Read Novel Full Chapter 664: An Opening?
Chapter 664: An Opening?
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Sparks flew off from the edge of Marionette’s longsword, brushing past her face as she was pushed back. The Bloodhound, who had clashed with her, had begun to deploy a multitude of daggers to overwhelm her, followed by the various Techniques.
The man stabbed towards her head.
In response, she tilted her head out of the way to dodge, but still managed to get nicked in the process.
She glanced down at the thin cut on the side of her cheek before raising her sword again.
CLANG!
She blocked a forward stab with the flatside of her blade.
CLANG!
Then, a horizontal slash with the edge of her blade.
CLANG!
Followed with a parry for a vertical slash.
Despite having empowered herself with mana and her physical Enhancement, there was a deep disparity in strength between her and the Bloodhound; one that made it unfavourable for her to keep drawing this out.
Because of this, despite having blocked all of the Bloodhound’s attacks, she still managed to receive shallow injuries in the process.
Even with her meticulous footwork and becoming barefoot, she was still getting shallow cuts on her body.
She scowled.
It was like trying to prune a bush of thorns, where under each branch of thorns was another that would lash out at you. And no matter which direction you moved, an unsuspecting thorn would appear to nick you when you least expected it.
Marionette furrowed her brow as her lips wrinkled into a frown of frustration.
‘Just one out of the six is giving me trouble without doing anything else but swinging.’
She was wasting too much time.
To get to Lillian, she would need to end this fast, but for that…
She would need to risk control over herself.
Marionette gripped her sword and readied into a stance.
‘Not yet.’
She had to save True Darkness for when either of the Bloodhounds least expected it. And to do that, she first needed to find an opening.
As she continued the clash with the Bloodhound, the other five Bloodhounds looked at each other.
“Should we help him?” One asked.
“No need.”
“Yeah, she’s only a Second Tier.”
With all of them coming into an agreement to watch, they remained on the sidelines.
Marionette lifted her right foot and stomped on the ground, then leaned forward, shooting into a mad dash and leaving behind a dent in the metal floor.
She blitzed the gap between her and the Bloodhound. When she eventually reached him, she immediately lifted her longsword and caused it to ignite with an ivory flame.
She swung her sword horizontally and manifested a trail of illusory crimson rose petals.
“[First Bloom].”
The Bloodhound parried her strike, but, in turn, found his dagger shrouded in flames — burning his hand.
He clicked his tongue and tossed the dagger aside, then reached for another dagger inside his cloak.
But before he could do that—
Swish!
—He was interrupted with a swing from an obsidian dagger.
Marionette, now wielding her dagger in her left hand and her sword in her right, charged towards the Bloodhound and began to unleash a flurry of slashes. While also utilising her Darkness to trip him up.
SWISH!
The Bloodhound dodged another attack, then clicked his tongue.
“Tch!”
He dashed back with the intention of putting enough distance between them so he could fetch a weapon.
But the moment he put even a metre gap between them, Marionette instantly threw her dagger at him.
The Bloodhound’s eyes widened in surprise, but then he smirked behind his mask.
‘Naive!’
With that thought in his mind, he raised his hand, prepared to catch the weapon when it reached close enough.
Unfortunately, this plan of his wouldn’t come to fruition.
SNAP!
“Ugh—!”
An unexpected searing pain slapped across his wrist, followed by a paralysing numbness in his hand.
‘What happened?!’
Within the few seconds it took for him to lose feeling in his hand, he managed to turn his body away from the dagger’s trajectory — dodging it completely. And in the middle of that, he glanced over at Marionette.
In her hand that had just held the dagger was a brown whip dripping in a mysterious purple liquid, and it looked to have a mind of its own. The material of the weapon was strange and grainy, almost like it was made out of the root of a tree.
‘A whip? She whipped me!?’ The Bloodhound thought in shock.
Marionette, who had expected the man to try to catch her dagger, had summoned the whip she got from Morbasker to intercept the man.
And now that she had achieved this, she quickly unsummoned the whip before lowering her body.
With her knees bent, she aimed the tip of her sword towards the man’s throat. Then, without hesitation, she lunged forward with murderous intent.
“[Thorn’s Kiss].”
The Expression of her attack appeared as nothing more than a flicker of steel in the Bloodhound’s eyes. And despite being flustered with the numbness in his hand, he managed to retrieve a dagger to protect himself.
CLANG!
From the point of contact, illusory petals exploded outwards like confetti, obscuring the visions of both Marionette and the Bloodhound.
‘Such strength…’ The Bloodhound thought, feeling the vibrations through his blade, ‘Is she really a Second Tier? Her strength is already rivalling the average Third Tier mage!’
He then watched as Marionette pushed out a hand.
This caused him to quirk an eyebrow in confusion.
‘What’s she doing?’
But not long after he thought that—
CLANG!
—A foreign object dug into his lower back.
‘What the—!’
The Bloodhounds, who had remained on the sidelines, immediately straightened their backs. They focused their gaze on what stabbed into their comrade’s back and found it to be the obsidian dagger Marionette had thrown earlier!
Marionette, using the dagger’s enchantment to make it return to her hand, forced the blade to dig deeper into the man’s back — eventually reaching his lower intestines.
“Argh…!” The Bloodhound groaned out loud; a vicious light then flashed through his eyes.
He twisted his body around, causing Marionette, who had been applying pressure on his dagger, to fall forward. Then, making use of her exposed side, the Bloodhound kicked her away.
Marionette’s face contorted with a wince, flying several metres before hitting the ground into a roll. Fortunately, she managed to recover herself by flipping back onto her feet.
Because of the fact that she was now farther away and in a different direction, her knife began to adjust to try and return to her hand; this, in turn, caused the Bloodhound another wave of pain.
As he was about to reach around to yank out the knife, the shadow behind his knees began to rise and solidify, shaping into narrow spikes.
And without warning—
STAB! x2
“ARGH!”
—They pierced through the back of his knees.
When Marionette was about to rush back in to finish the job, she was quickly surrounded by the other six Bloodhounds.
“Stand down, let’s not take this any further.”
“We don’t want to kill you, you know?”
“If you stand down, so we don’t have to force you.”
Glancing at the weapons pointed at her, Marionette sighed and unsummoned her longsword. She then raised her hands in surrender.
“Very well… I’ll stand down.” Marionette muttered in a monotonous voice, “Now, put away your weapons. It’s very rude to point them at an unarmed lady.”
The way she spoke made it seem like she was trying to make a joke, but it was very difficult to tell whether it was a joke or not.
They all glanced at each other before lowering their weapons.
“It’s good that you surrendered. Otherwise, that Priest would’ve had our heads if we did anything to—”
“So, who do you work for?” Marionette raised an eyebrow, “Seems to me you’re more scared of the cultist rather than your master. I don’t think he would take kindly to knowing his subordinates are following someone else’s commands.”
The Bloodhound’s face twitched under his mask, but he chose to remain silent, which more or less answered the question.
Marionette rolled her eyes at this. She then glanced around the room before looking towards a random direction.
“Oh, he’s back.”
The six Bloodhounds instantly flinched and turned their heads in that direction.
But when they looked over…
‘There’s nobody there…’ x5
A deadpan expression spread across their faces. They immediately turned back to Marionette, intending to question her reason for scaring them, but found that she had miraculously vanished.
They then heard a faint and ominous whisper:
“I lied about surrendering…”
Sensing an awful premonition, the five immediately turned to the sixth Bloodhound and found that he was nowhere to be seen.
Marionette, who had dove into the dark world, dragged the Bloodhound along with her. Then, with a crush of True Darkness, she finished him off — leaving no traces behind.
‘That’s one down…’