I have been creating vessels since the beginning. I have spent more than a million lifetimes on millions of different worlds. The different memories I create, the experience of it all – it keeps me from going insane.722Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVky32EINPy
Jumping across the roofs in the dark was dangerous but provided a much quicker route to his house than the winding roads would. He could see his house, illuminated brilliantly in the distance. He sprinted to the edge of the house he was on and jumped, nearly missing his footing when he landed on the roof of another house. Cursing loudly, he continued running, using the window ledges to hoist himself up higher buildings. He fell several times, sometimes slipping on the sand on the roofs and sometimes misjudging the distance between the houses in his anxiety and darkness. He got up immediately losing no time to the fall as he made his way home.
Wulab was in the courtyard gnawing away at a chicken leg with one hand while his other hand held a plate full of food. He yelped, dropping the plate on to the ground, when Almecho landed next to him.
“Where is father?” Almecho bellowed.
“He’s i-inside, dining with the g-guests,” answered Wulab, frightened out of his wits by Almecho’s sudden appearance and his angry voice.
Almecho rushed past the man ignoring the curious and scared glances of the guests in the courtyard. He kicked his way into the kitchen, sending several cutlery and dishes flying at shocked chefs.
“Someone get Gauld and the guards! Tell them to rush to the dining room now! Father is in danger!” Almecho shouted as he exited the kitchen.
Almecho entered the great hall where half the village must have gathered. He scanned the crowd, looking for the girl with the red hair. He grabbed a woman who was standing nearby.
“Have you seen the girl? The one who came from Lahamrab?” he asked breathlessly.
“She’s dining with your father and the other guests,” the woman answered. “Almecho are you okay?” she asked but he was already running away.
The girl – the assassin was in the same room as his father! He had not heard any commotion yet. The assassin hadn’t made her move yet. Was she waiting for him to arrive as well?
The dining room’s door were straight ahead, at the end of the corridor. He ran headlong into it, kicking the door apart. The room’s occupants looked at him stunned as he burst into the room. Almecho ignored all of them; his eyes fell immediately upon the girl sitting right next to his father. The girl with the red hair.
Upon seeing him, she smiled and stood up. He could see a small dagger glint in the light.
“Son! What is the meaning of this?” asked Ilalka, the Chief of Raganad village and father of Almecho.
The girl raised her hand, ready to stab a distracted Ilalka.
“Father! Behind you!” Almecho shouted.
Ilalka whirled around in his seat and managed to catch the girl’s wrist. With speed that would have surprised anyone, he grabbed the girl’s collar with his free hand and tossed her over his head onto the dining table before him.
The girl was fast too.
She managed to move her head out of the way of Ilalka’s fist which slammed into the table. The table shook violently under the force of the impact, throwing off the dishes on it everywhere.
All of this had happened quickly. Only now were the guests around the table realizing what was happening. With shouts, they ran away, scurrying past Almecho.
The girl, who still lay on the table, thrust her hips forward put her legs around the Chief’s neck, locking his head in place with a firm grip. In one swift motion she was sitting on Ilalka’s shoulder, hand with the dagger raised over her head prepared to stab her victim. Almecho grabbed an apple that was rolling on the ground nearby and threw it at her hand that held the dagger.
The hit from the apple cause her to stab his father on the shoulder instead of the neck as she’d intended. Ilalka let out a small yelp of pain before throwing the girl almost halfway across the giant hall.
“You’re wounded!” Almecho cried as he rushed to his father’s side.
“Don’t worry, it’s just a small wound. That dagger wasn’t big anyway,” Ilalka commented with a wince. Blood trickled down Ilalka’s left arm from the open wound on his shoulder where he had been stabbed.
“Give it up assassin!” Almecho said. “You’ve seen my father’s strength. Know that I am equally strong and skilled in combat. You cannot hope to defeat me. Especially not when this hall will be filled with father’s guards who are almost as skilled and strong! You cannot hope to fight a dozen fighters and hope to win.”
“You think your threats frighten me?” the girl replied. She had a smooth voice, almost sultry.
She dashed forward.
“Son don’t–”
Almecho was already running forward towards the assassin. Behind him, his father held himself in a defensive position.
Almecho aimed a punch at her face and swiped. She dodged the blow and countered with her own punch which she aimed at Almecho’s sides. He gasped from the pain, the air knocked out of him, and fell on the ground. The girl’s strength was shocking. The only other person from whom Almecho had ever received such a blow was his own father while training.
Almecho turned around to see his father dodging the assassin’s attacks. Even with a wounded shoulder and an advanced age, his father was still agile. Almecho picked himself and rushed to his father’s aid. The girl had heard him coming for she turned around and with the dagger in hand.
However, Almecho had learned his lesson.
The girl was both quick and strong.
He stopped himself a foot away causing the girl to spin around due to her momentum. Ilalka took the opportunity and kicked her in her back, sending her tumbling towards Almecho who promptly hit her on the face. The force from Almecho’s punch cause her to crash down a few feet away on the floor. Without waiting for her to get up, Ilalka and Almecho grabbed the large wooden table together and tossed it towards her. She managed to roll away just in time to avoid getting crushed by it.
“Do you still wish to fight?” Almecho asked.
The assassin spat into the floor.
Then something he had not expected happened.
She thrust her hand forward, as if punching something in front of her. A fireball the size of five coconuts shot forward from her fist. Before Almecho could react, he was pushed aside by his father. The fireball shot past them both and sizzled out after hitting the sandstone wall where it left a black burnt mark.
Almecho and his father stared at the girl dumbfounded. She stood up calmly, picking up the dagger that had fallen on the ground beside her.
“Do you still wish to fight?” she echoed the question back at Almecho.
At that moment, a dozen guards flooded into the room led by Gauld, his father’s trusted advisor. Gauld was, like Ilalka, an adept fighter despite holding a political position. However, because of his heritage as a second order human, he was neither strong nor swift as the Chief and his son.
“Surround her!” Gauld ordered the guards.
“No!” Ilalka countered. “Get back! All of you!”
The girl locked gaze with the chief and smiled. A devilish smile.
“Let me handle her,” Almecho said.
“What?”
“You are injured and that leaves me the only one who’s strong enough to fight her. You’ve felt her strength too. None of the other can stand a chance against. Not against the ability she just showed anyway.”
“What was that? You wish to duel with me alone?” the assassin asked in a mocking tone. “Just let me kill your old man. I will then walk away peacefully. No one else has to die.”
Ilalka was about to speak when he faltered and fell to his knees.
“Father!”
The assassin ran forward in Almecho’s moment of hesitation. Before either he or the guards could react, she had knocked Almecho back and shot a fireball at Ilalka’s chest from only a few inches away.
“No!” Almecho screamed. Still lying on the floor, he kicked the girl’s feet causing her to fall down face first into the ground. “Take father away!” he screamed as he kicked the assassin and sent her sliding several feet away.
Ilalka’s chest was blackened, his clothes having been burnt away. The guards grabbed their Chief and carried him away, Gauld following with a cautious eye on the girl lest she follow them.
She didn’t. Instead, she got up calmly, the dagger still in her hand.
“There is no hope for your old man now,” she said with a snicker. “He will die. And now, I will kill you for interfering.”
“Not if I kill you first.”
The girl simply smiled at Almecho’s retort. She took a defensive position with her left leg and arm with the dagger forward while supporting her weight by her right leg. Her right hand she lifted in the air, ready to strike.
She beckoned Almecho with her hands.
Using all his leg muscles, Almecho shot forward. Before she had the time to react, he kicked the dagger out of her hand with a swift kick. The assassin jumped back, clearly surprised at Almecho’s speed but recovered quickly. She jumped into the air and made a swiping gesture with her hand at Almecho. She was too far and Almecho knew what that meant.
Red fire erupted in an arc from her arm. Almecho threw himself down on the floor, narrowly dodging the flames which singed his hair. Just as the assassin landed on the floor, Almecho was beside her. He punched her in the chest, knocking her backwards. Another look of surprise registered on the assassin’s face. Without getting up, she sent a fireball from her fist flying at Almecho who jumped to the side. Before he could recompose himself, the assassin had already sent another fireball. She was now pumping her fists in a flurry of punches, shooting dozens of fireballs towards Almecho.
One fireball hit him in the leg, scorching his clothes. Another hit him in the arm. Fortunately, since the assassin was clearly surprised and anxious to strike him, the fireballs she was shooting were small and not as powerful as a single concentrated attack would have been.
Almecho jumped and took refuge behind the dinner table that his father and he had tossed earlier. She couldn’t see him behind the furniture and the wood was too thick for her flames to burn through quickly. Grabbing a large silver tray, he jumped from behind the table. Using it as a shield, he sprinted to where the assassin now stood after picking herself up and brought the silverware crashing down on her head. The tray dented where it had hit her skull. He swung it again but the girl grabbed his arms with hers.
Her grip was strong. And despite getting hit on the head so hard, she did not seemed faze at all.
“You’re strong,” she remarked.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She jabbed a hand at his abdomen but he turned sideways, missing the big fireball that erupted from her fist by inches. Tossing the tray aside as it was too weak to hurt her, he instead started punching her with his bare fists.
The next few moments involved with him dodging her every attack while sneaking in a few of his own on her. To an outsider, they would have appeared as trained dancers dancing in an unknown rhythm, the fire erupting from the girl’s fists illuminating them both in flashes of red light. Despite his large figure, he was quicker and more agile than her thanks to his years of training.
She was good but he was better.
His own father could have easily beaten her had she not caught him by surprise with her ability to spit fire from her hands.
Her hands.
Dodging another fireball, he managed to grab her left hand. He punched her in the elbow of the arm he had caught. There was a snapping sound and the assassin screamed in pain.
Ducking underneath the furious swipe of her right hand, he managed to get behind her. Grabbing her right arm at her biceps, he kicked her in her right shoulder blade. There was a crack as her shoulder dislocated. She screamed again in agony.
“Give up!” Almecho shouted. “Even with your arms you were outmatched. Now with both of those useless, you can’t hurt anyone!”
The assassin turned towards him, both her hands hanging limply beside her wounded body. Almecho too was wounded, with much of his exposed body burnt and his clothes and hair singed at several places.
She snarled at him, spit dripping from her mouth.
“You’ve never been defeated before have you?” Almecho said. “You’re an assassin, relying on sneak attacks. Like you attacked my father off guard today. Well, how does it feel to fight fair?”
“Fight fair? I don’t care about fighting fair. All I care about is winning.”
She suddenly turned her head to the side and smiled. Almecho followed her gaze. Underneath a large doorframe stood Seth who must have just arrived. Almecho looked back at the assassin and saw her break into a sprint towards Seth.
Almecho didn’t know how long the moment lasted. A blink? A heartbeat? He too had broken into a sprint, hoping to catch the girl before she reached his friend.
She was incapacitated. She couldn’t do anything. Could she? Did she have any concealed weapon on her?
Seth was physically weaker than Almecho which meant he was weaker than this assassin who was, in terms of strength, Almecho’s equal. But he should still be able to hold his own against an assassin who’d lost the use of both her arms, shouldn’t he? Almecho was only a few meters away from her anyway. There was nothing she could–
The girl jumped, flame erupting from her feet.
She did have a weapon that he hadn’t thought about. Her legs. She could throw fire from her fists. Why not her feet?
Almecho’s heart froze.
“Seth!” he screamed.
Mid-air the assassin thrust her leg forward. Her feet was only a few feet away from Seth’s face. He did not even have time to scream. The red flame that burst forth from the girl’s enveloped his head first then the rest of his body.
Seth was burnt alive where he stood.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
