Godslayer Arc 1.24 Assassination

“Look!” says Jordis as she forms a ball of light in the palm of her head using magic.

“Yes, that is good,” replies Drakvar, but the older Kith is distracted by his thoughts.

When Jordis manifested her Entity Powers, her appearance changed radically. Where she once had pale white fur with long, sleek golden hair and blue eyes, Jordis now has blue fur with silver hair and eyes.

And while it wasn’t so noticeable and can be written off as her maturing, Shocker became significantly more attractive once she got her own powers.

As of such, I can’t help, but wonder if my appearance changed upon getting the Monster’s Curse. Grey eyes and spikey hair aren’t exactly traits I have seen on any other Kith that I have met.

But I simply don’t know myself and I don’t know anyone else who might know. Perhaps I should ask Shocker next time we meet. She seems to be the most knowledgeable on my past life.

“You’re not paying attention,” Jordis accuses him and he gives her a pat on the head.

“I am little sister,” replies Drakvar affectionately, “But I am also thinking about other matters at the same time.”

“Oh,” replies Jordis, “Okay Drakvar. Can I have another book please?”

“What is it with you and books?” asks Drakvar in a weary voice, “At some point, the world is going to run out of books.”

“Then I’ll just make people write more!” replies Jordis happily.

“Or you could write some yourself,” mutters Drakvar under his breath.

“Maybe when I’m older...” agrees Jordis thoughtfully.

Drakvar is about to reply when his fledgling combat instincts kick in. He tackles Jordis out of the way as two thin, razor sharp spikes whiz through the space that they previous occupied.

Almost instantly Drakvar is back on his feet, drawing two of his black blades as he scans the area for his attacker. Said attacker is easily spotted by him as the hulking brute marches through the scurrying bystanders, heading straight for Drakvar.

The metal monstrosity is ten feet tall and extremely heavily armoured with smooth grey overlapping plates. It has two legs, but six arms rather than the usual four. It doesn’t have a head or neck, but an enlarged torso with three red glowing dots near the top. The board shoulders have several small holes to them while each arm has various weaponry and assorted tools built into them.

His opponent is silent as it approaches Drakvar, but suddenly speeds up as it nears, moving faster than Drakvar would have expected from something of its size.

But having trained daily under Sir Galamin for a while now and seen more than his fair share of battle recently, Drakvar isn’t caught off-guard and it will take more than unexpected actions to surprise him in any meaningful way.

With the sword built into its middle right arm, the mech stabs at Drakvar, but he deflects it with one of his own blades. But even as it does that, the mech aims it lower left arm at Drakvar’s legs and unleashes a blast of flames from it.

But enough time around Valen has given Drakvar enough exposure to flames to realise what is going to happen and the Pakdar darts back, barely avoiding being roasted alive. Even so, Drakvar still gets a few sparks on him and they burn him slightly, it reveals something very important to Drakvar.

This thing isn’t supernatural. It isn’t supernatural and the Monster’s Curse won’t help me in this battle.

As Drakvar backs up, the mech aims its upper left rotary gun hand at him. Needing to close the range, Drakvar runs forward as the mech opens fire. As he closes the gap, Drakvar is very aware of the deadly metal projectiles whizzing over his head and shoulders.

He stabs at the glowing red eyes of the mech with his top two blades, but the mech bats them aside with its sword. But Drakvar hasn’t put all of his eggs in one baskets as he uses the swords in his lower hands to hack open the barrel of the flamethrower.

This time it is the mech that backs up, moving inhumanly quick as it rolls back up the street and firing its rotary gun all the while. But Drakvar goes give it the chance to do so, chasing after it. Despite having the opportunity to attack, Drakvar ignores it in favour of avoiding getting shot to pieces.

Drakvar stabs forward, piecing one of the three red lights, whilst also slashing at the rotary gun, cutting into the spinning barrel and almost slicing it in half. But to Drakvar’s misfortune, the mech still has another couple of tricks up its sleeve.

The mech’s middle left arm flashes forward, a trio of metal spears striking out of it. Drakvar attempts to block and while partially successful as he cuts a spear in two, one of the remaining spears cuts the flesh of his arm, leaving a light cut behind.

And while it was distracting Drakvar with the spears, the mech has also aimed the cannon built into its top right arm at the Pakdar. The barrel fills with electricity and its fires it out in a beam. The bolt of electricity hits Drakvar in the chest and unlike all of Shocker’s attacks, he is actually affected by it.

Arrgh!

He yelps in pain as the electricity flows through his body, stunning him. The mech slashes at him with its sword, but despite being stunned into non-motion, Drakvar deflects the attack out of instinct.

Now in pain, Drakvar’s enhanced adrenaline kicks into action. As the mech fires more of its razor spikes from its lower right arm, Drakvar does his best to intercept them with his swords, using all of his skill and unnatural reflexes to do so.

One slash equal one spike taken out. A stab misses, but another slash cuts another spike in two. Two more spikes and swipe takes out one and knocks the other off course so it only grazes Drakvar. A fifth spike is knocked off course with a mere flick of the blade.

As Drakvar prepares to make another attack of his own, the Kith barely has time to brace himself before the mech slams into him. His foe uses its superior mass to slam Drakvar backwards, sending him flying through the air.

Despite a rough landing, Drakvar is quickly back on his feet with all four swords in hand. Meanwhile, the mech has already backed off, putting a good amount of distance between it and Drakvar. Drakvar begins to run at the mech, but as he does so, several long and thin cylinder projectiles are launched out of the mech’s shoulder holes.

They fly towards Drakvar using some sort of fire-based mechanism at the rear and Drakvar notes they are too slow and large to be effective as bullets.

They must serve some other purpose to harm me. As a result, I should try avoid getting hit by those things.

Even if I that was what I going to in the first place.

Drakvar dodges the first two and tries to cut the third in two, but stops as he it is at that point he finds out what these projectiles do.

Just as his blade is about to make contact with the third projectile, the two behind him explode as they make contact with the ground. As Drakvar is jolted forward, he tries desperately to twist his sword so it doesn’t detonate another of these bullet-artillery shell hybrids.

He is barely successful and throws himself out of the line of fire. As the explosive projectiles slam tear up the ground where he once stood, Drakvar staggers on his feet as the nearby explosions rock him.

Another bolt of electricity comes his way, but Drakvar deflects it away from him with an instinctive flick of his blade. Eager to end this fight, Drakvar charges the mech once again.

For its part, the mech counter-charges, firing its electro-cannon again and its last few spikes at the oncoming Kith. Drakvar skilfully avoids or blocks the incoming attacks before stepping to the right as he reaches melee range.

As the mech stabs its two remaining spears at him, Drakvar cuts him in two even as he slashes at the elbow joint of the sword arm, damaging it quite a bit even if he doesn’t fully disable it.

The mech swings said sword at Drakvar, but he ducks. The sword and the lower arm it is attached to are both flung free of the mech by the force of the blow and Drakvar seizes the advantage.

He swipes upwards, taking out the barrel of the electro-cannon before hacking away at the main body of the mech, his black blades tearing through the arm.

Now defenceless, the mech stares at Drakvar with its glowing red eyes and Drakvar suddenly feels uneasy. Despite having no solid evidence to suggest this is the case, Drakvar is certain that the mech still has one trick up its sleeve and it is about to use it.

Drakvar jumps backwards, eager to put more space between him and the mech so he has more room to maneuverer. And a moment later, Drakvar is extremely grateful that he did so as the explosion from the self-destructing mech sends him flying through the air.

Drakvar lands halfway down the street, his back hitting the ground with a heavy thump. Drakvar grunts in pain as he lies there for a moment. With a weary sigh, he gets back to his feet and winces in pain.

That battle took a long out of me and I got pretty beat up. And while I will heal quickly, that will still take some time.

And so, Drakvar feels extremely annoyed as he spots two more of the mechs at the other end of the street.