Following the sounds of swords clashing Nero came closer to the battle; metal colliding against itself left a sharp pain in his ears but he knew that must be where Catherine was.
Question flooded his mind. Had she fallen in battle? Could she even fight? Where was she? He had to push them aside and focus on the main goal of defending the village and protecting everyone he could. He saw the boy from earlier rolled up in a corner, hugging his knees trying desperately not to cry. The sound of wood creaking and the burning made it clear, he rushed towards him, and shielded him from the falling wood column.
The boy hugged him happily seeing him again.
The boy nodded just like he did when he had slain the beast, that's all he could do in this situation after all.
Watching as he ran, he steeled his nerves heading back to the active fighting that was going on right around the corner. Preparing for the worst.
His guard lowered as he saw Catherine, giving the enemy soldiers a pretty hard time getting close. She swung her two blades elegantly, her slicing and cutting was just as pretty as she looked. There was no time for dilly-dallying, he had to focus, now. Drawing his blade he tightened his grip and helped her, flanking the enemies and catching them off-guard to go in for the sweep kill.
Reunited the inn keeper and the white haired adventurer hugged. Not out of intimacy, but relief to see the other person alive and well.
She explained to him why she couldn't wake him. They had approached so suddenly no one would've expected them to come so soon, so she told the mailwomen to wake him while she would distract the enemy foot soldiers or maybe even defeat them. They knew they would definitely be attacked when the invasion did happen as they were located closest to the next harbor. He could only see the faint outline of the knight who was approaching behind. Swinging his bare hand horizontally, Cathy... disappeared. Erased from existence. With a blue aura trailing behind her cut off upper half.
Before he could fully realize what happened the knight slashed vertically down on Nero, he barely had enough time to dodge out of the way.
Holding her legs in his arms, he tried to recall her name or what she looked like, but he couldn't. All he knew that was she was important to her, and that the man in front of her had just killed her.
<⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜... I'm sorry. But I will avenge you. Now is not the time to fall into sorrow. You would've done the same.>
Even if he didn't say it, he felt immense grief and pain in that moment, using that to fuel his next Enchant, he imbued his sorrow into his enhancement and his sword took a sharper more metallic material, heavy, strong, durable would describe it best.
He threw his scabbard towards to unknown knight, who reacted to it before it hit him, it only a fracture of a second but his hand glowed a bit before he blocked it with his left hand and a small radius around his hand where he hand blocked it dissipates, though the tip piece of scabbard retained its momentum went to hit him in the face, though he dodged it, as if anticipating this.
Nero nodded, his enhanced sword drawn and raised to attack he dashed forward to attack.
Reacting just in time to block his attack, the knight uses his small buckler on his lateral forearm to block his swing, and parry him to deliver a quick and decisive blow to his guts. Nero fell down backwards to his knees feeling the impact. This was definitely some kind of Enchant.
The knight scoffs replying coldly:
Playing dirty Nero picked up mud from the ground and threw it at Andrehi. Just like what happened to the scabbard it vanished after making contact with his briefly blue glowing left hand. Every time his ability activated his hands would turn dark blue for a moment before erasing the object.
Nero planted his sword into the ground next to where ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜'s was lying, looking one last time at Andrehi and charging at him.
But instead of giving up Nero ripped his shield off grasped his wrists and pushed them deep into his chest. And just like what happened to ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜, he too got his top half erased, along with the pain he brought. The loss of someone important wouldn't leave Nero, but at least the most dangerous threat was gone.
He picked up his sword, and sheathed ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜'s swords and put them on his back, his trusty sword hanging loosely on his belt with no more scabbard holding it, it was a bit dangerous like that but it had to do.
He wandered around the wandered around in the burnt village aimlessly, searching for anything to remember anyone by. He went back to the broken inn, behind the counter there was a small iron chest, he opened it as it was seemingly the only thing left intact.
Thank you very much for protecting us, Nero. We will never forget you.
Yours truly, Catherine>
Who is Catherine?
Attached to the letter was a ring, just a small silver ring, some engravings in it but not in a language he knew.