The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 144: Arrival

As Melissa let go of her attacker, she sighed and let his body drift to the ground.

She suddenly felt a chill, as a shadow crossed hers from behind.

Crucis' blade slashed through Melissa's neck and head before she could turn around, and she dropped to the ground.

He heard a shout from the hallway.

"Hey, Mel! You done out there yet?"

Ignoring it, he rushed behind the cover of a nearby clump of trees, and ran towards a nearby, dusty hill. After the chase on the mountain earlier, he felt like he was used to traversing hilly, uneven terrain here, and might have an advantage over other players there.

He had noticed that Melissa had tears in her eyes soon after winning the fight, as she stared at the corpse beneath her. Her corpse still had a poignant, faraway look in her eyes, despite her unceremonious death. In this way the banality of good, which weeps over someone it has already killed, sometimes exists in perfect symmetry with the 'banality of evil.'

Reaching the hill, he heard the loud sound of a fight start up in the sand-filled valley beside it, and took cover.

A warrior was standing between two opponents, and caught one attack on his sword, then lunged for his other opponent's neck with a double-bladed Haladie dagger. Crucis recognised this warrior as Starfighter as soon as he saw the Haladie, although it appeared quite different now that its blades grew brightly from the Eitr. The black handle now seemed like a shadow flickering between two blindingly bright candles.

Although the vicious Haladie strike was blocked at the last moment, Starfighter quickly swivelled the weapon and used its other blade to slash a gaping wound in his opponent's neck. As the victim fell backwards, Starfighter backed away from the other combatant's next strike, and used his sword to deflect that.

Crucis saw that at least one other player was approaching to fight Starfighter, so he rushed to join the fight himself. These players were from the Guild [Noir], a Guild from a Western starting town which Crucis hadn't run into.

Starfighter managed to hold off a few blows, and after parrying a wide strike to his right he surged forwards to stab with his Haladie. The dagger passed straight through the opponent's chest, and Starfighter's sword followed soon after by slicing through the opponent's face, sending a cascade of blood around the area.

He turned to the left, where two more players approached. To their surprise, he took the initiative and attacked the one on the right, who was closer to him. As the swords clashed, he raised his Haladie to strike, but was interrupted as the second player ran up to fight as well.

This player's blow was parried by the Haladie, and Starfighter kicked out to trip the hasty player up, sending them falling face-first. The second blade of the Haladie twisted to the left and caught the opponent on the way down, severing their neck.

Starfighter turned around to his remaining opponent, but found that Crucis had already struck them down with a couple of slashes to the back and neck from behind.

"A familiar face, huh? Nice to see you again," Starfighter said. "I'm a bit late, only got in a few minutes ago."

"At least you got a welcoming party," Crucis said.

"Yeah, but they need to choose someone better to handle the meet'n'greet."

"No, it was fine ambassadorial work. Anyway, want to form a team?"

"Yeah, sure," Starfighter said, lowering his sword slightly. "I don't have one yet. Might be useful."

Crucis quickly sent a team invite to Starfighter, which was accepted immediately. A small window appeared to the left, showing the HP and name of both team members, which Crucis minimised for now so that it wouldn't obstruct his view.

"So, how did you invite the wrath of the whole Noir Guild?" Crucis asked quietly, as they both moved into the trees to avoid being noticed.

"Don't know, I'd guess they just saw me out here and figured it'd be easy," Starfighter replied. "They're all a bit low-level for this event, so it seems they grouped up to look for targets. But their footwork was a mess, honestly, they don't seem used to this terrain."

"We're not all wanderers who never enter town. Speaking of which, what do you reckon is the safest way up this hill? I can hear a few players up there, but we probably don't want to run into all of them at once."

"Follow the trees until we reach that large rock, then sneak behind that, then crouch below a few bushes and make our way to the small cluster of trees nearer the peak," Starfighter replied, pointing out the route.

"Got it."

As they walked behind the huge, red-and-brown rock jutting out from the side of the hill, Crucis heard the sound of two players clashing among the trees ahead. He gestured for Starfighter to go to the left side of the trees, as he himself drifted to the right.

Once the fight was over, and one player stood bullishly over the other's corpse, both of them rushed in. The victorious player, named [Leroi], turned towards Crucis and lunged with his sword, only to be parried easily.

Noticing Starfighter's approach, Leroi swung his sword around desperately to block a strike from Starfighter's sword, allowing Crucis to step forwards with [Agile Step] and slash through Leroi's neck.

"I nearly lost my balance there," Starfighter said. "Running here is a bit floaty, I'm still figuring it out."

"Yeah, it takes a bit to get used to it," Crucis replied. "But you'll get the hang of it soon."

"Hope so. What Guild is this guy in?"

"Huh, [Erasure]," Crucis said, crouching down to see the corpse's Guild tag which was hidden inside a bush. "I hear they're quite large, but this guy was isolated. He must have run away from the main battle on the plains."

"That makes sense, I think that the Vanir are having a bad time of it there. The Aesir monsters are tougher, and Hashin are cutting through any smaller Vanir groups. There's probably a few deserters."

"That's good for us."

"This place must have been hellish early on, when everyone was high level," Starfighter said. "It's opening up a bit now, though, lots of people coming in. I reckon we should be able to get a decent hunt in, still about 12 minutes left. Did you get a reward for staying here for half the event?"

"Oh, yeah, now that you mention it," Crucis said, checking on his event notifications among the messages in the panel to his left. The rewards included 200 Divine Mana, and 500 Ivaldi Gold, as well as a few items which would be mailed after the event. "If we play our cards right, you'll also get that by the end. Now's a good time to go on the hunt, let's have a look around."

They walked up the hill, through the trees. There was nobody on the peak, but Crucis heard some movement near a boulder lying just beneath the peak, and hushed Starfighter as they neared.

Walking around the rock, Crucis glimpsed the shoulder of a player hiding in a small chink beneath the boulder.

As he approached, a sword flashed out towards him, but he was prepared and parried it. He kicked out at the player's hands, sending the sword flying to the side, where he pinned it down the ground with his own sword.

Starfighter walked over, crouched down, and stabbed the hiding player to death with the Haladie.

They heard a few hoots from the trees, and looked over to see two players running up towards the peak.

"More company," Crucis said, taking shelter behind the boulder and watching. "Both level 49, new arrivals."

"Easy come, easy go," Starfighter replied.

As the two players approached them, shouting aggressively, Crucis found a steep, slippery part of the hillside, and he and Starfighter took up guard above it. This would mean that the approaching group would fight them from downhill.

The two players approaching them were raucous, and seemed slightly drunk. Perhaps the event starting in the early morning had interrupted a binge. As they lurched forwards, Crucis saw that one was a female named [RH3A], and the other a male named [MARTIAL].

He picked out MARTIAL, and struck with a quick [Overhead slash] which caught MARTIAL off-balance while blocking. Taking advantage, Crucis switched into a low [Slash], which was deflected slightly down, and finally a [Rising thrust]. MARTIAL, who was starting to slip backwards on the mossy slope, desperately raised his sword horizontally near his chest to cut off the strike. His sword was barely still in his grip.

Crucis easily lunged forwards, stabbing just beneath the rib. MARTIAL cried out, and attempted a counter-attack, but lost balance.

Crucis withdrew his sword from the wound, and slashed at MARTIAL's barely-gripped sword to send it flying far down the hill. He leapt, using Divine Mana to steady himself, and grabbed MARTIAL's shoulder as he caught up.

Stabbing MARTIAL upwards through the mouth was enough for the victory, and as MARTIAL's body fell heavily Crucis leapt off and rolled a couple of metres down the slippery slope before coming to a stop. He had taken a couple of bruises from the roll, but nothing too major.

Looking up, he saw that RH3A was beginning to fall down the slope under pressure from Starfighter, despite having realised - unlike MARTIAL - that she could use the Divine Mana to partially steady herself. It wasn't as effective at maintaining balance as it was when jumping or moving, but she was holding out slightly better despite Starfighter's firm onslaught of strikes.

In a few seconds, however, she was hurtling down backwards.

Crucis, though covered in moss and grass, lunged up and grabbed her by the shoulder with his upper arm, slamming her head backwards into the ground as he turned to face downwards. His sword rose and stabbed fiercely through her neck.

Looking up, he saw that Starfighter still had her sword hanging on one blade of his Haladie, where it had dropped as she began to free-fall.

"These guys weren't well-prepared for this fight," Crucis commented dryly.

"They must have thought they wouldn't be called in," Starfighter said. "The game skips over dead, 'unavailable' people from the rankings, so even people who were in the top 500 of a class could get called up if enough people had died before the event. I think a few people just checked their ranking, and if they weren't in the range they went back to what they were doing."

"I see. Hopefully we run into a few more of those. By the way, did you hear anything nearby just now?"

Crucis had heard a loud sound, like a wooden door slamming shut, from the other side of the hill.

"Yeah, not sure what it was," Starfighter replied. "Let's check it out."

"Okay. There's some players fighting just downhill from there, so be quiet."

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