Chapter 6: First Kill
Lightning coursed around Alex as he sped through the secret passage, the coordinates his mother sent burning into his mind. The weight of her command to flee gnawed at him, but he forced it aside, focusing on reaching there as fast as possible.
The passage opened into the castle’s outskirts, the cool night air rushing over him. But a sharp whistling sound sliced through the air the moment he stepped outside.
An arrow!
Alex twisted his body, narrowly dodging the projectile as it grazed past his arm. He turned, his eyes locking onto two figures perched high on the nearby ridges. Both wielded elegant, curved bows that gleamed faintly in the moonlight, their strings drawn back and ready to release.
"You’re fast," one of them called out over the distance. "But not fast enough."
Two more figures stepped forward from the shadows below, each radiating the deadly aura of expert rank masters. One spun a glaive effortlessly, its blade slicing arcs through the air, while the other had twin daggers glowing faintly with condensed wind energy.
Alex clenched his teeth. "Four of you? I don’t have time for this."
The archer on the left smirked. "You’ll make time, always wanted to kill royalty".
They attacked in unison. The archers fired a barrage of wind-charged arrows, their precision deadly. The glaive master charged head-on, his strikes cleaving through the air with crushing force, while the dagger wielder darted to Alex’s flank, moving like a ghost in the shadows.
Alex’s katana was already in motion, golden lightning flaring along its edge. He deflected the arrows with precise, calculated swings, sparks, and wind scattering with each strike. The glaive came down in a sweeping arc, but Alex sidestepped at the last second, his blade lashing out in retaliation.
The glaive master managed to block, but the force of the impact sent him skidding back.