The Eternal Assassin

Asher stared in horror at Rosh's mangled legs. It looked as though someone had stuck them in a woodchipper, and then tried using a sledgehammer to put the pieces back together. He could only assume there was some sort of magic at play to stop the bleeding, else he imagined Rosh would have died hours ago.

"Rosh… What happened?" Asher said blankly, unable to take his eyes off the man's legs.

"What do you think?" Rosh asked, his voice dripping with venom. "Loratta needed to punish someone for killing her special elites, and you were too slippery for her. So she took her anger out on me instead."

"I am so sorry…" Asher said, trying not to think about all the fun he'd been having fighting against Moxy the past few days, the guilt all but sucker punching him in the gut. "If I had known…"

"It's fine," Rosh sighed, shaking his head and leaning further back against the wall. "Yes I'm angry, but I'm far more mad at Loratta than you. My evolved pain resistance saved me from the worst of it. Just get me out of here."

"Of course! If there is anything I can do to make it up to you-"

"Give me twenty thousand shards."

Asher stared at the stone-faced instructor, wondering if he'd heard him correctly.

"I'll happily pay you after we get out of here if that's what you want from me as an apology… But is now really the best time?"

Rolling his eyes, Rosh sighed, holding out his hand. "Just give me the shards you idiot. Despite my resistance, I'm still in a lot of pain."

Luckily, Asher had that many shards on him, and he quickly manifested an orb with the requested amount before dropping it in the instructor's waiting hand.

"Thank you," Rosh said, closing his eyes and sucking in a deep breath as he steeled himself. "I always hate how this feels…"

Before Asher could ask what he meant, a blinding violet light erupted out of Rosh's body, forcing Asher to shield his eyes and take a step back. Squinting, Asher tried to figure out what was happening, and his jaw dropped as he watched Rosh's forbidden element in action.

Before his very eyes, Rosh's body healed itself at a speed that put Moxy's Life element to shame. Bruises faded one after another as though they'd never existed, and the bright red whip marks disappeared like they were being erased. Most impressive, however, was witnessing Rosh's crushed and mangled legs suddenly straighten out and reinflate like they were made of rubber.

The entire process took barely a handful of seconds, and before he knew it the blinding violet light winked out. Rubbing his eyes, Asher stared at Rosh as the instructor jumped to his feet, stretching out his newly repaired legs and fixing him with a crooked grin.

"As much as I hate my Shard element, even I have to admit it has its perks."

"Rosh, that was amazing!" Asher exclaimed, looking the man's perfectly healed body over. "Why didn't you tell me you could do that?!"

"This might come as a surprise to you, but whenever possible, I prefer to not talk about my element that could get me executed," Rosh said bluntly, as if he were stating the obvious. "If you must know, I can consume shards to heal myself. The worse the injury, the more shards the skill takes. That terrible state Loratta and her goons put me in cost nearly fourteen thousand shards to remedy."

"That's incredible," Asher repeated, raising an eyebrow as yet another reason the Shard element was forbidden was revealed to him. Someone with enough shards on them wouldn't just have potentially limitless power, but could very well be impossible to actually put down as well. "But if it only cost fourteen thousand, why ask for twenty?"

"I feel like charging you only six thousand shards is letting you off easy after forcing me to go through all that," Rosh snorted, shaking his head. "But based on the fact that it feels like a pack of boulder moles are attacking the compound, I can only assume you're in the middle of some sort of crazy and half-assed plan. I figure taking Loratta down will be worth the rest. What did you do, anyway?"

"Draken formed a coalition of gangs to attack Loratta," Asher explained. "The rumbling must be from the battle going on. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't finished the fight by now."

"Draken? Death element Draken?" Rosh asked, his eyes widening. "Damn, this is serious. But even so, they'll be hard pressed to fight at all," he added, clicking his tongue. "I'm pretty sure Loratta has an Earth element, and I'd stake my life on her having most if not all of her skills evolved by now. Fighting her inside her own underground compound is tantamount to suicide. Though based on all the rumbling and shaking, I can only imagine Draken managed to get his hands on one or two Earth element users of his own. We're probably feeling the result of their battle."

"Won't they risk collapsing the compound if this keeps up?" Asher asked, watching as more flecks of dirt landed on their heads as the compound shuddered.

"If it did, that would still be a win for Loratta. With her slime body, she can't really be crushed to death, and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have to breathe," Rosh explained, worriedly following his gaze up to the shaking ceiling. "Though seeing as that's not the case for either of us, I would highly appreciate it if we could get out of here sooner rather than later."

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Nodding, Asher found the key to the iron door as fast as he could before leading them back into the hallway. Rosh followed right behind, barely sparing a glance at the dead thug before pointing down the hallway. "I believe I know the way out, or at least the right general direction. Let's go!"

Asher didn't miss how Rosh snagged the fallen cudgel or stuck unnervingly close to him as the two of them ran, but he didn't say anything. Despite putting on a brave face, the instructor had clearly been through a lot, and even if he'd healed himself physically, who knew how deep those mental scars would run. Asher had just been glad he'd found his friend in one piece, and he'd be damned if he let something happen to him now.

Asher had hoped he'd be able to get Rosh out of the compound and escape without getting into any fights, but that quickly proved to be impossible as they approached the main entrance. Based on the source of the rumblings, it felt as though Loratta was locked in combat with a fellow Earth element user somewhere deeper within the compound, probably near one of the new entry points they tried making. But that just meant that the majority of her forces were placed here at the original entrance.

And based on the screams and sounds of metal sparking off metal, so were the majority of Draken's.

"There's no way we're getting through all that," Rosh muttered, wincing as a pained scream suddenly cut off from around the corridor, indicating another person had fallen. "It doesn't matter how many fighters Draken has if Loratta can hold them off at this choke point. They have the home field advantage, and she plans to fully take advantage of it."

Curious, Asher slipped into the astral in order to peek around the corner without anyone seeing him. He'd never witnessed a full-on battle in this world before, and he was curious what one would look like when all the combatants were filled with different magical elements.

The answer, was chaotic.

The tunnel leading into the small room he and Rulfar had first dropped down into had been blasted open by some unknown skill, creating a wide cavern for the battle to take place within.

And what a battle it was.

As he watched, a man with a flaming sword went to decapitate his opponent, only to have his weapon blocked by a floating chunk of crystal orbiting an angry woman. Crystal woman then tried to grab her assailant's face with a hand seemingly made entirely out of shimmering gemstones, but both of them were forced to jump backwards when a dark green cloud suddenly manifested overhead, its raindrops melting the very dirt and stone before it turned and chased after the swordsman. Fire sword managed to lose the cloud by leaping between what looked like a bear made out of woven grass fighting a howling man with jagged claws instead of fingernails, only to find himself trapped in a floating bubble, helpless as three combatants began thrusting spears into it, quickly turning the bubble red with blood and ending his life.

All this took place in the few seconds Asher was able to hold himself within the astral, and he quickly pulled his head back, his heart pounding in excitement as he turned to Rosh.

"It's absolute insanity out there!" he said, unable to hide his eager grin. "I think I just witnessed half a dozen different elements being used within three seconds!"

"There's nothing more dangerous than a full-scale battle," Rosh said, his knuckles whitening around his newfound cudgel as they were bombarded with screams of fury and cries of pain from around the corner. "There's a reason why there is a common connection between anyone who is able to make a name for themselves in this world. They need to have one of three things. Overwhelming offense, a strong defense, or incredible stealth. If you don't have one of those three, you won't even last a day playing the game of the strong."

As if to prove his point, an explosion erupted in the room ahead of them, sending burning heat blasting past their hiding point as the fighting actually seemed to stall out for a moment as who knew how many combatants died in that single attack. But the lull didn't last long, and whatever skill had just been used had to have had a long cooldown as the battle was soon picked up once again.

Asher was practically vibrating in excitement as he listened to all the different skills being used one after another. The thought of fighting against any one of the people he'd just witnessed, let alone potentially all of them at once, got his blood boiling like nothing he'd ever experienced before. Even the realization that he could only fight against Loratta's men did little to hamper his excitement, and he grabbed at his daggers eagerly, testing his damaged shoulder.

At this point, around half an hour had passed since he'd taken down Moxy, and while it still hurt like hell, he was at least able to use the damaged limb.

Pain I can handle, he thought as he readied himself. But before he could rush out there, Rosh suddenly grabbed his arm, looking at him like he was nuts.

"Are you insane?" The instructor hissed, wincing at a smaller explosion that sent shrapnel of what looked like hardened strands of hair of all things flying past them. "We have to wait for the fighting to end! You'll die if you go out there!"

"There's no telling how much longer we have before Loratta brings this entire place down on us," Asher argued, pointing toward the entrance with one of his daggers. "After going through all this trouble to save you, I'm not about to let you get crushed to death barely a hundred feet from the exit."

"Asher, as annoyed with you as I am for getting me into all this in the first place, I don't want to watch you throw your life away for me," Rosh frowned, his grip tightening. "It's too dangerous. Let's at least wait it out a little and let them whittle each other down first."

"Rosh, we haven't known each other for all that long, but I think I realize what the problem is," Asher said, barely able to hold himself back as the sounds of battle continued from just a few feet away. "You've never actually seen me fight before, have you? I mean really fight. Not just mess around like when I took on Latch outside the city."

"No… I admit, watching you get stabbed in the kidney and nearly die from poison didn't exactly fill me with confidence around your ability to fight. I figured you just kept getting the drop on all of Loratta's elites all this time."

"Fair enough," Asher chuckled, flickering out of Rosh's grasp.

"Let's remedy that, shall we?"