Post #2767145 in Assassin's Pledge: Awakening, a roleplay on RPG

The battle had begun with the words "Finish them quickly!"

Kyero, keeping his gaze on the leader, didn't move a muscle as five large and well-armed men rushed at him. What followed was almost like watching a ballet. Kyero, keeping his left foot rooted in the same spot the entire time, spun, ducked, and leaned out of the way of all five as they went sailing past him.

They all spun and turned to face him again, only to hear a 'CRACK' behind them as one of them fell to the ground holding his jaw and growling in pain. They looked up and saw that Linde had just retaken her stance with hands up ready to fight.

"Take my word for it. You're nowhere near his level. So try me instead!" She goaded them.

The bandits looked to each other, looked to their comrade who was in the process of getting up revealing a now broken jaw, and then back to Linde as they all cried in rage and rushed her at the same time.

Linde quickly backpedaled away from them to keep the distance safe, and waited patiently until she saw what she was looking for.

Don't ever let multiple enemies spread out around you. It's a losing situation. Try to move until they start lining up behind one another in their desperation to reach you. It's safer, and you deal with fewer enemies at a time. Their momentum and positioning both work against them.

Linde skidded to a halt as three of them lined up with one another while she had been turning to the side, and slammed the heel of her boot in a spinning kick into the lower abdomen and upper groin of the first in line. She quickly used his momentum to spring launch backwards into a backflip, landing gracefully on her feet, and watched as they fell onto one another in a pile.

The other two, however, had gone around and were now on top of her.

Linde rushed to parry the blow of the one on her left, but received a sharp punch across the face from the one on her right sending her sprawling to the ground and skidding across the dirt. The impact and friction tore off a small layer of skin over her left cheek and forced her to bite the inside of her mouth causing blood to begin seeping inside. She spat out a mouthful of red liquid and tried to stand, but was pushed down onto the ground by the one who punched her. He straddled her, his groin above her posterior and his hands holding hers on the ground.

"How now, girlie? Still all full of that bravado, eh?" He asked.

Linde struggled to gain some form of leverage, but it was no use. The other bandit walked up beside her as the others stood up to watch with sick smiles on their faces. The one who walked up beside her kneeled down and grabbed her hair, forcing her head up so he could look at it.

"Damn. We fucked her face pretty good already."

"Well, now we're just gonna fuck her. Sound like a fair trade?" The one straddling her asked.

They started laughing and both picked her up off the ground and made moves to take off her clothing. But in doing so had to release one of her hands, and that was all she needed. The instant her hand was set free she reached up and back over her head to grab the hair of the one holding onto her and pulled his face into the back of her head, breaking his nose and staggering him. He let go, and Linde was 100% free as she ducked down and punched into the other man's groin as hard as she could. She felt something give way beneath her fist, which was rather sickening, but didn't stop there. She launched herself up and drove both fists into the underside of his chin and extended her fingers to rake his throat.

Her nails dug in deeply and slashed open eight long, neat lines of flesh along the throat which were instantly red and bloody as he staggered backwards holding his groin. As he staggered, she spun around kicking across his temple which resulted in his being knocked out. The other was just now starting to recover, and the other three were rushing in as well. She had to move fast!

She rushed to the one who was recovering and pulled his dagger from behind his back, slamming it all the up to the hilt into his kidney before pulling it free and doing so again into his lung. He would not last long, now. She pushed him forward towards his companions who went around brandishing their own weapons against her. Two swords and one double-bladed axe.

Linde jumped back to avoid the axe swing, and parried one sword stab off to the side. But the third swung down hard at her head forcing her to attempt another parry. But he was too strong and put too much force into it. The sword pushed down against her dagger and dug into her shoulder about half an inch before she managed to get control and stop him. With his blade now in her shoulder, she was free to take the dagger under his arms and slash his throat. He staggered back, gripping the now gaping wound and choking on his own blood, and fell to the ground.

Linde pushed the sword free, but was too late to stop the other sword user from slamming into her and knocking her to the ground once again. She turned and saw him aiming to stab straight down into her chest, but all she could do was roll to the side to avoid a direct blow. But he still managed to get part of the blade to slice down through the flesh of her shoulder blades causing her great pain. She rolled onto her stomach and tried to stand, but was kicked onto her side by the axe wielder who stood off to her right and aimed to decapitate her with a downward swing. Linde swiftly lurched her body sideways, scraping her fresh shoulder wounds against the dirt opening them slightly farther, and reached up to grab his groin.

He froze as his axe hit the ground next to her. She squeezed hard for all her worth until she felt two pops in her fist. She let go and rolled to her feet before pushing him around and in front of her as she sensed a stab coming behind her. She was right. The sword impaled the bandit she was using as a shield, but still managed to puncture part of her lower abdomen by about an inch or two. Linde let the two of them fall to the side after pulling herself back and off the blade, and as she tugged them both off balance she picked up the axe, held it high above her head, and drove it down into the spine of the final sword wielder.

Both men went still after a few moments, and Linde dropped to her knees panting deeply and hissing through her teeth at the pain she was in.

...

It was over.

The leader was dumbfounded and left gawking at the results.

"How-... How could this happen?"

Kyero's smile beneath the hood never left. It only grew.

"I believe we had a deal." He said, approaching the leader with both orichalcum blades drawn.

Not only was orichalcum the strongest metal on Earth and nigh indestructible, but if it was forged properly an orichalcum blade could slice through even other metals as if they were nothing but paper. A human body stood no chance.

The leader was still in shock, but he looked up at Kyero and drew his own blade to defend himself. He rushed at Kyero, and in a blink he had raised his weapon high above his head and came down aiming a slice down Kyero's middle. But for Kyero, the attempt was laughable. He simply turned his body and stepped slightly to one side, and the man's blade struck nothing but air and dirt as it embedded itself into the ground.

The leader looked up at Kyero, who pulled back his hood revealing his face, his raven black hair, and his glowing red eyes for all to see.

The leader's face went pale as a sheet, and he stammered incoherently as Kyero raised one orichalcum blade up to his throat.

"All businesses fail eventually. It's just a matter of how? And the how for you... Was hubris."

The orichalcum blade was then pushed forward with great speed force, slicing through flesh and bone before emerging behind his neck and being pushed skyward. Kyero had guided the blade through all of the soft tissues in his throat and in between the vertebrae of his spinal chord to make the cut that much cleaner. The leader's head slowly fell from his shoulders and rolled to the ground at Kyero's feet, who turned towards the others with a deadly glare.

He held the bloody orichalcum blade up and pointed it at them.

"Let this be a warning to all of you," he said loudly as he pointed his second dagger at the leader's body. "This man led you to murder the innocent for nothing but pleasure. There is no business here. Wealth comes with a price, and the price for him was death."

He turned the blade he pointed at them, blood still dripping from it to the ground.

"What will the price of whatever wealth you have accumulated be?"

The other bandits had also gone pale as sheets not only because of Kyero's eyes, but because their leader was now headless and very, very dead. Almost all of them had followed this man because he promised them wealth as part of his "business." But now... Now he was dead. And they were face to face with the Red-Eyed Demon. Sure he was just one man, but he was also the legendary assassin of their time. Even in a group of five or six they would stand no chance. Not against those orichalcum blades, and not against those eyes.

The bandits all turned on foot and on horseback and began to flee the village, disappearing beyond the buildings as they raced back to whatever hole they crawled out of.

Kyero sheathed his blades and walked over to Linde, helping pick her up and brush her off.

"The female warrior needs your help at once. I'll get started on the others."

Linde nodded, and rushed over to Aetrius.

"Just hold on miss. Keep the pressure there. I'll be right back!"

She raced to the medical tables, and thankfully her tools were all still there. She quickly gathered them all, throwing them into a bag and raced back to Aetrius' side as she began to tend to her wound.

Meanwhile, Kyero approached the others slowly and with a calm and as non-threatening an expression as he could muster. He was well aware that many of them, if not all of them, either feared him or loathed him for his reputation and the stories about his exploits as a "demon assassin" who was as evil as the creature which inhabited his body. Reputations aren't everything, but for many people they were the only impression of him they had.

He looked over towards Okumi.

"That bolt needs to be removed, carefully... Will you let me?" He asked her.

That bolt was the priority here. The other wounds received were not life threatening, but that bolt to her shoulder could be if it had either nicked or severed her brachial artery.

Snippet #2767145

located in Cre' Est, a part of Assassin's Pledge: Awakening, one of the many universes on RPG.

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