, Ryle seemed to be a lot more dangerous opponent than any other she had ever faced before. Regardless, Yin knew that they had the upper hand, so she wasn’t about to let a slight feeling of unease to hinder her.
“Talk tough all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got your friend at our mercy,” Yin said with a grin, before turning her attention to her partner. “Hey, Blair! Get off your ass already and finish her off!”
“Right… I’ll… get to that,” Blair said as she struggled to stand up. She pulled out her pistol and with a shaky arm tried to take aim. “Just… hold still…”
As the canine woman was taking aim, Arkay looked on in horror as his friend was about to die because of him. Realizing this, the cat boy decided to put his own life on the line, so that Ryle would survive. With a determined look on his face, Arkay put his hands on Yin’s arm and used all the magical power he had to shoot electricity into the War Maiden. Yin screamed in pain as the electricity coursed through her whole body, causing her to loosen her grip on her prisoner.
However, due to their bodies touching, Arkay was also affected by his spell. With Yin’s hold on him now lost, his body fell to the ground and laid still.
The cat boy’s electric attack had taken the attention of both Blair and Ryle, who stared at what happened with wide eyes. But while the canine woman was simply shocked to see her companion get struck in such a manner, the blonde fighter felt a storm of emotions. At first, there was surprise at what happened, which soon turned into shock and horror over seeing Arkay fall to the ground, seemingly dead. Finally, pure burning rage took over, as she wanted nothing else than to kill the ones responsible for what had happened to her young friend.
With a primal roar, Ryle dashed towards Blair, who was completely unable to put up any kind of a defense. The punch that connected with the canine woman’s head sent her flying to a wall with such force that her body smashed through. After that, she remained completely silent and still.
image [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/887455675029012491/1056531956982087741/Ch_44_Pic_2.jpg?ex=66000c8f&is=65ed978f&hm=4bda08173b320e9138b01575cb1e1afb3e3f5dfe79557af2770f54181d98708f&]
Once her enemy had been taken care of, Ryle immediately rushed to Arkay’s side and began to shake him, praying in her head that he would still wake up.
“Arnie! ARNIE!” Ryle desperately screamed while shaking the cat boy. “Come on, don’t do this to me! Please wake up!”
“U-Ungh… R-Ryle?” Arkay finally said, as he began to open his eyes. “Are you… okay?”
“I’m the one who should be asking that!” Ryle said with a smile, relieved to see her young friend wake up. “That’s was some crazy stunt you just pulled. Please never-”
Before the blonde could finish speaking, a powerful punch connected with the side of his face and sent him down on the ground. Before she could even try to get up, a pair of hands grabbed hold of her and her through the wall into the building Blair had flown into.
Fighting through the pain her body was in, Ryle took a look at the one who had attacked her walking through the newly made hole in the wall.
“You two have proven to be quite the pain in the ass!” Yin said as she gave a furious glare at Ryle. “Time to finally put an end to this!”
image [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/887455675029012491/1056531957363789924/Ch_44_Pic_3.jpg?ex=66000c90&is=65ed9790&hm=afc0b938a82b54f642ad070c3f3045511b7bf793b59da6099fd7144d5b07f405&]