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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 24
🕑 Added 2023-11-12 20:15:57 +0000 UTCLead Assassin’s POV
What the fuck happened? They were just facing a child, someone that young should have no business silent fast casting anything tough enough to hurt my men. Yet I have 1 man who is already as good as dead and another who is most likely combat ineffective.
The worst part is that we are now surrounded by 3 known mages with spells at the ready and an alleged mage who has already taken out 2 of my men.
I can already hear the footsteps of the guards in the distance on their way here. The only thing we can do is attempt to finish the mission and hope to get out alive.
“2, 4, Alpha. 1, 5, Bravo.” I muttered low enough for only my men to hear and we burst into motion. What I said in code was for those 2 with me to attack Lady Ironcrest, while me and the injured man still standing will attack her son. At this point, if we manage to kill either of them, partial success is better than no success.
***
Luke’s POV
The Mexican standoff when 1 of the assassins mumbles something under his breath and all the remaining assassins flair with aura and throw their throwing knives.
2 of the 3 assassins with working arms threw a hail of throwing knives at my grandparents while bolting for Mum, forcing them to defend themself instead of attacking. The assassin who mumbled something threw his knives at me while charging, and as the throwing knives were about to reach me, the assassin who was wounded by my wind blade attacked at the same time.
My perception of time slows as take in the situation, a fan of throwing knives is aimed at my current position and to my left, and the wounded assassin is attacking me from my right with a roundhouse kick aimed at my head, either way, I will be hit and thrown off balance and open for a follow up attack.
But there is 1 thing I have that they think I lack, which is combat experience. I have been hit so many times during spars in my previous life, both armored and unarmored, that such an attack would not make me freeze from indecision.
And since they are making me choose, the lesser of 2 evils, I choose the asshole who just threw a kick at me. I can’t say I dealt with projectile attacks in my previous life, so I will stick with what I know.
The fool, he should have aimed for my midsection, being a lot shorter than him gives me certain advantages.
Hehe… This reminds me of my previous life when I was doing a 1v1 armed tournament against a mountain of a man, I was having a lot of fun easily dodging him until I got careless and got hit by the gigantic man, and from what my friends told me, I actually did a full backflip before eating dirt and blacking out.
Dammit, snap out of it Luke! More fighting, less flashback.
In the case of this assassin throwing a kick at me. I used my smaller stature to my advantage and instead of blocking or jumping back to avoid the kick, I moved forward into his attack and dodged under the kick at the last moment.
What I did next could be considered unsportsmanlike, but fuck these guys, they are trying to kill me and my family.
When I was under the assassin’s leg, I drove the broken table leg up into his family jewels. With my enhanced strength and positional advantage, my upward jab actually lifted the man off the ground.
Through the impact, I felt something pop. I knew what it was, the assassin knew what it was, the assassin who threw knives at me knew what it was, and besides the man who I just hit in the nut sack, all males who witnessed what I did to the man brought their thighs closer together on reflex, and so did I.
As for the assassin who I just hit, he let out a short but sharp yelp, and when his feet touched the ground again he crumbled to the ground while releasing a high pitched whine.
I raised my stick and was about to finish off the prone man with a bonk to the head, but I was forced to parry the knife that was aimed at my throat.
Unfortunately for me, the assassin was bigger, heavier, and had his aura activated. So when I say parry, it was more akin to using my stick to push myself away from his dagger than me using my bigger and heavier weapon to deflect his stab.
As I managed to take a few steps back from my assailant, I heard a crack of lightning and someone hitting the ground hard, followed a split second later by the scream of my Mum.
When I looked over to where my Mum was, I saw 1 of the assassins twitching on the ground while the other assassin managed to get to my Mum and stab her. Luckily, Mum was fast enough to turn sideways and sacrifice her shoulder instead of getting stabbed in the chest.
And as much as I wanted to go help Mum, I had my own assassin to deal with, out of the corner of my eye, my assailant was taking another swipe at me.
His aura made him faster and stronger, but compared to Dad, his aura was weak. Even so, he was a shit load faster and stronger than me. I brought up my stick and barely deflected his knife strike, but that deflection cost me a quarter off the top of my improvised weapon.
As I saw the assassin following up with another attack, I heard the bellow of my grandpa “Get Down!”
I dropped to the ground as I saw the look in the assassin’s eyes go from concentration to alarm as he quickly changed direction, and a split second later a streak of lightning passed through the space where the assassin used to be.
I took the time to check on my mum and saw that her assassin also disengaged her, and there was a smoldering black patch on the wall next to where the assassin used to be.
Me and Mum seem to the the target of this assassination and Mum is injured, so I used this brief interference from my grandparents who were casting follow-up spells to get to my mum.
As I got to my feet and sprinted to my mum, my assassin tried to intercept me but was forced to disengage by another bolt of lightning.
When I got to Mum, she had an arm hanging limp while she was chanting and performing singlehanded signs.
As I positioned myself between Mum and the assassins dodging spells, I saw the assassin that was attacking me do some hand signals, after which both of them sprinted to one of their downed men, picked them up, and hurled them at my grandparents as they were mid cast.
Their lightning bolts hit the flying bodies but it did nothing to change their flight path as the incapacitated assassins crashed into my grandparents.
The moment the 2 assassins threw their fellow assassins at my grandparents, they charged toward me.
This is bad, you could even say that my situation was fucked. Mum is injured, my grandparents are knocked on their asses, and by the time they get up we may be gutted, I am only armed with a stick, and last but not least, from the look in the assassins’ eyes, they are now taking me seriously.
I sighed internally as I knew what I had to do, I had to reveal to my family my ability to use magic other than circle magic offensively.
***
Assassins’ POV
As the assassins charged forward, they saw Luke raise his left hand and then swing it down in a diagonal cutting motion. Both of their danger senses screamed at them and they jumped out of the way of whatever their subconscious was warning them about.
What the assassins felt as they dodged was a wave of air past them which was followed by the sound of the mansion tiles being broken, when they looked back, they saw a gash on the floor that mirrored the motion that Luke made with his hand.
They may not have seen it happen, but they now knew exactly what happened to the 2 men who were dealing with Luke. They did not see or hear any hand signs or chanting besides the chopping motion. That meant Luke became a danger with unknown powers, and the unknown needed to be removed with all swiftness.
They had already used all their throwing knives, so one of the assassins picked up the dagger of one of their fallen and threw it at Luke with all the strength his aura-powered body could muster.
***
Luke’s POV
I saw the dagger coming, but I could not move because Mum was right behind me, if I dodged Mum would get hit.
The only thing I could do to react in time was bunt the dagger. I was not able to position myself in time and I did not manage to catch the dagger in the center of the wood, but I did manage to hit the flat side of the dagger, making it change its course.
Unfortunately, that change of course still gave me a deep slice to the left side of my body and knocked me off my feet to crash into Mum, which interrupted her chanting.
As I looked up, the assassins were just a few steps away and my grandparents just got to their feet, they would not make it in time and neither would I if I wanted to cast another wind blade.
So I did the one thing I dreaded, especially now that Dad was not around in case things went wrong.
I released the floodgate for my stamina energy which I had kept to a trickle but never managed to totally shut off, and like pouring gas on a fire, my body erupted with power.
