Kapitel 33: Death Trap (4)
Orion barely deflected a stab from one of Derek's blades, an elite hunter whose skill matched his title. With precision worthy of his reputation, Derek left Orion no opportunity for a counter-attack. Each strike landed with perfect timing, inflicting wounds that ranged from minor scratches to deep gashes, blood gushing from the inflicted injuries.
In contrast, Derek didn't tire; instead, he grew faster, his strikes more precise, and his blade seemingly sharpened with each passing moment of the battle.
"Be careful, Orion!" Aria's voice echoed inside his mind, her ability to link their thoughts now restricted to just the three of them. Amidst the chaos of battle, Aria struggled to maintain her focus on this aspect of her gift. Before she spoke again through their mental link, "Those are Vampire weapons. Try your best to avoid bleeding too much!"
Even then, Aria wasn't able to provide further support as her opponent was James, the monstrous elite hunter was unbelievably strong, even for a non-gifted, every swing had the strength of a giant behind them, capable of breaking boulders.
Aria, just like her fellow gifted, was unable to counter-attack, she was pushed farther and farther back.
Meanwhile, Thorn continued to wield her strings without pause, her fingers moving with a grace akin to dancing. Although her mastery over her gift was still barely above the level of a green-rated gifted, it proved sufficient to hold back the majority of the advancing hunters.
Her strings were incredibly sharp, enough to slice off a finger, but against the armored hunter, it was barely enough to make some of them trip and because of their numbers, Thorn couldn't focus on individual weak points.
Cold sweat ran across her, and her vision faltered, but she never stopped controlling her strings.
A spear-wielding hunter charged at Thorn, who just managed to block the attack using her strings. Acting swiftly, she made the hunter trip as he lunged towards her. Before he could recover and retaliate, she used her strings to lift him into the air. His arms became ensnared in the sharp strings, eliciting a painful scream as blood flowed profusely from his wounds.
With one powerful yank of her fingers, the hunter fell to the ground, his arms still hanging in the air.
Left with a brief moment to catch her breath, Thorn surveyed the battlefield, her gaze falling upon Aria as she fought desperately for her life. Each strike from her assailant, James, drove her further away from them. Thorn watched in dismay as James's missed attacks demolished the surrounding trees, the dried-out trunks crashing to the ground with resounding thuds.
Thorn hastily summoned her strings, seizing the strange, dull blade. To her shock, the weight of the blade nearly caused her strings to snap as they attempted to entangle it. The strength of James, who pulled his sword with all his might, only added to her struggle.
"It's too heavy," Thorn muttered, struggling with the weight as her muscles strained to their maximum potential.
Before James could break his sword out from the entangling strings, a crushing blow from Aria's morning star mace went straight his way, and in an attempt to block it, he raised his right hand which was clad in a heavy armor glove. Still, the blow coming from the short girl seemed to have a force behind it that seemed absurd for someone of her stature.
When her mace collided with the hunter's hand, both the armor and the mace cracked.
At the sight, Thorn pulled her string even harder, managing to take the sword away from the hunter. "We can win!" Said Thorn with great determination inside their mental link.
Yet, her joy was short-lived, the elite hunter rotated his body, not trying to take back his strange weapon, and with his other hand, he pounced Aria's way.
She wasn't able to defend herself from the incoming attack, and because of that, she was sent flying away.
"Aria!" Thorn shouted in terror, her voice echoing across the battlefield. With all her concentration, she commanded her strings to try to catch Aria, focusing intensely on ensuring they didn't inadvertently harm her.
Safely catching Aria and lessening the impact of her fall, Thorn was left stunned as she witnessed James rushing towards her. With a leap, he reached for his dull sword in mid-air, and with a single powerful pull, he reclaimed his blade, snapping several of Thorn's strings in the process.
After having her strings snapped, as an after-effect of her gift, she coughed up a small amount of blood.
'I can't use the strings anymore…' Thought Thorn to herself, as she analyzed her situation, 'Are we going to die here? After struggling for years on the streets, we managed to evade the hunters for years, and we are going to be killed by them in the middle of nowhere?!'
"You can all rot in hell!" Thorn shouted defiantly. Her strings retracted into her fingertips. Strangely, the hunters around them did not seize the opportunity to surround her, but Thorn no longer cared about the reason. She simply drew her daggers from their sheaths, gripping them tightly, and prepared to confront the elite hunter rushing towards her with his dull long sword.
The hunter rotated his body and used every bit of momentum he could gather up to unleash a devastating slash at Thorn who stood before a dead tree.
Facing the oncoming blow, she swiftly ducked beneath the blade of the sword, even though it was dull. The sword whizzed by, narrowly missing its target, and cleaved through the tall tree that stood proudly before it. With a resounding thud, the once-proud tree crashed to the ground.
With the strike missing its intended target, Thorn seized the opening. Her dagger found purchase in the soft spots of James's heavy armor, leaving his thighs vulnerable to minimize the impact on his movements.
Before Thorn could even begin to feel joy from injuring the hunter, his next actions left her puzzled. As she grasped the significance of his actions, a sense of terror washed over her as if her hopes had been dashed in an instant.
The hunter placed his dull sword on his injured thigh as if soaking it in his own blood, then as if the sword came alive, it began to sip the blood into itself, its dull blade began to sharpen, the broken tip of the blade began to form and as if the process finished, the blade gained an ethereal red glow.
James flashed a wicked grin on his face, which only made Thorns' expression darker. She grasped her daggers even tighter, but before she could even think of her next action, the hunter was in her face, his speed almost doubled from before, not even talking about his strength.
'Of course, it's another vampire weapon, how can our luck be worse than this… damn it all' Cursed Thorn to herself, she was already consumed by despair, but now, she truly felt hopeless.
'Aria is out of the fight, I can only hope that she is still alive while Orion is barely defending against another elite hunter with a vampire weapon, I don't even know what happened to Talon and the others…'
The hunter was already before her, only a small swing of his sword separated him from beheading the gifted before him.
Yet, suddenly, a blinding white light scoured the battlefield, blinding everyone, even Thorn.
The source of the light rushed towards James at staggering speed. Dazzled by the light, the hunter's vision blurred, leaving him feeling dizzy. Suddenly, a crushing blow struck his chest mail, breaking several ribs in the process.
The assailant revealed himself to be none other than Orion, who, for the first time, unleashed his gift. Despite his blade shattering upon impact with James's heavy armor, Orion remained resolute. Clutching the small remnant of his broken blade even tighter, he drove it into the hunter's exposed arm joint on his dominant right hand, rendering it agonizing for James to wield his weapon.
"Finish him!" Orion's usually meek demeanor was replaced by a commanding shout. Despite being covered in wounds from Derek's attacks, his expression remained cold, with exhaustion etched into his features. Yet, there was an ominous presence lurking within his gaze, something darker than mere fatigue.
Thorn wasted no time after hearing Orion, her vision was still blurry from the sudden exposure to the blinding light, but because of her status as a gifted, her body recovered sooner than none gifted.
With remarkable speed, she drove her left dagger deep into the hunter's exposed side, then swiftly moved behind him and plunged her remaining dagger into his neck. A muffled yelp escaped the hunter as he coughed up blood, choking on it in his final moments.
As a final act of mercy, Orion wrested the vampire longsword from the dying hunter's grasp. And before the hunter could collapse to the ground, the remaining strength granted to Orion by the unique properties of the vampire weapon surged through him. With a powerful slash, Orion beheaded the hunter, ending his suffering.
Geschenke
-- Geschenk
erhalten Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein