Isaac appeared behind one of the assassins aiming at Alexander and Shamesh and swung wide with his Truth to prevent the assassin from dodging to either side. The assassin dove forwards instead. "No." Isaac ordered the darkness all around the woman and lunged towards her. Her moment of shock at being halted mid dodge was immediately superseded by pain and horror as his sword pierced her heart. Truth had gone through her leather armor as if it were simple clothing to a regular sword.

Isaac vanished and appeared in front of the second assassin right before he let his arrow fly. He sliced the hastily released arrow in half just as the assassin released the string. The assassin's arrow went flying far off course in two different directions as he jumped away from Isaac and reached for his belt. "Together." He ordered their shadows and both men were yanked towards each other by the darkness all around them. The assassin's eyes held confusion and surprise in equal measure as Isaac's sword found its place directly inside of his heart.

With the two assassins that were still in good shape dispatched, Alexander and Shamesh were in a much better position. They still had to contend with the lead assassin but Isaac hadn't seen their initial clash. He assumed that the pair of wizards could handle one rogue but only time would tell. There was still the danger of the other two crispy assassins, who looked like they were trying to figure out how to handle the tornado, but Isaac didn't want to leave Lenna alone for too long. The last he had seen, she was clearly on the back foot.

—

The lead assassin pulled a chain out of a pouch on his hip as he spun, ducked, and dodged Shamesh's endless barrage of puppeted rocks and small boulders. He hooked both of his sickles to either end of the chain and started to twirl one of them with obvious excitement in his body language. He didn't need to get close to attack them with weapons capable of carving through Reality Shields.

Alexander threw a handful of Stars of Doom at him in an attempt to damage his weapons but the assassin just tapped a golden disk on his belt and Alexander's stars went wide, each one impacting a different part of the cavern as they lost their intended target.

The assassin launched his spinning sickle at Shamesh, the one he didn't trust his assistants to be able to kill, and flipped over one of Shamesh's boulders. The tornado didn't blow the weapon off course but merely caused its trajectory to come in at an odd angle. Alexander quickly moved to intercept the sickle with a Reality Shield but the assassin cracked the chain at the last moment. The sickle rose and then was snapped back downwards towards Shamesh. The skeletal wizard was able to lean back just in time to only further ruin his suit but the sickle still ended up exactly where the assassin had wanted it. With a yank, the sickle got caught on Alexander's Reality Shield and, before the young wizard could even cancel the spell, the assassin used it as an anchor to help pull himself through Shamesh's moving obstacle course.

The assassin was inside the tornado in a moment and had managed to slip past around half of the total amount of debris that Shamesh was controlling. As he momentarily flew through the air, the assassin tapped another golden disk on his belt and the deadliest magic of them all settled over him: Quicken.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

—

Lenna's Armor of Ire was going crazy. The tendrils coming off of her looked more erratic than an octopus being strangled. Over and over again they whipped towards Farlen. His aura was hardened like an extra set of armor over his own and it took each of the whipping tendrils admirably. The aura armor was not capable of entirely stopping even something as negligible as Lenna's Armor of Ire's tendrils but it was enough that she had little to no hope of actually causing any damage with them. The eventual heat build up would probably aid to the older paladin's eventual exhaustion but in the short term the armor was only good defensively. Speaking of, it was probably the only reason why her sword hadn't drawn blood from her own hand as she struggled to hold the strength and bulk of her once removed cousin back.

Lenna dropped her right hand and turned while she shoved her left hand, the one holding the sword by the blade, upwards with everything she had. She felt the skin of her palm split open but she ignored it as Farlen was sent tumbling next to her. He had truly leaned his entire weight on her and their bound swords. He hit the ground in a roll and came up to his feet just as she did and both paladins locked eyes. Only one of them was going to make it out of the cavern alive, that was one thing that both of them agreed on.

"By our ancestors, you will die by my hand this day. I swear it." Farlen growled and charged at Lenna once more. His sword came down in another crushing blow. It was all Lenna could do to parry the blow as she was forced back a step.

"Like hells!" Lenna yelled back and swung with everything she had at him. Farlen got his sword up in time to counter attack her swing with one of his own, taking a chunk out of both of their swords, again. Power flared from both paladins as they poured everything they had into each exchange of blows. All of their mana and aura enhanced strength clashed sending waves and blasts of hellfire, and the divine light of souls passed on and pure conviction, smashing outwards in all directions. A stalagmite was burst apart simply from being too close to their clashing powers and blades.

In a matter of only six traded blows, both of their swords could have been confused for saws. Sword fragments were being littered along the ground in the wake of white power clashing with orange and black. Lenna could feel her mana reserves dwindling but there was nothing that she could do. He wouldn't give her enough space or time to cast any spells and if she didn't meet him with everything she had, every single time, then he would run her over and pound her into the ground with extreme prejudice. Something needed to change, whether it be assistance or her opponent running out of mana, or Lenna and Isaac were going to find out what 'you cannot die alone' truly meant.

—

Edward had just finished his final opponent and decided that it was best if he returned to help Shamesh and Alexander. He wasn't sure exactly what horrible battle was going on in the middle of the cavern but it had been going on for too long. Fights were not supposed to last more than a handful of seconds.

As he took off in a hurried jog through the maze of rubble and growing pillars of minerals, he caught a glimpse of Isaac executing an assassin. A dozen or so feet from the one Isaac had killed, another was trying to collect himself. Edward didn't see Isaac go after that one so he assumed the dark mage had other, more important, targets. Edward vaulted over a piece of the natural obstacle course that was the cavern floor off of the beaten path, and ran down the assassin. The assassin looked up as he heard him coming. With a bow in one hand, and an arrow radiating disintegration magic in the other, the assassin made to weigh his options in a fraction of a second. He could either try to kill or heavily wound the swordsmen in a single bow shot, or he could discard the bow and fall back on rapier and parrying dagger that hung from his hip. One look at the magnitude of Edward's weapon, and the man himself, and the assassin made his choice.

The assassin's bow raised as an arrow was pulled back. Edward had closed in. The Blade Master only needed a few more feet to be able to attack the assassin. The arrow was released and the bow was dropped. Edward's sword flicked out far faster than any weapon that size had any right to move. He saw the magic around the arrowhead and expertly dodged to the side just enough so when he cut the arrow in two, his blade didn't get too close to the head and it missed him on its way to the ground. With another lunging step, back onto the path that he had been taking, Edward was within execution range of the assassin. Even though there were only two levels between them, Edward was far stronger, much faster, and had a bigger weapon that was enchanted with lightning magic. Edward didn't know what kind of enhancements the assassin's rapier and parrying dagger had on them, and he was determined not to find out until after the battle.

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