Free Web NovelChapter 143: With just a knife
Victor watched as the hunter with the club stuck a foot in the ground, his face contorted in pain as he stared in disbelief at the thorn in his foot. Blood dripped onto the dirty floor of the warehouse, mixing with the smell of rust and oil.
"You bastard!" the man growled, his voice filled with hatred and a few tears. He struggled to pull his foot out of the thorn, but the pain almost prevented him from moving.
This was one opportunity Victor had been looking for. These hired hunters were the strongest in this camp and the only ones who actually posed a little problem, so Victor had to take them out whenever he had the chance.
But luck was not on his side. Before he could reach the hunter with his sword, a whistle cut through the air. Instinctively, Victor threw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding an arrow that buried itself in the ground where he stood. His eyes searched for the source of the attack and spotted the same archer as before, this time positioned in the air between two of the warehouse’s support beams. She was a slim, agile woman with an even more perverse look than the others. She was already preparing another arrow for her bow.
"You’re surrounded, old man!" shouted the hunter with the club, still with an intense expression of pain.
Victor looked around and saw that the assassin was almost on her feet, and the burly man Victor had thrown against the crates was slowly coming to.
"Surrender and maybe we’ll spare your life," the hunter with the club continued.
Victor was not a man of many words in battle. He preferred to use the neurons he had to think of alternatives.
Running for the gate was no longer an option, not with so many enemies around. So he knew he had to use the environment to his advantage as well.
First, he ran behind a pile of crates, using them as cover against the archer.
"Hey! Don’t think you can hide!" the archer yelled.
"Ah, he won’t get far," the hunter said, muscles showing as he tried to stand up with his club for support. The man was stubborn and would not give up easily.
The archer fired another arrow, which ricocheted off the metal crates near Victor with a sharp sound.
Victor used the sound to change position, slipping silently into the shadows of the warehouse. He needed to eliminate at least the archer with the ability to reveal himself before the other mercenaries and warehouse guards reached the part of the warehouse where they were, and he needed to take advantage of the other opposing hunters’ lack of mobility. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
"Come on, show yourself!" the archer shouted, clearly frustrated. "Are you afraid, old man?"
’She’s not using that skill from before. There must be a limit or a cooldown. I have to use it.’ Victor mentally analyzed.
In a matter of seconds, Victor was directly under the archer, who hadn’t seen him yet. With a quick movement, Victor raised his sword and threw it. The blade embedded itself in the wood of the beam she was standing on, causing the archer to lose her balance and fall from the top. She landed with a thud, her expression of surprise soon replaced by pain as she tried to get up. She fell awkwardly and twisted her left ankle slightly, preventing her from getting up.
Victor wasted no time. He ran to the archer and delivered a decisive blow with a knife he held in his heel, silencing the archer forever with a knife to the throat.
Just as Victor thought everything was going well, he felt movement behind him and turned in time to see another hunter emerge from the shadows. It was a man with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was the same man Victor had seen singing to the warehouse worker earlier.
This hunter carried two short swords and said nothing before moving against Victor with impressive agility.
Victor stepped back to block his new opponent’s swift attacks.
"You just killed a beautiful woman from my group," the man said calmly, but his eyes burned with anger. "Do you know how hard it is for groups of rogue hunters to find beautiful women?"
"Renegade hunters?" Victor replied, his voice controlled. "They look more like bandits to me."
The long-haired hunter laughed briefly and attacked with even more intensity. Victor realized that although this man seemed calm on the outside, he was acting out of emotion, which made him unpredictable, but also careless.
And Victor was right, this hunter didn’t even want to enter the fight.
Uninterested in a fight of two blades against one knife in such a confined space, Victor retreated to a more open area behind him, forcing the hunter to follow. He needed room to maneuver, to watch his back, and still counterattack.
The long-haired hunter, blinded by rage, took the bait and advanced without thinking.
Victor bided his time. When the hunter was close enough, he made a quick move, dodging to the right and delivering a horizontal strike with all his might. The knife found the long-haired man’s side, pierced him deeply, and didn’t go through him only because the long-haired hunter used his short swords to stop Victor’s knife in its tracks.
The hunter groaned in pain, spit out blood, and fell to his knees.
"How... a simple knife could... Blergh!"
His calm expression turned to pain and indignation at the same time. How could he, with two swords, lose to a man with only one knife?
"Sorry," Victor muttered, looking into his opponent’s eyes as he watched his blood drip. "You chose the wrong side."
Soon, Victor heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. He turned to see an imposing man, scarred and with a hatchet on his back. His eyes were cold and calculating, and he radiated an aura of danger. This hunter was clearly the leader of the group and would not be easy to defeat.
Victor immediately took the knife from the other man’s back, but just as he was about to raise it, the man pulled someone out of the shadows.
Under the muscular right arm of the leader of these renegade hunters was Bel Selvarum, his hands bound.
"You’ve made a mess of things here, Victor Shieldman," the man said, his voice deep and authoritative. "But your old game of diversion doesn’t work on old lions like me."
