The Gamer's POV-Chapter 198: Home of the Hollow Ones [14]

In another section of the battleground, Cedric had just finished killing one of the regular hollow ones that he had been fighting with before the ten showed up to join the fray. He was pinning the body to the ground while his blade was embedded in the opening in its chest. Taking a brief moment to catch his breath, he wiped the sweat from his eyes, while breathing heavily from exhaustion.

After only a few seconds, though, a frown creeped up his face. He quickly took out his nodachi from the chest of the creature as he suddenly began to lose connection with his ravens that were either flying around or perched on the pillars that lined the walls.

’What?’

One by one, the vision from each bird flickered and went dark, as if something was killing them off.

Actually, something was indeed killing them off.

Through the vision of one of his ravens, Cedric could see a tiny kunai fly through the air towards it, and then... his connection with the bird was severed instantly.

Now, out of the eight birds that had been circling the area, only three remained. Cedric quickly commanded them to revert into feathers while also looking around to see what exactly was killing the birds.

Then, his eyes locked onto one of the ten hollow ones that had later joined the fray. It was twirling a kunai in its hand as it prepared to throw another.

When it saw that its targets had all turned to feathers, it slowly turned its head towards Cedric, and then, a grin began to appear on its face.

Slowly, it began to approach Cedric.

Cedric narrowed his eyes, studying the creature as it approached.

It was smaller than him in size and looked like a child of barely ten years. Its frame was slight, almost fragile, but the way it moved suggested that its frame was deceptive. It was dressed in tattered silk robes that were a muddy mix of faded crimson and charcoal grey, and what surprised Cedric a bit was that it had a katana in its belt.

’So they weren’t just watching the battle. They were actually studying our abilities,’ Cedric thought.

And he was right on that account. The creatures had been studying and analyzing their abilities since the moment the conflict began.

It made sense that it had targeted the birds first to make sure that Cedric wouldn’t be able to swap mid-battle.

"What a pain."

Cedric clicked his tongue as he gripped the hilt of the nodachi, raised it high, and settled into a wide, samurai’s stance.

He kept his eyes on three places: on the bandolier containing several kunai that hung across the creature’s chest, on the kunai held ready in the creature’s hand, and on the katana in the belt of the small monster.

The creature halted some meters from Cedric and also narrowed its eyes, appraising the blade in Cedric’s hand.

It slowly crouched, settling into a samurai’s stance of its own. And for a tense moment after, neither of them moved.

Then, without warning, it suddenly threw its kunai towards Cedric’s throat. Cedric’s eyes tracked the small blade as it whistled through the air, but he didn’t overreact because he knew it was a baiting move.

Instead, he pivoted slightly, letting the blade whistle past his neck while also refusing to let his guard drop, because the moment the kunai had passed him, the small creature was already closing the distance with its hand moving toward the hilt of the katana at its waist.

It drew the steel with a blurred, upward strike, and at the same time, Cedric brought his nodachi down in a heavy arc, and their weapons clashed.

They locked for just a second, then disengaged, then struck again.

Despite the difference in their sizes, the creature was holding its own, using its low height to force Cedric into awkward defensive angles. Each time their blades met, the force of the impact vibrated up Cedric’s arms, confirming that this thing possessed a strength far more surprising than its small frame suggested.

It leapt to behead Cedric, but he arched back slightly and the blade whistled past. In the same motion, Cedric kicked the creature, forcing it to skid back several meters.

’Ouch, goddamnit!’

Cedric bit his lip to ignore the sharp pain radiating through his foot from the creature’s iron-like skin, and lunged forward, thrusting his nodachi at the center of its chest now that the creature was off-balance from the kick, but then it quickly reacted, swatting the heavy blade aside with a desperate parry.

The moment the nodachi bounced off from the parry, the creature took out three kunai, lodging them between its fingers, and then threw them in a single, wide spread.

Cedric leapt back with a strained grunt, pivoting his body in a controlled attempt to dodge the incoming blades. He felt the rush of air as they whistled past his chest and neck. But instead of chasing after him to press the advantage, the creature took out another kunai, spun around with uncanny precision, and threw it at a raven that had been descending behind it. The bird was struck mid-air and killed instantly.

The creature then turned back to Cedric, pointing its blade toward him in a silent challenge.

’Tsk. Damnit! Do these creatures have eyes in the back of their heads?’

Cedric had hoped to perform a surprise swap and wanted to catch the monster off guard. So while they were fighting, he had commanded one of the feathers to change into a raven and approach from behind, but now that plan was thwarted.

He then remembered that these creatures have a very keen nose for magic.

’Ah... I forgot about that,’ he thought to himself.

But then, at that moment, an idea surfaced in Cedric’s head.

What if he made it so that even with its sensitive nose, the creature couldn’t tell where the ravens were coming from?

Or even better, what if he made it so that even if it could sense the birds, it wouldn’t be able to sense where Cedric himself would appear?

’...’

A tired smile began to grow on Cedric’s lips behind the mask. He had not used the flames of decay all night, and so, he still had a lot of mana in his mana core.

Cedric exhaled, and as he did, he expelled a vast amount of mana into the air. Suddenly, hundreds of dense, black feathers appeared in the air, swirling in a thick vortex around both the creature and him.

It was like being trapped inside the center of a dark cyclone. The feathers were so thick and numerous that it became hard to see much of anything, let alone Cedric, as the vast majority were swirling around him.

"You want to kill my ravens?" Cedric muttered through the muffled roar of the wind generated by the vortex.

Suddenly, dozens of ravens began to appear among the shifting black plumes, and they began cawing in a discordant, deafening chorus that echoed across the vast chamber.

"Let me see you try to kill them all," he muttered as his form vanished into a flurry of feathers, joining the storm.