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1231 Words
Everyone froze, and all of the enemies were encased in white, while Aster stood at the center of the growing ice attack. The other queendom fighters were covered in frost, which grew to ice, then roses. It was so pretty, but while she wasn’t affected personally, the display was a reminder that her fox teammate wasn’t just a cute mascot, but a dangerous mage in her own right.
Matt disentangled himself from his opponent, and as everyone encased in ice vanished, Liz stepped into the second floor. She was being pushed back from her position holding the first-floor attackers off.
Aster broke herself from her spell, and they all ran up to the third floor, where they would only have to defend a single point of entrance instead of the two on the second floor.
The door was slammed shut, when Emily noticed that her sister was nowhere to be seen. She cursed and was about to go back out for her, when Conor stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
If it was anyone else with her sister’s Talent that had stayed behind, she would have expected they would run and abandon them, but not her sister. Annie had always taken the burden from her.
Annie pressed herself in the corner of the room’s ceiling and waited. Watching Aster flash freeze half a dozen people was impressive, but she still saw the way things were going. They were left out to dry, and they were all f****d if they didn’t do something.
Matt had a good point about holding out, but she didn’t think it was likely. The commander was throwing everything they had at this assault, and from the way the fights were going, she noticed at least two groups of Pather’s being sent ahead to clear the building.
No, if any of them wanted to get out alive, some chaos needed to be spread.
She waited until a mass of queendom fighters came, and then slipped down to the first floor while the stairs were clear.
She didn’t know what Liz had done, but the room was painted red. There was blood dripping off the ceiling in a disgusting display.
Annie picked her steps carefully. While her Talent allowed her to remain invisible and mostly intangible, it wasn’t perfect, and bloody footprints would give her away. Even if she could walk through most soft objects without disturbing them, liquids were still beyond her for now.
Carefully picking her way out of the fort, she found a wounded man and scooped him up while using his body to cover her kingdom arm sash. She had learned long ago that blending in was more than not being seen. Sometimes, being seen was far better, so she abandoned her Talent without hesitation.
She stumbled like her leg hurt and started to move the man out of the fort, where there was a triage station set up. No one wanted to be killed and lose their points if they could avoid it. She also noticed the leaders camp right next to the aid station.
As they limped closer, she inspected the healer. It was a party healer, which meant that they were fair game. She formulated her plan, and as the healer reached out to help her and the man she was caring for, Annie thrust a knife into the man’s chest, and pulled the three of them down.
She didn’t go for his heart, but his lung. Without the ability to hold air, the man couldn’t scream. The man next to her was dispatched by touching her dagger to his throat. Both of them vanished.
Annie reactivated her Talent, and half crawled away and under a table. She waited until someone noticed the disappearance of their healer and ran to report to the leader. When she identified the man in charge, she prepared to slink away.
From her spiritual sense, the leader was Tier 7 and might be able to see through her Talent. So, she fell into step right behind a Tier 6 woman as she brought the leader a scrap of bloody cloth as evidence of the healer’s death.
When the aide was a step away from where Annie thought she would stop, she kicked the aide’s forward-moving foot behind her planted one.
As the woman flailed out, the leader instinctively reached out to steady the falling woman.
Annie jumped into action and had just enough time to see the man’s eyes widen as her dagger took him in the throat.
Annie didn’t bother to run. She was surrounded by people and used her dagger to s***h out at the other people who seemed important.
Her blade met flesh until she was too slow and took a dark, black, mana made chain through the chest.
She flung out her dagger in a last defiant attack but was in a hospital bed before she saw the result.
Matt brought his blade forward in a thrust.
His head was pounding, and he felt like deactivating his armor and just letting someone split open his head to relieve the pressure. He had never overused his Concept this much before, and keeping the mages over half mana was all he could do.
It was the only reason they were still fighting strong. Emily was continuously blasting people away, and if not for the force of people pushing from behind, Matt knew that no one would be willing to face the embodiment of a lightning blast.
Liz and Aster took potshots while Emily caught her breath. She was panting as if she was running sprints and clutched her rib as she cast spell after spell.
Matt was angry.
They were only in this situation because the kingdom had put a coward in charge, and he had every intention of breaking his bones for a few weeks straight.
A [Wind Blade] shot up the now cleared stairway, and Matt took it on his chest with a wince. That was no normal Tier 6’s attack. They broke his armor for a second but were unable to punch through his lighter inner armor with a single attack.
Mentally thanking Keith for his armor-breaking training, Matt quickly reformed the spell in his spirit, and had it ready for the next attack.
The mage realized that they weren’t getting anywhere after three more attacks and gave up.
The only thing Matt could hear was heavy breathing from around him and from the floor below.
A scream behind him caused him to whirl, only to see what looked like a physical shadow behind them, and a bloody Emily vanishing.
Matt lashed out with a [Mana Charge], but Liz beat him to it with a rain of [Blood Bullets]. The blood attacks didn’t do much to the living shadow, but Matt’s mana empowered blade cut a rent out of the man, and he vanished.
It was already too late, though. The man had done his job, and people poured around a vanishing Conor and flooded the room.
Liz lashed out with whips of blood, but a glowing barrage of arrows took her out of the fight. Matt heard a yip and felt a flash of pain that only hammered the steel of his rage even further.
Standing alone in a sea of bodies, he slashed with large rending strokes. Bodies vanished, but more always appeared to fill in the gaps.
- Writer
