Everybody acted at once.
Kunrad’s cronies glanced at each other and summoned a blizzard together, one powerful enough to throw people to the ground and tear the skin off their muscles with shards of summoned ice within. It was aid at Reynard, but the wind stream was wide enough to hit Marien as well.
She staggered, and the spell she was casting broke apart before it could beco a bolt of lightning. A surge of released electricity struck her, sending ripples through the Spirit Armor and making Marien fall to her knees.
Kunrad himself chanted a longer spell, swiftly moving his fingers. But Reynard didn’t intend to let him finish.
Although the blizzard made him stagger, he managed to hold his balance. His golden gun was already in his hand.
’Three shots left in the drum,’ he thought, aiming through the blizzard.
BANG!
"Agh!"
Kunrad stumbled back from the shot’s impact and fell to the ground. His spell exploded with chill mist in his hands, covering his face and fingers in ri.
He clutched a new hole in his hip, around which a bloody spot was spreading over his pants.
’Damn,’ Reynard cursed. ’I was going for his chest! The blizzard really threw my aim off.’
Despite his wound, Kunrad sat up and began casting sothing again with bloody fingers.
At this mont, Marien rose to her feet next to him with a determined scowl on her face. Fighting against the blizzard, she made a step toward its creators. And another. And another. Each of them sent ripples through her Spirit Armor and strained her muscles, but...
Marien walked forward almost at running speed!
The two magi watched her in alarm and fright. Both of them were focused on channeling their magic, and if their concentration wavered too much, the blizzard would only weaken.
Without a word, both of them refocused their efforts on Marien. The blizzard howled, sending Marien tumbling to the ground.
But this reduced the pressure on Reynard.
He aid at Kunrad, but was just a little too slow.
The Final Cycle Albedo mage was too resilient to be slowed down much, even by a wound Reynard left him.
BANG!
Spiky ice vines shot from underneath Reynard’s feet and pinned him to the ground faster than he could react.
Reynard’s shot went wide.
The vines pressed hard enough that his Spirit Armor deford imdiately, and more vines went higher up.
"Die!" Kunrad shouted, grinning like a madman.
"Reynard!" Marien shouted, forgetting all about secrecy. She raised her hands as if to cast sothing, but then the blizzard forced her to stumble and miscast again.
Reynard heard twin snapping. His Spirit Armor went first, turning into a cloud of mana. Then went his ankles, crushed instantly by the vines.
More of them reached his hips, and the ice spikes on them dug into his clothes and skin. The blizzard, even when not aid at him, struck Reynard’s face with a thousand cold needles.
He scread in pain, but still focused on aiming at least sowhere in Kunrad’s direction.
BANG!
"Gah!"
The vines around Reynard’s feet disappeared, and he fell to his knees. His enemy was lying on the ground, clutching a wound on his chest—this one was definitely lethal.
Reynard would have smiled at the shout of pain from Kunrad if he weren’t in so much pain.
The concentration of the other two magi wavered, but they still kept Marien suppressed. If she were fresh, she could have overco the blizzard, but the previous fighting had tired her and sapped her mana.
Despite the cold, there was sweat glistening on her face, and her aura was weak. Reynard feared that if this continued, even her Spirit Armor might break.
Clenching his golden gun with both hands so it would shake just a little less, he aid at one of the magi.
’Joen, was it?’
BANG!
The man fell, spurting fountains of blood from a large hole in his neck. The blizzard died down imdiately as the last man—the one whom Reynard and Marien were chasing earlier—gasped in terror and broke into a run.
"Asshole... Just let ..."
Reynard unholstered his other, loaded gun—but by the ti he aid, the magus had fled behind a street corner.
With a scowl and a disappointed huff, Reynard slumped to the cold ground and stared at the pool of blood spreading around his legs.
"Reynard!" Marien exclaid, kneeling next to him. "Oh gods and Loremasters, you scared so much—he crushed your bones! And... You are bleeding! Here, I’m going to give you my healing potions..."
She rummaged in her belt bag, pulling out a couple of tal flasks and giving them to Reynard.
Just from sll, he recognized one of them as a blood-replenishing potion and the other one as a life-strengthening one. Reynard gulped down them all and looked up into Marien’s worried eyes.
He found it very pleasing to be the one being pampered for a change.
"Oh, Mari... Shit, the secrecy—but, uh... Do you have a painkiller, too, love?"
Marien’s eyes grew wet. She bit her lip and shook her head negatively.
"I will carry you to a doctor! You need your bones set. And bandages... Wait, bandages first, maybe? Uh... Wait, where IS the nearest doctor?"
She twiddled her hands in panic as she looked around.
At this point, Comte and another magus from the Order of Winter approached the two of them. Both of them were bloody and moved slowly, nursing their own wounds.
"Oh, so that’s where you two ran off! Hm... Looks like it was worth it," Comte said. "I don’t think any more snowflakes will dare to show their nose up today. Congratulations, Johan Faust. You have proven yourself to be strong. Can’t say the sa about your trustworthiness, but for now, I don’t care. Will you be able to co to the Order of Winter headquarters tomorrow?"
"Only if I am carried there."
"I will carry him!" Marien declared.
Finally deciding on a course of action, she picked Reynard off the ground, bridal-style. He took this opportunity to hug her tightly.
"To the doctor!"
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