Walter had lost sight of Gypsy, which was only a good thing as far as he was concerned. Xlen was standing on the opposite side of the wish-downed trio. Lord Ashborne was still standing by the door, only a handful of feet away from where Shamesh stood motionless. Lua's light had returned to normal but made sure that the rooftop was well lit, enough for any elf to see clearly anyway.
A lone figure clad in grays, which matched the tone of the ivory that the city was made out of, fell almost out of the sky and landed on the opposite end of the repurposed concert hall from Lord Ashborne. The new figure's gear was all light and flexible leather but definitely not from a common beast. Based on the outlines of the armor, the assassin looked to be male.
"Nightwatchman." Lord Ashborne greeted the newcomer.
"Lord Ashborne." The assassin's voice came back in the dead center of every vocal spectrum. His voice was clearly being disguised by magic. "Our mission was clear. In their time of weakness, remove them without any witnesses. If that was not possible, which it is not because of your order to the guards, we are to end them and ensure the cooperation of any witnesses, one way or another."
"You will die." Lord Ashborne replied with such a lack of emotion that he could have been saying that it was dark out at night. It was a simple fact and there was no questioning it.
"Perhaps, but not before our mission is completed. We will either be brought back soon or through the original way. Regardless, our deaths are never truly permanent. Our hope is that we serve our master once again in our next lives." The assassin monologued. Walter took the time, which the assassin and Lord Ashborne's conversation had given him, to slide two enchanted disks out of his 'pocket' dimension. "We would prefer not to engage with such a warrior as yourself, but if you leave us no choice, then we will do so."
"Then you may leave." Lord Ashborne stated simply. "I will not chase you."
The assassin sighed and five crossbow bolts came flying in out of thin air towards Isaac and Lenna. There were no doubts in anyone's minds that every bolt tip was poisoned with something strong enough to give a dragon trouble. Xlen's boots almost seemed to glide across the ground as his shuangshou jian sword flicked out and moved in snapping fluid changes in direction that intercepted all five bolts out of mid air and left them clattering to the ground still in one piece. He hadn't even wasted the effort required to actually cut the bolts as long as they weren't a threat to anyone anymore. One of them skipped right past Walter's knee where he was kneeling next to Isaac and Lenna but it had clearly been purposefully directed that way.
Xlen's shuangshou jian was a sword much like Isaac's, straight and a uniform width almost the whole way to the end, but was a good bit larger and heavier. A shuangshou jian was a blade made to handle real stress, unlike Isaac's wide bladed rapier with a cross-guard. His blade was two inches wide and three and a half feet long. He nearly lacked a cross-guard, with there only being a tiny ornate shield, which was only two inches across, to catch any blades that slid up his own. His hilt was a foot long by itself which led to the sword coming up to his shoulder if it was stood on the ground. His scabbard was a work of art that functioned like a Bottomless Bag but looked like a foot long scabbard. That would have made the weapon hidden in his sash a strange two handed large knife. The scabbard would not fool anyone though, but it did make the transportation of such a large weapon far easier.
Using his frontward hand as fulcrum and the full strength of a twentieth level and highly trained knight, Xlen was able to move the tip of his blade at a speed that blurred to the eyes of anyone watching. "Cease this at once." Xlen ordered the Nightwatchmen.
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Walter tossed his two metal discs so they landed directly between Isaac, Lenna, and Cainen. A Reality Prison formed around them, made with bars so thin and so close together that it almost looked like a mesh yet it was still strong enough to stop any blow from even someone like Lenna from breaking through. At the same time, a small six foot radius sphere of noise cancelation formed encompassing the three wish-downed legends. Walter rolled to his feet as a crossbow bolt went for him but instead just skipped off the ground harmlessly. He used his roll to pull his revolver out of his holster and quickly fired a shot at where the most recent bolt had come from.
Blood sprayed as a Shroud was broken and the flying assassin was revealed. Her crossbow fell towards the ground and, based on her body language, she was in a state of shock, not only because she was hit but because Walter's bullet had punched straight through her enchanted armor and shattered her shoulder-blade.
The assassin on the ground and Lord Ashborne had not been idle while the rest of the assassins, Walter, and Xlen were engaging. The leader of the assassins pulled a long spear out of thin air and barely got it up to block as Lord Ashborne covered the entire room in a blink. The only heads up that the assassin had received was the strange sight of ash leaves blowing in the wind in front of him.
Lord Ashborne's twin curved swords came in from two different directions with every strike as he assaulted the assassin at a speed of five near lethal strikes per second for second after second. The assassin was forced to dodge backwards out of Lord Ashborne's strikes while he blocked and parried as his life hung by a thread. The Ashborne Patriarch was not messing around and every attack was aimed at either an instantly debilitating or completely lethal location. The assassin managed to break his long spear in two, which it was actually meant to do, which allowed him to use a pair of four foot long spears to try and keep Lord Ashborne's blades at bay.
The mere fact that the assassin hadn't instantly been slain was a testament to his training and skill. Lord Ashborne could kill ninety nine percent of warriors on the planet in the first second of combat. Only one percent of that one percent actually stood a chance at fighting him to standstill. Of that one percent, maybe six percent could actually beat him. If it came to him fighting against Fable or Xlen, it was entirely dependent on how the other two fought against him. Xlen was a master at enough weapons that he would be able to find the proper counter and force him into a stalemate. Fable would have to rely on Reality Shield's and the perfect use of Limit Break to eke out a win from the jaws of defeat or be drowned in a sea of blades.
The assassin was rapidly being boxed into a corner as Lord Ashborne pressured him so hard that the blade dancer was the one to decide which direction the assassin was able to dodge in. It was only a matter of time before the assassin was going to look like a diced tomato and they both knew it. The lead assassin just hoped that the rest of his team would be able to get the job done before then, because they both knew that Lord Ashborne could teleport far more than once per day.
Gypsy waited, smelled, and listened. Walter had not ordered her to attack yet, so she would wait and follow her usual 'standby' order. She was to wait until someone that Walter deemed as 'important' was about to be hit by an attack. At that moment, she was to hit the attacker first. So she waited and watched. Her ears picked up a slight shift in the wind, her nose caught the scent of chestnut and oak. Her magically created sight picked up on what a fully living creature's vision never could have, an imbalance in the ambient mana. It was faint but it was there. It was moving around behind Walter but stopped as Walter's discs activated to protect the three important targets. The figure then started moving towards Walter but froze for a moment when Walter's first shot landed true. Gypsy took that moment to strike.
One hundred and fifty pounds of steel, adamantine, mythril, and platinum impacted the back of the assassin's neck teeth first. Gypsy took him to the ground and then yanked with her jaws clamped down as hard they could be. The adamantine edges of her teeth parted flesh and ground bone. When she yanked, her jaws and everything in their grasp was yanked out of the assassin in a gory spray of bone fragments, fleshy bits, and a whole lot of blood. Right as that happened, Walter's second shot rang out and the one that he had hit was shot directly in the bridge of her nose. Walter and Gypsy had never been known for their clean kills but the first two assassins had been taken care of and it was time to clean up the rest.
Walter pulled out a pair of goggles and slapped them onto his face while everyone was momentarily stunned by two of the assassins instantly being dismantled. The straps flung around to the back of his head and latched themselves to hold the goggles into place. A new wave of crossbow bolts were fired, this time at Walter, and Xlen was just barely too far away to get all of them. Xlen intercepted two, Walter dodged two more, but the last one hit his duster and managed to puncture it. The bolt point was stopped by his reinforced shirt underneath but he still felt a prick and burning sensation from his side. He fought down a swear as he tapped the side of his goggles and spoke their activation phrase: "All seeing eyes of the gods."
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