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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 56
🕑 Added 2024-02-03 09:06:16 +0000 UTCAs the mace wielding bandit winds up for another swing, I aim to end this quickly and leap forward with my dagger aiming for his neck.
From the look on the man’s face, it was clear that I took him by surprise when I activated my aura and attacked him while winding up for another attack.
As me and my dagger got closer to his neck, I saw the panic in his eyes as he brought his offhand to defend himself.
When my knife bit into flesh, it was not the flesh of the bandit’s neck, but the underside of the forearm. Just as I was about to pull my dagger back, the bandit overpowered me and grabbed my upper arm despite the action of doing so was ripping a bigger hole in his arm.
Now that I was being held off the ground by my arm, I saw the bandit’s mace starting its swing toward me.
Seeing death approach me, I did the first thing that came to mind to stop the mace from hitting me. With my free hand, I grabbed onto the bandit’s arm that was holding me for leverage and used my smaller child-sized build and lighter weight to my advantage.
I swung my body up and kicked the wrist of the hand that was holding the mace, effectively stopping the momentum of the swing, and then I used my other leg to kick the side of the bandit’s head.
That kick I delivered was a thing of beauty, I felt the hefty impact and a nice sounding thud as I saw the bandit’s head snap to the side, but something felt wrong. I then noticed the bandit’s grip on my arm suddenly became tighter and when I looked back at the bandit, his head which was snapped to the side slowly turned back toward me to show me the results of my attack.
When the bandit faced me, the only thing I saw was a rage-filled face, a red mark from where I kicked him, and a split lip.
The next thing I knew, I was swung up in the air, and then violently swung back down on part of the broken carriage roof. I was easily smashed through the room and ended up impacting the inside of the carriage.
When I was slammed down, the wind was literally knocked out of my lungs. Then I felt my body yanked up in the air and slammed 2 times more before I was released to slump to the floor of the ruined carriage. The only thing that saved my life was my aura which was keeping me in 1 piece and the wooden floor that gave way upon impact.
As I opened my eyes and focused my swimming vision on the bandit before me, I saw him grab my dagger that had impaled his forearm and yanked it out with a pained grunt, “The boss may be mad at me for a while after I do this, but I’ma gut you like a fish with your own knife boy. This one’s for ol Tom you just killed, and also for this nasty cut you gave me.” the bandit said while gesturing to his left arm he pulled my knife out form.
He then proceeded to kick me in the stomach which sent me flying toward the other kids who ran to the back of the carriage. As I was trying to catch my breath and sit up, a boot slammed down on my neck and held me to the floor, “Hold still, I got to cut those little tendons of yours so you can’t run away, then later, we can have all the time in the world for me to properly gut you, but before I gut you, who knows, we could have some fun… I have not had young boy in a long time, and especially not noble boys… This would be good.” the bandit said with a sadistic look in his eyes.
He then grabbed my left hand, I started struggling while trying to remove his boot from my neck with my other hand, and just as the perverted bastard was about to bring the blade to my wrist, I tucked my leg in, angled my lower body upward, focused all the aura I could manage into my right leg, and kicked up with all my might… right between the bandit’s legs.
And once again, for the 2nd time in my life since the assassination attempt, I felt something pop from the impact of my kick that launched the bandit a meter away from me.
The bandit actually landed well on his feet, but the expression on his face was as still as stone, for about 5 seconds before he dropped my dagger clutched his crotch, and released an agonizing roar of pain to the heavens. As the roar continued, it progressively turned into a more and more high-pitched shriek as the bandit collapsed face down to the ground.
Seeing my opportunity, I forced myself to my feet and hobbled my battered and bruised body toward my knife, and without hesitation, picked it up, plunged it into the back of the bandit’s neck, and ripped it out the side of the neck.
As blood spurted out of the blood-gurgling man and the pool of blood got larger, I backed off and slumped down into 1 of the seats.
After the bandit stopped twitching, I shakily stood up, walked over, spit on the bandit's corpse while cussing it out while giving it a kick, “Fucking degenerate”, then I went to see how the other fights were going.
As I got to the roof of my carriage to see what's up, I saw that the carriage in front of me was still in combat. Both coachmen for the first carriage were nowhere to be seen, 1 knight was slumped over unmoving on top of the luggage and the other 2 knights looked a bit scuffed up but still fighting, and the previously 5 lively bandits were now 4 injured bandits, 1 of them even had and crossbow bolt in where his kidney should be, so I at least know the coachmen went out fighting.
It was then that I heard another explosion and looked behind to where Dom and his men went, what I saw was 1 of the rear carriages with its projectile barrier deactivated and 2 men on the carriage roof fending off bandits.
