Part 21
Cold air filled the lungs of anyone in the path of the blonde girl. A step. Everyone's eyes had been locked onto her. Another step. All the conversations had come to a halt. One last step. Tens of dark red swords were flying at her.
"YOU!" screamed out the horned individual.
The swords were grabbed from their hilts by the navy blue arms coming from the back of the girl. Two different colored blasters went off following the swords only to be absorbed by the girl's essence hands.
"That blonde girl is a player!" yelled out the dove masked guy.
Fragen smiled.
"Oh come on, don't spoil it to them."
Tons of people began fleeing the restaurant, attempting to escape with their lives if possible. Countless essence hands were summoned on her back, choking whoever they could find. Cyeen was one of the unfortunate people that were caught off guard leading her into being slammed against the wall.
Due to her injury that still hadn't healed, she took the full force of the impact to her skull, nearly knocking her out.
The pirate siblings had managed to dodge the hands that were headed towards them. They rushed at Fragen, completely ignoring Cyeen's situation.
Zoen used his essence pull to get an early hit on the girl but failed to land it as a hand grabbed his leg. The guy got smashed against the wall on the other end of the restaurant while Jess was still dashing forward. The demon couldn't use her hands so she had to improvise with a kick. It was so close to hitting but got grabbed by one of the blue arms. Her eyes flashed red as several swords descended down the arm that held her. Upon rescuing her leg, she jumped, biting down on the hilt of her soul weapon.
"Wait, I remember you! You're the captain of the crew I slaughtered! Hahaha! What a small world right!?"
Three arms flung towards the demon, trying to choke her like the rest of the people. Jess ducked, cut the first one, rolled to her left while cutting the second and swung her head too quickly to even see how she dealt with the last one.
The dark red sword fell off of her mouth. Jess remained calm as she counted fractions of a second in her head. Countless swords got lodged into the woods as soon as her count hit a quarter of a second. Every piece of wood with a sword on them started glowing.
"Go to hell." whispered the demon.
A huge explosion occured as the pseudo blasters fired their laser of pure essence. They near instantly hit Fragen just to be absorbed by the hands.
The demons blood ran cold, that player had just tanked her strongest hitting move.
"CAN I GET SUM HELP DAMN IT?" she frantically looked over to Cyeen to see her being choked against a wall.
The noble was struggling in her best to seperate the hand from her neck but to no avail. A set of flameberges descended from above, cutting the hand she failed to destroy.
Cyeen clicked her fingers the second she started falling. Her hand was pointed towards the player even while face down on the ground, setting off dozens of violet blasters. The blasters didn't connect, they were all absorbed.
The blonde girl looked bored.
"Geez, do y'all not learn?"
The hands coming out of her back formed a ring, pointing at the demon. While Jess was distracted with the sight of the ring shaped hands, some more hands grabbed her limbs. She was now nailed in place.
Palms of all the hands inside the ring started glowing with each of the makeshift gang's respective essence colors. A click was heard as a gray swiss shield appeared in front of her, blocking the first wave of the multi colored blaster while also shattering the shield.
Fragen acted like she was touched.
"Oh how noble of you pirate boy, too bad I got more."
Now the hands were glowing violet and red, hinting at the absorbed gray essence being used up. A barrier of violet strings obstructed the vision of the demon, blocking the next blast.
"Guyz what ar ya doin'? Attack er!" yelled Jess.
Cyeen quickly responded to her.
"We can't damage her arms you idiot! You're our only damage dealer!"
The player sighed, this wasn't fun. Now the palms were only glowing red. There wasn't a barrier in the way this time. Cyeen and Zoen both had ran out of essence to spare. A quiet swear was heard. Jess was now facing the ground. Zoen I swear to god. The demon thought.
The final blast was on another league compared to the last two. Zoen clenched his teeth as he was slammed against the wall, shattering his shield. Jess lifted her bandaged hand, summoning all kinds of swords aimed at Fragen. She pointed her hand forward, commanding the swords to kill the player. The swords finally connected Fragen, penetrating countless hands in the process.
"Oh noooo! I loseth three haych pe!" said the player, acting like she was brutally wounded.
Jess tried summoning more swords but was meant with a slight headache, she was out of essence. The demon summoned her soul weapon again, this time shaped as a flameberge. With an idea, she summoned it to the right of her head. The flameberge fell in Cyeen's hands as the demon headbutted the sword.
"What do you expect me to do with this, pea brain." muttered the noble, taking a field guard with a grunt of pain.
Some heavy steps were heard as the demon ran towards her brother. A blue hand started following her. Alright I get it now. Thought the noble.
Cyeen teleported in between the hand and Jess, cutting it into three pieces. Two more hands were reaching for the running Jess now. Cyeen matched the pace of the demon with the adrenaline being pumped in her body, cutting down any hand thrown at them.
The unconscious pirate was picked up along with a grunt from his sister. He was now resting in the rough, bandaged hands of Jess.
"Flee! Now!" yelled the demon.
Cyeen didn't have any objections as she started following the demon, still cutting down any hands the player threw at them.
The wide open door was now in front of them. It suddenly got closed by a navy blue hand. Fragen was trying to trap the three inside the restaurant.
Jess had other ideas. She turned sideways and elbowed the door with such strength that the door burst opened outside.
***
Fragen was right on their tail even outside, using some hands to float quite high while using others to catch up to the trio. Her navy blue hands smashed against the windows, roofs and many other things, breaking them as she continued her way.
Jess yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Cyee?! Any triks up ya sleeve??!!"
The noble began thinking as she cut down another arm. It seemed like a small piece of her essence reserve was back.
"Jump when I tell you to!"
Six circular blasters appeared behind Cyeen, tied to her by some strings. The same strings were then wrapped around the siblings.
"Jump!" she commanded.
The blasters fired off as the two jumped, launching them forward. They didn't go that far but it was enough to go into an alleyway.
The player didn't stop there of course, she quickly went into the same alleyway. There they were, still running away. Fragen began chasing them with all the arms coming out behind her now, not even sparing one to attack.
Cyeen watched the illusions being followed with her hand on her chest. Her heart was about to leave her body. Zoen had woken up just in time to produce a low quality illusion of the makeshift gang. Though, Fragen couldn't see its quality from all the way above. This meant that, for the second time, the three of them escaped death by mere seconds.
The noble handed Jess her sword back as she quietly went after the player. The blonde girl had been surrounded in an open space just outside the alleyway by royal guards.
Fragen was busy yelling at the guards.
"They sent you to stop me? You must be kidding me! You are all NPCs in a false world. You are alll NPCs you hear me?!"
Cyeen went back to the siblings, it was obvious the blonde reincarnator had lost her mind. The noble sat down next to the two. They were exhausted to the point that they haven't realised Zoen had lost his mask in the heat of the moment. Jess felt the need to say something.
"So, guyz why de hell did ya just protec me? We coulda won that one!"
Cyeen exploded at her.
"I told you we couldn't damage her arms! She just absorbed both of our blaster shots!"
Jess tapped Cyeen's chest a few times with her finger.
"Cause her arms absorbet. Yeah. Absorbet god damn blaster shots! I din't even see ya atempt using yar knives. Ya just kept chargin' her ultra blaser or whateva the hell it'z named!"
The two got up from the ground almost face to face. Zoen was able to stop them by summoning a swiss shield in between.
"Shut up! We all fought like shit you imbeciles. Jess, you used your most essence consuming move which you knew would get absorbed. Cyeen, you still insisted on using blasters even though you saw it having no effect. I, let myself get grabbed the second I let my guard down. So sit your asses down!"
Jess's mouth opened in awe.
"Ya are blamin me?! I was the onily one to do damge to her! Din'ty ya see?" Jess took a deep breath. "She waz right fuckin' there! We coulda ended 'er pathetic life rite then and there!"
Zoen was staring at the demon with a hardened gaze.
"Do not talk to me like that. We all did mistakes, just owe it up."
Jess responded to that by an even louder yell.
"What if I fuckin' don't? Huh? Whatcha gonna do? HUH?!"
A slap gracefully flew towards her cheek, suprising even Cyeen who was watching the siblings.
Jess's eyes popped open as she touched her cheek which was getting warmer. Her gaze met Zoen's.
"Fuck. Ya."
The demon turned her back to the two aggressively, leaving without any other words.
Zoen sat down, holding his head.
"What am I going to do with her..."
Cyeen sat next to the worried looking guy, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You did good. That was the right decision."
A sigh was heard from him. He slowly shook his head.
"No. No it wasn't. God, how do I apologize for that?"
Cyeen tapped his shoulder as if the remind him that she was there.
"Don't, just wait for her to apologize. That demon will understand she was in the wrong soon enough."
"Fine, I'll leave it up to time. I hope you're right."
***
They were walking in the dark about three hours later. This was a decision the two made to not get spotted in the daylight.
Jess had already picked her horse up from the inn stable they left it at. Zoen leaned against a wall in the dark as a shop that was still open despite the time took the attention of Cyeen. She tried seeing what it was before approaching it.
"You got to be kidding me."
It was the gossipers guild, just located at the opposite side they went after leaving their horses in the stable. The noble entered the guild with a tired look that could be seen through her mask.
***
Today was a real waste of time, they had spent money on the stable and the food but got nothing other than a harsh beating in return. Cyeen showed up about five minutes later with a mixed look on her face, at least what could be seen of her face.
The noble approached the inn, seeing the two siblings stand next to eachother but looking at different directions. Cyeen coughed once before talking.
"Found the guild. The player went west after escaping the guards." said the noble.
Jess's eyes expanded.
"Towards west... Like Bami?! Where Cherry lives!? Hop on your horses now, she's after the rest of our crew!"
They were on top of their horses in an instant, their horses galloping towards where they came from before.
Towards midnight, the makeshift gang was forced to stop due to total exhaustion, calling for a rest of two hours. None of them even attempted taking a shift guarding the group.
In two hours they were back on their way. Going as fast as they could. If nothing went wrong they'd be there in about a day. The hand craters left on the ground assured them they were in the right track.
A single thought was clouding the mind of the demon by now. Please, let us be the first to arrive there.