[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 102: Red Menace

Kale wiped the blood from his eyes and ducked under a slicing headsman’s axe aimed at his neck. He came up, double axes swinging in tandem at his assailant.

The axes bit into the man’s lacquered armor, their shimmering enhancements fading slightly as a single charge of [Slice] was used up.

The warrior’s axe fell from numb fingers. His eyes stared in shock at Kale’s grimacing and bloodied face. “I wish you better in the next life, brother,” Kale told him as he ripped out the axes.

The blood flowed like dark wine, staining the grass, but Kale was already moving to the next target. He wished they were monsters. It would have been easier to fight back the moment they stepped onto their home.

Instead, Chris and Kylie had been badly wounded by being little more than polite to complete strangers. Strangers who, when told they were welcome to share their group’s campfire, decided they wanted to take everything they had instead.

The opening salvo had caught them all off guard.

All but one.

Sam would have seen through them, Kale told himself, ducking low behind a pile of blasted stone and downed trees. He would have had us on our guard. But Simon at least noticed what was happening before we were overrun.

The man was a demon made material. He worked efficiently, coldly, apart from the rest of them. Aside from Kale and Ping, who drew most of the enemy’s attention, Simon had the highest body count by far.

Kylie and Chris were with him up in the hills behind a stand of trees. Kale found himself looking back there time and time again, wondering if they were going to be okay. They didn’t have a Cleric. There was nothing they could do except split a [Health Potion] between the twins and hope they survived.

Even then, the two let their ire be known by sending out spells and arrows, respectively.

This other group, which hadn’t given their names, had just started fighting the moment it was clear that they could steamroll them with superior numbers.

Unfortunately for them, Kale and his group had not been idle since joining Simon. For all his odd quirks, Simon was surprisingly good at organizing people, and he managed to get everybody on the same page after the first few days.

They trained together, ate together, foraged together, and survived.

Together.

Kale would be damned if some brigands would change that.

A jolt of lightning struck from a clear sky 20 feet ahead of Kale’s cover, followed by a shard of ice as thick as two of Kale’s fingers. There was a gurgling noise and then a shout of surprise from the man’s comrade.

Kale popped out from cover, screaming like a wild man as he activated [Berserk], the powerful cornerstone ability he gained from his new Berserker Job. It settled a red haze over his vision, allowed him to ignore the first clumsy blow that the man struck him with, and gave him the added speed and strength to overwhelm almost any single combatant.

With his ally dying at his feet, the red-armored enemy struggled to get his spear in line for a mortal blow. He stepped back, feet tripping on the uneven ground as Kale advanced like a savage.

Kale swung his axes, one up and one down, forcing the man’s single weapon to try to block two weapon strikes at once.

Few people were able to deal with the maneuver. The red-armored man was closer than the others, but he missed deflecting the second axe by a hair.

It was enough for Kale to—

Something whizzed by Kale’s ear and the man in front of him sprouted a black arrow where his Adam’s apple used to be. He fumbled for the arrow a few seconds before dropping dead.

Kale turned and waved his thanks and his annoyance.

He didn’t precisely trust Simon, but the man was a genius with a bow. He was the best shot among all of them. Ping was second, but preferred using his [Trapmaking] skill, and Kylie’s accuracy had only grown worse as she put more and more stats in Agility instead of Dexterity.

A brief double-whistle echoed out from the hills and Kale headed back to cover just as the sound of a dozen feet entered the clearing.

“Who the hell is killing my men!” cried a familiar, sneering voice.

For a moment, Kale thought it was Darren. The entitlement was the same as his once-boss. It was too bad Matt was gone. He was the only one who could reign in that idiot’s behavior.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Darren.

This man, whoever he was, was far smarter. He employed proper tactics, and with superior numbers, Kale’s group resorted to guerilla warfare.

They were outnumbered at least 6 to 1. By Kale’s estimation, there were a good two dozen of them, and they amounted to only 5.

He wanted to hate them—and he did, oh yes—but he could see the cold logic in what they were doing. The Skyshard was barely able to sustain the 5 of them with constant foraging. A group of thirty or so people would be hard pressed to have enough food or water to survive for very long.

That meant either farming other floating islands or raiding Skyshards that were better off than they were. At least Kale’s Skyshard had clean running water. That wasn’t the same everywhere.

He’d seen Skyshards from the starting island that were only desert, others that were frozen tundra, and many more that were rocky or grassy but without a drop of visible water.

Maybe they were designed to work together, to get people to overcome their differences and band together into a larger clan or tribe.

Good luck with that, Kale thought as the sky darkened above him.

Shouts and orders filled the air as the people on the other side of the debris scrambled to avoid the hail of arrows. What Kylie lacked in accuracy, she sure as hell made up for with quantity.

Her [Fusillade] ability, mixed with her [Long Distance Damage] skill made her especially deadly at blotting out the sun with volleys of arrows that were far more dangerous than one would imagine.

Even with their strange reddish armor, Kale could hear the arrows punch through the metal as they gained speed and power for every yard they traveled.

A few of the men tried to jump over the debris where Kale was hiding, but he was ready for them. The poor bastard only had long enough to register that he wasn’t alone before Kale’s axe took him in the neck.

He had company again a moment later, this from a man who was slightly more wary than his companion. His dagger was already out and ready for Kale.

Their blades met, and Kale was surprised to find that the man’s Strength was a match for his own. He was using both hands on the dagger’s hilt, but he was holding back a significantly larger axe.

Kale swept his free axe up and into the man’s groin with a wince. He didn’t want to fight dirty, but there was no other way to fight in the trenches.

You either died fair or fought dirty to win. There was no middle ground. A lesson Kale had been quick to pick up.

He dispatched the man before he had to suffer too long, picked up his axes, and charged into the thinned clearing once more.

***

Simon sighted down the length of his newly acquired crossbow. He had a clear shot of Kale’s back. The man was far too trusting.

Out of the corner of his eye, back in their little hidden stand, Simon saw Kylie and Chris watching him like hawks.

Maybe not too trusting after all.

Simon knew for a fact that he could kill Kale easily without the man ever knowing where the bolt came from. Since ditching his bow and arrow, he had become increasingly proficient with the new weapon and its accompanying bolts provided by a handy [Bolt Pouch].

But he wasn’t sure if he could kill Kale before Chris or Kylie did something about it. And that was to say nothing of the little upstart, Ping.

The man was far too cunning for his own good. He made traps that were almost impossible to discern from the surrounding area, and he was somewhere out there judging by the screams of surprise from his victims.

They were too small a group. Simon knew it, yet he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Recruiting people was hard. Most sane people wanted nothing to do with anybody else, and those that went out of their way to meet people were usually marauders like these.

Steadying his aim with a soft exhale, Simon pulled the trigger. The bolt shot out almost—but not quite—like a bullet.

What he wouldn’t give for a proper hunting rifle! At the same time, he liked to finish things off up close and personal.

For today, he gave that dark pleasure to Kale as a gift for the man’s barbarism. Simon was fast, but he wasn’t very sturdy. It was a failing only if you considered how idiotic it was to be caught in a full-on war.

Not to mention, being out in the middle of fighting for too long triggered the dreaded [Exposed] debuff that was unique to Assassin. He was more noticeable, took higher damage, and dealt less damage while [Exposed].

We will need to reassess our methods, said the Dagger into his mind. Should we go out there, we are too vulnerable. Any idiot with a bow and arrow could kill us. I will not allow you to die in such ignominy!

Simon couldn’t agree more. He was far more of a boss-killer. Somebody who could deal high damage, albeit not rapidly, and strike before their target knew what was going on.

With a frown on his face, Simon watched as the bolt struck a man sneaking up on Kale. It punched clean through his breastplate and out the other side, splattering Kale’s back with gore.

He dropped the crossbow with a sigh. That was his last bolt until he could summon more. He picked up his longbow, nocked a black arrow, and took aim. All the while, he kept a watch from the corner of his eye on the twins.

Should one die… maybe he could kill Kale and the survivor before anybody knew what was going on.

The Dagger refused this suggestion, but Simon reminded him it was his body, and he would do what he wished.

Deep down, however, Simon agreed with the Dagger. He needed them. And this was a trial by fire moment that was showing just how useful they were.

Without Kale and Ping, the enemy would have long since overrun his position. As it was, they still would, with time. There were simply too many.

But if he had been alone? They would have likely slit his throat and thrown him over the edge. As much as he hated to admit it, the Dagger was right. They needed to reassess their strategy. Perhaps some goodwill was in order.

***

Kale rolled to the side, his one arm hanging limp. Every time it twitched, agony shot up and down his arm from the dagger impaled there. His chainmail had been laughably easy to defeat.

With only one axe, Kale faced off against the brigands’ commander. The man flowed back and forth like a dancer. He reminded Kale of Sam when he was doing his HEMA tournaments, but without the cinder block sized chip on his shoulder that Sam seemed to carry with him into each fight.

This man was completely composed and, more importantly, better than Kale. Even if he had both arms, there was no way he was coming out of this fight alive.

The realization had taken too long to filter through the fatigue of battle, but it wouldn’t have made a difference either way.

Kale’s only hope was that either Kylie or Chris could take the weakened commander down. His role was simple: hurt him as much as possible so the twins could finish him.

The commander sliced twice through the air and Kale suffered two shallow cuts for his slowness. He brought up his remaining axe in defense, but the commander hooked his blade beneath the halfmoon crescent and ripped it from his hands in one smooth motion.

Defenseless, the commander raised his sword to strike Kale down. I’m sorry, Sam. I tried.