Dawn leaped back – but not quickly enough to avoid the cloud of skin-melting corrosion. She immediately used [Heartseeker] on herself to counteract the damage even as she screamed.
Meanwhile, Oulo dashed in and blocked the shower of daggers with his body.
Tepp shouted something unflattering at the human. Leejay whipped out his yellow lines to restrain him. With great effort, Minn used her one arm to summon her staff and slammed the butt of it into the ground to coat everyone with a barrier.
Dawn then threw her re-sparked [Tricky Bale] while Tepp brought out her [Firestorm Staff] and aimed it at their opponent.
The human ghosted into a wall to avoid Dawn’s attack, leaving the hallway empty again.
The party crowded together, looking in every direction to cover each other’s backs.
“Who’s this psycho?!” Tepp yelled.
“Jake! The guy who threatened us yesterday!”
“What’s his problem?!”
The twins clenched their fists as their eyes scanned the walls, expecting the aforementioned ‘psycho’ to come out of nowhere at any moment.
“His entire party wiped out here. He wants revenge.”
“The hell do you two have to do with that?” Oulo asked.
“Nothing!” “He’s just gone crazy!”
“Dammit! Minn!”
A quick look toward the center of their formation revealed Minn severely flagging, her eyes struggling to keep open.
“Screw that guy! We need to get out of here! Get help for Minn!”
“But he’s after us! He’s gonna ambush us if we try to run!” the avian reasoned, torn on what to do.
The twins swallowed, preparing to do yet another dumb impulsive thing that might get them killed.
“Go guys go ahead!”
“What?!”
“He’s after us! Doesn’t care about anything else! We’ll keep him busy!”
“He’ll kill you!”
“We can handle this!”
“I don’t think–”
A shadow emerged from a wall near Dawn and went straight for Dusk, daggers first.
The attacker’s dagger sank into [Iridion’s Shawl], but failed to pierce it. Dusk stumbled back with a grunt and materialized [Steel Flail]. The human jumped back with a click of his tongue while throwing more daggers at the party.
“Go!” Dawn shouted as both she and her twin stomped the ground.
The glass beneath her feet rippled, then sprung up into a barrier to block the incoming volley. But the volley turned into ghost-like figures in tattered cloaks that glided around the barrier and slashed at Dusk with their own daggers. By the time they got to him, his [Terracotta Soldiers] already stood by, ready to intercept them.
The twins heard a rush of footsteps behind them and felt a mix of emotions. Relief, because the others listened and wouldn’t be killed by this maniac – that they wouldn’t have to watch Minn die right in front of them. But under it all, betrayal – they’d been once again abandoned to fend for themselves with no help.
The glass soldiers shattered just as the wraiths shimmered and turned back into daggers.
Another dagger flew. Dusk prepared to block it, but instead, an obsidian-skinned kobold smacked it out of the air.
The twins turned to gape at him.
“Like hell I’m leaving you two alone here! Let’s subdue him and get out!”
Something warm fluttered in their stomachs. Still, they wanted to yell at him for being stupid.
They didn’t get the chance.
A tangled ball of yellow silk flew in from the side, unraveled into a net, and descended on the trio.
Oulo immediately slashed with the obsidian shard – covered in Minn’s blood – still in his hand, slicing the net open. The remains of the net sizzled as they hit the ground, making the twins feel grateful it hadn’t landed on them.
Unfortunately, that seemed to be part of the human’s plan.
All the daggers littering the hallway twitched. Dusk’s eyes went wide and he threw out his shawl while Dawn grabbed Oulo and brought them all under it.
A moment later, all the daggers shot out of their spots and peppered them from all sides.
The shawl held.
Until it didn’t.
The first dagger tore through it, nicking Dawn’s leg. A second one came through, scratching Dusk’s midsection. More and more followed, until the twins turned into a mess of shallow cuts and slashes.
Miraculously, none of them cut particularly deep or into a vital spot.
Once the barrage ended, Dusk snarled and slashed the air around them with [Hallowed Embrace], letting the light seep into each of them to patch the wounds. Then he threw out his [Tricky Flail], intending to ram it into their assailant. Unfortunately, the slippery bastard jumped over it with a stupid amount of grace. Because of how narrow this halway was, the attack hit the wall instead, causing it to collapse. The card lost its spark.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Dawn activated [Cliffhide Fist] and slipped to the side, injuries be damned. Though it certainly helped that [Feather’s Grace] could be adjusted to be gentler on her feet when stepping on sharp objects.
Unfortunately, the human bastard had no issues seeing through her camouflage, even though their harmonica’s light had faded some time ago.
A dagger wraith came her way and she nailed it with a [Branching Rampart], forgetting it would use up her camouflage skill. She swore as she backed up toward the other two again.
Meanwhile, Dusk had his [Steel Flail] out, smashing through wraiths one by one. Oulo did the same.
The guy might have been a higher ranking hunter, but it being three against one, he stood no chance–
A panicked shriek followed by an explosion reached their ears. A quick glance confirmed it came from the other half of their party. Their hearts sank as they saw Tepp fire one fireball after another at the Crystalline Warden slowly creeping in their direction as it turned everything around it into cursed glass.
“Shit!” Oulo cursed, seeing the same thing.
He hesitated, clearly wanting to go help them, but also not wanting to leave the twins behind.
“Go!” Dawn yelled and palmed her [Tricky Bale] just as it re-sparked.
The human resurfaced. Dawn smacked the skill his way, forcing him to swerve out of the way.
The kobold tank paused for another split second before giving the two a nod and rushing off to help the others.
“Don’t die, you two!”
“Back at you!”
A moment later, the crazed human in front of them pulled another card and their eyes went wide. Not because of the name or art – no, they couldn’t even see that – but because of the rim. It was sickly green, the same as their [Soul Split].
Negative?!
The twins froze for a split second as they imagined themselves ending up insane like him.
Then they had to focus again because he threw the card at them. It burst into a cloud of black sizzling steam and began rushing toward them. Halfway through, its form morphed into a facsimile of an angry ram.
Dawn stomped to create [Branching Rampart] in its way.
The ram barreled through like it wasn’t even there.
Dusk tried smashing it with his flail.
The flail passed through–
The twins screamed as the steam ram slammed into them, tossing them across the hallway and leaving them with bruises and burns.
Before they could recover – both heals still yet to re-spark – Dusk felt his lower body seize as something thunked nearby. His eyes darted and found a dagger glowing ominous red, stabbed into the floor in front of him. With a jolt, he realized that the redness was seeping into his shadow – cast by the wall in the distance set ablaze by Tepp.
“Shi– What?!”
He couldn’t move his legs.
Dawn got up, palming [Heartseeker] that had re-sparked a moment ago.
Before she could do anything with it, their foe appeared out of the receding steam.
“Die!” He slashed at Dusk.
Dusk smacked him in the face with his [Steel Flail]. The human phased through it and then nicked Dusk in the hand holding the flail.
“Ow!”
Contrary to what he thought would happen, the human then retreated.
The slash on his hand began to glow in various colors.
And the flesh around it started to turn into glass.
“Like you let Tanya die! Die, die, die!” The insane man yelled as he threw more daggers that turned into wraiths.
Dawn blocked them with [Branching Rampart], giving her twin just enough time to work on freeing himself.
Dusk grabbed his leg to try and lift it. Surprisingly, it worked – his legs weren’t glued to the ground, just numb. Seeing that, he tightened his hold on his own leg and then slammed it back into the ground to activate [Terracotta Soldiers] again.
It was like he couldn’t even see them. The crazed man rushed straight ahead at Dusk, plowing through the slowly forming soldiers, heedless of anything but his target.
“[Transfrogify]!”
Moments before his dagger carved into Dusk’s face, the man turned into a shadowy frog in an assassin cowl as Dawn activated her skill and turned into a frog herself.
The frog croaked in surprise and failed to react to Dusk smashing his face in, this time with [Steel Flail]. It thunked against the amphibian, launching it far away. The insane frog turned back into the insane human mid-flight before crashing into a wall.
Dawn – now a geckin again – rushed in, activating her freshly re-sparked [Cliffhide Fist], and kicked the glowing dagger wedged into Dusk’s shadow. The dagger slipped out and shattered, canceling its numbing effect on Dusk’s legs.
He scrambled up and looked at the back of his nicked hand. At some point, it had grown from a small cut into the shape of an upturned mouth with two more slashes resembling amused eyes appearing above it. All three continued to pulse with colors and with every pulse, more and more of his hand turned to glass.
Then his hand laughed at him.
Dusk flinched, being reminded of a certain clown from his old troupe.
Fortunately, by now, his heal had also re-sparked and he didn’t hesitate to use it on his hand. Meanwhile, Dawn stood in front, ready to act in case the human kept going.
She didn’t even consider talking to him anymore. Those eyes filled with madness, that single-minded focus on taking Dusk down – talking to monsters would be more productive.
Her fists clenched.
Monsters.
The dust settled around the spot where the human had landed and he was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, [Hallowed Embrace] finished, leaving behind… a hand carved with the face of a jester. The glass had been purged, but immediately began spreading again.
Dammit!
“We gotta kill him,” Dusk found himself saying.
They felt horrified at their own thought process.
But at the same time, they had already flung plenty of killing blows Jake’s way without considering whether it might end him or not. That last flail to the face alone would have killed most people – though not this human, apparently.
“We said we wouldn’t kill anymore!”
“It’s us or him. He’s already trying to kill us.”
“We can still subdue him!”
“The curse is spreading.”
Dawn bit back her words, realizing that they had once again argued with each other despite being the same person.
Instead of focusing on that, Dawn recalled something else.
“The Vitrify essence. He must have taken it off Kenn and upgraded a skill with it.”
Crash.
Out in the distance, Tepp’s blasts finally hit the wrong support and the entire hallway between the two halves of the party came crashing down.
No backup.
“Fine. We’ll kill him.”
Just as Dawn said that, a projectile shot out of a pile of rubble, leaving behind a trail of darkness.
The twins both dodged in the same direction – straight into a familiar yellow net as it unfurled behind them.
“Shi–”
Dawn landed with a stomp. The ground behind them writhed before rapidly growing and smacking the net out of the air.
“We have to– Gwah!” Dusk cut off his own sentence by punching himself in the face with the glassed hand.
With horror, they immediately realized what had just happened.
Too late.
The assassin reappeared, coming in from their blind spot, daggers drawn.
Dusk threw out [Tricky Trail] with his good hand.
The assassin side-stepped it.
Dawn threw out [Tricky Bale].
The man phased through it.
Dusk grabbed the tail of [Tricky Trail] and pulled to reverse its momentum. It flew back toward him slamming into, and merging with, Dawn’s [Tricky Bale].
The geckins dashed back as Dusk let go of the combined skill and it continued on its trajectory toward them. He then used his freed hand to cover them both with the [Iridion’s Shawl], waiting for the impact.
The human never saw it coming, with how focused he was on his target.
He let out a scream as the green ball of energy hit him in the back and exploded into corrosive spikes that tore through him, spraying gore all over the twins.
They screamed as they rolled on the ground while clutching each other, flinching at every drop of blood touching them.
They came to a stop and looked up to see the carnage.
Blood, acid, and daggers littered the glass floor of the cathedral. But most importantly, the human.
As the final ‘fuck you’, they saw what was left of his body and noticed his open eyes, still somehow filled with madness despite the lack of life.
It reminded them of an old memory – one that haunted them in their dreams to this very day.
“S-Sorry,” their soon-to-be-dead former friend whimpered.
Dead by their hand. Even if she… she deserved it–!
Another crash in the distance tore them out of the unpleasant memory and they finally scrambled to their feet.
Right on cue, an essence tore itself out of the human’s remains, split in two, and flew to the twins.
◆Umbrage◆
Golden rim with a laurel leaf chain forming a ‘U’ around the art. The picture showed shadows in the shape of a figure snarling at the viewer.
A Legendary.
Dripping with ethereal blood.
