Chapter 15: Xiao Su vs assassins part 1
All four wielded the same thin longsword and were dressed in the same greyish shroud; Xiao Su couldn't make any distinction in their strengths just from looking. 'Distance is about equal so rush the one in front,' she quickly decided before dashing forward. Her speed was sub-par without Shade Step, but the distance between them wasn't big to begin with and they met almost immediately.
Xiao Su swung her spear at the assailant, a wave of qi exiting her and coating her spear, tinting it blue. The Assailant's eyes glinted as he too used a skill. A grey energy rose from his sword, it moved and contorted violently, with a destructive aura so intense it was practically screaming at her. He swung his sword following her spear's trajectory to ensure a clash.
A violent energy passed through the surroundings as the blue pulse ripped through the grey destruction and sent the Assailant flying backwards while bleeding from his arms. In comparison Xiao Su was completely uninjured and had undoubtedly won the clash, but she wasn't happy.
"Nuts!" Xiao Su scolded after being forced to a halt from the collision, 'He deliberately took that head on to stop me!' she complained as the other three began to launch attacks at her. "HE LAN!" she yelled out for help as She moved her spear to intercept the three swords. There began a strange game, whenever Xiao Su's spear was about to meet their swords, they'd swivel and relaunch their attack from a different direction, dancing around her in complete unity.
'This is really dangerous!' Xiao Su concluded while playing this cat and mouse game and realizing two things. One, she was individually much stronger than them. She judged the first assailant to be at the 2nd rank after clashing with him, but she felt that these three were even weaker. And two, she couldn't underestimate them because of that fact. Their skills held a powerful destructiveness to them and could easily threaten her life.
A sword stabbed at her heart, but she swept it aside, her blade following the sword's wavy pattern and struck it. The assassin, as she believed them to be, turned paler as the pulse from Energy Wave injured him.
She swiftly drew back her spear and used it to fend off the other two blows heading her way before stabbing at the injured assassin. However, she was forced to redirect the spear and use it to block a knife aimed at her head thrown by, the leader, she assumed. She tried to glare at him but she'd been unable to lay eyes on him since getting encircled.
'Every time!' she thought while gritting her teeth. She had a much easier time displaying her spear-man ship against a human opponent than she expected. It was a familiar shape, unlike the varied forms of monsters that left her unsure of how to proceed. But every time she injured one and was about to escape the circle one of them would use a skill and force her back on the defense.
'The three form a net while the leader covers any holes' She observed in frustration. She was trying to follow He Lan's advice, but she was finding it difficult to think anything concrete with the constant threat of death weighing on her every second.
'They all seem to distort to different degrees,' she thought, while dodging another sword clad in a distorting grey aura. 'It's the same skill, maybe it's hard for them to control it?' she questioned and focused her thoughts on that observation while trying not to make a misstep in this deadly dance.
'It's possible it's just the nature of the skill, but it really is an overly powerful move for their rank, it's more likely they can't control it,' she concluded while sidestepping another blade while stabbing her spear forward to force the one in front to withdraw before swinging it to block the oncoming third attack.
'If that's the case then…' she stealthily used Anti-Eclipse to form a small black bead in her palm. 'Worst case it should still buy a few seconds,' she decided to bet. She couldn't really be stealthy with her current qi control, but she'd used Energy Wave several times to ensure it didn't expire, so the use of qi from her hands didn't draw attention.
After getting blocked, the assassin took a couple steps backwards with a pale face. She stepped forward and attempted to stab him when a knife came flying. She easily dodged the knife by pivoting on her right foot and re purposed her stab into a fast sweep at the second assassin, forcing him to block and take the pulse. The third assassin used his skill and his sword radiated a grey aura of destruction.
'Bingo!' She thought as she ignored the sword and continued moving towards the second assassin. She lifted her spear and took a big step forward for a one-handed straight thrust. As she was thrusting forward her free hand flicked a small bead at the sword drawing closer to her back and the bead zoomed in on the grey energy around the sword.
The second assassin forcefully blocked the spear again, but Xiao Su put a lot more strength into this thrust than the previous one as she didn't leave any room to redirect it. The second assassin lost his balance and was sent tumbling backwards while spitting blood.
As for the third assassin, his strike never came. Xiao Su could feel that Anti-Eclipse activated but she didn't turn to see the results and instead ran through the gap made by the second assassin. The first assassin recovered and ran at her side while using his skill in an attempt to stop her.
She swiped her spear sideways and the two clashed at full force. It was the first direct force comparison since her clash with the leader, but he lacked the strength of the leader and was unable to halt her advance. Blood leaked from his mouth as he was forced back and, even more surprisingly, his sword split in half from the sharpness of the spear.
Xiao Su didn't celebrate yet as she knew knives were coming at her. She'd handled them so far by using his teammates positions and the knowledge that he was staying out of her sight to estimate his position and angle, but now his team was disorganized and not only was there a much broader range of areas he could be, he could also throw more knives without worry of hitting his team. In other words, she knew knives were coming at her, but she had no idea how many or where they were coming from.
Since she didn't have enough info to work with, she didn't bother trying to solve it. Xiao Su used her momentum to take a giant leap forward, her feet clearing her body height a moment before several knives passed where she was and then passed under her. She tucked herself in and hit the ground arms first and rolled forward. The moment her feet were stable she pivoted around while still crouching and launched herself backwards like a spring with another jump.
Her first thoughts as she landed facing the four assassins was 'Huh, maybe I really do have good body control,' her second thought was 'Damn, Anti-Eclipse does good work!'
She was looking at the four assassins, yep four, the leader was once again in her sight range, and surprisingly the one suffering the most wasn't the second assassin who received a double tap or the first assassin who clashed head on with her and lost his sword, but rather the third assassin who'd got hit by a small bead.
His entire body was shivering violently while his hands and knees were on the floor and his head was hanging over a large puddle of blood that she could only assume came from his mouth.
For the first time words were spoken as the leader yelled at the three in another language before tossing the third assassin's sword to the first assassin and dashing over with both of them flanking him.
Xiao Su recognized the language as Olden Crypt, a dead language from seven millennia ago, and understood his words as, removing the cursing, 'second brother take the pill and call the senior! Third and fourth brother follow me! even if we fail we mustn't lose the target, use the Two-Step pill if you have to.' Second referring to the one on the floor, Third was the one who lost his sword and Fourth being the guy who got sent rolling.
Of course, she wasn't just standing there while they talked, she'd activated Shade Step like she should have when she first sensed them. With the much-appreciated speed boost, she charged at them. At first, she wasn't sure if she'd fight or run after getting out of the circle, which is why she opted for Shade Step that'd be useful for both, but what she'd just heard decided it for her.
First point was that they were definitely assassins and she was the main target. Second point is they had a senior with them and are presumably taking some sort of test since they can fail even if she's caught. Third point, and most importantly, since that senior wasn't here or even in shouting distance, it was safe to assume they were dealing with He Lan, so if they call him back that means He Lan will also come back. Finally, they had a pill that increased speed, probably not enough to catch her but at least enough to keep up with her until their senior came, after-all, she didn't specialize in speed.
With all this info, she concluded it was best to stay in the clearing. the last place He Lan saw her, as she had no way to contact her while the assassins clearly had a way to contact their senior. As for the possibility of He Lan already being defeated, she didn't think about it, not because she had such blind faith in her that she didn't think it wasn't possible, but rather because if it did happen then she had no chance of escaping, so it was a waste of time to even plan with that thought in mind.
'So much intel just freely given… all I can say is it pays to be multilingual,' She thought as she brought her spear up for round two.
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FaustVoncleave
FaustVoncleave 6 owed... honestly not the direction I thought this number would finally change.
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