Chapter 98: Confrontation
A.N. Back with this story. Let's just not waste time and jump right into it.
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(General POV)
Lyze blocked Ais's blade still to prevent her from continuing and looked straight at the group of cloaked men and women piling out onto the streets from shabby looking houses. You might think that if they're so shabby, then wouldn't they be that cliche place where a bunch of lawless ragtag, lower class, impoverished criminals would hang out and socialize?
Yes, that would the case if it was on the SURFACE! But every house in this forsaken shanty town was shabby and poorly built. The only truly good houses were the ones carved out from the cliff face under which Rivira sat. And that was good in terms of protection against any unfortunate accident or calamitous event even.
Like these thugs that were so casually, fearlessly approaching the two children like they were no threat at all and talking amongst one another.
"I thought everyone would have cleared out by now to go and sell their stuff to the expeditioners." Some woman said to her associate before fixing a pair of deranged eyes on the two children. "But it would seem we have nothing to worry about as there are only two stupid kids here."
"Just get rid of them and we can move the packages out of here." A big burly man said nonchalantly.
"With pleasure." The first woman asked as she took out a cruelly curved sword from her cloak and approached the children licking her lips in anticipation. "We could even take their equipment for extra profit."
"Good idea." One of the thugs said in response.
Lyze raised an eyebrow and just as fearlessly spoke. "Is that it? You just decide on the spot what you're going to do with us? Not going to ask us who we are, or what we are doing? Not even going to assess our threat level?"
"And why should we?" Said a tall thin man with rat teeth and earrings. He looked as if his hair was just beginning to bald and his cheekbones were highly defined as if he were starving. "You're just kids. What can you do?"
Lyze gave him a deadpan.
"Are you all actually stupid, or are you acting just to wind me up?"
The criminals took a take back for a moment, looking between each other appalled before turning back to the boy with their foreheads settled into frowns. The big burly man, Mato (who looked like the apparent leader of the gaggle) had just been turning away to deal with something else when he turned back upon hearing the boy's words.
"What'd ya say kid?" He said in a slightly shocked and offended voice.
"I mean haven't you taken the scene before you into consideration?" Lyze gestured towards himself before waving a hand at their surroundings. "If we are just a couple of weak kids playing with swords, what the hell are we doing down here on the 18th BLOODY FLOOR! How the hell could we have come down here but through the upper floors that are infested with powerful monsters that no child kid ever come through...unless they were not ordinary children?"
This question actually halted the activity of the dozen or so people in cloaks as they pondered it. Even the woman that was approaching to kill them, whose hood fell back to reveal grimy blonde hair that was unevenly cut and messy, stopped to think about it even as the crazed glint in her eye persisted.
Mato regarded the kids up and down taking into consideration their equipment as well as their appearance and trying to rack his brains for anyone matching their descriptions. It had been a while since he'd gone to the surface so all heard from there were rumours of the day-to-day happenings. But something about these two seemed critical.
Mato was not like his associates here. In fact, despite his muscle head appearance he was deeply intelligent and felt cheated by his superiors in their organization that he had been assigned this group of scum who were moderately accurate if you were being generous about their assessment. As a man and adventurer that had been working in crime for so long, he'd learnt to not just judge everything based on initial impression. There was something more to these two children, even if the girl had not yet spoken.
Especially the boy.
"Who are you kid?" He asked. "Your friend over there doesn't seem too happy to see us." This prompted Lyze to revisit the fact that Ais was next to him trembling slightly with her sword and armour clattering, which meant he had to be careful and not cocky. This was not the usual encounter he had with idiots in the dungeon. These people seemed to give off the air of something even worse. "But you kid, you seem completely calm." Mato finished off by commenting so.
"Hmph." Lyze smirked. "I lived in the cesspits of Daedalus big man. I've seen far worse than you."
"Really?" Mato smirked and put a hand on his hip. "And how'd you see without a pair of eyes brat? Trying to spin up a brave little yarn?" He goaded the boy, his associates laughing as if he had proven some point.
Lyze just smirked back. "I see a whole lot more than you realize, everything right down to the pink underwear you're wearing under that tough guy persona."
The laughing stopped as the thugs looked between each other in confusion, then at their leader who all of a sudden was not smirking anymore and instead looked a bit miffed.
"We'll see how much of a smartass you are when we have you chained up along with the other rats in the hold, waiting to be auctioned off to some rich noble...completely naked." Mato smiled cruelly as he looked over at Ais. Lyze's grip on his sword tightened in response as sudden burst of rage ignited in him, completely removing the calm air around him as he heard the following words. "Your pretty little girlfriend there will definitely fetch a high price if we send her to the slave markets in the Kaios deserts...or we could just keep her for ourselves while we sell off your belongings. Those swords look mighty fine as well. Might just keep those too for our personal use. I've been needing a good sword and yours would probably do just fine boy."
The criminals grinned at the implication of all this and immediately recognised Lyze becoming defensive as they turned their attention to Ais.
"Awww. The little man wants to protect his girlfriend~" The blonde haired woman trilled. "How cute. You should have just shut up and let us kill you little boy."
"How about you come and try bitch!" Lyze snarled.
The woman's expression instantly hanged to one of great, mad fury as her nostrils flared in anger.
"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!!!?" She screamed as one of her associates said in mock trepidation.
"Ooooh, he's gone and done it now. That's the one thing Rhetta doesn't like being called above all else."
The woman, now revealed to be called Rhetta shrieked before lunging forwards with her bastard sword at the ready. Mato turned away thinking that the kids were done for as Rhetta was a level 3 agent of their organisation. Against two little kids, she would be overkill he and his crew surmised.
Or so they thought.
Nudging Ais slightly back so she would not get caught in his attack, Lyze swung his sword around with such force that Rhetta saw the very air around it turn into a pressure field as it collided with her blade. Instinctively she tried to resist. Which turned out be a grave mistake as it was what allowed the next event to transpire.
Despite being of the same level as her even if she didn't know it, Lyze had such superior physical strength from his Level 5 category stats and he was such a fierce practitioner of the sword with deadly accuracy that the moment Excalibur met with her weapon, it began cutting through her twisted weapon. Had she let her defence get taken out, at worst her weapon would be lost and she could doge out of the way of his sword.
But putting up a resistance had actually locked her sword in place allowing a more steady cut through it and because she had resisted, she had placed herself directly in its pathway. All of this was comprehended by her confused and terrified mind in that split of a second as her sword was cut in half and Excalibur made its way over to her side.
Time slowed down for her as it sometimes did with people who knew they were about to die. Lyze directed Excalibur over to her side between her bicep and her shoulder and cut right through. First came her clothing which just split under the sharp edge and then her skin which began peeling away even before the blade made contact. Through dermal layers, then fat before slicing muscle and bone.
Her left arm was severed but before it could fall, Excalibur had already began going through her side. Through the skin again but this time through her ribcage and then through lung tissue. Somehow in this fraction of a moment, she figured out why Lyze had targeted this specific part of her body. Because the exact same amount of time later, her heart was split right in half. By this time, the full length of Excalibur had manged to swing round and the tip of the sword cut through her spinal cord.
To the eyes of the spectators however, it was one clean and effortless sweep upwards that bisected her and her sword in a single moment, her upper body swiped clean off and landing on the ground gushing out blood. The shocked expression remained on her face even as the light of life vanished from her eyes and they took on a glassy effect, the gurgle of death sounding in her throat as well as a geyser of blood erupting from it thereafter.
Her bottom half was left standing on its legs, unmoving and unaffected because of how clean his cut had been. Nobody said anything as they merely stared at the scene, taking time to process exactly what had happened. Nobody there was disturbed at all in terms of the sight of death. Even Ais who was just a small girl didn't react as adventurers grew quite used to death. She had been a supporter for other adventurers sometime ago before her level up and in that time she had seen plenty of gruesome things.
One second passed by, then two, then three. Ten seconds went by before the standing corpse twitched at blood spurting out of the top and collapsed in a heap alongside its top half. As this happened, all thugs' hand went to their belts and to their weapons as they stood guard, finally realizing that these kids were no small threat. Not in the very least the blindfolded boy whose lack of sight Mato had belittled.
"WHAT THE HELL?!!!" One member of that group screeched out causing Lyze to look at him. "SHE WAS A LEVEL 3! HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?"
Lyze stared at him, furrowing his brows as he tried to figure out why this person looked so familiar. He was a cat person with very sharp features. Even his slit pupils seemed more sharper than other cat people Lyze knew. His hair was light brown and he was skinny of a moderate height with green eyes. His exaggerated snarl brought out his extra sharp fangs onto display. A few more seconds of staring made the realization hit Lyze like a brick to the head. He'd seen this git before...on screen.
"You." He pointed his sword at the one who screeched. "You're Jura Halmer!"
"Huh?!" Jura pointed to himself. Mato turned to the man and narrowed his eyes.
"You know this little nutter Jura?"
"No!" Jura protested as he waved his hands about. "I've never seen the bastard in my life!"
"How does he know you then?" Mato challenged while the cat man tried to gripe for a satisfactory answer.
None of them could ever guess the truth though. While Jura was significantly younger than his canon counterpart, he was still recognisable by Lyze.
He was the piece of shit in the fourth season that purposefully summoned a juggernaut to the Water Temple where it had gone on a rampage slaughtering adventurers left and right like they were lambs before moving onto Bell and Ryuu who was with him at the time. He was also responsible for the one that had wiped out the Astraea Familia leaving only the elf of Ryuulu forest as the lone survivor.
If things were still the same as they were in the show then...
"Rudra Familia." Lyze said aloud. Suddenly the alertness of the group of criminals increased tenfold as he said the name of what was clearly their Familia. Lyze's gaze swept over the group suddenly taking in their attire. For the most part with the exceptions of the like of Mato who was the leader, they were wearing black cloaks and lacked any armour save fore the leather pieces around their torsos. "Rudra Familia. Evilus affiliations." Lyze concluded before he pointed his sword at the entire group. "You're all members of Evilus!"
Ais gasped a little behind him. It seems that this too was her first time encountering such people. The Rudra Familia kept their eyes on the two before Mato began chuckling in some hidden mirth.
"You're right." The muscled man laughed. "But almost. Yes, some here are from the Rudra Familia but there are others too. Evilus is made up of more than one Familia you know. Now I don't know who you are, how you figured it out kid, or how you killed Rhetta." Mato pulled a heavy looking axe off his back before brandishing it as it gleamed in the daylight. "But you know too much for me to risk letting you live. Be prepared kid because unlike the useless dead bitch at your feet, I'm a level 4. And both of you are going to be sorry you ever tried to step in the adult world."
Mato was about to charge at the already prepared Lyze before another shout broke the interaction from the Evilus group. They turned to the back of the crowd to see some guy pointing at Lyze with an absolutely infuriated snarl on his face.
"YOU!!!" The man yelled in a voice that oozed with hatred and anger. "WHY ARE YOU HERE?!"
...
"...Do I know you?" Lyze cocked his head sideways in confusion.
"YOU FUCKING LITTL-" Gurm didn't get the opportunity to finish as he was cut off by Mato.
"Cut the dramatics dipshit and talk!" Mato thundered. "Who is this brat?!"
"He and that girl are from the Loki Familia." Gurm spluttered. "They are the infamous record holders,. The boy is the one who levelled up in a day."
Everything clicked in Mato's head as he finally realized what had been nagging at the back of his head.
"Aaaahhh." He said as he looked back at the two. "Well, well. The Prodigal Children of the Loki Familia. You know I'd heard about a girl that had managed to become a level 2 in just a year." Mato shook his head. "But what I found even more absurd was that some time ago, I heard that there was a boy who had managed to become level 2 in a single day of adventuring. I thought it to be horseshit and made up yarns that some drunk idiots span."
"He's the one who humiliated me, and got me kicked out of the Ganesha Familia." Gurm tightened his fist and grated his teeth in fury. "I never forgot that moment kid! When you robbed me of everything I had ,I swore I would one day take my revenge on you." Gurm began laughing sadistically as he took a dagger out of his pocket and smiled. "I just didn't expect that day to come so soon you know."
Lyze's frown deepened.
"...Nope, still can't remember you."
"..." "..."
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!" Gurm shrieked similar to Rhetta before him.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Mato yelled. "Your story still doesn't match up. If he was just a level 2, then how the fuck did he manage to kill a level 3 like Rhetta?"
Gurm looked genuinely stumped at this. Lyze began laughing, making the group's attention turn back to him.
"I still don't know who you are." Lyze said causing the man to growl. "But it seems you've been out the loop. I levelled up again a short while ago."
""WHAT?""
"Yep, I'm a level 3 now. Sorry to not mention it earlier."
They looked at him dumbfounded before one of the Evilus members whispered to Mato.
"What do we do boss? We know the Loki Familia is down here on an expedition. If these kids go missing, they'll hunt us down."
"We'll get a head start on them. We just kill the brats and get the goods out of here." Mato said. "I'm done chatting."
Seeing that the battle was about to commence, Lyze stamped on the ground, shaking the area around them a bit as deep spider cracks spread out from where his foot hand landed. This was done in order to misbalance the Evilus group a little before he pointed a palm up in the air and a fireball formed.
Everyone tensed as they saw this and stopped moving in, waiting to see who would get hit first. But instead of attacking anyone of them, Lyze shot the fireball in the air. High it went above the town before exploding in a shower of blue flames with an explosion that rattled the window panes and bathed the town in blue light.
Giving them no time to think, Lyze quickly whispered over to Ais.
"Activate your 'Ariel'." Lyze commanded her.
"What?" Ais said before she found herself hovering in a telekinetic grip. Lyze swung his arm around, throwing her far away back along the path they took to come here. Ais found herself sailing over several rooftops and streets before she reminded herself what she'd been told and activated her Ariel which allowed her fall to slow down.
In the meantime, Lyze decided to be the first to attack. He disappeared from his place and appeared in front of Mato, swinging Excalibur down. Mato held the axe in front of him, blocking the heavy strike that crumbled the ground underneath him and the man's arms jolted as it tried to hold back the force of the blow.
"Dammit kid." Mato muttered. "Just what the hell are you?"
"Your undertaker Evilus dog." Lyze snarled, the fury buried within him having been released that he barely paid attention to what he was saying. "And I'm going to make you pay for ever laying your filthy lecherous eyes on my Ais."
Mato growled and parried with his axe. As Lyze dropped to the ground, Mato swung downwards again and again. But Lyze merely leaned out of the way by swaying his hip as he dodged each swing. As he weaved out of the way of a particular one, he delivered a nasty hook to Mato's cheek bone and made the man stumble away in pain.
Sensing movement behind him, Lyze jumped up and backflipped as someone who'd lunged at him ran under him. They turned and faced him as he was in the air but he'd already secured their demise. With his free hand, he yanked Geranos from its holster and holding it in a reverse grip, plunged it deep in the mans throat and making it come out the other side. Lyze kicked downwards with his feet, making his body fall faster to the ground as he pulled the dagger with him.
Geranos cut down the man's throat and chest before Lyze span and tripped him with a leg. As the man flipped, Lyze redirected Geranos to stab through the man's forehead and smash his skull in the ground. Not taking any chances, Lyze filled Hephaestus's gift with magic and silver flames ignited along the blade frying the man's brain inside and releasing a horrible stench in the air.
Without even looking back, Lyze swung Excalibur behind him and lobbed the head of an Evilus member that tried creep behind him. Gurm decided to dive from the side as he believed that both weapons were in too awkward a position for Lyze to reach him with. But just as he was about to sink his own dagger in the boy's neck. Lyze teleported a few metres away, upside down in the air as the hand holding Geranos lifted a finger.
Gurm turned but even though Lyze was blindfolded, he knew the boy could see him. The fingers the boy held up were directly in line with Gurm's body and served to accommodate Lyze's next attack.
"{Disaster}". Lyze said as a ball of air suddenly began to condense in front of him as it sucked in more and more of the atmosphere around it, packing thousands of litres of air into a single point. The Evilus members found it significantly harder to breath. "{Disaster: Repulsive Force}".
The ball of air suddenly launched towards Gurm and released all the pressure it had built up into an enormous shockwave that shattered the man's bones and tore up the ground as a tsunami of dirt and rock carried the poor bastard with it, destroying houses and the streets with it as loud explosions of destruction rang throughput the city and a heavy cloud of debris hung over the area.
Lyze jumped towards an unsuspecting enemy and plunged his flattened palm right through the woman's breast and tearing out her heart through the other side. He dropped the organ and discarded the still living woman as a whip wrapped around his forearm. He looked along the length of the weapon to see Jura on the other end of it.
Lyze smiled as he lifted Excalibur, preparing to throw it. Excalibur seemed to carry a similar effect to Mjolnir. It would not allow itself to be wielded by any other than the one it had chosen. So Lyze had no worry of the enemy picking it up and using it against him. Ottar had not been able to do it, so why should any of these lowlives be able to?
'If I kill him now, Ryuu and her Familia will be safe in the future.' Lyze thought. It was a perfect butterfly effect that would save one of the most beloved Familia in Orario, a group of female warriors dedicated to upholding justice and protecting the civilians. They would be saved and the people would be saved too, two birds with one stone. The stone being the life of one Jura Halmer, served to Lyze on a silver platter.
But he should have known that it would be too easy, as just before he tried to throw it, Mato came rushing back with an angry red patch on his cheek that would become a swelling later and a giant axe swing with killing intent towards Lyze's skull. Lyze slid back and the axe instead cut through the whip and taking Jura out of Lyze's sight as Mato tried to come at him again.
Lyze jumped back altogether away from the field as he eyed won his opponents. Already he'd taken four of them out and there was still about nearly twenty of them left. If this had been him about a week ago, he would have had a problem. But now...
...this was the perfect moment to meet the Evilus scum or as he like to call them...
"COME OUT YE BLACK AND TANS!" Lyze shouted towards the house they'd come out of them as he saw movement inside, indicating more of them. His voice carried over the town, alerting more people, and 'specific' people to what was going on in this secluded square at the back of the adventurer's town. "COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!"
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