Chapter 17 Chapter 16 Melee

"Mask of the Night". Like an arrow about to be shot from the crossbow aimed at Danica, the words stung her heart. "Mask of the Night".It was this group that had killed her parents; terrible, evil killers in the Ximen district where she was born.Many questions came to the young woman's mind - were they here to catch her?Are they working for the same enemies who sent Barjin to invade Simista? — but none of those questions could compare to the bile welling up the young woman's throat, and the outright anger. Slowly, she turned her head to face the enemy, staring at him closely.He looked strange: blood was bleeding in several places on his body, his body was tilted to one side, he was panting heavily, and half of his face was swollen and purple.In addition, there were pieces of wood in the hair, face and arms.And for some reason, the man was barefoot.

"I do not accept surrender," the killer mumbled, waving his weapon. "Especially with the dwarves..." He shook his head away from his memory of a terrible fight at another inn, sending several pieces of wood falling onto the roof. "I will never surrender," Danica said firmly, the words coming out of clenched teeth.She roared, lowered herself to the eaves and rolled. The crossbow fired, and Danica felt something hit her side, though she was too angry to tell the severity of the wound, or even feel the pain.She jumped up from near where the killer had been standing to find him running away.

Danica caught up in a few strides.He turned to face her, and she jumped on top of him, grabbing him tight.She kept attacking with her knees, each hitting the man's groin. She struck hard a dozen times, grabbed his hair and ears, pulled his head back forcefully, then moved forward violently, hitting it with her forehead, not only breaking the bridge of the man's nose, but also Several teeth were knocked out. She kneeled him several more times, headbutted him again, and ran her fingers across the man's face; she stuck a finger in his eye socket. "Night Mask"! Danica leaped away from the doomed man and slammed a roundabout kick at his head, sending it jerking sideways and staggering him a few steps.He didn't fall down, though, but he was almost unconscious of his surroundings.

Danica jumped high behind him, kicking out flat with both feet, hitting the man in the back and sending him dancing through the air and flying off the roof. She dropped back to her feet and saw two men climbing up the drainpipe to the roof, but neither of them had the courage to charge at the enraged woman. Many emotions washed over the wounded and weary monk.The appearance of this killer group, and the realization that these people are the "Masks of the Night", caused many distant memories to start rampaging in his mind.There were also recent memories, such as a strange dream from the night before, when she had momentarily entered the consciousness of her attacker who had invaded her mind.

How is Cadderly?Danica's fear deepens when she understands who these killers are. Is the "Mask of Night" going to take away the love of Danica's life again? She started running, tears filling her eyes, and her arms and sides ached.The young monk leaped onto steep roofs, past jagged overhangs, leaped over narrow ravines, and kept running. The two killers followed closely behind. ※※※ Ivan looked down.Just an inch to the side, a crossbow arrow pierced the pile of timber, making a small clear hole.Slowly, the dwarf raised his gaze to the man standing ten feet above him.One of them was leaning over the ledge of the broken stairs, grinning sullenly, with a crossbow aimed at Ivan.

Extreme urgency imbued Pikel Stoneshoulders with unrivaled insight.Ivan - his brother! - dying!Pikel's eyes darted around, watching the whole menacing scene with an almost surreal feeling. Bar...wood pile...dead (gut, evil)...struggling man...Ivan...cliff...crossbowman...chandelier... chandelier?There is a chandelier above the bent man. The people in the store had to lower the chandelier to light the candles, Pikel reasoned.The dwarf turned his head sharply and his eyes fell on the pivot, which was conveniently located behind the bar. The killer standing above Ivan paused, waving goodbye to the helpless dwarf.

Pikel could pull the peg off the shaft and let the turntable start spinning, but now was not the time to play lightly.The green-bearded dwarf distracted Crossbow with a "Drink!" and jumped from the bar to the wall shelf, knocking dozens of wine glasses and bottles flying, and the shelf began to fall off the wall under his weight. . "Whoa whoa!" he roared, swinging the stick and hitting the reel.The turntable was separated from the wall along with other parts, but it was still stubbornly attached by a nail.Pikel knelt down beside Federga, looking at it with a betrayed expression, but with a loud crack, the last nail came loose and the entire shaft flew into the air.

"What's wrong?" asked the confused crossbowman. His companion behind him gasped. The chandelier hit Crossbowman's shoulder, sending him spinning over the edge of the stairs. He fell into the pile of logs beside Ivan, and the stunned dwarf dropped his head, staring at him.As if God had decided to play a deadly joke, Ivan heard a tiny click a moment later as the fallen crossbowman's arrow, caught unharmed between him and the broken staircase, was still firing. shot. "Hehehe." Pikel laughed, and stood up again to look at the scene.He forgot that the rotating shaft above his head was still spinning rapidly, and fell rapidly.So he fell to his knees again, and the shaft bounced off his head.

"Whoa whoa." "Hold on to the rope!" he heard Ivan yell, and shaking his head to shake off his dizziness, he rolled the rope around his arm. Ivan clamped his teeth on the handle of the ax (not an easy task!) and began to climb.He noticed the remaining killer approaching his feet in the pile of logs behind him, and he jumped back onto a plank between himself and the man, landing on the upturned end.The end that Ivan landed on quickly went down, while the end that was under the crawling man was raised and hit the man's jaw.He rolled away with a groan, clutching at his broken mandible.

After this action was completed, Yiwen jumped up again, grabbed the rope with his short and fat arms, and climbed to the same height as the other killer.On the other side, he noticed that Pikel was also crawling. Yiwen speeded up, and finally climbed to the position where he could poke his head high and see another man. What he saw was not at all pleasing to the eye. In just a few minutes, Ivan Stoneshoulders was staring again at a deadly point on a mounted crossbow. When Pikel reached the edge of the stairs and let go of the rope, he realized that he hadn't secured the rope below. Ivan fell like a stone.The crossbow fired, but it flew over his head without doing any damage.And the stubborn crossbowman on the first floor, with his jaw cracked in a mess, realized how unwise he was climbing up the rope after the dwarf.

As Ivan sat on the man and the pile of broken stairs, it probably seemed for the first time that having a brother with a head like jelly wasn't such a bad thing. ※※※ Still on hands and feet, the young priest moved swiftly and firmly along the ledge of the building next door.His frisbee was hanging securely from his hand, dangling from the end of a rope, and bouncing off the side walls of the building.Cadderly paid little attention to it, and never stopped to put it away.Nor did the young priest notice that the pain in his injured thigh had disappeared. Sharp-eyed he saw Danica running weakly with her back to him, staggering forward.In addition, he also saw two black-clothed killers chasing her, approaching the staggering woman with strides. Cadderly climbed up to the other end of the building, where the original alley ran perpendicular to an avenue lined with craft shops called the Market Square.Two merchants who had risen at dawn to set up shop saw the young priest, glared at him, pointed at him, and yelled words that Cadderly didn't bother to figure out. Cadderly was too angry to pay attention to his movements, and ended up falling off the side of the building, waving his hands as he fell.Across the alley, an advertising horizontal banner is tied on a thick rope, which is the shop sign of one of the craft shops. Cadderly ran across the rope on all fours.He heard startled screams from the street below, but did not know that they were directed at him.Back on the jagged roof of the Dragon's Fig Leaf, he ran at full speed, thinking only of Danica. A moment later he found her - she had jumped the narrow alleyway and landed on the building next door - tripping over the top of a skylight and falling headlong.Two men rushed up from behind her. "No!" the young priest tried to shout, but his words fell into a strange, high-pitched voice. Cadderly didn't slow down at all, staring straight ahead as he leaped across the alley. One of the killers, dressed in black, emerged from where Danica had just entered, running at full speed.Cadderly feared it was too late. ※※※ The remaining man on the balcony rushed into Cadderly's room, waving his hands to disperse the stench of smoke and burnt flesh that hung over the door. Pikel grabbed the rope again, and Ivan began to climb again, his brother dragging the rope toward Cadderly's door, making him go even faster. Pikel continued to run, relieved when he saw Ivan's stubby hands climb up the edge of the walkway.But then four figures emerged from Cadderly's room. Pikel let go of the rope intuitively.He flinched at the sound of Ivan's fading wailing and the muffled sound as it landed on the killer at the bottom of the rope again.Pikel had no time to worry, though, as the four killers stood just a few steps away. But these "Night Mask" killers have no intention of fighting.Noticing that the stairs were missing, they looked for other escape routes.One of the killers grabbed the rope and jumped off the edge of the floor without even testing that it was securely fastened.Others ran across the hallway in the other direction, climbing over the railing and jumping down as soon as they found a high place to stand on—mostly a table. Pikel wanted to give chase, but stopped when he heard a door crack open and the sound of a spell being chanted.The next thing the green-bearded dwarf realized was that he was lying a few feet away from where he was standing, with sharp, burning pain coming from the side of his body, and the ends of his shock-struck beard and hair were still there. Trembling. my brother.The words yelled over and over in Pikel's head, like a series of repeated prayers against dizziness, a reminder that he couldn't stay here forever, lying helpless on the floor. Ivan heard a man land heavily beside him, and felt another slowly squirming beneath him.The dwarf opened heavy eyelids to see a killer overlooking him, sword in hand. Before the dwarf could react, the sword came down, and Ivan thought he was dead, but the killer struck low, stabbing under Ivan. Ivan was okay with his luck.He struggled to sit up, trying to find his axe, or anything he could use against the standing killer. Too late.The killer's sword was raised again. "My brother!" Pikel yelled, flying over the ledge of the stairs. The killer jumped aside, turned over and stood up, and ran out the door with the other accomplices. Pikel slammed into Ivan with all his strength. Ivan groaned and waited patiently (he had few other options in the situation) for Pikel to climb off him. "If you're waiting for me to thank you, just keep waiting!" Ivan shouted unhappily. ※※※ Cadderly didn't make it to the scene in time—this was for another killer. The young priest breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he reached the top of the steep roof.Danica was below him, in the narrow space between the gables.One of the remaining killers was there too, kneeling in front of Danica, his arms hanging by his side without resistance, and his head tossed back and forth, blood and sweat splattering everywhere as Danica was Punch after punch hit him in the face. "He's dead," Cadderly said as he reached the young monk. Danica whimpered and hit the man hard again, the broken cartilage in his face cracking under the force of the blow. "He's dead!" Cadderly said emphatically, but he kept his tone steady and non-accusatory. Danica spun around, her face contorted with anger and grief, and fell into his arms.As Cadderly gazed curiously, he wrapped his arms around her, and Danica drew back, glaring at the young priest in disbelief. "How—?" she stammered, stepping back even further, and Cadderly, noticing the change for the first time, had no way of answering her. His hands and feet were covered in white fur, transformed into squirrel limbs.