After a whole day of fighting, it turned calm as soon as the sun hid behind the horizon and the moon replaced it on the sky.
Imperium City was sleeping, but so shadow lurkers were still out and about, doing who knows what under the cover of darkness.
Swoosh, swoosh!
Through roof to roof, a shadow dodged the moonlight and moved swiftly.
He was heading to the gates of the Imperium and seed to be planning on leaving this wretched city behind.
However, when he arrived on top of one of the pitched roofs that overlooked the gates, he saw a couple of guards there. The gate behind them was closed.
With both hands, he pulled two knives and threw them at the guards.
The first knife successful took down one of the guards, but the second one quickly placed his shield on the way of the knife.
The knife bounced off the shield.
The shadow did quick hand signals and whispered.
"Shadow Shift!"
With a strange magical spell, he changed positions with the knife that bounced off the shield, and the guard looked taken aback.
He kicked the guard in the neck area and made him drop down to his knees.
With his right hand, he pulled out his knife from the corpse of the first guard and stabbed it into the heart of the second guard.
The guard let out a final breath of life before dying.
Snap!
With a snap of his fingers, the knife, which he changed positions with, returned to his belt.
Then he grabbed his other knife tight, and its small blade started to turn red, as if it were about to burst into flas.
It was now extrely hot, and if anyone dared to touch it, they would surely get burned. The gate stood in his way with its durable tal bars.
However, then he started cutting through the tal bars with his knife.
In usual circumstances, that would be an impossible feat, but slowly and surely, because of the heat, the knife went rather easily through the bars.
With the knife moving up, then to the left, and finally down, a portion of the tal bars fell to the ground. There was a nicely human-sized hole in the gate.
He put his knife back on his belt that had strangely cooled off in a matter of seconds.
Music~
He stopped on his tracks with cold sweat drenching his back.
A strange music echoed from so distance away. It sounded like soone was strumming a banjo.
It sounded all too familiar.
"No, it's him!" Richard wanted to run through the opening in the gate, but his legs refused to move. 'Move, move, move!'
He wanted to raise his hands to block the sound of the music, but he couldn't even move his arms!
The sound of banjo ca closer and closer.
Soon, it sounded like soone was playing it right beside his ear.
Richard couldn't turn around to see the face of the musician, as if so invisible force was holding him in place.
"Richard, Richard, tch, your mother will be very angry at you." Oldman said while slowing the speed of strumming.
He had short gray hair like a storm cloud and had a hat covering his eyes. The banjo on his arms was worn from years of use but still emitted a beautiful sound.
His leather armor looked basic, so black tal vambraces protected his forearms, and there was a single sheathed knife on his right leg's thigh.
"Oldman..." Richard gritted his teeth. "Isn't this little too much? My mother's top protector ca to take back there. What if you got ambushed and died? A little too big of a risk, don't you think so?"
"Your mother was angry that you left." Oldman said. "He wanted you to return safely. Thus here I am."
"You can tell my mother to piss off!" Richard shouted. "I am not going back there!"
"You don't have a choice." Oldman started to play his banjo again, and the sound turned very dark and foreboding.
Without being able to fight against the sound, Richard felt like he was about to fall asleep at any mont.
However, he then was able to unbuckle his belt and make it fall to the ground with his knives on it.
"Large Expansion!"
The knives bulged through the belt's fabric and turned from small, almost harmless objects into two-ter-high blades.
The knife appeared between Richard and Oldman.
For so odd reason, Richard was able to move again as if the music didn't affect him
anymore.
The music spell needed to fulfill two conditions in order for it to work-first, one had to have
a clear view of the target, and second, the music had to reach one's ears.
He was only able to fulfill the second condition, but that wasn't enough.
Because of the large knife between them, Oldman couldn't see Richard!
He quickly peeked around the knife to catch a sight of Richard, but didn't see him anymore, but then saw a shadow jump over the knife.
Richard twirled in the air before kicking Oldman across his waist. The kick sent him sliding a
few ters.
It didn't look like it hurt him even the slightest.
Oldman, now that he had a clear sight of Richard, started strumming his fingers across the banjo like a possessed demon.
The music turned loud, powerful, and amazing.
However, for so odd reason, Richard didn't stop like before, even though the sound was piercing through his ears, and he had clear sight to him.
At that mont, Oldman noticed that sothing was peeking from Richard's ears. It was a white cotton ball to stop all sound from reaching his eardrums.
"Oh, not bad, kiddo!" Oldman grinned from ear to ear, but then he started playing another
song.
Boom!
The ground ahead of Richard exploded.
Richard looked pale-faced, and he quickly approached Oldman while jumping left to right. With his other hand, he made one of the knives regular-sized and summoned it back to his
hand.
The ground continued to explode, but it was as if Richard knew exactly where each explosion would occur, and he dodged them all while approaching him.
"Drilling Kick!" Richard slamd his foot against the banjo, and his feet started spinning like
the drill's bit.
It seed like the banjo would break, but at that mont, the banjo's color turned to a hue of
red.
As soon as it did, Richard felt a pang of pain in his feet, and had to retreat. It felt like he was trying to kick through a wall of solid steel.
"This was funny and all, but I sense so troublemakers heading in our way." Oldman said, and with a single strum of the banjo, Richard's legs fractured like twigs under the pressure.
"Ah!" Richard collapsed on the ground and coughed out blood.
Oldman knelt before him, removed the cotton balls from his ears, and drumd a sleepy lody that imdiately put Richard to sleep.
At that mont, figures appeared ahead, hunching on top of the roofs. They were all
belonging to different factions.
"Sorry, did I disturb you all's sleep?" Oldman chuckled innocently. "I am just bringing a troublemaker back to his mother, do you mind?"
"It's him..." The Fifth Brother said with a serious look.
"Oldman..." Florence of Battle Maidens whispered with a serious look.
"The strongest man of the Darkstar faction, Oldman." Persephone, the Second Hand of Ambrose, said with a grin. "I am too pretty, and young to die. Therefore, goodbye~"
With that, she left.
It didn't take long for others to turn around and leave as well.
They didn't want to gamble with their lives this early on, and if their factions lost them on the
first day of the war, it would be a big setback.
Oldman tossed Richard to his shoulder and said, "Alright, your mother Aria is awaiting you."
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