Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 667: Bixx

Swords carved through the air, their silver blades like slivers of moonlight itself as they plunged down toward Alexandra.

None of them hit their mark. Alexandra ducked and slipped past them, her own sword flicking out to force the demons back and prevent them from pressing the advantage of their numbers.

In the few seconds that had passed since the fight had started, they must have exchanged more than a dozen blows. The demons were impossibly fast — especially when compared to a human.

Even with the Fragment of Self and her pattern, it took everything Alexandra had to stay ahead of her opponents. Magic poured from her and entered the motion of her blade in an incessant flow. She couldn’t afford to let up for so much as a moment.

Her biggest saving grace was the demons’ inability to work as a real team. The three of them were all threats on their own, but they had no regard for one another. The lunged and stumbled over each other in their haste to get to Alexandra.

There was no real teamwork or proper cohesion in their attacks. Every once and a while they managed to coordinate a blow, but the vast majority of their speed was spent getting around themselves rather than pressing Alexandra.

Some distant part of her mind calmly assessed the situation as her body worked to buy it time to think. She’d spent so much time learning how to keep her Pattern active regardless of the situation that she’d functionally trained her mind to focus on two completely different tasks at once.

In the duration of the fight, she’d gone through a dozen different scenarios and strategies that she could try to use to come out of this alive. She’d searched for the weaknesses in each of the demons’ movements and any opportunities to secure a safe escape without getting run through.

And Alexandra had concluded that, should things continue as they were, she was going to lose.

The demons were just too fast. There was no way for her to land a good blow on any of them and turn the tides of the fight without taking a strike in return. Not if she stuck to just using a sword. Non-magical combat was what demons excelled in. Even her Pattern wasn’t going to turn the tides of that.

And that means I have to change my goal. There’s no way I can win this without getting hit… so instead, I’ll just have to let them hit me.

Alexandra spun. The demons were upon her before the thought had even fully finished passing through her head. Silver shimmers marked the wake of the demons’ daggers as they sliced toward her — one for her neck and another for her chest. The third demon was still trying to make his way around the other two. There would be at least half a second before he could get into position to attack.

This is my chance. It really doesn’t fit my fighting style much anymore, but the wind adapts. I am not constrained to using only one method to claim victory.

Power exploded through Alexandra as she reached deep within herself and drew on a Rune she hadn’t touched in quite some time.

Alexandra called on her Master Rune. She yanked magical energy from Earthen Muster in a flash, sending it tearing out all along her body.

The ground exploded at her feet. A river of stone coiled up her leg in a flash, coating her entire body in a thin layer of magically infused rock within instants.

Two heavy thumps drove into her neck and stomach, joined by the ringing clang of metal on stone. Alexandra didn’t wait to see if the strikes had managed to penetrate her armor. Her sword was already slicing through the air.

Fear passed through the nearest demon’s eyes. Only an idiot would intentionally take two mortal blows to get a counterattack off, and they’d clearly had no idea she possessed a Master Rune.

It was too late. By the time they realized what had happened, Alexandra’s blade had already completed its path.

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A demon crumpled, his head severed at the neck.

Alexandra struck again before his body had even begun falling to the ground. The other demon that had tried to stab her raised his daggers defensively to block her attack, but the tempo of the fight had shifted. Her blade flicked to the side, circumventing his defenses, and carved deep into his arm.

The third demon was upon Alexandra before she could press any farther. A blade slammed into her back, driving deep into the armor and piercing into her skin. Pain drove into her and threatened to knock the breath from her lungs.

She didn’t let it. Alexandra spun. Her blade sliced through the air where the demon had been moments before. His partner pressed the advantage, but Alexandra’s sword was already in place to fend him off.

Metal rang through the night as the remaining demons danced around her, searching for any openings in her defenses. Alexandra was more than aware that time was not on her side. She didn’t know how severe the wound to her back had been, and she couldn’t afford waste any attention on it.

The only way this ended was by taking the remaining two attackers out.

She ducked under another blow but was forced to dodge back by the second demon before she could take advantage of the opening she’d found.

The demons were fighting safer now. They knew she was at the disadvantage and her trick with Earthen Muster wasn’t going to work a second time. But giving her more room to breathe was the wrong move.

If I can concentrate, I can strengthen my pattern. I’m still not used to using it at full strength. It’s too difficult to try under a full onslaught. But when they’re fighting scared like this…

Alexandra’s grip on her sword loosened. She exhaled, pushing the tension from her body out in her breath. The flow of magic churning through her increased as her pattern unfurled like a blooming flower.

The grass at her feet darkened. It curled in on itself and started to wither as a patch of death rolled out around her, killing everything it touched. Power flowed into Alexandra’s body. She couldn’t keep a faint smile from slipping across her lips.

Her movements barely even felt like they had any weight to them anymore. It was like she was floating on the air itself.

The demons realized their mistake a moment too late. They both charged —

Alexandra detonated her armor. The stone covering her skin exploded, ripping away from her in a hail of jagged fragments in every direction. Fragments tore into the demons’ skin and punched into their stomachs, momentarily staggering them.

Her sword blurred.

Then everything went silent. The night was still, as if holding its breath.

Several soft thumps broke the stillness. Four arms hit the ground, joined by the upper bodies of two demons. Both of them had been cut clean in half with a single blow.

Alexandra released her pattern and doubled over, gasping for breath. Her sword slipped from her fingers and impaled itself in the ground before her, the blood on its edge glistening in the moonlight.

She fought to catch her breath for exactly five seconds. Then she straightened, grabbing her sword and flicking the blood from its blade before turning on her heel and striding toward the dorms.

This had been too coincidental for it to just be a random attack. If demons had come for her, then they might have come for the others as well — and Alexandra wasn’t about to let any of the others get hurt while she still drew breath.

A shiver ran down her spine as the wound in her back throbbed.

Not even just for their sake, but for everyone’s. If the demons manage to actually seriously injure someone… I don’t know what Noah would do.

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I don’t think I want to find out.

***

Bixx slipped through the open window and dropped to the ground of the human’s room without so much as a whisper of noise. Shadows clung to her body like splatters of paint across an apron, concealing much of her form from vision.

To the unobservant, she — and the pitch black dagger clutched in her left hand — may as well have been completely invisible. Her shadow runes had melded so deeply with her form that the darkness was part of her very being.

The demoness flipped the blade over in her hand as she approached the bed before her. Her movements were completely without sound. She was nothing more than a shadow in the night.

How… amusingly simple.

Her target’s chest rose and fell with gentle breaths, eyes closed in gentle sleep as silver hair pooled like moonlight around her head. The girl was so peaceful.

So easy to kill.

Her name was known to Bixx.

Emily. It was not a name that would be remembered. Those as pathetic at this were not worthy of memory.

Someone so weak never should have sided with a False Herald — especially when her allies are just as weak as her. At least the one that stood guard over this girl attempted to put a fight. May the Herald embrace him with open arms.

But this girl? Emily? She can only blame herself for her death.

Bixx’s dagger sliced down.