Chương 26: (26) B1 C26: Sanctuary

"What the fuck is she?" Hamund breathed as he unsheathed his sword. He turned his gaze back to Ismena, as if silently asking her for orders, before quickly bringing his focus back to me. As he stared at me, Hamund brought up his sword and shield before lightly bobbing both in his arms. His eyes were wide and alert, despite the dented helmet he wore over his head, and his shoulders were shaking with barely concealed fear.

"She must've used a berserker spell or something," Ismena reasoned from behind him, "Just attack her, already!"

"But she killed Jonathan and Roley! What the fuck am I supposed to do?" Hamund shouted in response. He took a deep breath, as if attempting to control his mental state, before squaring his stance in preparation for our fight. I did the same, though because I wasn't sure what stance worked best for me, I simply spaced apart my feet and held my claws at my sides so I was prepared for whatever Hamund decided to do.

"Charge, Hamund! You're the only frontline fighter left!" As my unblinking eyes tore into his, Hamund finally found his courage. He moved forward, his shield raised up before him as he closed the distance between us. I began to take a few steps back, my eyes focused on his sword rather than his shield, though I couldn't move fast enough to outpace his forward rush. Then, to my annoyance, Hamund brought his sword down and hid it behind his shield. Now I didn't know how he was going to attack me.

Was he going to swing his sword to the side, from above, or perhaps with a lunge? Once we were close enough, Hamund finally struck. He planted his left foot down, then lunged his sword forward and swung his entire body to support it. The blade poked out from behind the shield at the last second, leaving me surprised by its low angle. I tried to dodge to my side, though the blade pierced through my ribcage far before I even had the chance to move.

The steel weapon plunged into my flesh with surprising ease, as if my body was made of butter, yet the attack left me more excited than fearful. Hamund had put his all into that attack, which meant his posture, stance, and weapon were all at an undesirable state. He'd pushed too far forward, and thus had abandoned his own balance. His legs weren't supporting his body as well as they should've, and his weapon was practically mine now that it was half embedded within my corpse.

I quickly activated Crimson Instinct to see if Hamund's health was low enough for an execution, then clicked my tongue in disappointment when I found that it wasn't. His pulse was strong as his veins were clean, but they were dull and quiet. So, he had at least 2, 500 HP remaining, as well as whatever remained of his Arcane Barrier. Damn Vanguards and their high defense stats.

After canceling the skill, I turned my attention away from the sword poking out of my chest and instead brought my gaze to the only gap in Hamund's armor within striking range. The skin of his neck was visible behind the two-inch gap of his helmet and his cuirass. He wore chainmail armor underneath, yet it wasn't the type that extended into a hood protecting his scalp, which meant there was a perfectly good opportunity to strike the weak spot before me.

I lifted both of my arms, claws outstretched while my palms faced the sky, before plunging all ten of my fingers into the fleshy gap presented to me. My claws pierced his skin with more ease than when his sword had sunk through my chest, which shattered his barrier almost instantly as Hamund was left gasping in pain.

He quickly dashed backwards and abandoned his sword as he did so, which left it poking out of me like a porcupine's quill, before he quickly moved his hands up to plug the multiple leaking holes in his neck. His feet tripped over each other as he stumbled back to Ismena, his hands working overtime to press against the bleeding wounds surrounding his throat like a necklace. Just as he reached the mage, he fell upon his back and began to tear the helmet from his head, gasping for air as he did so.

Once the metal helm surrounding his head was gone, Hamund cleared his lungs with a violent cough as his eyes tore into mine with sheer terror. The sound of shouting tore my attention back to Lucia's binds. The teenager continued to struggle against the magical snake restraining her, yet unlike her previous attempts at freedom, this time she succeeded. The blue snake shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces, each shard evaporating into thin air before it had the chance to fall upon the ground.

Ismena, who'd been maintaining the spell thus far, turned back to Lucia with panicked shock. She lifted her staff once more and a second blue snake began to materialize around Lucia's body, but Hamund wasn't there to help restrain the teenager this time. Lucia quickly moved away from the campsite, though her attention wasn't focused on the Slavers she'd been escaping, but rather me. Her face was twisted into an expression of shock and fear. Her lips were pursed and her shoulders were tense.

A blue light coming at me from the corner of my eye brought my attention back to the fight. Ismena had taken the opportunity to fire another Magic Missile at me, yet this time I was able to see it coming. I dodged to the right, easily clearing myself of the missile as it sailed into the forest behind me. Hamund, now that he lacked the sword poking out of my chest, began to back away to Ismena.

He held the shield up in front of him, his eyes being the only part of his face poking out from behind it, as he extended the distance between us. I quickly activated Crimson Instinct once more. Ismena was too far away to accurately see, but Hamund was just at the edge of the acceptable range. To my relief, his body was shining with a fierce red light. For the moment, it seemed that the fight had entered a brief pause.

Neither of the slavers seemed keen on attacking me, most probably because their previous attacks had failed, and I didn't intend to leave myself open with a brash offensive. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I turned my gaze back to Lucia, who continued to stare at me as if she'd never met me. The expression hurt me more than I expected it to, so I quickly held up my hand, palm facing my companion, as I took a deep breath.

"Lucia, it's me," I began. With my other hand, I pulled the sword from my flesh and used just under 900 Blood Points to heal the open wound revealing my sternum. Again, I felt the injury cutting through my back reject the healing, but I paid no mind to it. Instead, I stabbed Hamund's sword into the ground before holding up both of my palms in a peaceful gesture, "It's just me."

"What… what are you?" Lucia managed to whisper. I heard her loud and clear, even as she stood half a dozen meters away from me. I sighed, then dropped my hands to my sides.

"I'll explain everything later. Just… Just trust me?" I asked. I wasn't sure how honest I was being with that statement, nor how Lucia would react when I told her what I was, but I felt the girl deserved answers if she was going to be willing to treat me as an ally after this. Hopefully I wouldn't have to tell her everything, but I was willing to nonetheless. Why did I feel that way? I'd only met her the other day, and yet it was already as if I'd already begun to consider her a true friend.

I shook my head, hoping to come back to that train of thought later, as I brought my gaze back to the slavers. Ismena had begun to cast some sort of spell, and judging by the golden glow around her staff, she was nearly done with it. Hamund, meanwhile, had backed up far enough to reach Ismena. As the mage slammed the staff into the ground, a golden circle enveloped the ground directly around them, illuminating the surroundings in a dazzling brightness akin to a spotlight.

The light from the circle primarily shot upwards, as if forming a cylindrical wall at the edges of the spell, before running into the sky above. Immediately, I felt a grimace shoot across my face as the uncomfortable feeling of wrongness seeped into my mind. I didn't like that circle, both due to its appearance and my familiarity with the energy emanating from it. That same energy was eating its way through my scapula, even now, and the illumination from the spell reminded me of sunlight.

I knew, even before approaching the circle, that I wouldn't be able to enter. My vampiric instincts told me so, but so did my practical knowledge of FFO." Sanctuary? Really?" I sighed. Sanctuary was a beginner holy spell and functioned entirely as a high-cost defensive ward. When cast in an environment, the spell itself was rooted into its initial location, and thus couldn't move, but all those standing in its embrace were safe from attacks originating from sources of evil.

It was a niche spell, considering the spell's strict outlook on what counted as 'evil'. A bandit hoping to kill you and rob you of all your worth? Nah, those guys weren't even bothered by Sanctuary. A haunted doll that hadn't disturbed anybody in five hundred years? Fuck, stay away! Unfortunately for me, Vampires seemed to count among the 'Fuck, stay away!' category, which meant both Ismena and Hamund were entirely out of my reach so long as the spell remained active. How annoying.

I slowly approached the barrier, eagerly watching the pair tense up as I closed the distance between us. Then, just before I reached the golden wall of light, I stopped and lifted a single hand upward. Then, I cautiously ran the claw of my index finger over the golden wall and watched as it scraped across the wall of light like it was scratching against the surface of a physical stone wall.

"So that's how it works," I nodded. In FFO, monsters affected by Sanctuary simply wouldn't direct their aggro to the caster. Even if the only person in a fight was said caster, the surrounding monsters would aimlessly wander around until the spell was over. I was not a monster in FFO, and thus could decide who I focused my attention on. Finding out that Sanctuary physically stopped me like a real wall would, rather than some sort of magical mind alteration, was a relief.

I took a step back, then turned my gaze to Ismena.

"Sanctuary is a costly spell," I told her, "Are you sure you have enough mana to hold out for long enough?"

"How do you…" Ismena breathed, "How do you know about the holy art of Sanctuary, you monster?"

"I have experience with it," I replied. Ismena's face paled in horror at the implication of my answer, yet I didn't bother correcting her. She must've assumed I'd faced casters who'd used the spell before, and had thus killed them after their mana ran out. I didn't intend to correct that assumption.

"What are you?" Hamund was the next to ask a question. I looked at him, then smiled. He took a breath upon seeing my exposed fangs, then held his shield up higher even though he was safely behind the safety of Sanctuary.

"Hamund! Let me speak to this devil," Ismena snapped. She looked back to me, "I was wrong to assume you are a practitioner of Berserker spells. No Berserker drinks the blood of their enemies with such fervor. No, you've been halted by Sanctuary, and thus must be an agent of darkness."

"You weren't sure of that when you casted it?" I chuckled.

"I had to take the chance."

"Bold," I nodded, "How do you know how to cast this spell, anyways? You don't look like a priestess." Ismena's face darkened before she brought her gaze to a bloodless corpse behind me.

"Jonathan taught me," Ismena answered, "He was a good man, yet you killed him as if he were nothing more than prey!"

"He was," I smiled, "As far as I'm concerned, everybody who's willing to enslave another is prey. You chose to be prey when you decided that your own lives were superior to others."

"So does that make you a predator? Willing to take the lives of those who you deem fit?" Ismena asked, "If so, you're nothing more than a hypocrite, as you also prioritize the lives of some over the lives of others."

"Perhaps," I shrugged, "But it would make me a righteous one, at least."

"Ha! A righteous beast?" Ismena smiled in a mocking way. She took a step forward, just until she was at the edge of Sanctuary's boundary, before she spat at me. The glob of saliva easily passed through Sanctuary's wall before sinking to my feet, "There is no such thing. Maybe you think that way of yourself, but the blood coating your lips tells a different story. You are a scourge upon this world—a ravenous force of evil. I saw the way you shuddered as you drank the blood of my friend.

You were enamored by him—nay, you fell into a euphoric trance. I don't know what sort of creature you are, but I can see that you are one of gluttony. You will feast and feast until nothing of your 'morals' remain. Then, you will be as you truly are: A monster in the skin of a woman prowling through the dark for her next meal. There is no righteousness in that."

"My will is my own."

"The heavens will cry when that becomes one of the world's truths."