Walter's vision flashed blue and the entire world, seen through his lenses, became entirely blue-scale. In the corners of his vision, projections of what was going on around him appeared giving him almost a full three hundred and sixty degree vision. Three figures were moving towards Shamesh. One had something akin to a Bottomless Bag, one had the kind of magical suppression cuffs and collars that only affected the target and not an area around them, and the last one had a pair of tonfas. Five more were in the air above them. One had the magical power of a high level mage and was the one powering the Shroud and Flight spells. The other four were rogues or warriors just like the two who had already been slain. Judging by their perceived power density, all of the assassins were in the low to high teens with only the one Lord Ashborne was fighting being actually at maximum level. They all had melee weapons available on their sides if it came to that but the ones in the air seemed insistent on using their full quivers of poisoned bolts first.

Walter quickly fanned the hammer on his revolver and sent one bullet towards the stomach and one towards the head of the caster supporting the assassination squad. A Reality Shield automatically activated on the first point of contact, the stomach shot, which meant that whatever item or previously cast spell had summoned it was not able to intercept the one that hit the caster in the head, killing her instantly.

Walter spun around and fired his last two shots into the two assassins aiming to capture Shamesh. His first bullet hit the bag assassin in the arm but his magically reinforced armor prevented the bullet from entering his torso. His body did still absorb the full impact of the bullet however, so in addition to losing most of the use of his right arm, he was sent staggering into the wall. His second shot landed true on the cuffs assassin and slipped under the assassin's arm and into his torso just above the centerline. Even if the bullet missed his heart, it would still end up tearing lungs and causing massive internal bleeding.

While Walter was showing the assassins why the Free-Walker, the Engineer, was acknowledged and/or feared all across the elven and human lands, Xlen was making use of the opportunity he had been given.

Xlen ran forwards at a speed completely unattainable by mortals by normal means. His every footfall found perfect purchase as his heavy armor twisted and bent as if it were thin leather. His legs moved in a blur so quick that he was able to be at one of the falling assassin's landing points before they were. As soon Walter had killed the mage, the five in the air had all plummeted to the ground with their invisibility shrouds dispelled and Xlen was not about to miss their moment of confusion and surprise.

Xlen's long heavy straight blade parted the first assassin in two as the fifteen levels of sharpness enhancement on the legendary blade made short work of the high grade enchanted leather armor of the assassin. It was at that moment that the assassination squad knew that none of them were making it out of there. With Xlen already in their midst with a kill, Walter and Gypsy already having killed or mortally wounded three of them, and Lord Ashborne bullying their leader, it was only a matter of time.

Two of the assassins managed to get their crossbows reloaded as they fell and fired two bolts into Xlen but his armor sent their bolts clattering off in different directions. One of them pulled out a pair of adamantine stiletto knives packed with as many levels of sharpening as could be packed onto it. Another pulled out a rapier with much the same and a buckler shield with impact resistance and strengthening enchantments. The last of the surviving crossbowmen grabbed a stick off of his belt and shook it once. The stick rapidly grew to be a full sized spear and the three prepared themselves to engage the protector of the last weaver of fate and granter of wishes.

Lord Ashborne had finally gotten the measure of the assassin that he was locked in battle with. The fighting style had been familiar at first but now that they had clashed for a full five seconds, he was certain of who he was fighting. "Sarken Fa'Sek, I will send your parents my regards." He told the leader of the assassins with such apathy that it took the assassin a moment to even process what had been said in the middle of combat.

Lord Ashborne had trained with almost every active military and guardsmen instructor in the kingdom. He had trained some of those instructors himself. He knew of every up and coming warrior, their temperament, their fighting style, and who their family was. Old elves tended to end up sucked into everybody's business one way or another and he knew that the up and coming spear master had been supposedly put on guard duty in the capital. Everyone had assumed that it was a cover story but now Lord Ashborne was certain. It was a shame that the boy was going to have to be crushed and tossed aside in a way that would make him doubt his own skills for a century, or three.

Ash leaves danced as Lord Ashborne flickered two feet to his left and one foot forwards in an instant reposition that didn't leave Sarken any time to react. A curved blade parted armor and flesh alike as it wove through the bones in Sarken's elbow, barely even cutting through one of them enough for the blade to finish its passing. Another sliced into the back of Sarken's knee, cleaving the weaker armor and the soft tendons it protected with ease before it drew a trough across the back of the bones.

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Sarken hadn't even had the opportunity to cry out in pain before Lord Ashborne did what could only be described, by Walter, as a ballet leaping twirl. With one quick lunging leap, the blade dancer tucked his arms but made sure his blades were extended in the proper direction to their fullest, and spun while he crossed over Sarken's back. He landed in a spin that cleaved Sarken's other arm perfectly at the elbow and put the assassin entirely out of the fight. The twirl had left seven gashes across Sarken's back and had ensured that the assassin wasn't able to react to Lord Ashborne's reposition simply from the massive amount of pain from having his back shredded immediately after his arm had been removed and his knee had been nearly cleaved in half.

Lord Ashborne swung both of his blades downwards and halted them abruptly a few inches off of the ground which caused most of the blood that they had collected to splatter across the ground right next to Sarken. "You should find a different career." He advised the young spear master and then flickered away with only a falling ashleaf and a bleeding out assassin as proof that he had ever been there.

Walter stowed his revolver as he withdrew a six inch long dagger from his dimensional pocket with his left hand. "Heartbreaker." He spoke which activated the spell enchanted into the dagger. He directed it towards the assassin with the tonfas who was now sprinting towards him. Since Shamesh was still afraid to move, the assassin had deemed Walter the real threat and moved to remove him as soon as possible.

Walter appeared directly behind the assassin and drove his dagger into the assassin's back with his full but decently mediocre strength. The blade dug into the leather armor but was stopped before it could even draw blood. The assassin spun around to fight him and swung a tonfa at his face with lethal intent. Walter leaned back just far enough that the tip of the bone crushing weapon only barely grazed his forehead. Walter would have immediately been put in a bad position if it weren't for one thing that everyone who fought him always seemed to forget, he was never alone.

Gypsy's wide bloody jaws practically materialized wide open and ready for blood as she impacted the side of the assassin like a runaway cart. The assassin reacted faster than the other one had and got his second tonfa in place to keep Gypsy from ripping half of his neck out in one bite. Instead, Gypsy's ton of bite force came down on the magically reinforced tonfa and the assassin's arm. The arm was not so reinforced. The tonfa cracked and splintered as her jaws crunched in like how any large dog would have done to a dried stick laying on the ground. The magical reinforcements cracked and faded as the material was broken into countless splinters and chunks. The assassin's arm wished it were so lucky. Wood and teeth tore and rent flesh, bone, and everything in between as Gypsy's jaws insisted that they were supposed to be closed.

As the pain of having his arm obliterated threatened to send the assassin directly into shock, the assassin and false-vixen tumbled to the ground. The assassin tried to get into a position, as they fell, to be able to hit her with his other tonfa, but before he could, she latched onto both sides of his head with her adamantine tipped claws. Gypsy's claws punctured through the weak leather and fabric head protection of the assassin, much to the protection enchantment's dismay. One of her claws went directly into his eye as another barely missed his brain stem. She used her newfound purchase to pull herself well inside of his reach so he wouldn't be able to hit her.

Gypsy and the assassin hit the ground in a tumbling roll that left them both on their sides. Before they could try to kill or extricate themselves from each other, Walter appeared with one quick ten foot teleport and drove his dagger into the side of the assassin's throat and then pushed its blade away from him so its entire length sliced out the front of the assassin's neck. "Shamesh." Walter told Gypsy and she let go of the assassin and rolled to her feet. Walter turned and saw the two assassins that he had already shot were in cleanly sliced pieces and Lord Ashborne was looking towards where Xlen and the rest of the assassins were finishing up.

Xlen was just simply on another level compared to the assassins in every way. He had more combat experience, better gear, higher raw strength, more levels, and a weapon that was lethal for four full feet no matter how he used it.

Xlen's blade snapped towards the knives assassin and the assassin barely managed to turn what should have been an instant loss of a hand into just a nasty gash. It then cleaved through the air with such grace and power that the wind almost seemed to part for it to pass.

The buckler that tried to turn Xlen's sword aside was instead the target of an attack in the first place. The assassin didn't realize it until it was too late and Xlen's sword snapped like a striking viper and snaked around the buckler without touching it. His blade instead parted armor, flesh, and bone leaving the arm that held the buckler in a state of total uselessness.

The spear that shot towards Xlen was easily deflected away by a subtle shift in his weight. The movement made the spear tip hit at a harsh angle that would have caused it to skip off of even lightly enhanced armor, let alone Xlen's legendary armor. Every piece of gear that Xlen had, wore, and used, was once used by a hero from the last dragon surge. By a dragon slayer specifically. The armor also happened to be used by someone in Xlen's exact situation, a protector of a fate weaver.

The backside of Xlen's blade caught the retreating spear and cut deep and then through the wooden haft just before the spearhead. A stiletto came for his armpit from behind but Xlen both already knew that the assassin was there and how they were most likely going to try and injure or kill him. He stepped forwards while rotating back into a fighting stance, only this time facing the opposite direction. As he did so, he brought his sword down in a heavy chop that was narrowly dodged by the assassin. He took two quick steps forwards, that happened far faster than the assassin expected, and twisted into a thrusting one handed stab that let him puncture through the assassin's chest from nearly five full feet away. The assassin hadn't expected Xlen to cover almost ten feet and pierce him through the heart in less than half of a second.

Xlen advanced on the spearman and snaked through his guard with rapid directional changes of the trajectory of his blade. He left three deep gashes in the man's chest before he finally sliced the spearman's throat open. The spearman had been retreating all the while which left the rapier wielder struggling to catch up in order to help. By the time Xlen had stopped advancing and the rapier assassin was able to attack, the spearman was already dead and Xlen was ready to easily dispatch the last assassin. As he turned to fight the last assassin, he was met by three pieces of a man falling towards the ground clutching a small bottomless bag.

Lord Ashborne stood behind the corpse with blades covered in blood. "Bag bomb." He told Xlen simply.

Xlen quickly nodded his thanks at Lord Ashborne's quick thinking. If the assassin had managed to finish the suicide attack, of dumping an entire bottomless bag of blasting jelly that detonates on impact directly into Xlen's face at speed, then not only would the assassin and Xlen have had a very bad time, but even the three inside of a Reality Prison might not have come out of it completely unscathed.

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