Chapter 114 Dealings En Masse
"Ah crap, is it me or it's getting even warmer?" a guard in darkish armour expressed his distaste toward the weather.
The siamese suns had grown brighter, glancing up could earn you a good few seconds of complete blindness at this point, inside of their suits of armour, the brave defender of the city were getting cooked, a terrible stench of sweat emanating from all of them, even those having taken refuge under shadows couldn't escape the extreme heat.
Thankfully, their smell was shared by pretty much everyone, only those remaining inside, in their magically cooled interiors could enjoy themselves without being assaulted by the spheres of plasma in the distant sky beyond.
The people avoided coming to the outside for too long, whilst they, the armoured ones had to reinforce their bodies with mana to avoid passing out whilst standing, his vision distorted, one guard brought his hand just above the slits for his eyes on his helm.
"Hey, why are they closing the gates?" he had already noticed one closing in the distance a few moments ago but hadn't seen it fit to mention, however, now that the other ones were also closing, he felt like something was off.
"Are they? We didn't receive any word of something like this…" another one joined in.
"Well, let's not just stand around, I'll go ask-" with this, he jumped off their vantage point over the city, freezing after a single step before hurriedly climbing his way back up.
No one asked him the reason, they could see it from themselves, to them, it looked like a misshapen mass of dark had crawled out of some deep abyss, making its way toward them, slowly. Experience new tales on empire
They blinked, it vanished, now standing right beside them.
"W-"
"A-"
Two of them spoke simultaneously, only managing to utter a single sound before the deformed mass burst open, and two arms blurred right through them, an alarm rang out throughout the city, one that hadn't been used ever since it had been put into place, the people had no idea what it meant exactly, only that they should be afraid, very afraid.
Walking up to the center of the city, under the shade of the floating crypt as the twin suns loomed right overhead, Maliah was soon surrounded from all sides by guards, some garbed in darker armours, others looking more plain, the majority around were holding spears, but some also carried warhammers or maces amongst a variety of other weapons.
Grinning and laughing like a malevolent hyena, The Death Dealer looked around at the guards, their bodies jumping up and eyes growing unsteady as her gaze landed on each of them, but a voice came from up on a building.
"Assume formation, feel no fear, no matter how horrific, we have an utter number advantage, trust in your companions by your sides!" presumably the leader of the city's security spoke as he pointed his sword up at the sky, at the same time people in robes started emerging on top of the other buildings and houses, all casting a wide area of effect buff on the guards, and debuff upon her, well, they tried.
"The spells of weakening don't work at all on her" a mage by the captain's side informed him, since she hadn't interfered in the least with the casting of the spell itself, it meant that either her mana reinforcement was stellar or she was wearing something to defended for her against such a spell, the mage would bet that it was a mix of the two.
"Whatever you do, don't start casting spells haphazardly, remember the orders, only throw your spells when the guards back off from her" the captain said in a low tone, not at all reminding the entirety of the mages, but he couldn't help but repeat it, if only to calm his nerves.
Maliah was looking particularly joyful, very bright, perhaps even cute if it weren't for her expression shifting between happy girl and devilish banshee every few seconds or so.
Six guards moved toward her first, two at the front, two from the back and one from each sides, it was a nice change of pace, she rarely had to the occasion of killing coordinated groups, always sent on missions on wealthy and powerful targets that had a plethora of guards, but absolutely no team cohesion, some strong ones dropped here and there, never any substance.
With barely any delay, the six spearmen reached her and thrusted forward, a configuration of attacks that would leave no chance for one to evade all of them, but she did, twisting her body like a boneless contortionist, the spears all failed to even scratch her equipment as he reached within her cloak, pulling out a singular dagger.
It looked exactly the same as the one she had used previously, putting one feet up on the handle of one the weapons trying to puncture her, she rose herself up, stabbing her blade right through the eye and brain of one of the guards, killing him on the spot before doing one of the most gruesomely, unnecessary and flashy things ever.
Cutting the dead man's head off with surgical precision, putting one hand up on his head and giving it a good spin, stabilising her whole body up on that one hand, stylishly beheading the five other guards in one swoop.
"Did you see that shit?! Ahahah! Why don't you attack with more people next time? How many more dumbfucks can I decapitate in one swing?" after pulling up that sort of bloodily flashy move, no one was feeling like approaching her.
A volley of spells came instead, weaving through them, before crashing into the first line of guards, kicking one in spite of him raising his spear defensively, both the wood and his ribs broke apart as the chestplate caved in, crushing his organs as he was sent flying back against his fellow.
'What the hell is this strength?!' the guards behind tried to catch the unconscious man but were all thrown to the ground as they saw blood and body parts fly up in the air, The Death Dealer slicing right through their armours like it was all meaningless and frail paper.