5.24

“Maddie! We’re surrounded on all sides!”

“Wondrous! Now we can attack in EVERY DIRECTION!” - Conversation between Empress Madelyn the Conqueror and her second in command Navy General ‘Hubby Wubby Sweetie Cheeks’, recently renamed by Imperial Decree.

“Tai!” Noam yelled into the silent town.

No answer greeted him, save the sound of slithering.

Tsking, he drew out his blades. Serpentine forms allowed for a lot of maneuverability. They could appear anywhere. He kept his eyes down, not daring to perform wide-sweeping scans of his area, and took off.

Disturbance on the right, a clay pot shattering. Far away, he ignored it.

A shadow on the ground, a serpent moving parallel to him. Without looking, he swiped up and severed the creature.

A hiss towards his front, a pale form coiled around a lamp post. Its head further up, almost beckoning him to see.

He slashed the lamp post, the metal clanging against each other. A formless horror falling severed on the ground.

‘They aren’t fast,’ he realised as he cleared his first block. ‘So used to perfect camouflage they didn’t develop the same burst speed of an ambush predator.’

He rounded a corner, yelling once again, “Tai!”

More slithering shadows, more bony pale serpents whose heads he dared not look at. He didn’t know how many, but if this was a pack creature ‘then they must be gathering where there is prey.’

Not even slowing, he ran forward. Blades out and slashing at every shadow and glimpse he saw. The pavement rushing under his feet as he cleared another block.

“Tai!”

And he found her this time.

Feet stamped into the ground, arms fallen by her side, her blade drawn but laid low. Noam almost looked to see her face but stopped when he noticed the pale neck wrapped around her own.

‘Bait.’

Noam slashed everywhere around him. Numerous heads that had escaped his notice fell to the ground.

He pushed his leg back, crouching almost like a cat or cougar. His target was in sight and though he couldn’t say exactly how many metres away like Dustin could, he knew instinctively where Tai was in relation to him.

It was enough.

Blasting off, he threw his arms out, his eyes kept to the ground as he slashed all around him as he ran.

At a first glance, it looked like he was randomly flailing about his weapons, only catching the creatures by mistake and luck. A further examination would reveal that his slashes formed a nigh unbreakable field around him. Though his blades could not be everywhere around him at once, they could be anywhere around him.

Ethereal the creatures were, attacks went through them like a hot knife through butter. They only had one trick that could realistically stop him, as long as he kept his eyes down, they could not attack him.

And so he ran, an unstoppable flurry of steel and mist as he made it ever closer to the Tai.

Then, a single thing happened.

A single face, emerged from the cobbled pavement.

A single face, laid on the ground like a mask.

A single face, Noam saw.

Then a dozen faces smiled as the bard was silenced.

‘They’re intangible,’ was the last thing Noam thought before his legs froze mid-run. Tripping over himself as he fell face-first onto the ground.

A moment of weakness, a moment too many.

Needle-like teeth stabbed into Noam’s right shoulder. Then another on his left leg, another on his right side. Noam grit his teeth as he forced himself up and slashed at the offending beasts. But even severed their jaws remained firmly in his body.

He made the mistake of looking at his injured shoulder, a nauseating feeling crawling up his throat as he caught the barest glimpse of a face.

The stumps were already moving back, their misty form slowly reconnecting with the heads on him even as Noam slashed in every such direction.

‘That’s how it hunts,’ Noam realised. ‘It doesn’t care if I sever it a million times, it’ll eventually reattach to the heads.’

‘I’m marked.’

He continued forward, but he was slowing, his blades, flashing beautifully in the sunlight no longer covered every angle. Another bite on his right calf, another source of pain he bit down and ignored.

A pair of jaw slashed his back, his blade no longer fast enough to catch them. His body bleeding and drenched in his own blood. His mind, fighting off the pain of a dozen needle-like wounds.

Finally, Noam fell to a knee, stabbing his blade into the ground for support.

He was barely a few metres from Tai.

The heads bitting into him slowly regenerated, like chains they hung off him, restraining him from reaching his final goal.

Noam was barely aware of a single serpentine head, flowing lazily around him, slowly going around him. Until finally, he felt the thing staring before him.

A head came from underneath, propping his chin up to look at the face.

Mind numb from pain, body tired and almost broken, he could do little to resist.

And he saw the face.

And he realised something.

He could barely focus on it.

The pain of a dozen wounds, of a tired and wounded body, they all took precedence over the face.

It began as a chuckle, slowly building to the enemy’s confusion before it exploded into raucous laughter.

“I can look at you!”

Suddenly, his body seemed to surge, his back straightened as his hook swords once again slashed the offending necks.

‘Focus on the pain.’

An attack from overhead parried away with but a passing glance.

‘Focus on the elation.’

A surge of serpents came straight for him, but he met them with hook and blade, carving his way through them.

‘Do not focus on the faces.’

Dustin saw the vague outlines of a face, but only when he comprehended its entirety did it harm him. Tai similarly dealt with them easily when there were tears in her eyes.

“Focus on you winning.”

As finally, Noam stood tall and looked at the enemy all around him. His nose bled, his eyes reddened, as even diluted, the combined strain of looking at so many greatly burdened him.

But still, he stood and laughed.

“This is finally a fair fight!” he yelled into the void, “Breathless, activate!”

Dozens of them stormed him, but he saw their slow movements, he saw them all.

And none reached him.

None will ever reach him now.

Slowly he walked forward, severed necks and heads falling onto the ground behind him. Slowly he walked, ever closer to Tai. His hook swords flailing around him with such speed and intensity, that a watcher may be forgiven for mistaking him for an eight-armed deva wielding eight weapons.

A bleeding juggernaut, his blades were his armour, his pain was his protection, his joy was his faith.

He stopped only a single step away from Tai when the serpents ceased their endless attacks. Instead, only a single one had its jaw opened. Stabbing into the flesh of Tai’s neck, pinpricks of blood dripping down her tanned skin.

“This a draw now?” he laughed, “Fastest hand in the West? I’d bet on myself over you limp dicks any day.”

The face might have been cautious, might have been confident, Noam didn’t pay attention. Standing there like a drunk, yet with a swagger that belied his heavily wounded appearance.

Only at the moment, when that jaw closed by the tiniest amount, did he move.

A single step, a single flourish, a single head fell to the ground. Severed from its jaw so that it could not bite on her like the numerous that bit him.

A second step, a second flourish, a second head fell to the ground. Tai came back to consciousness, no longer seeing the face that took her.

And Noam’s bloody form fell on her, barely catching him, she sputtered, “Noam? What happened to you-” His blades fell clanging onto the ground, and a single bloody hand pawed at Tai’s face. Staining her vision red and leaving five blood streaks down her face.

“Keep your eyes blurred,” she heard him quietly speak, “don’t do it as I did. Too fucking stupid. They’re easy when you can look at them.”

“You-” fervently she looked around, seeing the numerous serpents but making out any details of their face.

“I want to keep going but I don’t think I can,” he muttered, voice low like a dying engine.

His body barely had the strength to stand, only by leaning on Tai was he upright at all. His hand went to his belt, drawing a wand with careful deliberateness.

Before he didn’t dare look up, but now that he can, he looked at the mage tower, where a single figure stood holding a gleaming mirror.

His body spent and weak like a wet noodle, he mustered the last of his aura to shakily bring his hand up. His mind was tired and he was not seeing clearly,

Still, you needn’t insult him by saying he can’t hit a stationary target.

A mirror shattered and Dustin was freed.

With a smile, Noam pat Tai on the shoulder, “I’ll leave it to you.”

And with that, he fell unconscious, now out of the fight.