Chapter 44: Attack or Defend

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Attack or Defend

Near the valley entrance, the mimic lunged. Its body stretched and split, one mass becoming three before slamming back together. Allan’s blade opened a line through its side. The wound closed almost as fast as he made it. Meanwhile, Diva’s spear pinned a limb to the dirt for half a second as the flesh flowed around the shaft like water.

"Ha, this was way more difficult before," Diva said, her eyes glowing hard as she let out her berserker phase.

Allan sliced the ones coming from the back, clean. "Yeah, you leveling up okay?"

"I am already in the slow phase. After crossing fifty, I hardly level up. It’s already been two years," she replied.

They kept at it: cut, thrust, adapt, cut again. The thing hardened or thinned wherever they struck. It grew limbs where none had been.

Allan looked at her, heard her tone. It seemed his gut was telling the truth. She was buying time. Allan understood that a full second before the System confirmed it.

[Multiple hostile signatures inbound.]

He drove a heavy strike into its center mass and sent it skidding back across the grass. Then he turned on Diva, blade still up and ready.

"Diva, drop the act and talk."

She froze. The spear tip dipped. There was a pause there as she couldn’t look back at him.

"Allan, you told Kael." Her voice cracked. "You said the wrong words to the wrong person, Allan. She’s the most paranoid person alive, so don’t blame me. This is on you as much as me."

"I see," Allan said, his hands tight on his sword.

He closed the distance and saw her back. Even now, she was not turning. She knew he could slash at her, and for many reasons, he should. But instead, he sheathed his sword and grabbed her wrist, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to make her turn towards him.

He looked at her, deep in her eyes, but she looked down instead.

"Do you know about the cult?" he asked.

A small nod.

If the lie and the betrayal wasn’t enough, this was it, the tipping point.

He could have ended it there. The angle was clean. The strength was already in his hand. He didn’t take it. He wasn’t sure afterward if that was mercy or if he just wasn’t ready to know what her answer meant. He pulled her in instead. One arm locked across her back. The other kept the weapon clear of her body out of habit that suddenly felt stupid.

"Why," he said. Not really a question. Just the only word left to say at this point. "After everything I have done, after everything we have been through."

"Forgive me. Really." Her arms came up slowly, uncertain. "Kael would have killed me if I said no."

He held her and didn’t say it was forgiven because it really wasn’t. Not yet. It was just a hug in the middle of a trap closing. He’d sort out what he believed about her later, if there was a later, really.

And it didn’t take much time for his sixth sense to catch up. Boots and steel came through the trees from every side. Tens? Fifty? No, hundreds of them, Allan slowly realized. B-ranks and A-ranks in mixed ranks, shields locked, weapons ready. They’d been waiting on a signal and the signal had just been given.

"She really wants me dead, doesn’t she?" he said, using the only combat skill he had.

[Berserker mode, activated]

Heat took Allan’s limbs. The berserker shine came up in his eyes and all the thoughts flattened out, pushed somewhere he couldn’t fully reach while it lasted, but some still-working part of him hated how much relief came with that. He dropped his weapon and went in with his hands.

The first shield-bearer didn’t get a second chance. Allan hit him and felt the armor puncture away. The man folded backward into the two behind him. Allan didn’t watch them fall. He was already on the next one, grabbed him by the collar, drove a knee up. The sound of flesh and steel splitting open echoed all around.

And the impact traveled to his foot. It would ache tomorrow if there was a tomorrow. A spearman came at his flank. He caught the haft, used the man’s momentum, and put him on the ground. A half-second later, some part of him registered that one might not get up. No, the ones he hit would never get up as the level gap was too much.

Diva worked his back with no wasted motion. A cut to a hamstring here. A blade slipped through a gap in a breastplate there. Always exactly where he’d left an opening. They’d done this before.

"Can I trust you now?" Allan asked, but Diva didn’t reply.

A cluster tried to wall up in front of him. He didn’t go around it. He just went through them. The wall came apart like wet paper. On the other side, he stood for a second with his chest heaving. Distantly, under the heat, he knew his stats had climbed twice since the fight started. How? Because of Diva.

After a while, the clearing went quiet except for breathing and the small sounds of people dying slowly.

He stood among the bodies. "This all would have been unnecessary if you all had just denied orders."

"Indeed, but they aren’t you, Allan." A familiar voice echoed from the dark forest.

Allan smiled hearing that voice. "I see. You have come yourself. That’s rare."

Kael stepped out of the tree line alone. No extra armor. No visible weapon beyond the knife at her hip. She’d never needed more than that. She looked over the bodies. Her eye twitched a bit, but she knew it was necessary to put Allan down.

"You told me the truth. You were a player," she said, like a fact she was sorry to confirm. "That makes you too dangerous to leave standing, as the cult doesn’t need a player right now. Even if we ache for it."

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t explain much further. She didn’t need to. Allan understood. The argument was the numbers, not the words. She’d decided this a long time ago. Today was just the part where she acted on it.

"So, what are you waiting for?" he asked.

***

At Oakwood, something strange was happening there as well.

The first sign was a maid’s body found half in, half out of a side door, throat opened. Black-clad shapes had already crossed half the grounds by the time one maid broke free and ran, bare feet slipping on wet stone, skirts hiked past her knees. She slammed through the main hall doors screaming the only warning the house got.

"Assassins! We are under attack. Everyone! They’re inside the grounds!"

Seris heard it, her heart already beating loud, but she didn’t waste a second. She ran towards Lira, who was still reading the book.

"Lira, we are under attack! Quick!"

She nodded and followed her. "Where is Allan? Is he still not here?"

"No, but we will hold the ground. We must protect while he is out there," she said, taking a knife from the drawer.

The first assassin through the door met her blade before he’d finished clearing the frame. Lira caught the second across the throat.

"Where is Lady Amelia? If she gets killed in our house, a whole new war will break out?" Seris said.

"I’m here," Amelia replied from the back. Her dress, which showed her thighs and high breasts, colored in bloody red.

Lira was quite surprised, seeing her survive an assassin attack.

"Lira! At your back!" Seris shouted.

It was too late. The blade was already at her neck, but Lira didn’t feel any pain as she realized the assassin had frozen still.

"Back away," Amelia muttered, her hand grabbing the air. But no, both Lira and Seris realized what was happening here.

Blood magic.

Amelia, lower and quicker, took the third under the guard with a cut that surprised even her with how clean it came out. She’d never actually killed anyone before this exact moment. Some part of her noted that fact and set it aside. Later was not now.

They held the center while more assassins forced the doors. Seris wasn’t strong enough to waste motion and had known that about herself for years. Lira and Amelia kept the flanks. Bodies started to stack near the entrance.

"They keep coming. What do we do?" Lira asked. Her eyes going dark.

"We wait and defend this house until he comes back."