A pair of RazenHeir knights in their uniforms.
The crest of the RazenHeir knights was pinned on their chests.
A symbol of a phoenix.
"Good morning, Lady Ria. We apologize for the interruption."
It was the uniform a RazenHeir knight would usually wear to the front lines.
Though it was not strictly against the dress code for them to wear it on civil duties, the difficulty of polishing it up to standard is enough of a pain that every knight avoids it.
Although Ria doesn't have the habit of writing up knights for sloppy attire, she could tell for certain that the state of their uniforms was not presentable.
As they approached, Hikari shuffled her boot, stopping them in their tracks.
They tried to go around it, but Hikari nudged her boot forward, stopping them again.
"Is something the matter?"
"Nothing major, my lady. The guard captain requests that Knight Hikari report to him. We are sent here as replacements."
Ria glanced at Hikari.
She could read nothing from her usual cold expression.
"Changing of guard is unusual, and quite against the rules. I ask again. Is something the matter?"
The two men were still trying to circle Hikari's boot.
"The scout master has an urgent mission for Hikari. She is to arm herself and depart immediately."
Ria paused and looked at Hikari.
Her ruby-red eyes followed the two men.
The two men managed to make it past Hikari's boot after several attempts.
Ria watched them carefully as they approached.
"Stop."
She ordered.
They froze in their tracks.
"What are your names?"
The two men glanced at each other.
"Bali."
"Topa."
They said one after the other.
Ria glared at them.
"When did you join the house?"
She kept questioning them.
They glanced at each other.
An awkward pause.
Ria drew her musket.
The men did the same.
In the instant before they could aim, a sudden kinetic blast knocked them onto the ground.
Ria briefly lost consciousness as she was thrown violently onto the grass.
Gunshots.
She woke up and saw the two men lying dead beside her.
A sword impaled each of them in the chest.
Thud.
Hikari's boot landed beside her.
Ria turned her body and saw a tower of muscle and wyvern skin looming above her.
"Move."
She picked her petite body off the ground.
"Down."
A volley of gunfire.
She dove back down onto the grass and covered her head with her hands.
More gunfire. Musket balls hitting against stone. Screams.
Run. Hide.
Ria thought.
She had received basic training in wielding her weapons.
But nothing had prepared her for the chaos that was unfolding around her.
"Down."
Ria buried her face in the grass.
The sound of gunfire.
A pair of giant boots filled her view.
A volley of musket fire flew towards her.
She could only watch.
But before the steel balls could reach her, they were stopped mid-air by a telekinetic barrier.
Ria quickly crawled to one of the boots and huddled behind it.
It was the only cover she could find.
…
Hikari held her position, scanning the surroundings.
A rifleman fired from a window.
The shot could not pierce her telekinetic barrier.
A giant dagger flew towards him, impaling him to the wall behind.
Pull.
Hikari telekinetically pulls the throwing dagger back to her.
It rejoins an array of throwing daggers hovering around her.
Another rifleman appeared out of a corner and fired.
Like his comrade, he was brutally impaled.
Boom!
The sound of a cannon firing.
In that instant, Hikari drew her sword.
Clank! The broadside of her sword hit the flying cannonball and knocked it into the grass.
Boom!
Another cannon fired.
She turned and blocked.
Boom!
The cannonball hit her directly on her chest and bounced off.
She caught it in her hand.
She saw the smoke from the cannon position.
She threw it back, causing a blast of shattered stone and splinters as the cannon ball smashed into the position.
Boom!
Block.
Hikari drew her handcannon.
She saw the smoke.
She gathered the mana in the handcannon.
She felt the flames build up in the chamber and compress into a concentrated ball.
A streak of brilliant flame ignited the cannon position and engulfed it in RazenHeir flames.
The cannoneers jumped out of their position, their bodies on fire.
They tried to douse it by rolling on the ground, but the RazenHeir flames, which ignite cold steel, would not be extinguished by such a crude method.
Another streak of fire takes out the other cannon post.
The coast is clear for now.
There are more enemies.
She can sense fighting breaking out over the entire town.
She checks on her lady, who was hugging her boot and using it to hide from the gunfire.
Having to shield her lady in a static position puts her at a disadvantage.
She picks her lady up.
The wyvern skin on her chest opens.
She presses her lady against her stomach and closes her armour.
Ria found herself entombed in a dark prison of damp cotton, suffocated by the sweaty fumes.
She held her breath, but she couldn't hold it forever.
She breathed and choked, and breathed, and choked again.
She felt dizzy from the smell of sweat filling her lungs.
Outside, with her lady secured, she could move.
Cloaked swordsmen appeared from the alleyways and streets.
A concentrated effort to take her down.
Hikari released all of her throwing daggers, creating a barrier of whirling steel.
Her attackers charged zealously into the whirling steel undeterred.
Their bodies were ripped to pieces by the momentum of the whirling steel.
Ribcages and skulls were crushed.
Limbs were severed.
By luck, one swordsman got through and thrust his sword against Hikari's boot.
It did not pierce.
Her was knocked to the ground.
The last thing he saw was the boot soles hovering over him before crushing his bones and splattering his insides with a crunch.
She fights her way through the streets.
The town guard was fighting an uphill battle.
The enemy had taken the watchtowers, allowing them to pin the guards to their covers.
Hikari was pelted by musket fire as she approached.
Harpoons with ropes flew toward her, attempting to restrict her.
Her throwing daggers cut the rope.
She dashed towards the watchtower.
Jump and swung her sword into the watchtower.
The mass of her sword crushes her foe's bodies and caused the roof of the watchtower to cave in.
With the sniping position gone, the guards rush out of their cover and go onto the counterattack, charging the cloaked enemies head on and fighting them in a melee.
Hikari senses tingles.
Grotesque masses of flesh burst out from carts and cellars.
The guards fired their muskets but did little damage to the masses of flesh.
The flesh abomination closed in on a guard and wrapped its tentacles around him before eating the man whole.
Hikari loaded a ball into her handcannon.
She aimed at a flesh abomination and channeled her mana.
No smoke or explosion.
The steel ball left the barrel of her handcannon and ripped into a flesh abomination, shredding its flesh into pieces and splattering it against a wall.
She loads. Fire.
Load. Fire.
One after the other, she takes out the flesh abominations that the gaurds were ill-equiped with fight.
A flesh abomination mindlessly charged her.
She raises her boot and stomped it into the ground, cracking the pavement below her.
She leaps onto what remained of the watch tower to gain a vantage point.
The area was just enough to fit both of her boots.
Load. Fire. Load. Fire.
Another foe appeared.
Cloaked assassins surrounded her.
She kept her handcannon and drew her sword.
Her daggers created a whirling barrier around her.
The assassins charged in a staggered formation.
As they entered the whirling steel, the spell on their cloaks activated, phasing them out of the material plane and materializing once they passed the daggers.
They bared their daggers, dripping with acid, expecting an easy hit against a slow, hulking giant.
But they were wrong.
A swing of her giant sword, with a reflex that caught them off guard, dismembered several of the assassins as they tried to attack in concert.
A telekinetic blast knocked the remaining assassins back into the whirling storm of daggers.
The whirling steel cut them to pieces.
The magical artifact they used to phase them past the whirling steel the first time did not charge back up fast enough to save them.
An assassin was lucky enough to be knocked onto the ground, avoiding the death trap that was the whirling steel.
But he was still trapped in the eye of the dagger storm with the giantess knight.
His legs broken from the telekinetic blast, he could only watch as the giantess's boot came down on him.
The remaining assassins stood around outside the range of her throwing daggers.
They watched as their comrades in the first wave got shredded to pieces.
Seeing that they were outmatched, they could only sound the retreat.