xkarnation
patreon
111. Shadow Gunslinger
🕑 Added 2022-09-23 22:31:36 +0000 UTCTwo shadows moved through the night, their speed was abnormal for a human, and their silent footsteps furthered the notion that they were inhuman. But, of course, that wasn't exactly unusual, but the pair's destination was where non-humans were taken to be killed rather than invited.
"A machine is the sum of its many moving parts. Throw a wrench into the many cogs, and it will eventually collapse on itself." Damien whispered to Olympia, who silently ran by his side. "With the figurehead removed, we can go after each target until this house of cards crumbles into the wind."
Olympia didn't understand some of the particular words used by her master. Still, she nodded anyway as she understood the general concept. "Master, I will never be a weak link. You can count on me." She grinned, and Damien returned the smile before gesturing for them to stop. The dark night shrouded their forms as the pair kept low and peered over a fallen tree.
Beyond the treeline was a large log cabin. Apart from its location, being around twenty minutes carriage ride away from the capital, it was very remote. Which made the fact it was surrounded by armoured knights all the more mystifying.
"One of Prince August's infamous summer houses." Damien, of course, knew the location of all of Prince August's properties since he had played as August on numerous occasions back when this was a mere game. "This is where that bastard brings beastkin to slaughter and fuel his necromancy. Unfortunately, it is also one of his many respawn locations and is the closest to the capital, so we need to target this place first."
"So what's the plan here, master?"
Damien reached into the pocket of his midnight black suit that he had donned just for the occasion and retrieved a golden pistol with an extended barrel. Over the past month, Damien had worked tirelessly with Thar on various projects, gun development being one of them. It was crude compared to the perfectly manufactured ones back on Earth, but even with his rudimentary knowledge of guns, he could make a functioning one with magic. Thar's metal magic made creating the gun easy, and Damien could use his various magical powers to correct the bullet's trajectory and aim perfectly.
Damien activated his Perception Field and saw that world through a different lens. The twenty or so knights surrounding the property became mere outlines, and with his blood magic, Damien could also see their beating hearts alongside their flickering souls. "First, I need to kill the spatial mage that should be stationed inside. Without him, there's no chance for anyone to escape. Once you hear a gunshot, that is your signal to attack. Focus the knights closer to the edge of the clearing, dart in and out of sight. Also, try to turn any knights you kill into Thralls. You are mainly a distraction, and they won't commit their full strength against you as their priority is to protect those inside the house." Damien scanned the house and found a heavily enchanted room that he couldn't pierce with his Perception Field. "Bingo." Deactivating the skill, Damien used his B grade Shadow Walk and vanished into the shadows below.
Getting past trained knights with just Shadow Walk would be too risky, so Damien triple cast Spatial Movement and Levitation just to be safe. Then, like a fish under the ocean, he swam through the darkness below the knight's feet, and if any of them were passively using detection skills, they weren't good enough to spot him.
Damien phased through the basement walls of the house and materialized in a wine cellar. He kept his skills active as he knew a psychic mage was also present somewhere in this summer house, but killing the spatial mage was his priority. Carefully Damien moved through the house's dark corridors like a phantom. The sound of laughter, humping and the occasional scream matched what Damien remembered from the place when he hung around here in the game. 'Seems the guards are having their fun with the merchandise again. They must know August is far too busy dealing with things in the capital to come here and play...'
Without pausing, Damien passed by rows of bedroom doors and approached the heavily enchanted room at the corridor's far end. This was Prince August's stronghold, not something he could easily sneak into. Damien could practically see the hundreds of enchantments pulsating with mana. He appeared right before the knight guarding the doorway and used another skill he had been practising vigorously for the past month, Hypnosis. The knight's helmet seemed to shield him from the mental attack as the spell failed and fizzled out against the visor, so he grabbed the helmet and ripped it off before the knight could even react.
"Ah!" The knight exclaimed as he came face to face with glowing red eyes. He tried his best, but he felt his brain become fuzzy, and his hand gripping the hilt of his sword lost all its strength and limply fell to his side. The knight watched in horror as the vampire muttered words he couldn't comprehend, and then his body moved against his will. He fought against the control, but it was futile. Eventually, he reached out his armoured hand, knocked on the door three times, and shouted. "Sir Dulcan? Butler Samuel from your estate has come bearing a message about your daughter's health..." The knight paled and tried to regain control as his mouth moved on its own. Everyone in the summer house knew about the mage's love for his daughter, but the knight had met Samuel many times, and he definitely didn't have glowing red eyes, inch-long fangs and nails sharper than his sword.
Movement sounded past the wooden door, and the vampire vanished from where he stood as if he were a mere nightmare. But the knight's consciousness never returned, he was trapped inside his own head. He watched in horror as the door opened and- the elderly mage's head exploded as something shot right through his skull. The sound was so loud the knight's ears rang as the headless corpse slumped down and fell through the now half-opened door.
The black-suited vampire had reappeared with a golden item in his hand, with smoke coming from its tip. He blew the smoke away and deposited the weapon into his suit with graceful movements. Then, with a wave of his hand, the door flung open, and Sir Dulcans body flew down the corridor and crashed into the far wall.
A rift in space opened next to the vampire's head, and hundreds of metal cards emerged like a swarm. The vampire raised his arm as if he was a commander ordering an execution, and the hundreds of metal cards obeyed his will and flew into the room. The vampire had a pleased expression as the room was filled with the screams of the dying.
"Go tell the knights coming in that an intruder has escaped out the back door, and also tell the others to remain in their rooms," Damien commanded the hypnotized knight as he strolled into the room.
The knight eagerly nodded and ran down the corridor. People stumbled out of their rooms with half their clothes on and looked up and down the hall in confusion, but the helpful knight let them know that an intruder had escaped out the back door and everything was fine.
Damien looked around as he directed his cards to commence slaughter. The secure room was similar to a large vault with couches lining the sides surrounded by bookcases. Dead bodies with slit marks on their necks lay slumped on the couches or ground, and their clothes were dyed a deep red. Damien didn't care about the people he had just killed and instead focused on a black gem glowing with an eerie green light that sat upon a pedestal surrounded by a pile of human bones. With a wave of his hand, the bones floated, and he then directed them into his Spatial Inventory. 'Can't revive without a body, you cockroach bastard.' Damien grinned as he used Hemokinesis to gather all the blood in the room into a condensed orb above his head. "It's times likes these where I am glad I have such a diverse skill set..." Sadly he wasn't fully attack orientated, but his diverse skillset allowed him to be a one-man strike team rather than requiring multiple specialists. He approached the black gem with cautious steps, but once he came within a meter of it, he felt his life force being sucked away.
"Worked just like it did in the game..." Damien muttered as they stepped back and used Automatic Writing, Hemokinesis and Blood Script to draw runes on the gem's surface. The blood boiled and streamed, but Damien had plenty to keep rewriting the boiled-away sections. The sealing array was complete with a final stroke of his invisible brush. The green light dimmed and cracks formed on the gem's glassy obsidian surface. "Can't consume mana and life force from the surroundings, so it will eat itself to death..."
Damien vanished into the shadows as he heard knights thundering down the corridor. Despite his hypnotized knights' best efforts, it seemed that they were adamant about checking on the vault room. 'The gem will be destroyed in a few minutes, just need to hold out till then.' Although the knights seemed to lack high-grade detection skills, they weren't incompetent, just taken by surprise. Their full plate armour was made of magisteel that would easily fend off his metal cards and resist magical attacks such as using Phantom Form on his hands and ripping out their hearts. Which would have left Damien with limited attack options... except he now had a new weapon.
From the shadows, he took out his golden pistol. It wasn't made of gold, just coated in the stuff from his spoils of war. He had tonnes of gold as Staedbergh had a gold mine, so why not paint his pistol in gold? He silently loaded orichalcum bullets into the clip one by one. Each one likely cost more than the pistol, but they could punch straight through magisteel like it was cardboard. And if there was one thing Damien had, it was money. Robbing an entire city and keeping all its wealth put him on par with the most greedy kings, and Kassinki would soon be his.
Damien snuck past five knights shuffling down the corridor in a defensive formation. As they rounded the corner, the one at the front silently raised his fist over his head, indicating the group to pause, and then pointed at the smashed-up corpses of the spatial mage that rested against the wall. "We have a casualty." He said quietly, but all the knights heard him and stiffened their grip on their swords.
Damien used Psychokinesis to make a painting fall off its hook and smash onto the ground, drawing all of the knight's attention. Despite their training, they all followed the noise source and failed to notice Damien emerging behind them and closing his eyes. Then, activating his Perception Field, he located all of their hearts, brought up his arm, quickly fired all five orichalcum bullets and emptied the chamber. Damien ejected the chamber, and as it fell to the floor, so did five fully armoured knights.
Damien turned on his heel while blowing the smoke from his gun. As he pocked it in his suit, an enormous explosion erupted behind him as Prince August's respawn gem imploded.
"Ain't no rest for the wicked." Damien chuckled to himself as he left the burning summer house.
Comments
bob barker
pocked > pocketed Also, it takes a number of seconds for someone to lose strength after having an arrow/bullet shot through their heart
