Chương 109: Book 2 Chapter 61 - The Gang

Kiara let the three men split up, and waited for Vance to double back towards the tier 2 guards at the end of the hallway. Then, she dropped her invisibility and jumped at Dasor. He didn't have time to react before she had landed four hits on him, knocking him out cold. His body slammed into the wall from the force of her final strike, then slumped to the ground in a heap. His jaw was hanging at an odd angle… maybe he was more than unconscious.

Tank roared from the other side of the hallway, charging at her full speed. From the end of the hallway, Vance realized she'd been found, and came sprinting back as well, followed closely by the two tier 2s. Tank's body seemed to grow in size, both vertically as well as enlarging. Some kind of body-enhancement magic? Kiara wasn't sure. He didn't pull out any weapons, and didn't launch any spells at her, he just came in swinging his fists. She had to admit, he was fast, faster than Zoey.

He must be excellent at sending mana through his body to enhance it even further than his base stats. She ducked his first swing and tried to trip him with his own momentum as he crashed by her. She was much faster and stronger than him, but his weight was likely triple her own. Needless to say, trying to trip him did not work in her favor. The leg she had stuck out to intercept his legs was smashed aside as he ran by, barely affecting his momentum at all.

Pain coursed through her leg where her leg had collided with his, and she made a mental note to dump a bunch of points into Durability the next time she leveled up. She took a tentative step to make sure nothing was broken, and the leg held up just fine. Vance arrived just as Tank whipped around to come back at her, making it so that there was one on either side of her. She needed a reach advantage to deal with Tank, so she pulled her two enchanted swords from her soul storage, one in each hand.

Trying to fight an opponent on either side was troublesome because she had to constantly swivel her head back and forth, but her Mind and Strength stats were both high enough to make it work, if only just barely. Vance pulled a sword of his own out, while Tank simply smashed together the metal bracers on his arms, indicating he was ready to go.

Luckily Vance seemed to be a combination fighter that leaned mostly spell-heavy, so while he did launch an occasional swing of his sword, for the most part he began launching a barrage of nasty spells in her direction. Compared to what she had seen from Zoey, though, his spells were lacking. They were showy – loud and bright – but they didn't feel as compact or well-controlled as what she had seen from Zoey. As they smashed into her one after the other, they dissipated immediately, as expected.

This allowed her to focus primarily on Tank, who was busy blocking her sword strikes with his bracers. His primary attack pattern consisted of trying to bash her sword to the side and then rush in to grab her. If that happened, she would be at a severe disadvantage. Luckily, she was able to anticipate his moves without too much trouble, as the attack pattern was very simple and lacked any sort of finesse or subterfuge. Before he could get close, her sword was right back in his path, point first.

She made sure the one Victor had given her was pointed at Tank, and after his first two rushes ended with a sword in his torso, he had pulled back, blood dripping to the floor.

"I can't get close to her!" he roared to Vance. The tier 2s arrived then, and took up the job of launching long-range spells at her, so Vance jumped in with his sword. Kiara immediately recognized the attack pattern of Fire Form, a favorite of aggressive attackers. With Tank momentarily distracted and bleeding, she took that moment to turn her full attention on Vance.

As he rushed in, she easily parried his strike with the sword in her left hand, bringing Victor's sword in for a quick parry, which went through his left shoulder. His face looked at the weapon in surprise, as it had penetrated his mana shield, just as it had Tank's. The interesting thing was that it didn't pierce their shields nearly as easily as it had the tier 1 bandits she had fought.

Those shields had given out after just the smallest feeling of resistance, whereas for both Vance and Tank, her momentum stalled almost completely before it cracked the shield and broke through. The quality difference in their magic compared to the tier 1s was night and day. The pause in momentum as her sword hit their shields threw each strike off, meaning the sword ended up in a different spot than she had been aiming: his shoulder, rather than his heart.

Regardless, as soon as she landed the strike on Vance's shoulder, she let go of that sword and grabbed his head with her free hand, completely disabling whatever mana shields he may have had left.

"What the…?" His surprised expression ended abruptly as she used the sword in her left hand to stab him straight through the eye. She grabbed Victor's gifted sword from his shoulder as he fell to the earth, spinning back around to intercept Tank's latest charge. Now that she could focus on him completely, anticipating his movements and attack patterns became even easier. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She ducked under a wild haymaker, then side stepped his follow up front kick, grabbing his leg as it missed her by inches. Once she made skin contact, she plunged her sword directly through his heart. He fell to the ground with a muffled groan. The entire sequence only took a couple of seconds. The two tier 2 mages stopped launching spells, their mouths hanging open in shock and awe. That awe quickly morphed into fear as they turned and fled.

Kiara let them go, hoping they would spread that fear to the other gang members. Ideally, no one would try to accost her while she was ferrying four mortals through the hideout. She quickly cleaned her swords, then unlocked the cell door again and pulled it wide open. The blacksmith and his daughter were another two employees that Kaira had never met in person, so she didn't know for certain who was who in here, but she thought her logic was sound.

She glanced at the other prisoners and made a split second decision. If this gang was holding any of these people hostage, they were likely not bad people. An enemy of her enemy, and all that. The five people in the room stared at her as the door opened. They had undoubtedly heard the shouting and fighting moments ago, but none of the carnage was visible from their vantage points.

"Hello," Kiara began. She turned to the two hostages she assumed were her employees.

"I'm Shian Yountal. I've come to negotiate your release." They blinked in surprise, looked at each other, then quickly stood and bowed politely.

"My lady," the man said, "what an… unexpected surprise. Are we free to go, then?" Kiara nodded.

"Yes, but we'll need to hurry. I don't expect this window of freedom to last very long. In fact it's reliant on the remaining guards' current emotional state, so we likely only have a minute or two." She looked around at the other prisoners.

"Everyone up! Let's go. We're all leaving." They stood hesitantly, and she realized they might be in shock at the sudden change of circumstances. She really didn't have time to dilly dally, so she raised her volume a bit.

"Now! Let's go, everyone follow me." She turned and left the cell, not waiting to see if they followed. She hoped the forceful command would spur them into action. She was rewarded when she sensed all five of them quickly standing and following after her. She looked at the tier 3 mage over her shoulder as she walked.

"Can you still cast?" He nodded hesitantly.

"Good," she said.

"Move to the back of the group. Put up your strongest mana shield around these mortals, make sure nothing gets through to them." Looking around at the carnage in the hallway, he gulped and nodded hastily, moving to the back of the group. A second later, mana shields formed around everyone. Kiara's immediately disappeared.

"Don't worry about shielding me," she added, "I have my own protections in place." The four mortals took the scene in the hallway with a bit more difficulty. The teenager's face blanched, and he covered his mouth with his hand, making a retching sound. Kiara hoped he could hold it together, and pressed forward as quickly as she could without leaving them behind. Once they left the hallway, and the gore was out of sight, the mortals recovered somewhat.

The tier 3 had seemed surprised by the scene, but more surprised by the outcome than by the carnage itself. He had likely seen his share of fights, especially considering his current physical state. She would have to ask him about that later. They climbed the stairs to the ground level and made their way to the entryway, where a large group of the remaining gang members had gathered. They looked uncertain as to what they should do.

The two guards from the basement who had participated in the fight momentarily were there, which meant they knew their leaders were dead. Kiara raised a hand to slow down the forward march of the hostages behind her, then stepped forward slowly toward the gathered gang members.

"So what's it gonna be?" she asked, feeling out the situation. The gang members glanced at each other nervously. She thumbed over her shoulder towards Choppy.

"Choppy here is a tier 3. I killed Vance, Dasor, and Tank. I can see that all of you are tier 2 or tier 1. Do you really want to try and stop us from leaving?" The gang members continued sharing hesitant looks, whispering nervously to each other. Kiara pulled her swords from her soul storage, just in case it came to a fight, and the two guards from down below visibly shrank back and hissed in fear. That made the rest of them all the more frightened of her.

She stared them all down, one by one, slowly stepping around the room to make eye contact with each of them. She paused at a random guard, someone she knew was a tier 1. Her danger sense pinged this guy as barely a threat, not much higher than a mortal. Her parents were more dangerous than this guy.

"How about you?" she asked him menacingly.

"Do you want to fight me?" The man shook his head emphatically, taking an involuntary step back. She stepped up to the next person, a short woman with close-cropped hair and a scar on her left cheek. Her look might normally be very intimidating, but tonight she was trembling.

"And you?" she asked the woman threateningly. The woman shook her head and mumbled out, "No, Lady Swordswoman." Her gaze dropped to the floor submissively. Kiara continued the circuit, asking only a few more before she knew she had them. They wanted to avoid this fight as badly as possible. She pointed to one of the men near the door.

"You, use your token and disable the wards on the door." The man quickly stepped forward to comply. After he was done, she put out her hand.

"Now give me the token, then step through the doorway yourself." She wanted to see if he'd really disabled all of them before she let anyone else walk through. A look of visible relief washed over the man's face, which Kiara took to mean that he had considered leaving the wards intact as a trap, but had ultimately decided against it. He handed her the token, opened the door, and stepped outside. The minute his feet hit the ground on the other side of the door, he broke into a dead run. She smiled mentally.

Outwardly, she kept a stern look on her face. She motioned to Choppy and the others, and they stepped forward and made their way outside. Kiara glanced around the room one more time, locking eyes with each person again.

"I'm Shian Yountal. Remember that name. I don't want to see any more attacks on my businesses, my people, or my merchandise. Spread the word."