Chapter 247: Fast... And Loud
Chapter 247: Fast... And Loud [Bonus Chapter]
In another zone, the first-time-ever and unlikely duo of Kestrel and Thor had taken the right side of Deathrock. The Lightning Mage and the Swordsmaster walked with almost the same gait, searching for something to fight and kill.
Despite not knowing each other personally until a few days ago, if someone had spotted them, they would think they had been fighting side by side their whole lives. Not that they looked united or anything — in fact, they looked rather incompatible, in the way buddy cops do in movies.
Clearly they were sizing each other out, wondering to themselves who was stronger than the other and already certain that it was them. But since they couldn’t fight each other, not yet anyway, the only way to validate that belief in their minds was to kill the most Demons.
So, Kestrel searched vehemently for any red-skin monstrosity. And so did Thor.
The street they were in was narrow and broken, carved between cliff-built homes and old quarry steps that climbed in crooked tiers up the mountain rock.
The Gloom had painted everything in ugly layers of red-black rot, but they were yet to find anything worth killing.
Thor grimaced. "Don’t tell me we ended up getting the zone with fewer numbers of Demons."
Kestrel gave her a judgy side-glance. "You’re the one who chose this zone. Do you not have a strong enough perception to sense where Demons are most populated?"
Thor stopped, then moved her shoulder to get a good look at her. Her eyes narrowed beneath her silver crown. Kestrel stopped too and they glared at each other as the wind carried the decaying stench of Gloom around them.
Thor cocked her head, then with a sarcastic tone, she said, "Since you have such fine perception yourself, why don’t you point to where the Demons are so we can all go there and get to killing?"
Kestrel reached over her shoulder and withdrew one of her Dragonswords. Thor squinted her eyes, preparing for anything. Then Kestrel said with a matter-of-fact tone.
"No need. They’re already coming to us."
Thor snapped her head to the side and saw a strong wave of Demons pouring from the side alleys and half-collapsed terraces.
Her eyes beamed with hunger and excitement. "Praise the Elders!"
She exploded like lightning towards the crowd and Kestrel sped forward after her. The two of them moved with such different kinds of violence that the whole street seemed to split around their styles.
Thor led the charge as expected. In Lancet’s Roster, she was a Striker Summon, which meant she was the one who stormed into the center of the enemy’s army to scatter their formation and kill as many as possible.
That would give the other Summons like Kestrel, a Combat Summon, the space to kill enemies one-by-one without being overwhelmed by numbers.
And that was exactly what was happening!
"Sweeping Lightning Ball!" Thor manufactured a giant ball of hot white lightning on her palm. Then, like it was a bowling ball, she hurled the thunderball from the ground and it sped through the air, crashing into six Demons like they were pins and roasting them alive.
Thor never believed in waiting for the enemy to take the initiative, and she certainly did not believe in letting lower creatures feel brave for more than a second.
While the dead Demons were still fading into ash, she raised and dropped her warhammer, creating an impact strike that exploded into a crawling shockwave of lightning.
Three Fallen Rank Demons were blasted backward before they even reached her. A fourth leapt from a broken balcony with its claws spread wide and its mouth split in a shriek, and Thor simply lunged forward, caught the creature in the chest with the flat of her hammer, and drove it into the wall hard enough to crack the stone behind it.
Then she looked over at where Kestrel was still running and smiled. "Eleven," she muttered, as if she were counting something that offended her.
Kestrel heard it from several steps away and answered by drawing the second Dragonswords in a single smooth motion.
The snake dragon spectres erupted from her blades the instant the steel left the sheaths, coiling through the air with a graceful, predatory flash of white-green light.
A pack of Winged Demons came diving over the rooftops at her with serrated wings and long clawed hands, but Kestrel did not give them the pleasure of a defensive posture.
She advanced. Her first cut sent the nearest monster spinning with its left wing sliced straight off the joint. The second blade followed immediately after, a quiet serpentine strike that opened the throat of the one behind it from ear to collarbone.
The two dragon spectres curled around her blades and struck like extensions of thought.
One snapped upward through a winged beast’s chest and ripped it out of the sky.
The other coiled low and tore the legs from a Bug Demon that had tried to erupt beneath her feet.
A humanoid sped at her, wanting to spear into her chest with its head. But Kestrel moved out of the way and the creature’s claws missed her face by a thread. But in the same motion, her right Dragonswords came down and the Demon’s head was sliced clean from its neck.
A winged vulture-looking thing came at her. Kestrel leaped and landed on the back of the monster. She then used it as a launchpad to slash the other winged vulture Demon.
When she came down, she angled the two blades below her feet, decapitating the first vulture Demon. After her feet struck the earth, she extended both arms to her sides and her Dragonswords punctured through the Gloombrains of two Demons who were coming at her sides.
She freed the swords then slashed the air to splash away the demon blood on the steel as the two Demons fell to the ground with echoing thuds.
Thor barked a sharp laugh from the opposite corner. "You’re a fancy fighter," she said. "But you’re quite slow."
Kestrel didn’t look toward her. "And you’re truly a mage of lightning." She lowered her swords and then looked over her shoulder at her. "Fast... and loud."
Thor grinned and lifted her hammer to one shoulder. "And yet I’m still winning."
"I’m only two kills away," Kestrel pointed out.
Thor suddenly threw her warhammer in her direction. Kestrel didn’t flinch but the hammer struck and shattered the face of a humanoid Demon that was about to lunge at her.
The hammer returned to Thor and she claimed it, then smiled. "Three kills away."
Kestrel narrowed her eyes. "I had that."
"Indeed, Princess Highcastle."
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A/N: Keep up the Golden Tickets guys! We have 5 days left to get to 200!