Cass swung as he charged. Her staff struck his armed hand and pushed him wide. He staggered as he ran past her. Staff Mastery pointed out a dozen potential strikes to drop him here. Wind Blade chaffed to be released at his back.

Before she could do either, a shadow dropped on him. There was a splash of blood.

The man collapsed. He lay face down on the alley floor, his lungs still. Salos stood on his back, claws dark with blood.

“You killed him?” Cass gasped. Of course he had. It wasn’t really a question. It shouldn’t be a shock.

Behind you! Salos shouted as he leapt past her.

A mace swung through the air behind her. She could feel the air part around it through Atmospheric Sense without turning.

Dodge pulled her to the side as Salos landed on the weapon’s head. He sprinted up the weapon’s shaft and onto its owner’s arm.

Cass turned to face this new opponent as Salos reached their face, his claws raking long rends across skin.

They—a tall woman with green hair—threw Salos off with her free hand, but not before his claws removed one of her eyes.

Human Warrior (lvl 22)

The remaining eye burned. She swung her mace at Cass, roaring in pain.

Cass backpedaled, her foot squelched in the blood of the first man. Her heart hammered in her chest.

Cass’s staff blocked the mace. The mace pulsed with a purple light as it struck. A force slammed down on Cass from above, a hundred times more forceful than the pressure the mace alone should have exerted.

Cass’s knees screamed as she struggled to remain standing.

The macewoman wound her weapon back for another strike, the pressure lessened as the mace head left Cass’s staff.

A Wind Blade materialized on Cass’s staff. Staff Mastery urged her to step back. Her reach was longer. She needed to avoid taking more strikes like that head on.

The mace swung forward again. Dodge tugged her out of the way. But her whole body was sluggish. Like the world itself was pressing down on her. Like her feet were lead beneath her.

The mace struck again, slamming into Cass’s staff with another pulse of purple energy. The weight multiplied. Her lungs refused to inflate. Her heart struggled to pump.

She needed to get out of the way. But her feet barely listened to her. Her arms hung heavy before her. Her staff was almost more than her screaming muscles could handle.

The mace wound back again. The pressure lightened ever slightly.

She would not make it out of the way before the next strike came. Impeded like this, she couldn’t dodge. But every block just made the weight worse.

She couldn’t dodge. She couldn’t block. That left one option.

She had to attack.

She still held her staff high from blocking. Her hand readjusted on the shaft. She let the weight in her arms pull the staff in a downward sweep.

As the strike fell, Cass pushed Focus into the growing Wind Blade along the staff’s edge. She needed more wind. More. As much as she could handle. And then more.

It was too much to keep a sharp edge. But that was fine.

The mace swung down.

But Cass, working with the extra weight the macewoman’s skill had granted her, was faster. Her staff took the other woman in the chest. As it hit the woman’s leather armor, Cass released the gusting Wind Blade from her staff, throwing all of her Will into the Wind Blade.

It punched the macewoman in the guts, pushing her back an entire yard. Her feet skid across the cobbled pavement the entire way.

The weight lifted from Cass’s body as the distance increased.

The woman roared and charged Cass, her mace held high. Cass stepped around her strike, the weight around her neither growing nor shrinking as they came together. Interesting.

Distance reduced the woman’s skill, yet only mace strikes applied it. Cass could work with that.

Salos darted out, his claws raking across the macewoman’s ankles as he passed from one shadow to the next. Her eye flared with anger, her feet stomping after him. He was long gone by the time her first foot fell on empty cobble.

I’ve got this, Cass said to him. Go help Alyx.

Are you sure?

Cass Dodged the next strike and slammed her staff into the other woman, Staff Mastery driving a Mana Wind Blade through the macewoman’s leather armor and coming away with blood.

Very, Cass said.

The mace swung around to counter, but Cass had already danced back out of the way.

Her staff snapped out and back, weaving around the mace with ease. The skill sang with excitement, pulling Cass’s body in lightning strikes and flowing dodges.

She was faster than she’d been when she had fought the boar. Faster than the four points of Dex and the single point of Str she’d gained since then should have made her. The world moved slower around her. Slower than even the half dozen of points of Ala she’d dropped in it should have made it.

There was a wind around her body as she moved. The air split before her staff as it struck. There was no resistance as it flew until it hit flesh and bone.

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Was this the effect of applying the Concept of Wind to the Control column? She was faster. She was speed.

She was wind.

She knocked the macewoman back. Staff Mastery followed it up with a low sweep, knocking the woman’s feet out from under her. Cass was standing over her before she’d even hit the ground, kicking the mace from the woman’s hands.

She raised her staff high, the butt in line with the macewoman’s head. Staff Mastery promised driving the staff down on her temples would end the fight immediately. Promised that it would be a quick death.

Cass faltered.

She could see the cracked skull and pooling blood such an attack would leave behind. Could feel the sharp intake of breath and then the nothing that followed.

Her arms didn’t move.

She should kill her.

Her staff froze.

The image of Levina lying amid the dirt, charred and broken. The man behind her, his throat torn out from behind, blood pooling over the stone.

These people were assassins. They wanted to kill Alyx and everyone associated with her. They didn’t deserve compassion. They didn’t deserve mercy.

“Surrender,” Cass ordered anyway. Her voice shook. As much as her hands.

The macewoman blinked blearily up at Cass. Her face was covered in blood. It pooled in the open eye socket. It ran in rivers from the rends Salos had left over her skin.

“Surrender!” The word came out stronger the second time.

A grimace spread over the woman’s face. Her hand snapped out, grabbing Cass’s ankle.

Cass shouted in surprise. The woman’s nails dug through skin. Cass’s surprise turned to pain.

Her staff slammed down.

It struck the cobble beside the woman. Cass’s Focus shot into the stone, guiding Elemental Manipulation. She pulled up the stone.

She wrenched her foot out of the woman’s grip and slammed her staff into her chest, knocking the air from her lungs.

Simultaneously, the stone snaked up around the woman’s wrists, her ankles, pinning her to the floor.

“Surrender!” Cass yelled in her face.

The woman twisted and turned, yelling and screaming, trying to break free of the stone holding her.

It didn’t budge.

Cass didn’t move. Her staff was heavy in her hands for reasons entirely unrelated to the woman’s skills.

Around her, the sounds of fighting wound down. The movement in the alleyway slowed. Bodies fell. Breath stopped.

Until there was only Cass’s party and the green-haired woman below her.

Salos appeared on her shoulder, his weight comforting.

What are you waiting for? he asked.

His weight was suddenly less comforting.

Do I need to kill her? Cass asked.

She tried to kill you.

Blood pooled over the cobble street. The air tasted of iron.

Cass’s knees quaked under her. Her arms shook.

She’d seen blood before. She’d seen gore.

This was nothing new.

The bloody pool after she’d killed the terrorcat.

The guts of the spider covering her body and in her hair.

The purple ichor of the Caretaker splattered over her clothes and strewn over the stone floor.

The explosion of flesh of the epherwing hitting the mountainside at terminal velocity.

The brains of the thunderback boar splashing over her as it impaled itself on her spear of stone.

She’d seen gore.

This was different.

Cass couldn’t move. Her hands clasped around her staff.

A hand settled on her shoulder. It was Alyx.

“Are you injured?” Alyx asked.

Cass shook her head. She didn’t know if that was true, but right this second, she wasn’t in pain.

Alyx looked down at the thug beneath Cass, still shouting up a storm

Alyx pushed Cass back a step. She put a boot on the woman’s chest and leaned down over her. “You want to tell me who hired you?”

The thug grit her teeth and shook her head.

Alyx leaned harder on the woman’s chest. “You sure?”

The woman didn’t move.

“Last chance,” Alyx said.

The woman didn’t say a thing.

Alyx shrugged. Her sword slashed across her throat. The macewoman’s breathing stopped.

Cass stared at the corpse. “Why?”

“I don’t torture for information.” Alyx wiped the blade of her sword on the dead woman’s clothes and sheathed the sword. “Don’t have any skills for it. False confessions are just as likely as real information without a skill. They can’t mislead you with their dying breath if they don’t give you anything.

“Besides, it doesn’t really matter to me which of my family is trying to kill me. I can’t do anything about it, regardless.”

That hadn’t been what Cass had been asking.

“Why did you kill her?” Cass tried again.

Alyx cocked her head to one side. “I just told you.”

“Why did she have to die?”

“They tried to kill us.” There was a sad smile on her lips. “They played the game. They lost. That’s just how that is.”

“Isn’t there an authority we could have turned her over to? Prison. I don’t know. Did she have to die? Did they all have to die?”

The surrounding corpses clung close in that narrow alley. Eight bodies. Cass didn’t need to count them. She just knew there were eight. She could feel every single one. Blood still oozing from their wounds. Bone broken on the cobble. Brains spilled from skulls.

Cass’s stomach turned.

She closed her eyes and held tight to her staff. There was a notification from the fight. She opened them.

Staff Mastery has increased to level 10.

Dodge has increased to level 10.

She’d participated in this bloodbath. She might not have dealt the final blow to any of them, but at least two of them were on her conscience. And she’d profited off their deaths.

“It would have been the death penalty if we’d brought her in,” Alyx said. “And then I would have to report another attempt on my life. It’d be a huge hassle.”

A hassle?

“Better to just let Telis handle the clean up here,” Alyx continued.

“Of course, my lady.” Telis appeared beside Alyx as if she’d been there the entire time.

“See if they have orders on them or something,” Alyx added.

Telis nodded and wasted no time searching the corpses.

“Let’s leave this to Telis and continue to the armory. She’ll meet us there when she’s done,” Alyx said.

“That’s it?” Cass asked.

Alyx nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. Come on.”

Is this really all lives are worth? Cass asked.

Salos settled onto her shoulder. Yes. It is a dangerous world to be weak or stupid.

That’s all you have to say about this? Cass looked around the alley again. The bloody corpses seared themselves on her memory. Lifeless. Still. These were people.

People who thought they could take on more than they could handle. There was no compassion in his voice. People who chose to kill for their living.

And that makes this okay?

It makes it what it is, Salos said. Your friend is leaving you behind.

Alyx was already at the other end of the alley. Cass hurried to keep up, her feet slipping a little on the bloody floor.

They walked the rest of the way to the armory in silence.