=== POV Daria

 

* Tara *

We declared our attack. With my two axes, I rushed to the front of the enemy. Unlike a real battle, our enemies were disorganized. They were shapeshifters, and their greatest strength was to imitate other races.

The first shapeshifters that attacked me were just a few weaklings. The choice of their creatures alone was a joke, the two out of three turned into Irshwolves because the third became an ash wolf.

When the ash wolf started to jump at me, I hit my ax into his jaw from below. The two Irwolfs followed after I surprised them by throwing one ax at one of them, and the other one was distracted by this action, rammed my ax into his side, and cut open from the front to the rear legs.

*Tch*

We are outnumbered, but should that be all I would defeat this army alone.

I raged for quite a while until a shape-shifter in human form caught my attention and spoke to me.

“I'm your opponent now. My name is Sefinir, and what is your name?”

The shapeshifter had a calm tone, which was rather unusual for the place where we were.

The shapeshifter looked more like a bookworm than a fighter. He wasn't very muscular, and I couldn't see any weapons on him either.

"You don't have to know mine, but you should remember the names of my axes well. They are called "retribution" and "mercy."

He clicked his tongue and pulled out needle one for each hand.

"Then, I will send your nameless existence into oblivion!"

I swung the ax in my right hand on Sefinir.

He twisted to the side and deflected my attack with his needle.

Damn it! He's swift.

I swung my left ax on him.

Again he just dodged and turned my ax.

"I guess you're not that strong."

He made a derogatory remark with a big grin on his face. His statement made me angry, but unfortunately, it distracted me too. He took advantage of my moment of lack of concentration and stabbed my left wrist with his right needle.

I immediately felt numb in my hand.

"What have you done?"

“I reduced the blood flow in your hand. From now on, it will be increasingly difficult to move. Your grip on the ax is also getting weaker, and at some point, you can't even hold it.”

This style of fighting seems familiar to me. I'm sure I read something about it in a book, but I also believe that the weaknesses of this fighting style were explained there. Now I have to find out what it was!

I couldn't just stand around lost in thought, so I jumped back to take a closer look at his body language.

"What is? Are you scared?"

He looked a little wild.

I'll test something.

I jumped forward towards Sefinir, but instead of attacking him openly, I jumped onto the floor and slid past him on the right. I pushed myself off the ground and aimed the left ax at his right shoulder.

Instead of just turning around, he leans over to avoid my attack.

I have it.

The ax in my right hand, however, aimed at a significantly lower position. To be precise, my goal was his lower back.

He tried to block the attack but failed, and I missed a cut horizontally along the back.

He jumped away from me and cursed to himself.

“I saw through you. You use Missenen muscle relaxation as a fighting style. That is the reason why you are so immobile, after all. This is a medical technique and not a martial art.”

*Tch*

He clicked his tongue.

“And you think you won? Just because you found out what technique I am using?”

His face remained unimpressed. He shook his hands like these street wizards when suddenly, two additional needles appeared in each of his hands.

"Then, I'll take it seriously now because that's what you wanted."

He took up a fighting position.

"You do that? Maybe I should do the same.”

I put the axes back in their holder and pulled the daggers.

"Come over!"

I waved my fingers.

*Tch*

He clicked his tongue again. With his left hand, he hurled the three needles at me.

My left hand felt more numb than before, but I still managed to block the needles with my dagger. I used it and shortened the distance between us.

(Canine Beat)

I whirled my body through the air and cut my right blade into his right shoulder.

He took a step back to avoid my blow and hurled the needles in his right hand onto my left shoulder.

We both met with only one of his needles getting stuck in my shoulder and the other two flying past.

“Point number 2.”

He said it casually and stroked his hair again.

... Despite the injury to the lower back and shoulder, he shows no sign of it. Does he still have an ace up his sleeve? So far, it has not changed.

"Why don't you change your appearance?"

"Change the appearance? So that I can become one of those monsters? No, thanks, that's not my style.”

He refused, and surprisingly, I even believed him.

"You are different from the others, why are you fighting with them?"

"Different? The only difference is how you define it.”

"Then tell me, what do you define yourself as that you have in common with this cult!?"

He looked a bit annoyed by my question but still answered it calmly.

"Quite simply, it's your fault."

"What do you mean? I don't understand?"

“Look around you. See how many shapeshifters are on our side! They do not all come from our village but also other places! You people treat us like monsters, and for our elders living in harmony means hiding from humans!”

"Wait! Does that mean you're only with them because you want your race to be accepted by other races?”

"And?"

“I know someone who lives with us in similar circumstances. Don't you think violence is the wrong solution?”

“What do you understand! You have lived a peaceful life behind your walls among people!”

He became emotional. He pulled out three new needles and threw them at me.

"You are wrong! My life or that of my brother was never easy! And Eris's life isn't either! Eris's family has been wiped out by cruel people, and yet she lives with us!”

I parried his needles with my right hand.

"Then, she is blind!"

"No, she is not! She understands that her anger shouldn't be taken out on innocent people!”

"Enough!"

He had enough and prevented me from saying anything else. He started to throw needles after needles without any real break.

You wanted it, so it is enough already now!?

Both daggers were spiked with glyphs, I would typically only use them in great emergencies, but now it was different. My left hand could barely hold the knife, and my left shoulder also felt numb. I had no other option now that he refused to speak with me.

So then!

I activated the spell from my left dagger (shadow veil). My entire body was wrapped in shadows and bent the light around my shape. Next, I activated the second spell (Hyperspeed). Because (shadow veil) made me almost untraceable even in sunlight, (Hyperspeed) accelerated my entire body, including my reaction time. The disadvantage was that both spells only last for 2 minutes and have a cooldown of two hours. It was not without reason that it was my last trump card.

I shortened the distance between the two of us. Before he could notice what was going on, I reached him and pierced his chest with my dagger.

"GAH!"

His eyes were wide open, and he was staring and spitting blood.

I caught his body from falling and put it on the floor.

"May Charon guide you safely over the Styx."

(Pain Shapeshifter was defeated - 15 XP received)

I took a deep breath in and out.

I should let Dario look over my shoulder and hand.

I let my eyes wander around to be able to assess the current situation. I saw a security guard being attacked by an Irshwolf and bitten in the leg.

I didn't hesitate and attacked the wolf. Before he could even react, his head was separated from the body. The body, of the shapeshifter, fell to the ground, but his head still stuck with his teeth in the guard's leg.

"Don't just lie there."

I helped the man up and dragged him towards our rearguard, where Dario and the shapeshifter Relena looked after the injured ones.

 

===

 

"Dario!"

I approached Dario, who was busy with a patient. He looks up and turns his head to me.

"Daria! How are you?"

“Exhausted, but I'm not hurt. Have a better look at the colleagues here.”

I carefully placed the injured guard on the floor and sat down next to him.

"Relena, can you clean the wound from the guard?"

Dario called to Relena, who had just finished another patient.

"I am on my way!"

Relena walked over to us and sat on the other side of the guard.

I had only seen her briefly before the attack. She was slightly smaller than me and had no trained body. Her demeanor was very feminine as it was with me.

"Is something wrong? You've been staring at me for a while.”

Relena spoke to me.

"Huh!?"

I just shook my head. I let my gaze wander over the patients, some slightly injured people got up after a while and went back to the battlefield, while others didn't.

I discovered a small figure lying on the very edge, after which the person stood up in front of her.

"Is that Eris!?"

I got up and approached her.

"Eris!"

I fell on my knees in front of her unconscious body. When I saw her empty right eye socket, the tears began to run down my face.

I'm an evil big sister, right?

"Tyche... where... you...?"

She talks in her sleep! Who's Tyche?

"Dario!? Who is she talking about? Who's Tyche!”

"I don't know!"

He called back in a weak voice.

"Did you say Tyche?"

Relena intervened, and her voice had an irritated tone.

"Yes, do you know who that is?"

I was surprised that Relena had heard this name before, but we didn't.

"Yes, but why don't you know her!?"

Her voice was bewildered, and it seemed to me that she was worried about us.

“She never mentioned the name to us. How come you know her?”

“I don't know her from Eris, but from history books about the Olympian family case. She was one of the fallen deities sealed here in Syrras.”

"WHAT!?"

I missed the words because, besides the Hesperide Crete, Eris also knew a goddess if this Tyche was the goddess.

"But how can a horned ra-...how can Eris know a goddess and then also a fallen one?"

“Daria, you think about it too much. You don't even know if she means the fallen goddess.”

Dario tried to calm me down a little.

He came up to me and stopped to my left.

"Something is wrong with your arm, am I right?"

He felt my arm.

"Wrist and shoulder."

I said to him and pointed to the rough places where the needles had hit.

"Let me see."

He tapped my wrist until he uttered an "Ah!"

"Here's the problem!"

He started his spell.

I felt something change in my body when Dario healed me. When he treated me for the first time in this way, it felt strange, almost disgusting, but by now, I had got used to this feeling.

A pain went through my entire hand, and it felt like someone was continually pinning my hand in various places.

The pain subsided, and I looked up at Dario. He was already busy with my shoulder.

"So here now."

He said and started casting his spell on my shoulder.

It was a moment before he was done.

"You should rest a little before you get involved in new fights again!"

I looked at him in confusion.

“You expect me to sit here because others are risking their lives? No, I'm going! ”

I didn't want to and couldn't wait. I rushed to the battlefield again.