Chapter 3524: No Certainty (Part 1)
Chapter 3524: No Certainty (Part 1)
Despite his huge build, the bald man’s movements were graceful and his speed so great that he landed on the other side of the room before the Knight Guards could take a second step forward.
The rings on his right hand fused into a knuckleduster and a fist the size of a beer mug darted like a bullet at the helm of the flabbergasted Knight Guard. His battle-honed reflexes brought him to raise his shield to block, but his opponent was too fast.
A clang of metal akin to a bell sound resonated through the room when the other Knight Guard intercepted the armed fist with his own.
"Interesting." The voice of the guard was clinical, with no regard for his colleague’s brush with death. "You only look like a man. You are an Emperor Beast."
The bald man’s eyes widened for a split second before they became yellow and his pupils black-slitted.
While Yerna was still recovering from the shock, the man shapeshifted into a colossal Orthrus, a two-headed wolf with a snake tail. Its hindlegs expanded, sending the people sitting at the tables behind him flying while his mouths snapped at the Knight Guards.
"I don’t think so." The Knight Guard who was still holding the foreleg of the Orthrus in a grip dealt him a lightning-fast jab that caved his chest and collapsed his lungs. "Down, boy."
Most of the patrons of the Roaring Lion became pale at the sight of the Emperor Beast’s real body. Shock and surprise made it impossible for them to move a muscle. A few, however, had no such problem.
A barmaid smashed through the nearest window and shapeshifted into a winged feminine creature that took the skies. A short and wiry man who had lost quite a few copper coins at dice turned into a bull-like Emperor Beast, a Khalkot, that seemed made of stone.
He charged through the tables in a straight path to the Constables. He was already a blur when something on his neck lit up and the creature became so fast that it left afterimages in its wake.
The short Constable raised her hand, producing a hard-light construct shaped like a wall that brought the Khalkot’s charge to an abrupt end. The horned Emperor Beast was still stunned by the impact when the construct shapeshifted into a cube, trapping him.
The cube was barely big enough to contain the Khalkot, giving him no space to move and little air to breathe. A shrill scream from outside was the only proof the patrons of the Roaring Lion needed to know the barmaid had suffered a similar fate.
The Constable’s threat was no bluff and with no hope of escape, the people in the tavern resigned themselves to their fate.
"How did we not notice them?" Solus asked as she generated a second construct to restrain the heavily injured Orthros.
"Because of this." Lith removed a ring from the tail of the Lesser Fenrir and suddenly a bright blue aura became visible to Life Vision. "Cloaking items. They hide both the magical aura and life force of these creatures."
"Are they…" Solus meant Awakened, but that wasn’t a word the general public wasn’t allowed to know.
"No. I checked. They are regular Emperor Beasts." Lith replied.
"Those creatures are regular?" A tall man took the news like a kick to the gonads, jumping up from his seat. "As in there are worse things than that?"
"Much worse, sir." Lith nodded, still pretending to be a Knight Guard. "Now sit down and don’t force me to come there."
The man swallowed hard and obeyed. Lith brushed him on his way to the office door, using Invigoration to check whether the tall man’s reaction was honest shock or just a ruse to appear innocent.
’Nope. 100% human.’ Lith thought as he moved past the man.
The door of the office was locked, but nothing that a little strength couldn’t resolve. Lith pulled it off its hinges, revealing many scared faces and three fang-filled snarls.
"Stand back, son." The only well-dressed man in the room stood up from behind his desk as his face became covered in thick green scales. "There’s three of us and only one of you."
"Don’t be shy." Lith replied. "I bet at least a couple of these guys are Emperor Beasts like you. It’s not enough to make this a fair fight, but with the advantage of surprise you should have a ghost of a chance."
Lith released his Tiamat Fear and all the humans in the room fainted on the spot, leaving only six people standing.
"Three. I stand corrected but it’s still not enough."
The scaled man hissed and the other five attacked without one second of hesitation.
The room was too small for the Emperor Beasts to revert to their true forms or swing a weapon but there was no need to. Their hands turned into claws, hooves, and talons coated in enchanted Orichalcum.
The Emperor Beasts assumed a battle formation and swung at Lith from every direction at the same time, aiming for his main arteries. The Voidwalker armor released the violet aura of the Full Guard spell, allowing him to block most of the strikes and dodge the rest.
The enchantment bestowed him with perfect spatial awareness. Lith could perceive everything around him and defend even from attacks he couldn’t see. The Emperor Beasts had the numerical advantage but they were no Awakened and the mass gap was too big.
When Lith blocked, his opponents’ bones broke, and when he struck, his claws cut through their metal armor and deep into their flesh. Due to the cloaking rings, Lith had no idea what kind of Emperor Beasts he was facing, but luckily for him, he had no need to.
His opponents were all in human form so no matter what their original life force looked like, Lith knew the position of their bones, muscles, and organs like the back of his hand.
He avoided the Emperor Beasts’ vitals, dealing them crippling damage that yet posed no threat to their lives. It wasn’t the kind of mercy he could afford with Awakened since they could heal with their breathing technique but for everyone else, mending such wounds would a heavy toll.
Best case scenario, the Emperor Beasts would lose so much vitality that they would become too weak to keep fighting. Worst case scenario, they would faint from starvation.
’Fuck, I need to alert the boss.’ The scaled man pushed a brick in the wall that looked identical to the others, triggering a mechanical secret passage in the floor, invisible to spells and even mystical senses.
It was barely thirty centimeters (1’) wide but more than enough for a Nidhogg’s serpentine body. The man assumed a hybrid form and exploited its natural flexibility to slither through a fissure too narrow for his monstrous stalker.
The Nidhogg landed in the sewer’s water with a small splash and was about to press the closing mechanism on the other side of the wall when an Adamant sword gently tapped his neck.
"Don’t even think about it, son." Locrias was in his human form but unlike Lith, he wore no cloaking device.