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Chapter 209: Brawl

He exploded into motion. [Scourge] pumped energy into his legs as he burst forward, Verdant Blaze’s head streaking through the air like a falling comet toward the nearest assassin. The man’s eyes — the only visible part of his face — widened, but he was well trained.

Leaning back, the assassin just barely managed to move out of the way of the hammer. He moved with blinding speed as he grabbed a dagger from his waist and drove it up for Arwin, aiming for his exposed palm.

Arwin’s gauntlets slammed into place around his arms. The assassin’s dagger rang off them with a resounding clang and he dismissed Verdant Blaze, plunging his right hand straight into the assassin’s chest and using [Scourge] to accelerate his movements.

The claws on his fingertips ripped through the man’s light clothes and into his flesh. Hissing in pain, the assassin arched back and vaulted off his hands, landing several feet away. Streams of twisting red and black energy swirled from the wounds and into Arwin’s left gauntlet, vanishing into the gem in its back.

One of the assassins hurled what looked to be a small stone. It flashed through the air before striking Arwin in the side of his helm. The purple gemstone in the center of his armor flared as a brilliant flash lit the street, momentarily blinding him.

Several feet scuffed on the ground beside Arwin. Thick white spots still danced in his vision, but he’d fought Lillia’s armies in the dark more times than he could count. It had been a long time since he’d relied on just a single sense to fight.

Arwin leapt to the side, driving his shoulder into an unsuspecting assassin’s chest with a snarl. He felt the bone in their chest crunch under his weight and he threw himself forward, slamming the man to the ground.

The back of the man’s head struck the hard stone with a crack. Arwin’s hand moved before the sound had even finished echoing through the street, driving down into the assassin’s head with a wet crunch.

His helm activated and a sickly aura rolled off it in a wave. At the same time, energy pumped through Arwin’s legs and burned into his muscles as the greaves stole power from the dead man and entered him.

Two loud clangs of metal on metal rang out behind Arwin. He rolled to the side, rising from the dead assassin’s body and blinking furiously to clear the rest of his vison. Rodrick and Olive stood behind him, their swords drawn and matching the blades of two assassins.

Anna had taken up position in the doorway and held her staff before her defensively. Reya stood with Madiv a short distance ahead of her, squaring off against one more assassin of their own — and they were right below the assassin on the roof.

“Above you!” Arwin roared, even as the gray-clothed man dropped down like a shadow, two blades extended to drive into Reya and Madiv’s backs in a single motion. They both looked up and Reya extended a hand, blue magic gathering at her fingertips.

The spell didn’t get a chance to go off. The assassin jerked to a halt, the swords spinning from his hands. A loud snap rang out and his legs kicked desperately as he grasped at his neck. A garrote had wrapped around it and ran back into the pale hands of the blue-eyed drunkard as he rose to stand at the edge of the roof.

The back of Arwin’s neck prickled. He spun, summoning Verdant Blaze and lifting it horizontally before his head. A glowing white sword slammed into the haft of the weapon and a flash of light split the air, momentarily blinding Arwin again.

One of the hidden assassins.

He staggered back and swung Verdant Blaze to keep the man at bay, blinking the momentary blindness away. The gemstone in his chest burned with energy, ready to activate. He didn’t have long to assess the situation.

The assassin lunged at him, unleashing a blur of sword strikes. Arwin was forced back several steps. He didn’t have a chance to retaliate. Even with the increased speed from his greaves, the assassin was one of the best swordsmen he’d run into since becoming a smith. His sword was also almost certainly poisoned. Arwin couldn’t risk getting hit, even if it was just a nick.

Frustration creased the skin around the assassin’s eyes and he let out a snarl of fury as he brought the sword down in a powerful overhanded swing for Arwin’s head. He lifted Verdant Blaze, blocking the strike once more, then used his heightened movement speed to lift his leg and slam a foot into the gray-clothed man’s chest.

The assassin rolled with the kick before springing back to his feet, largely unharmed. Dark energy curled up from the shadows and enveloped his body. He dropped into the ground, vanishing, only to reappear at Arwin’s side. The assassin thrust the glowing blade for a gap in the heavy armor.

Arwin banished Verdant Blaze to free his hands and batted the blade out of the way. It scraped along his armor with a loud screech. Energy flared up from the Ivory Executioner’s Chestplate as a whip of [Soul Flame] materialized in a flash and struck the assassin in the side.

Hissing in pain, the assassin leapt back to keep out of Arwin’s range. He pressed a hand to the wound and energy sputtered around it, but nothing happened. “How are you stopping me from using—”

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Arwin swung Verdant Blaze. Not at the assassin, but at the ground. It struck the floor with a crack and he released the power stored in his chestpiece while squeezing his eyes shut. A flash of brilliant light lit the street and the assassin snarled in pain and surprise.

In the brief instant Arwin had bought himself, he dashed forward and drew on [Scourge] as he thrust his right hand for the assassin’s chest. The other man tried to twist at the sound of his approach, but he wasn’t near fast enough.

Blood splattered across the street. Arwin’s razor-sharp gauntleted fingers tore through skin and muscle. They shattered the man’s ribcage and crushed the heart within it. Arwin planted a foot against the assassin’s chest and shoved him back, ripping his hand free and sending more blood splattering across the street.

More black energy twisted through the air and entered his gauntlet. The aura roiling off his helm intensified and Arwin felt himself speed up slightly once more. He spun toward the others to see where his help was the most needed.

The other assassins had all made themselves known when it became evident that the fight wasn’t going in their favor and they couldn’t just keep waiting around for something to change. It was clear that they were well trained. Not a single one of them had run.

Training, unfortunately, did not a victor make.

One of the assassins laid dead in a pool of blood before Rodrick and Olive, run through the chest and split almost completely in half down the middle. Another two laid slumped against each other. They’d both been strangled to death.

Reya stood above another. His body was shriveled and dry, having been drained completely by Wyrmhunger. The rest of the assassins laid in a bloodied mess across the ground. Not a single one of them still drew breath. Anna still remained at her spot in the doorway.

Arwin drew a deep breath and let it out slowly in attempt to calm the adrenaline racing through his veins. The assassins hadn’t been anywhere near equipped enough to handle the Menagerie, especially after everything they’d already dealt with.

Good riddance. Vile scum.

He activated [Dragon’s Greed] once more, detecting the presence of several magical items on the assassins. More importantly, there wasn’t anyone else in the area with magic. They were all dead.

“Madiv!” Reya said, panic tinging her tone as she ran over to the vampire’s side. “Are you okay?”

Arwin stiffened. The vampire had several long, thin cuts running along his body. With that many wounds, given the nature of the assassin’s weapons…

“By the Demon Queen,” Madiv breathed. He dropped the body he was draining and clutched at the wounds, a distraught expression warping his features as he pulled his hand back to see the blood smeared across his fingertips. “My clothes! They’re ruined!”

“Forget the clothes, you idiot!” Reya snapped. She spun to Anna, but the healer had already rushed to their side, glowing energy gathering at her hands.

“Just stay still,” Anna ordered. “Moving will make it enter your system faster. You’ve got a lot of cuts, but they’re all fresh. I should be able to—”

“I am not poisoned,” Madiv said with a scoff. “I cannot be poisoned. My physiology is far too superior for something as pathetic as that. The only healer I am in need of is a tailor — though I do believe I would accept a grief attendant as well. These are older than the fools that lie dead at our feet.”

Everyone stared at him. The tension slowly seeped out of the air, replaced by the thick stench of blood and sweat. Anna lowered her hands and the magic gathered at her fingertips faded away.

Arwin did a quick count of the assassins on the street. Then he froze. There were only seven. One was missing.

He burst into motion, dashing past Anna without even wasting a second to explain, and skidded to a halt inside the tavern. An imp knelt beside a single patch of blood on the ground, scrubbing at it with a wet cloth. A chair beside it had blood covering nearly a foot of its legs, as if it had been used to impale something.

Lillia stood before Melissa, wings of shadow rising above her and a pan held defensively in her hands. Blood was splattered across its base. Her shoulders relaxed when she spotted Arwin.

“Is everyone okay?” Lillia asked.

“All safe,” Arwin confirmed, blowing out a relieved breath. “What happened here?”

“One managed to teleport in. He had shadow magic,” Lillia said. She lowered her pan and a small grin tugged at the corners of her lips. “Mine was stronger.”

Arwin didn’t ask where the man’s body had gone. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Every assassin had been accounted for, and that was all that mattered. Arwin dismissed his armor before Melissa could notice his gauntlets. Their stats weren’t hidden and he didn’t want to go around announcing his abilities too much.

“Are you okay?” Arwin asked Melissa.

The whites of Melissa’s eyes had nearly swallowed her pupils entirely. Her hands trembled despite her best attempts to keep them under control. She gave him a stiff nod.

“Yes. I — I’m fine. Lillia protected me. What about—”

“Everyone we care about is alive. Everyone we don’t care about is dead,” Arwin said in what he hoped was a comforting tone.

Melissa stared at him in disbelief. “You… killed them? All of them?”

“They were just assassins.”

She swallowed. “Are you sure you aren’t for hire as mercenaries?”

“I’m afraid not,” Arwin said. “Do you even need that anymore? The whole squad is dead.”

“She does,” Rodrick said, stepping into the tavern as he rubbed the blade of his sword with a cloth. “Anyone willing to hire the Falling Blade isn’t just going to give up this easily. They’ll come again, I’m almost certain of it.”

“And they’ll send a stronger group next time.” Melissa’s face paled. “That must have been one of their lowest tiers.”

“Eh. I wouldn’t count on it. These guys are expensive. They’ll probably send another group around the same strength and just be a little more cautious. I don’t see why they’d hire anything better for a single girl,” Rodrick said with a wave of his hand. “But it’ll take time for that. The Falling Blade isn’t going to just throw men away. They’re going to try to figure out what happened — and that’s time you can use.”

“How do you know?” Melissa asked.

Arwin had been wondering the same thing. He definitely knew a fair bit about the assassins — more than just passing knowledge. Rodrick coughed into a fist. “That’s a story that’s too long for the time you’ve got. They’ll be sniffing around soon, and you’ve got a week at most before they move again as long as the money is still flowing.”

“Will it?” Lillia asked. “Was this business really that lucrative as to justify hiring a second group of even more expensive professional assassins?”

Melissa’s fists tightened and she nodded. “Yes. It might be.”

“Then I suppose we don’t have any time to waste,” Arwin said. “Let’s go see what these assassins donated to us. There’s a whole week to get you outfitted.”

“Can you really do that much in just a week?” Melissa asked, doubt and worry dripping from her words. “All the best artificers and smiths I’ve known took weeks just to make a single item, and it wouldn’t be anywhere near strong enough to help me fight anyone this talented.”

“There’s your problem,” Arwin said. He put a hand on Melissa’s shoulder and crouched to be at her eye level. “I am not most smiths.”