The Knight
“I know that look. I’ve seen it on the faces of those who came before you, slinging weapons and hurling self-righteous insults, just like you. It’s a pretty selfish look, if 你 ask me. 你 came here looking for prestige and respect, but all you’ll find is an early death. Like the fools scattered at your feet, you’ll die as 你 lived. Unknown and insignificant. A mortal too stupid to see his own limits.”
Every hissing word that escaped that dragon’s jagged maw made Nethelio violently angry. What did a Fallen creature know about prestige? A hideous monster that hung around in its 巢穴, den, 书房 all 日 and harassed the helplessly weak at night didn’t know anything about civilized society 或者 how it worked. 龙 served one purpose; to scare nearby villages and become a ghost story for men like Nethelio to come and slay.
So. Why. Won’t. It. Die?!
Two days. Nethelio had wasted two unholy days in this abandoned fortress, trying to put down a giant salamander. And yet, he still hadn’t been able to deliver a fatal blow. His sword didn’t find purchase against those strong scales, but he found spaces in between them to draw blood. The dragon adapted quickly, using its breathy flames to cover its surroundings and make approaching even 更多 difficult.
The entire fortress trapped most of the heat inside. The few exits were difficult to reach and almost certainly involved a head on fight with the dragon, which Nethelio needed to avoid. He hated to admit it, but he couldn’t compete to a dragon’s stamina under these conditions. He needed to find time to sleep. Even a few hours would be enough to give him to strength to find a decisive blow.
As it was, he found himself hiding in a small corner in the fortress’ architecture, squeezed between two scalding surfaces. His metal was heavy and warm with his sweat, but he could endure that. He was only halfway through his waterskin and could probably ration what remained and last for another three days.
He needed a strategy. This dance couldn’t go on for as long as either party could last. This dragon was starting to play with him, turning what was originally a fight to the death into a hunting game. If he could find somewhere…anywhere the dragon wasn’t familiar with in this fortress, Nethelio could steal a few hours of sleep and finish this.
“Running away, are we? How brave.”
Nethelio’s body froze as a voice rang through his ears. For a moment, through his intense tunnel vision, he thought that the voice was the dragon finding him. He took a moment to process and noticed the difference in pitch and tone. This voice was too feminine, too acerbic—too ephemeral to be the dragon’s.
It was also very familiar.
“Verilian.”
Nethelio hissed in an effort to keep his voice from carrying and alerting his scaled hunter of his position, unable to completely suppress his instinctually response. He turned his gaze toward the warm 墙 he was pressed against and seemed to see right through it, staring into the shadow it cast and seeing further into a dark 太空 that wasn’t there.
Standing within the deceptive two-dimensional 太空 was a young lady in tattered clothing that must have been passed down through her family, used and abused from mother to daughter for generations. Her short hair matched the dark sandals she wore, and her short proportions made it clear that she was a Helbling. Too adult-like to be a child, but too evenly distributed to be a midget.
She gazed at him with the look of an exasperated mother. Her brow creased a bit and she offered a thin smile that criticized his every decision up until this moment. Nethelio returned the exchange with arched eyebrow.
“Seven months. Seven damn months, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know. You’ve been praying every day. It was quite something.”
“So 你 saw?” Nethelio kicked at the wall. “Of course 你 did. You’re the ‘Overseer’, right? See all, know all. 你 saw me calling for you, but 你 didn’t feel like bothering to grace me with even the smallest sign—!”
Verilian raised a finger and all sound stopped. Nethelio went on complaining for another 分钟 and she watched without remorse. When he finally began to tire himself out, she raised a 秒 finger beside the first and the darkness surrounding her bent and contorted into 颜色 that became coherent pictures after taking a moment to focus. Nethelio refused to look at them, glaring straight at the Kaos.
“This,” Verilian motioned around her. “is a glimpse of all the many things that went on in the past seven months that were 更多 important than the whining of one self-absorbed blackguard. And honestly? They were 更多 entertaining.”
更多 cursing. This time, Verilian didn’t wait before continuing.
“I gave 你 a chance, Thelio. Serve me, and I will help 你 achieve your ambition. I won’t force 你 to listen, but I can’t and won’t help 你 when 你 refuse to accept the hand I’ve offered.”
She lowered both of her fingers and the 图片 disappeared. Nethelio found his voice working again, so he took the opportunity to offer another string of curses.
“Find someone else who buys the whole ‘save the world’ pitch. I’ve been disappointed 由 men and gods before. I trust 你 less than I did the last idiot I served. If 你 want me to listen, then buy my time. Help me kill this damn dragon. 你 Kaos like that right? Killing Fallen? Do this for me and get people speaking my name, and maybe we’ll have something to talk about.”
Verilian eyed Nethelio’s desperate and sweaty face before shaking her head.
“That’s not how it works.”
“The hell it isn’t! I’ve seen 你 do 更多 with less!”
“You believe in nothing, Nethelio. 你 can’t demand that the world give 你 faith. That’s why kings disappoint 你 and gods ignore you. You’re happy to ask for anything and everything but can’t be expected to give anything in return. 你 say everyone disappoints you, but you’ve hardly 给 them reason to impress.”
Verilian’s smile returned to her face and she averted her gaze.
“It’s a wonder why I even chose you. And yet here I am, telling 你 what 你 already know, hoping that you’ll listen. 你 need friends, Thelio. No one may be good enough for you, so you’ll have to settle. 你 won’t be able to do this alone.”
“And I bet 你 still won’t tell me what the hell it is 你 want from me?”
Verilian maintained her silence. Nethelio’s lips pulled back to reveal an angry snarl.
“You hypocrite.”
“Don’t pretend your curiosity isn’t peaked. This is your last chance. Either accept my offer 或者 find your own way through life from here on out. And choose wisely, my redheaded traitor. If not, 你 might not have much of a life left to explore.”
~~~~~~~
The K̶n̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ Paladin
Fort Peussocht was old enough to have a place in history books. Centuries earlier, it had been built in a temporarily strategic position to intimidate the bordering nation’s army. After serving its purpose, its location was quickly discovered to be impractical. Easily cut off from supply roads and easy to surround, it was essentially a box that was easy to enter and impossible to escape. A small group of soldiers was all it took to siege it. They could keep its inhabitants pinned down and busy protecting the walls, eliminating all the inhabitants and their equipment from the equation of war. The enemy saw 更多 use in leaving the fort in enemy hands and withering away their spirit and resources out of sheer malice than actually taking the real estate for themselves with one decisive push. Only the most unruly and difficult to work with soldiers were sent to protect the fort as punishment for disobedience, so there wasn’t much 爱情 lost. After the war ended, the fort remained one of the few left standing, almost out of pity and indifference. It was subsequently abandoned and became a distant fixture on the landscape to the nearby village. Surrounded 由 forest, at best it served to fuel ghost stories for the following years.
Until it was occupied 由 the Fallen.
The herd of cyclopes began squatting to escape from the elements and decided to never leave. They were nuisances that scared off wanderers and harassed the nearby wildlife. Once the inhabitants learned to avoid them, attacks became less frequent.
Then the dragon came. No one knew why it decided to choose this fort as its new lair and it didn’t seem interested in explaining itself. After a short, one-sided skirmish, the cyclopes were scattered but remained close by, hoping to seize their chance to take their 首页 back. They continued to terrorize the forest and the village, searching for somewhere to eat and sleep. This combination of events nearly wiped out the village at one point, losing their crops to the dragon’s 火, 消防 breath and their cattle to hungry one-eyed giants. The climate became dry and warm, even in the dead of night so close to winter, and fires became 更多 and 更多 frequent.
It was only natural that the townsfolk begged any passersby for help.
None of them imagined that their desperate request would lead to a massive fiery explosion consuming the distant fort.
Men and women paused their daily chores to look over the horizon from their 栖息, 鲈鱼 on a hill, gazing at the distant smoke rising into the sky like a massive pyre. Many mumbled their 问题 to each other, but of course there was no one who could answer. The fort was too far, and no one was fool enough to run off to investigate so soon. So they could only hope that the explosion had taken down their terrors along with the fort.
In that distant raging pit of 火, 消防 and rubble, where the pitiable fort had stood and was now no more, was a single naked man. Where the stone walls meant to withstand all kinds of abuse had wrinkled away, so had any metal and clothing. Nothing short of dragon scales should have protected against the initial explosion.
But there stood not a dragon, but a human with fiery red hair and toned muscles. The ashes blended in with his swarthy skin tone, contrasted 由 the streaks of blood that ran down his limbs like veins. It was an image full of 问题 that the individual was in no state to answer. After a still moment, the figure tried to raise a leg and managed to shake a foot free from the flaming rubble before losing his balance and collapsing into the 火, 消防 that had been lapping at his knees. There was an angry groan of pain and agony as he forced himself back onto his feet and stumbled forward, kicking and pushing anything in his way out of the rubble before climbing his way up the slight slope of the crater he was in.
Once the soles of his feet hit the comparatively 冷却器 weeds and dirt away from the fire, he breathed a sigh of relief before glaring around to regain his bearings. He took one last look at the spot where the fort had fallen and sucked on his teeth in irritation. A few stray wisps of flame flickered across his scalp, though he didn’t seem to notice. He turned and headed into the forest, back in the direction of the town.
He managed to trudge a few hundred feet through the trees before he came to a stop and tensed his body. He flexed his fingers a few times before pulling them into tight fists and glaring at one particular spot ahead of him. Moments later, there was a lot of snorting and gruff laughter from the same direction as two figures pushed their way through the trees and branches, crushing everything under their massive boots. Two cyclopes dressed in loosely sewn hide and wielding impressive metal weapons gave the little naked human sloppy grins, pleasantly surprised 由 what they saw.
The human heard noise follow from other directions through the forest, though he didn’t turn to look. Cyclopes were considerably good blacksmiths. Their best could be compared to artisans among dwarven races. If nothing else, those weapons could be useful. He wanted one.
“It’s just a human!” One of the cyclopes in front of him called to a fellow the human couldn’t see. It spoke in its own guttural tongue without taking its eyes off of the human. “Look how small he is! Are 你 sure he killed the Scaled One?”
“He survived the explosion, didn’t he? Everything else is dead, so it has to be him.”
“He’s still on fire! He’ll die even if we don’t do anything!”
The group snickered and closed in some more. The human took a deep breath and let himself relax as he let his eyes wander, picking out the different builds and weapons of the cyclopes around him. One of his ambushers pointed an axe blade at him and spoke in Common.
“You! Small one! Are 你 an adventurer?”
“My name,” The human spoke in a breathy voice and his gaze grew slightly 更多 dispassionate. “…is Nethelio Llhant. I’m a knight of the crown.”
“So not an adventurer?” The cyclops grinned. “What king do 你 serve?”
“None. At the moment.”
“So a wandering knight is pretending to be an adventurer for fun? I’m impressed 你 managed to kill the Scaled One. We like to make a game of betting how each adventurer dies fighting that monster. A lot of us were upset that 你 didn’t die at all. It makes gambling less fun.”
“Hm. And let me guess; 你 have a bet to see which of 你 can kill me first?”
There was a chorus of hideous grins, their teeth jagged and pointed in every direction.
“You’re a quick one, human.”
“And you’re a dumb one.” Nethelio tilted his head back to gaze at the sun peaking through the canopy and continued to mutter to himself. “It’s no wonder none of the adventurers passing through to face the dragon didn’t bother clearing 你 out first. It’s a nuisance.”
The toothy grins faded and were replaced with scowls.
“Enough. Time to die, small one.”
The larger cyclopes standing at the head of the group moved 前锋, 期待 first, wielding their large weapons high. Their paces quickened with every step, trying to get a little closer a little sooner than the others, the forest quaking with each heavy footfall. After a dozen steps with their long strides, they all towered over Nethelio and swung their oversized weapons down on him with devastating force.
“Gghh-!”
One of the cyclopes’ pained grunts was accompanied 由 a sickened crack followed 由 the sound of something spongy being squished and ground. The others took instinctive steps back and shut their legs at the sight of the naked knight gripping his victim’s crotch with one hand. His forearm flexed with every profane beat as the contents were popped and mercilessly turned to mush.
The cyclops’ reflexes finally caught up with what was going on and it opened its mouth to scream in agony. The moment it did, Nethelio stuck the fingers of his free hand into its mouth and used his arms, shoulders, back, and legs in one 迅速, 斯威夫特 movement to tug downward. The following crack and snap of a jaw being ripped off its hinge sent a chill through the spectators’ spine. He was sure he heard a few drop their weapons in the subsequent silence.
After he was sure he’d thoroughly broken the cyclops from both ends, he released his hold on it and grabbed the handle of the large battle axe that had been impaled in the spot where Nethelio had been moments before. He pulled it out with a bit of effort and quickly swung around in an almost fluid snap of motion, using the axe’s weight to make a wide arc and catch the nearest unsuspecting cyclops its chest and neck, shattering its right clavicle. The force slammed the cyclops against the 树 behind it, where it immediately went limp and slowly slid to the ground to bleed out, the light drifting from its eyes, which were 《冰雪奇缘》 wide with surprise.
The other cyclopes finally reacted 由 backing up quickly, some fearful, but most surprised. Some tripped over themselves and others, trying to keep up what was going on. Nethelio pulled his new battle axe out of its fleshy sheathe and rested the long handle against one shoulder to keep his other hand free. The cyclops he left writhing in the dirt at his feet was begin to spasm and release a small noise worse than any scream. Nethelio braced the sole of his foot against its back and gazed impatiently at his would-be-assailants.
“W-What are you?” One of them involuntarily demanded in its native tongue.
“A dragon killer, dumbass.” Nethelio replied with a hint of hostility finally creeping into his voice. “And the last goddamn thing you’ll ever see.”
“I know that look. I’ve seen it on the faces of those who came before you, slinging weapons and hurling self-righteous insults, just like you. It’s a pretty selfish look, if 你 ask me. 你 came here looking for prestige and respect, but all you’ll find is an early death. Like the fools scattered at your feet, you’ll die as 你 lived. Unknown and insignificant. A mortal too stupid to see his own limits.”
Every hissing word that escaped that dragon’s jagged maw made Nethelio violently angry. What did a Fallen creature know about prestige? A hideous monster that hung around in its 巢穴, den, 书房 all 日 and harassed the helplessly weak at night didn’t know anything about civilized society 或者 how it worked. 龙 served one purpose; to scare nearby villages and become a ghost story for men like Nethelio to come and slay.
So. Why. Won’t. It. Die?!
Two days. Nethelio had wasted two unholy days in this abandoned fortress, trying to put down a giant salamander. And yet, he still hadn’t been able to deliver a fatal blow. His sword didn’t find purchase against those strong scales, but he found spaces in between them to draw blood. The dragon adapted quickly, using its breathy flames to cover its surroundings and make approaching even 更多 difficult.
The entire fortress trapped most of the heat inside. The few exits were difficult to reach and almost certainly involved a head on fight with the dragon, which Nethelio needed to avoid. He hated to admit it, but he couldn’t compete to a dragon’s stamina under these conditions. He needed to find time to sleep. Even a few hours would be enough to give him to strength to find a decisive blow.
As it was, he found himself hiding in a small corner in the fortress’ architecture, squeezed between two scalding surfaces. His metal was heavy and warm with his sweat, but he could endure that. He was only halfway through his waterskin and could probably ration what remained and last for another three days.
He needed a strategy. This dance couldn’t go on for as long as either party could last. This dragon was starting to play with him, turning what was originally a fight to the death into a hunting game. If he could find somewhere…anywhere the dragon wasn’t familiar with in this fortress, Nethelio could steal a few hours of sleep and finish this.
“Running away, are we? How brave.”
Nethelio’s body froze as a voice rang through his ears. For a moment, through his intense tunnel vision, he thought that the voice was the dragon finding him. He took a moment to process and noticed the difference in pitch and tone. This voice was too feminine, too acerbic—too ephemeral to be the dragon’s.
It was also very familiar.
“Verilian.”
Nethelio hissed in an effort to keep his voice from carrying and alerting his scaled hunter of his position, unable to completely suppress his instinctually response. He turned his gaze toward the warm 墙 he was pressed against and seemed to see right through it, staring into the shadow it cast and seeing further into a dark 太空 that wasn’t there.
Standing within the deceptive two-dimensional 太空 was a young lady in tattered clothing that must have been passed down through her family, used and abused from mother to daughter for generations. Her short hair matched the dark sandals she wore, and her short proportions made it clear that she was a Helbling. Too adult-like to be a child, but too evenly distributed to be a midget.
She gazed at him with the look of an exasperated mother. Her brow creased a bit and she offered a thin smile that criticized his every decision up until this moment. Nethelio returned the exchange with arched eyebrow.
“Seven months. Seven damn months, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know. You’ve been praying every day. It was quite something.”
“So 你 saw?” Nethelio kicked at the wall. “Of course 你 did. You’re the ‘Overseer’, right? See all, know all. 你 saw me calling for you, but 你 didn’t feel like bothering to grace me with even the smallest sign—!”
Verilian raised a finger and all sound stopped. Nethelio went on complaining for another 分钟 and she watched without remorse. When he finally began to tire himself out, she raised a 秒 finger beside the first and the darkness surrounding her bent and contorted into 颜色 that became coherent pictures after taking a moment to focus. Nethelio refused to look at them, glaring straight at the Kaos.
“This,” Verilian motioned around her. “is a glimpse of all the many things that went on in the past seven months that were 更多 important than the whining of one self-absorbed blackguard. And honestly? They were 更多 entertaining.”
更多 cursing. This time, Verilian didn’t wait before continuing.
“I gave 你 a chance, Thelio. Serve me, and I will help 你 achieve your ambition. I won’t force 你 to listen, but I can’t and won’t help 你 when 你 refuse to accept the hand I’ve offered.”
She lowered both of her fingers and the 图片 disappeared. Nethelio found his voice working again, so he took the opportunity to offer another string of curses.
“Find someone else who buys the whole ‘save the world’ pitch. I’ve been disappointed 由 men and gods before. I trust 你 less than I did the last idiot I served. If 你 want me to listen, then buy my time. Help me kill this damn dragon. 你 Kaos like that right? Killing Fallen? Do this for me and get people speaking my name, and maybe we’ll have something to talk about.”
Verilian eyed Nethelio’s desperate and sweaty face before shaking her head.
“That’s not how it works.”
“The hell it isn’t! I’ve seen 你 do 更多 with less!”
“You believe in nothing, Nethelio. 你 can’t demand that the world give 你 faith. That’s why kings disappoint 你 and gods ignore you. You’re happy to ask for anything and everything but can’t be expected to give anything in return. 你 say everyone disappoints you, but you’ve hardly 给 them reason to impress.”
Verilian’s smile returned to her face and she averted her gaze.
“It’s a wonder why I even chose you. And yet here I am, telling 你 what 你 already know, hoping that you’ll listen. 你 need friends, Thelio. No one may be good enough for you, so you’ll have to settle. 你 won’t be able to do this alone.”
“And I bet 你 still won’t tell me what the hell it is 你 want from me?”
Verilian maintained her silence. Nethelio’s lips pulled back to reveal an angry snarl.
“You hypocrite.”
“Don’t pretend your curiosity isn’t peaked. This is your last chance. Either accept my offer 或者 find your own way through life from here on out. And choose wisely, my redheaded traitor. If not, 你 might not have much of a life left to explore.”
~~~~~~~
The K̶n̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ Paladin
Fort Peussocht was old enough to have a place in history books. Centuries earlier, it had been built in a temporarily strategic position to intimidate the bordering nation’s army. After serving its purpose, its location was quickly discovered to be impractical. Easily cut off from supply roads and easy to surround, it was essentially a box that was easy to enter and impossible to escape. A small group of soldiers was all it took to siege it. They could keep its inhabitants pinned down and busy protecting the walls, eliminating all the inhabitants and their equipment from the equation of war. The enemy saw 更多 use in leaving the fort in enemy hands and withering away their spirit and resources out of sheer malice than actually taking the real estate for themselves with one decisive push. Only the most unruly and difficult to work with soldiers were sent to protect the fort as punishment for disobedience, so there wasn’t much 爱情 lost. After the war ended, the fort remained one of the few left standing, almost out of pity and indifference. It was subsequently abandoned and became a distant fixture on the landscape to the nearby village. Surrounded 由 forest, at best it served to fuel ghost stories for the following years.
Until it was occupied 由 the Fallen.
The herd of cyclopes began squatting to escape from the elements and decided to never leave. They were nuisances that scared off wanderers and harassed the nearby wildlife. Once the inhabitants learned to avoid them, attacks became less frequent.
Then the dragon came. No one knew why it decided to choose this fort as its new lair and it didn’t seem interested in explaining itself. After a short, one-sided skirmish, the cyclopes were scattered but remained close by, hoping to seize their chance to take their 首页 back. They continued to terrorize the forest and the village, searching for somewhere to eat and sleep. This combination of events nearly wiped out the village at one point, losing their crops to the dragon’s 火, 消防 breath and their cattle to hungry one-eyed giants. The climate became dry and warm, even in the dead of night so close to winter, and fires became 更多 and 更多 frequent.
It was only natural that the townsfolk begged any passersby for help.
None of them imagined that their desperate request would lead to a massive fiery explosion consuming the distant fort.
Men and women paused their daily chores to look over the horizon from their 栖息, 鲈鱼 on a hill, gazing at the distant smoke rising into the sky like a massive pyre. Many mumbled their 问题 to each other, but of course there was no one who could answer. The fort was too far, and no one was fool enough to run off to investigate so soon. So they could only hope that the explosion had taken down their terrors along with the fort.
In that distant raging pit of 火, 消防 and rubble, where the pitiable fort had stood and was now no more, was a single naked man. Where the stone walls meant to withstand all kinds of abuse had wrinkled away, so had any metal and clothing. Nothing short of dragon scales should have protected against the initial explosion.
But there stood not a dragon, but a human with fiery red hair and toned muscles. The ashes blended in with his swarthy skin tone, contrasted 由 the streaks of blood that ran down his limbs like veins. It was an image full of 问题 that the individual was in no state to answer. After a still moment, the figure tried to raise a leg and managed to shake a foot free from the flaming rubble before losing his balance and collapsing into the 火, 消防 that had been lapping at his knees. There was an angry groan of pain and agony as he forced himself back onto his feet and stumbled forward, kicking and pushing anything in his way out of the rubble before climbing his way up the slight slope of the crater he was in.
Once the soles of his feet hit the comparatively 冷却器 weeds and dirt away from the fire, he breathed a sigh of relief before glaring around to regain his bearings. He took one last look at the spot where the fort had fallen and sucked on his teeth in irritation. A few stray wisps of flame flickered across his scalp, though he didn’t seem to notice. He turned and headed into the forest, back in the direction of the town.
He managed to trudge a few hundred feet through the trees before he came to a stop and tensed his body. He flexed his fingers a few times before pulling them into tight fists and glaring at one particular spot ahead of him. Moments later, there was a lot of snorting and gruff laughter from the same direction as two figures pushed their way through the trees and branches, crushing everything under their massive boots. Two cyclopes dressed in loosely sewn hide and wielding impressive metal weapons gave the little naked human sloppy grins, pleasantly surprised 由 what they saw.
The human heard noise follow from other directions through the forest, though he didn’t turn to look. Cyclopes were considerably good blacksmiths. Their best could be compared to artisans among dwarven races. If nothing else, those weapons could be useful. He wanted one.
“It’s just a human!” One of the cyclopes in front of him called to a fellow the human couldn’t see. It spoke in its own guttural tongue without taking its eyes off of the human. “Look how small he is! Are 你 sure he killed the Scaled One?”
“He survived the explosion, didn’t he? Everything else is dead, so it has to be him.”
“He’s still on fire! He’ll die even if we don’t do anything!”
The group snickered and closed in some more. The human took a deep breath and let himself relax as he let his eyes wander, picking out the different builds and weapons of the cyclopes around him. One of his ambushers pointed an axe blade at him and spoke in Common.
“You! Small one! Are 你 an adventurer?”
“My name,” The human spoke in a breathy voice and his gaze grew slightly 更多 dispassionate. “…is Nethelio Llhant. I’m a knight of the crown.”
“So not an adventurer?” The cyclops grinned. “What king do 你 serve?”
“None. At the moment.”
“So a wandering knight is pretending to be an adventurer for fun? I’m impressed 你 managed to kill the Scaled One. We like to make a game of betting how each adventurer dies fighting that monster. A lot of us were upset that 你 didn’t die at all. It makes gambling less fun.”
“Hm. And let me guess; 你 have a bet to see which of 你 can kill me first?”
There was a chorus of hideous grins, their teeth jagged and pointed in every direction.
“You’re a quick one, human.”
“And you’re a dumb one.” Nethelio tilted his head back to gaze at the sun peaking through the canopy and continued to mutter to himself. “It’s no wonder none of the adventurers passing through to face the dragon didn’t bother clearing 你 out first. It’s a nuisance.”
The toothy grins faded and were replaced with scowls.
“Enough. Time to die, small one.”
The larger cyclopes standing at the head of the group moved 前锋, 期待 first, wielding their large weapons high. Their paces quickened with every step, trying to get a little closer a little sooner than the others, the forest quaking with each heavy footfall. After a dozen steps with their long strides, they all towered over Nethelio and swung their oversized weapons down on him with devastating force.
“Gghh-!”
One of the cyclopes’ pained grunts was accompanied 由 a sickened crack followed 由 the sound of something spongy being squished and ground. The others took instinctive steps back and shut their legs at the sight of the naked knight gripping his victim’s crotch with one hand. His forearm flexed with every profane beat as the contents were popped and mercilessly turned to mush.
The cyclops’ reflexes finally caught up with what was going on and it opened its mouth to scream in agony. The moment it did, Nethelio stuck the fingers of his free hand into its mouth and used his arms, shoulders, back, and legs in one 迅速, 斯威夫特 movement to tug downward. The following crack and snap of a jaw being ripped off its hinge sent a chill through the spectators’ spine. He was sure he heard a few drop their weapons in the subsequent silence.
After he was sure he’d thoroughly broken the cyclops from both ends, he released his hold on it and grabbed the handle of the large battle axe that had been impaled in the spot where Nethelio had been moments before. He pulled it out with a bit of effort and quickly swung around in an almost fluid snap of motion, using the axe’s weight to make a wide arc and catch the nearest unsuspecting cyclops its chest and neck, shattering its right clavicle. The force slammed the cyclops against the 树 behind it, where it immediately went limp and slowly slid to the ground to bleed out, the light drifting from its eyes, which were 《冰雪奇缘》 wide with surprise.
The other cyclopes finally reacted 由 backing up quickly, some fearful, but most surprised. Some tripped over themselves and others, trying to keep up what was going on. Nethelio pulled his new battle axe out of its fleshy sheathe and rested the long handle against one shoulder to keep his other hand free. The cyclops he left writhing in the dirt at his feet was begin to spasm and release a small noise worse than any scream. Nethelio braced the sole of his foot against its back and gazed impatiently at his would-be-assailants.
“W-What are you?” One of them involuntarily demanded in its native tongue.
“A dragon killer, dumbass.” Nethelio replied with a hint of hostility finally creeping into his voice. “And the last goddamn thing you’ll ever see.”
