Zein and the triplet went down to the basement, the place where they had summoned the young man.
—I find it strange that a general wants to see you in a place like this. They are usually used to more... luxurious places —said one of the triplets, trying to strike up a conversation.
—You're right —Zein responded curtly.
The triplet looked at him for a moment before continuing to walk.
«Come on! I finally got him to talk, I just have to keep it up to put him in a good mood,» he thought with a smile.
In that instant, Zein tried to pull the triplet backward, but he wasn't fast enough. A blade cut the young man's throat without giving him time to react.
The triplet fell to the ground, bleeding out while trying to cover his wound. Zein took him in his arms. Desperate, he pressed the cut that was bleeding uncontrollably, but he didn't know what to do. The triplet's hands were trembling, gripping Zein's hand with a fading strength.
—Shit! —Zein was shouting—. If only I knew how to use healing magic...!
The assassin simply observed them closely. Zein looked at his hands, terrified; they were soaked in blood. He stood up furiously.
—Why did you do that?! —he screamed at her.
The girl looked at him with coldness.
—I wanted to cut off his head to reduce his suffering. You moved him backward, so it is your fault —she said while pointing at him.
Behind her, from Zein's view, the shadow formed for an instant, pointing at him in the same manner.
After hesitating a little, Zein carefully left the triplet's body on the ground.
—Who are you? And what do you want? —he asked, attempting to calm his breathing.
—My name is Patoshe. That's all you need to know —she said.
—Did you come to kill us? Why? Why did you kill him? —Zein asked, taking a step forward.
—Simple. I kill him because he was next to you.
Zein kept silent for a moment.
Patoshe did not respond; she only observed him. A dagger whistled in the air straight to Zein's face. He tilted his head just enough to let it pass, feeling the edge graze the air in front of his eyes. But as soon as he returned his gaze to the front, Patoshe was already on top of him.
«So fast!».
Zein reacted by instinct, summoning his sword at the last second. The clash of steel resonated dullly. Patoshe forced the pressure for an instant and then retreated, gliding with an unnatural lightness. Zein did the same.
Patoshe moved first. She leaned forward and, in a blink, closed the distance. Her right dagger descended in a swift cut that Zein blocked by turning the sword. The second one came from below, seeking his side. Zein took a step back, deflecting it by very little.
Patoshe spun around, chaining attacks without losing speed. Her style was precise and direct, designed to end the fight in a breath. Zein barely managed to keep up the rhythm, responding out of pure reflex.
Another clash. Another deflection. The edge went grazing his arm.
Zein tried to counterattack with a horizontal cut to force her to retreat. Patoshe did not block; she leaned just enough for the blade to pass in front of her chest and advanced again, breaking his guard.
Zein clenched his jaw and raised the sword to intercept, but she had already changed the angle. A feint. Her left hand feigned a low attack and the right one appeared over top, straight to his head. Zein turned his face out of pure instinct.
Too late.
The edge passed next to his ear, opening it with a clean cut. The world shook; a sharp ringing filled his ear while the heat of the blood descended down his neck. Zein retreated suddenly, separating, but Patoshe did not pursue him immediately. She simply stayed there, observing him like wounded prey.
In that instant, through where Zein and the triplet arrived, the other two brothers descended down to the basement.
—What is happening? Is everyone okay? We heard noises and decided to come down to see... —one said, before the scene struck him.
His brother's body lay in a pool of blood. Zein, with his ear bleeding, gripped his weapon in front of the girl with the bloody daggers. One of them ran toward the body with a hope that was extinguished at the first touch. The other approached Zein slowly.
—Are you okay? —he asked with a trembling voice.
—Yes —Zein responded.
—Was she the one who did it? —asked the one next to the corpse, his eyes bloodshot.
Both brothers positioned themselves at Zein's sides, ready for combat. They drew their swords, those simple curved blades given to all liquidators.
In that instant, Patoshe abandoned her attack stance.
—This is going to take too long. Better to end it now —she said, sheathing her daggers for a moment—. Imaginary: Gravitational Lens.
She positioned her right hand in front, as if trying to hold something invisible, and traced a small circle in the air. Zein and the brothers tensed, unable to predict her next move. Around them, the air began to ripple, distorting as if a transparent layer covered the basement.
Then, behind Patoshe, a strange figure emerged: a four-armed humanoid body with a lion's head, holding nine perfectly aligned spheres. The entity looked ethereal, almost transparent, but the spheres it carried felt dense and completely solid.
Zein frowned.
—What…?
One of the triplets took a step forward and one of the spheres lit up. Patoshe threw a dagger without even looking. The weapon disappeared halfway through its trajectory and, in a blink, emerged exactly where the triplet had stepped. The impact was blunt; the dagger sank into his leg.
The man's scream was cut short in the air as he fell to his knees, attempting to pull out the steel with erratic breathing.
Zein advanced alongside the remaining brother, seeking to corner her. Steel clashed in a frenetic exchange; Zein launched a direct slash while the triplet attacked from the flank with his curved blade. They were two different angles, two clear opportunities.
Neither worked.
Zein's edge passed through Patoshe's silhouette as if cutting through air. The triplet's sword grazed her side without causing the slightest damage. Patoshe didn't even flinch; she stayed right there.
A dagger appeared in her hand and descended in a precise cut that forced the triplet to block with both hands; the impact made him retreat several steps. Zein tried to take advantage of the opening with a horizontal slash, but it was useless: the blade passed through her again without touching her.
—…Tch.
Patoshe counterattacked. She threw another blade toward an empty spot in the basement. Zein followed it with his gaze, but the weapon disappeared before hitting the wall, reappearing right behind the triplet.
—Watch out!
The man managed to move aside just barely, feeling the graze of the steel on his side. He was barely regaining his balance when another dagger emerged from the ceiling, forcing him to roll across the floor to save his life. There was no apparent pattern.
Or so it seemed.
Zein stopped attacking. His eyes moved, ignoring Patoshe to fixate on the figure behind her. The spheres. Two were lit. He turned his head just as the triplet, by moving, stepped on a new spot on the floor.
Another sphere glowed.
—…She isn't dodging us —Zein murmured, narrowing his eyes.
The triplet launched into the attack again with a wide slash. Patoshe faced him head-on this time, parrying his sword and responding with a series of rapid cuts that drove him back under stifling pressure.
—Zein!
—Keep her busy! —he shouted.
He didn't wait for an answer. Zein moved.
He took a step to the right, but nothing happened. He moved forward, and this time, one more sphere lit up in the entity's arms. He stopped for an instant, alternating his gaze between the floor and the glow of the ethereal figure.
«I see.»
Patoshe threw another blade. Zein didn't follow it with his eyes; instead, he observed the exact point where the weapon vanished and how one of the spheres reacted instantly.
«It's not random.»
He moved again with short, precise steps. One after another, the spheres responded to his position. Zein began to mark the terrain; with a quick stomp of his foot, he raised a small pillar of earth at each reactive point. Then another. And one more.
—One...
He marked another point.
—Two...
Behind him, the clashing of steel continued. The triplet was barely managing to stay on his feet, blocking desperately as Patoshe's daggers rained down from impossible angles. Zein did not get distracted. He moved, tested, discarded.
A false step.
A blade emerged from nowhere, aimed straight at his side. Zein deflected it by instinct, stepping back just slightly. He returned to the last correct point and tried another step; this time, the sphere responded.
«There has to be an order.»
More pillars surged from the ground, marking every discovered point. Some aligned, others scattered, but all connected by an invisible logic.
Patoshe accelerated the pace. The blades appeared with a stifling frequency, forcing the triplet to move without rest. One grazed his shoulder; another opened a gash in his arm.
—I won't hold on much longer! —the man shouted in desperation.
Zein didn't respond. His gaze jumped from the pillars to the spheres. Nearly all of them were lit now; only a few were missing to complete the map. He took a deep breath and lunged.
One more. Another.
The spheres reacted in a perfect sequence. Zein Grit his teeth and advanced, ignoring the risk and crossing each point with increasing precision. He was in the final stretch. A single error now and everything would end.
—Tch.
He stepped on the final point. The last sphere began to glow faintly. Zein stopped for just an instant, holding his breath.
The pattern was complete.
The moment the last sphere responded, Patoshe's attention diverted from the triplet. A dagger pierced the man's abdomen before he could react; the air escaped him in a dry rattle. Patoshe didn't stop; she twisted her wrist and tossed him aside, letting him fall like dead weight.
Zein didn't look; he was already in motion.
As soon as he stepped on the last point, the statue ceased to be a silhouette. The transparency dissipated, revealing a solid and tangible form. The spheres glowed in unison, and the core was finally exposed.
Zein clenched his jaw.
—There.
He threw himself forward. Patoshe reacted instantly. The daggers appeared one after another, disappearing and emerging in impossible trajectories, all directed toward him. Zein did not stop, even seeing them coming. He knew he wouldn't arrive in time, but he pressed on.
At the last second, he threw his sword. The blade spun in the air, crossed the distance, and embedded itself into the figure. The impact was real, but insufficient; only a superficial crack ran across the surface. Patoshe made a slight gesture of pain. And she smiled.
—It's not enough.
The daggers arrived one after another.
The blades sank into his body. Others only tore flesh and fabric as they passed, but the accumulated impact forced him to stop. Zein tensed his muscles, feeling his breathing become heavy and erratic. The poison was beginning to claim its territory; his legs trembled, threatening to give way.
Zein looked down for an instant. Then, he raised his gaze with a fierce determination.
—Not yet.
His eyes locked onto the sword still embedded in the statue. Upon the steel surface, a barely visible mark began to throb: a star. For a second, the symbol glowed with a blinding intensity. Zein closed his fist, and the sword responded.
The light expanded along the blade, becoming unstable and violent until, finally, it exploded.
The impact shook the figure from its core, fragmenting it into a thousand pieces. At the same time, Patoshe's body tensed violently. Dozens of cuts appeared on her skin one after another, as if the damage she had avoided had finally found its way out. Blood erupted in fine lines that ran across her arms, her torso, and her face. Her smile vanished completely.
The air vibrated, and the distortion of space collapsed, returning the basement to its grim normalcy.
Both remained standing, face to face, separated by only a few meters. Their breathing was irregular and heavy; sweat and blood mixed on the floor.
«I must stop the bleeding as soon as possible or...» Patoshe thought, gritting her teeth as her vision blurred.
«Good thing I researched that spell of star... but if I don't stop the poison with magic right now...» Zein thought, feeling the coldness of death creeping through his veins.
«I'll lose this fight!» they both declared in their minds.
They stayed there, on their last legs, two staggering shadows held up only by the will not to be the first to fall.