The Gamer's POV-Chapter 196: Home of the Hollow Ones [12]
Evelyn was stupefied. But due to the urgency of their situation, she collected herself right in the next second, grabbed onto him, and when her fangs descended, she bit into his exposed neck.
A hollow one nearby turned to see them and decided to use the opportunity to launch itself at their vulnerable, locked forms. However, right after it moved, an arrow flew into its chest from above.
It was Audrey, and she had taken it upon herself to cover them both.
As Evelyn continued to desperately draw the life force from his veins, the injuries on her body began to knit together and close. Although the smaller wounds vanished, she did not regrow her arm, choosing instead to conserve as much energy as possible for the battle still raging around them.
Regrowing that arm would drain a lot from her and would require her to take more blood from Cedric, which was not exactly wise. A few seconds later, she pulled away from his neck and muttered quietly, "Thank you."
Cedric reached out and quickly tapped her cheek gently twice, then said while turning his attention back to the chaos, "Don’t die on me, Eve."
Her viscous grin returned.
Brimming with energy and excitement, she walked over and kicked a nearby spear up into the air, catching the shaft firmly with her remaining hand.
She gave the weapon a sharp, practiced whirl before settling into a low crouch. "Sure."
Then, both of them lunged back into the fray.
***
...
..
.
As the battle against the hollow ones raged on, and their numbers dwindled, hope began to blossom on the exhausted faces of the surviving cadets.
It was at that moment that the figure who sat on the throne finally shifted.
Slowly, it raised its right hand as if giving some sort of command. Almost immediately, the hollow ones standing beside it began to move.
They drew their weapons and marched with a frightening, synchronized purpose toward the chaos. Then, one of them, who resembled a very bulky beast of a man and held a blade that was notched and heavy like a Godsbane, suddenly leapt several meters into the air and descended on a cadet who was still engaging with a hollow one. The impact was so heavy that it split the cadet into two jagged, unrecognizable halves.
The moment this happened, the rest of the cadets suddenly grew wary and the hope that was on their faces suddenly began to wither away.
At the same time, another of the ten hollow ones, who wielded two serrated daggers suddenly lunged at a staggering cadet who held a longsword.
The boy brought his sword down in a frantic arc, but the creature was already beneath his guard. The twin serrated blades flashed in a horizontal blur, catching the boy across the neck, and before he could even react, his head flew from his shoulders and rolled onto the ground.
At that moment, Audrey shot an arrow at the female hollow one. As if anticipating the projectile’s path with a cruel instinct, the creature raised one of its serrated daggers and swatted the arrow out of the air with a metallic ring, then it hurled its other dagger at Audrey.
Before Audrey could react, the dagger pierced her heart and exited through her back, embedding itself in the underside of the chamber.
Luckily for her, she still had a bit of mana left, and so, her last reserves automatically activated her exclusive skill, [Sleight of Hand].
Her form faded and appeared a few meters to the right of where she had been hovering. But just as she appeared, her eyes suddenly widened as she saw the hollow one almost upon her.
It had somehow predicted where she would reappear and had leapt across the gap with a terrifying, predator-like speed, closing the distance before she could even draw another breath.
Panicked, Audrey used her bow to parry the strike and the serrated edge bit deep into the polished riser of the bow. The force of the collision vibrated through her arms, nearly shattering her grip and sending her backward through the air, while the hollow one dropped to the ground, landing with a bone-jarring thud that cracked the stone beneath its feet.
The moment it landed on the ground, it looked upward to track Audrey, determined to finish her.
Meanwhile, seeing that this new set of hollow ones was different and stronger than the previous ones, and was killing the cadets with methodical efficiency, Aurora yelled, "Vanguards, focus on this group of hollow ones and leave the others to the rest of the cadets!"
Hearing that, the Vanguards... those of whom were still alive began to target this new group of hollow ones.
Uriel was the closest to the female creature currently attacking Audrey. When she saw it preparing to attack her again, she lunged at it.
Currently, Uriel was holding a longsword that she had been fighting with, but as she moved, the longsword dissolved into a flurry of crystalline shards and was replaced by two serrated daggers.
"Hey!" She yelled, drawing the creature’s attention from Audrey.
The creature turned to Uriel, only to see her already upon it with her blades. It quickly raised its hand and stopped her blade with its dagger in a jarring collision that sent a spray of sparks across the stone floor.
"Fight me instead." Uriel yelled as she swung her other hand, forcing the creature to block with its arm. In the next instant, both dissolved into a brutal melee that was both terrifying to behold and mesmerizing in its lethality. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
Of course, everyone else was too focused on their own targets. But if anyone was looking at the fight, they would have seen a spectacle that defied the limits of human reaction. Uriel, the Master of Arms, moved with a grace that bordered on the divine. Her daggers carved through the air in wide, sweeping arcs that met the hollow one’s jagged strikes with a series of sparks so constant they illuminated the grim determination etched into her face.
The creature too, however, was a combat genius and in a way, a master of arms, and so it moved with unnatural fluidity, answering her aggression with its own desperate, snarling counters that forced her to stay perfectly balanced or risk being torn apart. The air between them hissed as their weapons crossed again and again, the hollow one matching her technique with a dark, instinctual mimicry that made it seem as though Uriel were fighting a distorted reflection of herself.
Slowly, wounds began to appear on Uriel’s forearms, her shoulders, her thighs, and even across the side of her neck as the hollow one’s serrated edge managed to find the gaps in her defense.
Seeing that despite her mastery, she was bound to lose to this monster who didn’t get hurt, get tired or slow down, Uriel decided to go blind in one eye for the second time tonight.
The blindness in her right eye that she had suffered from using her ability earlier to help the cadets get into the territory had recovered a bit since it had been hours since then. The vision in that eye had slowly returned to a dull, manageable clarity, even though it wasn’t fully recovered yet. So this time, she decided to use her left eye.
As she fought, her left iris suddenly began to glow, before it began to slowly darken. When this happened, she could see everything, including the exact movements she needed to make to win this fight.
’One... two...’
She began to mentally count to seven, her lips curling up as she suddenly leapt back and threw her right dagger toward the creature’s face. It raised its own blade, hitting the oncoming weapon and sending it spinning upward into the air.
In that same heartbeat, Uriel ducked low and drove her left hand forward toward the opening in the creature’s chest. The creature brought down its dagger to intercept the blade aimed at its weakness, but just before the metal could connect, Uriel let go of her weapon and spun.
For a second, the creature’s eyes darted to the weapon that had fallen toward the ground before it could even strike. It probably wondered why Uriel was letting go of all her weapons to fight it barehanded.
Meanwhile, the first blade she had thrown had spun through the air toward Levi, who was fighting nearby. He raised his hand to parry an attack from another hollow, and at that exact moment, his armored gauntlet hit the stray dagger. The impact redirected the blade, sending it back toward the space where Uriel was fighting.
Uriel, who had been counting the seconds, extended her hand behind her without looking.
’Six... seven.’
The blade returned to her open grip. Using the momentum of the return, she lunged forward and drove the steel deep into the creature’s chest, piercing its heart before it could recover its guard.
