CHAPTER 28: CH 28: TEMPEST ISLAND [4]

A rampage followed after that as Reinhard bolted to kill as many as he could. All while through it, the infantry remained immobile and docile.

But I hesitated. Now that it was time to kill off them, I didn’t move.

’I have never killed another human...and what if they are all real people, maybe even captives of war, now owned by Cormac...’

But fate it seems had another plan for me. One of the infantry, those who had been out of range of my ballistic attack, suddenly appeared at my back.

I immediately backed away, dodging a slash from a metallic sword.

Reinhard wouldn’t help me here, I realised grimly.

’I have no choice huh?’ Sprinting forward, I released a goblet of ice. The soldier immediately raised up his elbow to his slit and blocked the ice from reaching his helmet.

But I soon followed up with a punch on his lustrous armor. My fist banged against it, the sound resonating in my ears.

But against my expectations, the armor didn’t even get a scratch on it. Instead, my hands felt numb as my knuckles turned bluish.

"Ouch ...that was painful. You sure have some good armor." So this is my limit as a First Order, I realised.

The soldier however didn’t give me time to contemplate as it launched a series of strikes at me.

A slash at my head. I crouched.

A jab at my solar plexus. I jumped back.

A vertical strike. I dodged by moving left.

A mayhem of practiced strikes rained down on me. And each time I countered them with adaptive dodges.

As time withered, my stamina started depleting but the soldier’s power driven strikes didn’t falter. Didn’t even hesitate as each time they landed accurately.

’I can’t keep this up much longer, plus...’ I took a quick glance behind me, ’The others are coming my way as well.’

I formed an icy dagger in my right hand. And moulded it into the sharpest weapon I have made till now.

Then all the while I was leaping away from his range, I scanned his gears. All the joints on them, the rattling chains covering only the crucial parts and most importantly the straps binding his helmet to his head.

The soldier leaned forward and slashed at me again. His form bent towards me.

Seeing the opening, I leapt to the side as I dodged the attack. Then I jumped forward with all my strength and in one quick motion, opened the strap of the helmet.

As he started getting up, I took hold of the pointy tip of the helm and pulled it.

With a war cry, I closed my eyes and drive my dagger through his head...

Or that’s how it should have been. My eyes opened abruptly as I realised my dagger had passed through empty air, and not through any flesh.

But as I looked at the soldier, I realised why.

There wasn’t any human within the armor....

It was completely hollow. Nothing. No creature controlling it or any circuit like a robot.

The set of armor of this supposed ’soldier’ halted mid-air. And then it fell on the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

I looked at the slitted helmet in my hand.

"So that’s another way of dying for them...remove their helmets. Good for me." I muttered to myself as I looked at the approaching soldiers.

A quick glance revealed Reinhard still fending off these soldiers desperately, even while his hands had bruised with trails of blood and cuts from all the punches he had been giving on those solid armors.

So much for trying to take all the kills.

Back to my own set of troubles in the form of humanless soldiers, who were right now spreading out.

"Trying the same tactic by surrounding me? Come on, that’s the oldest trick in the book." I raved like a mad man, even while I knew they won’t understand human words.

For that you need ears and a set of nerves to your brains. Things these creatures lacked.

Sighing I said, "Okay. Let me show you how epigones like you die."

I sprinted towards the group that had been trying to spread out. Cutting off their path, I quickly reached for their helmet.

The first one in my reach yanked his head sideways but I let my momentum carry me to the helmet of the second creature as I latched it off its head.

It collapsed instantly.

Bending my knees, I jumped and dodged an underbelly strike.

And within moments, another soldier collapsed to the ground with a loud clank. I scooped off the bronze spear that had rolled off to my feet.

’This shall help me take their helmets off even from a distance.’ I thought as I set to work again.

After that, time flowed like a water droplet trailing down a leaf on a foggy morning. And through it, only my hands moved as they killed these "soldiers" one after the another.

In the process I realised that my dodging skills were kinda ....fabulous. I have escaped through their barrages of strikes with only few minor cuts, mostly on my back.

It was truly a miraculous sight.

As the last of the soldier fell down in a clash of disintegrated metals, I breathed a sigh of deep relief.

I looked back to find Reinhard killing his last soldier.

He raised his eyes at me. And then smirked.

"It seems you are going to have to lose very very pathetically. Look at the kills I got compared to yours. Those mere number of soldiers you killed would probably not even be one-third of my own kills."

Even I felt the same I looked around me and then compared mine to his. Where my own surroundings looked like a chaotic display of metal parts, Reinahard was surrounded by huge piles of metals arranged in such a way you would think you were looking at a mountain of human corpses.

"But man, these Hollow Knights were seriously a pain in the ass." He said as he rubbed his bruised knuckles.

"Hollow Knights?"

"Don’t you know them? Figures since you live near the seas. Where I was born, these creatures are found in abundance. Some could be tamed and made to guard our houses and stuffs while the others, untamed ones would be always launching raids on our cities and villages in massive numbers. But even then, their durability was nothing like these guys here." He completed as he gestured around him.

"So now what? Surely the second part should end with this."

And that was when I remembered something. I opened my mouth and in a fumbling manner, I said.

"Ahh..I-I don’t think we are done yet."

"What do you mean by that?" Reinhard asked with a suspicious look.

"Actually you see..." I looked behind me from where a strange rumbling approached us.