Chapter 47
Four Against Four (Part 5)
Ryle and Arkay were moving towards the prison complex of the military base, hoping to find Lexton there. Despite wanting to go there as fast as possible, they had to stay in the shadows, as neither of them was in any condition to fight any longer. While Ryle might have been able to defeat two members of The Four Maidens, the battles had left her injured and exhausted. Taking on even one of the regular guards wasn’t something she was confident she could do now.
Luckily for the two of them, the place was in absolute chaos. Not only had there been the destruction caused by the distractions of Lexton and Arkay, but it seemed that news regarding the deaths of some of the War Maidens had reached the ears of the regular soldiers, causing even more panic among their ranks. Apparently, some had been so terrified about the idea of facing an opponent strong enough to take on their base’s best that they had decided to run away. Pure chaos was rampant, as soldiers were running around, not knowing what to do. Some thought that putting out the fires came first, others considered finding the ones responsible to be more important and some just wanted to get the hell out of there. In the end, no unified front was made, leaving them running around like headless chickens.
Thanks to the state the soldiers were in, Ryle and Arkay were able to get to close to the prison complex without too many issues. Now they just needed to get inside and find their missing comrade.
“So this is where Lex went?” Ryle asked while eyeing the building. “Any idea why he wanted to get here specifically?”
“None, I’m afraid. I originally thought that he wanted to free some of the prisoners in order to cause a commotion, but that didn’t seem to be the case,” Arkay answered. “However, what we need to do now is find a way inside, as that’s where he’ll most likely be. While you wait here, I’m going to use invisibility on myself and-”
“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you right there. I’m not about to let our group break up again, okay?” the blonde said in a tone that left no room for arguing. “Either we both go there or neither of us goes, okay? I’m not going to let you put yourself at risk again.”
The cat boy was about to say something, but he spotted movement behind one of the nearby buildings. While he wasn’t able to say for sure, he could have sworn that the person was someone of Lexton’s height.
“Hey, I think I saw Lexton over there!” Arkay said as he pointed at the place he had seen the movement at.
“Good job, Arnie! Let’s get going!” Ryle said with a small grin, as the two began to make their way to where their comrade was at.
As they approached the back of the building, the saw a trail of blood on the ground. This immediately worried both of them, as Lexton could have been seriously injured.
Finally getting behind the building, both Ryle and Arkay were relieved to see Lexton there, sitting against the wall and still breathing. However, their relief immediately turned into worry upon noticing the wound on his side.
“Lex! Are you okay!?” Ryle asked worriedly as she and Arkay rushed to the kobold’s side.
“Oh… It’s you two…” Lexton said with a small smile, despite the pain he was in. “Glad to see you two are okay…”
“This is not the time to be concerned about us! You’re the one who has been bleeding everywhere!” the blonde said as she tried to look over the kobold’s injuries. “What the hell happened with you!? Did you get attacked by a dragon or something!?”
“Come on, nothing that bad. I just had to take on one of the War Maidens on my own,” Lexton answered, surprising his two comrades. “It was a tough fight, but I managed to win in the end.”
“Holy shit, you had to fight one of those hard-asses as well!? That’s impressive,” Ryle said with a tone of amazement. “I had to take on two of them myself, so I know how tough they are.”
“Hang on… Did you say you fought- OW!” the kobold began to ask, only to yelp in pain, as the blonde began to inspect his wound, causing pain to shoot through his body. “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”
“What does it look like!? I’m trying to treat your injuries!” Ryle said as she looked over the wound on the kobold’s side. “This is a nasty wound. We need to stop the bleeding and fast.”
“You’re going to need something to tie it down, right!?” Arkay asked, hoping to be of help. “Use my shirt. That should be enough for now.”
“As tempting as that sounds having you take your shirt off, I’m going to have to say no,” the blonde replied, as she began to take off her coat. “Mine is pretty much worthless after what I’ve been through, so I’ll use it instead.”
Ryle began to tear her jacket into smaller pieces that she then started to tie around Lexton’s wound. She finished her makeshift first aid by tightening the cloth strips, causing the kobold to let out a pained yelp.
“Ow! Would you mind and be a bit more gentle!?” Lexton asked angrily. “I’d prefer not to get killed by the one treating my goddamn injuries!”
“Oh, stop being such a baby!” Ryle said with a roll of her eyes, as she stood up. “Anyways, you should be fine for now. Let’s go find Erin, so we can get the hell out of here already.”
Before the kobold could even attempt to get up himself, the blonde grabbed him by the back of his jacket and lifted him up and put him over her shoulder. Despite the protesting from Lexton, Ryle simply went on carrying him as they headed over to where their last comrade was.
image [https://i.ibb.co/xqVk2kK/Ch-47-Pic-1.jpg]
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Back with Erin, the battle had turned for the worst for her, as she had basically become a glorified punching bag for Ray. The redheaded assassin was barely able to keep herself alive from the onslaught coming from the War Maiden, without any chance to really fight back.
After her mental breakdown, Ray had become much more aggressive in her fighting style, not allowing her opponent even a second to breathe. Using her impressive speed to her advantage, the War Maiden began to sprint around the area, like a speeding red bullet. By the time Erin was able to get her eyes on Ray in one place, the speedster was already moving to another. This wild fast movement included moments when Ray would dash at Erin, bringing her massive halberd at the assassin. Erin was barely able to keep up her defense by bringing up her weapon, but every blocked blow had massive force behind it. Even if she managed to block it, the hits rocked her to the core and almost brought her to the ground. It was like Erin was stuck in the middle of a massive red tornado that kept throwing boulders at her.
The redheaded assassin needed to find a way out of her current predicament and needed to do so fast. Her injured legs were practically screaming in pain from every shock that ran through them as she blocked one blow after another. It wasn’t going to take long until she would be on the floor again, at the mercy of Ray’s halberd.
Just as all hope was starting to disappear, Erin noticed something that she could use. For just a brief fraction of a moment, she saw Ray take a deep breath as sweat was running down the side of her face. Apparently, going full throttle wasn’t something the War Maiden could do forever and she was starting to run out of stamina. The redheaded assassin just needed to wait for her moment to strike and she just might get out of this alive.
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The moment she was hoping for appeared sooner rather than later, as Ray stumbled a bit in her next dash towards Erin in the hopes of delivering a killing blow. This window of opportunity lasted at best a bit over a second, but it was enough.
Pouring as much strength as she could into her arms, Erin swung her sword at Ray. The War Maiden was able to block the attack, but the impact was powerful enough to shook her tired body enough to make her fall to the floor. This created a chance for Erin to put some distance between herself and her opponent, before throwing a smoke bomb at Ray. The obscuring cloud managed to catch the War Maiden by surprise, leaving her confused for a moment.
“What the-!? The hell is this!?” Ray yelled angrily while coughing from the smoke. “You damn coward! Stop using such cheap tricks and fight me like a true warrior!”
Erin wasn’t affected by the taunts of the War Maiden at all. Instead, she decided to accomplish the next step of her plan. This was to load a magic stone into the chamber her sword had. The stone she had used in particular was the fire stone she had received from Lexton. Immediately upon activation, bright flames began to surround the blade.
Almost as soon as Erin was done with her preparations, the cloud of smoke surrounding Ray dissipated. The War Maiden was first a bit surprised by the sudden transformation of her opponent’s weapon, but didn’t think too much about it. This wasn’t her first time dealing with someone who had magical equipment.
“What the hell is this? Is this your big plan? This? Really?” Ray asked with a frustrated sigh. “I feel kind of offended here. Do you really think I haven’t faced people who have magical weapons before? This isn’t anything new to me at all.”
“Trust me. I have no doubts that you’ve seen weapons like this before,” Erin said. “But it’s not the only thing I’ve got and it’s also not the thing you should be worried about right now.”
“Really now? Well, isn’t that interesting,” the War Maiden said with a low chuckle. She then looked at the redheaded assassin with an insane grin on her face. “LET’S SEE ABOUT THAT! IF YOU CAN REALLY BEAT ME WITH WHATEVER YOU’VE GOT! I’D REALLY LIKE TO SEE THAT!”
With a bullet-like dash, Ray flew towards Erin, holding her halberd high. The War Maiden was planning to bring her weapon down and split her opponent in half, weapon included. This was something that Ray was more than capable of and Erin knew it.
Yet despite the oncoming death, the redheaded assassin remained calm, only taking a deep breath in the small amount of time it took Ray to reach her. Her lone eye shined with unbreakable resolve, showing no signs of her wanting to run.
The massive halberd came down at Erin, who had brought up her flaming sword in defense. Time seemed to slow down for both of them, as the two blades were going to connect with each other. However, just as the halberd touched the sword, it didn’t simply break underneath the power of the far larger weapon. Instead, it seemed to move along with with it, while simultaneously pushing it to the side just a little bit.
Ray’s eye went wide upon realizing what was happening. While Erin was no master swordsman by any means, she had the basics of sword fighting drilled into her head like her life depended on it. This included things like parrying, which had been very difficult for her to use. Yet it seemed like this one technique that she had been afraid to use due to the difficulty of it, had just saved her life.
The halberd connected with the floor, just inches away from Erin. Even though she was incredibly skilled in using her weapon, Ray was unable to lift such a massive instrument of death fast enough to defend herself from what came next.
Seizing her opportunity, Erin moved in to slash at Ray’s arms. Not wanting to lose any of her limbs, the War Maiden was forced to let go of her beloved weapon and take a step back. She quickly pulled two knives from underneath her skirt and took a stance. These might not have been her preferred weapons, but it was way better than nothing.
Now it was Erin’s turn to go on the offensive, as she began a violent assault against her opponent. Ray was now getting frustrated and panicked, as it was her turn to be on the defense and try to deflect numerous oncoming attacks. This was made difficult by the flames that were surrounding Erin’s sword. Even if Ray managed to block the attacks from the sword itself, the heat from the flames would singe her hands and other parts of her body. While no major damage had been taken yet, the redheaded War Maiden was finding it difficult to go on any kind of offensive, due to the pain from the flames, as well as having to close her lone eye because of them as well.
However, Erin knew that her flames wouldn’t last for long and once they were out, Ray would be coming at her on full force. Luckily, they were only a part of her overall plan and she had succeeded in utilizing them the way she had intended.
With Ray’s attention drawn by the flaming sword, the redheaded assassin could dig through her pockets and pick up a certain stone. The War Maiden didn’t have any time to protect her lone eye, as a blinding light suddenly hit her. Ray yelled from pain, as her sight was momentarily taken from her. Knowing that she was vulnerable now that she was effectively blind, she began to furiously swing her knives all around her in the hopes of driving away any possible attacks from Erin.
Realizing that she was only wasting her own energy, Ray quickly calmed herself and instead focused on her hearing. Her sight might have been gone for now, but she could still hear anyone approaching her. She only needed to strike at where the sound of footsteps was coming from and she would emerge victorious.
Much to the War Maiden’s shock, there weren’t any sounds of footsteps. No one was either coming towards her or running away. Confused as to why her opponent would apparently remain still during such an opportunity, Ray tried to pick up on any sounds that could possibly tell her what was happening in the darkness currently surrounding her, yet she heard nothing.
As sight began to return to her eye, Ray felt relief wash over her. It seemed that whatever her opponent had been planning had failed. Once she could see properly, she was going to make the redheaded assassin suffer for all she had been put through.
However, almost as soon as she opened her eye, it was covered in darkness again. This time it was done through what seemed like a large cloth that was thrown over her. Before Ray could get an understanding of what had just happened, she felt strangely hot. Panic spread through her body, as she realized that whatever it was that had been thrown over her had been set on fire. The War Maiden, afraid of being burnt herself, started to struggle against the cloth in an effort to get it off, which was made difficult due to her panicking.
After some struggling, Ray was able to get the burning cloth off and throw it to the ground. But as she was about to turn around and face her opponent, she felt sharp pain shoot through her chest. With her lone eye wide, she looked down at the tip of a sword that had pierced through her body.
image [https://i.ibb.co/wSgqZc7/Ch-47-Pic-2.jpg]
Erin’s plan had been leading up to this one moment of carelessness from Ray. All of her attacks had so far been nothing but elaborate distractions. The flames of her sword had only been meant to draw attention to the blade, allowing the redheaded assassin to get a hold of her Glow Stone and use it to blind the War Maiden. Once Ray was momentarily incapacitated due to her loss of sight, Erin could use the dying flames of her sword to set her cloak on fire, before throwing it over the War Maiden. Once she was panicking with the burning cloak, the redheaded assassin could sneak over to her opponent in a position that would allow her to deliver the finishing blow, thus ending their fight to the death.
As soon as Erin’s blade pierced through Ray’s body, images of the War Maiden’s life began to flash through her mind. Ray had started off as nothing more than a pure child who idolized heroes, wishing to one day become one herself. Because of this, she had started to hone her skills as a fighter with her hard work eventually paying off, as she was accepted along with her childhood friend and surrogate big sister Yin into the service of a noble lord. There she met Schwarz and Blair, whom she soon befriended and formed The Four War Maidens. They would then go on to perform numerous heroic deeds, such as defeating groups of bandits and marauders, as well as strengthening relations between other factions and races in the area, such as the persecuted kobolds. In short, she had been nothing less than a real hero, like she had hoped to be.
However, once Lune came into the picture, it had all changed. The young heroes were no more, as only bloodthirsty monsters remained.
Despite how much she wished that all of this could have been avoided, Erin knew there was no other way. No matter what her enemy might have been at one point, that girl no longer remained. The Ray that had done all those heroic deeds was dead, taken over by the monster before her. She needed to be stopped, so that there wouldn’t be anymore bloodshed through her hands. The redheaded assassin thus steeled her resolve, not just for her own sake, but for the sake of her friends and everybody else in the world that was living under the threat of Lune and his servants.
“You were too confident in your skills to ever consider what kind of tricks I could be readying myself to use against you. You thought that you could simply overpower me and claim victory like that,” Erin said before pulling her sword out, allowing Ray’s body to fall to the floor. “In the end, it was your arrogance that killed you. Nothing more.”
The redheaded assassin turned away from her fallen opponent, intending to find the man responsible for all of this and putting an end to him once and for all. But just as she was about to walk away, a weak voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Wait…” came the almost inaudible plea from Ray. “Please… don’t… go…”
Erin turned to look at the War Maiden, wondering what she could have wanted. She stepped closer to the dying girl in order to hear her better.
“I… I’m scared… It wasn’t… It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” Ray said weakly as she coughed up blood and cried. “I… I just wanted to be a hero… Someone who helps others… I didn’t… I didn’t want us to become like this… Not like this…”
Despite having just fought a battle to the death with the dying girl, Erin couldn’t help but sympathize with her. Ray hadn’t started off as anything bad at all and had become twisted thanks to the actions of the real monster. In a way, she saw her own actions reflected in what had happened to The Four War Maidens.
“I know… I’ve been bad… Really bad… But I’m scared…” Ray said as she began to choke on her tears and blood. “Am I… Am I going to hell? For the things I’ve… done?”
Erin knelt next to Ray and pulled her into a gentle hug, hoping to offer the War Maiden at least some comfort in her final moments. She knew that she had no obligation to do it, but she still wanted to. No matter how illogical or foolish it may have been.
“It’s alright. You don’t have to worry about anything,” Erin whispered gently. “I’m sure that whoever is out there knows what you truly are deep down. If they have any sympathy, I’m sure they’ll forgive you. So go in peace. You don’t have to suffer anymore.”
Ray let out a couple of weak sobs, as her vision was getting blurry. She then saw something that made her fears disappear, as all of her friends suddenly stood before her. Yin, Schwarz and Blair all stood there, looking at her with gentle smiles, welcoming her over.
A small smile spread over Ray’s lips, as she let out her last breath.
image [https://i.ibb.co/H49ffcb/Ch-47-Pic-3.jpg]
Erin saw that the girl in her arms had passed away, so she gently laid her on the floor, before using her hand to close Ray’s eye. The redheaded assassin gave her fallen opponent one last look, before turning away and heading towards Lune.
An expression of pure fury and hatred had taken over Erin’s face, as a few tears escaped her eyes. She would not let Lune get away with this easily.