Chapter 379: If.
“What an upset!” Kraven screamed, not caring in the slightest that a man’s life had been withered away right before him. “Who would have seen that one coming?”
The crowd screamed, but their voices sounded distant to Arnold’s ears. His ears rung and blood pounded in his skull to the beat of an invisible drum. There was nothing he could do to pull his eyes away from the pile of ashen armor that had been a man mere moments before.
This was far from the first time he’d seen someone die. Arnold wasn’t a professional warrior, but he’d seen his share of death as an adventurer. But never before had he seen a death like this. There had been no chance to fight back.
One moment, there had been a knight.
The next, he was gone, and all that remained was a pile of fallen armor and the memory of a man.
And above that pile rose a shadow with eyes like molten stone. It flowed from the hilt of the sword impaled in the ground beside where the knight had fallen — and its gaze was turned straight toward Arnold.
“You’ve been carrying me around without drawing me once. I’m offended,” the shadow said. It couldn’t have spoken any louder than a whisper, but he heard it perfectly.
He heard it perfectly, and he knew the voice it spoke in. Arnold knew it well.
It was his own.