One down

"And just like that, we're hired assassins?" Adriana asked apprehensively, she could understand, being a night matron and all, but Sven was a tank class - how would he go about killing all of these treacherous generals? Furthermore, as they walked down the cobble path, droves of citizens parted out of their way like the ocean in that old biblical tale. It wasn't due to Sven or Adriana's presence however, it was due to the woman that trailed behind them like a stray kitten - although looking at her, most wouldn't even consider calling her a mere kitten.

"I guess so, sorry to have to rely on you to do my dirty work like this, I promise to help wherever I can." Sven patted her on the head, which despite the looks they were receiving, wasn't actually an unpleasant feeling. Turning around Sven looked to the perverted woman who had **** a kiss out of him. "How long do you intend to follow us? It's not like they won't suspect something if they see the royal princess tagging along with us when we go to meet with the generals, you know?" Katarina huffed indignantly, as if she was above such simple matters of tactics and finesse.

"You need me to show you around, do you not? And besides, if things go south I might be what stands between you living to fight another day and you being butchered in the streets like a dog. You should be grateful I've taken time out of my busy day to escort you, in fact you should be thanking me." Katarina turned her nose up, Sven sighed as he wasn't quite sure if she was being genuine of if she really did have that big of a stick up her ass. Still, it begrudgingly irked him that she did indeed make some sense about being a last line of defense for them if things went bad.

"Very well, just don't let the general see you, your prescience has already alerted some guard patrols that belong to our targets - if word gets out that you're seen following me and Adriana then the generals will be at a heightened alert. At least pretend that you're not with us." Sven turned back around and carried on walking, Katarina blushed again at having been scolded. No one, not even her father had talked to her like this before. So why was it making her heart throb? She should be beside herself in anger! She should have him thrown into a dank prison cell where he'd remain for the rest of his natural life. But she didn't, not just because he was helping her family but there was something else, some other reason that she just couldn't put a finger on.

"So what's the plan? You distract them while I kill the general?" Adriana whispered, making sure no one was in hearing distance of them. Sven had considered this, but leaving the general to Adriana who was for the most part inexperienced with such things wasn't exactly advisable.

"No, lets go with the other way around." Sven had thought about this while they walked, it would be less stealthy but would give them the greatest chances of success. If all generals were the same level as Vander and Bergh, then defeating them even while surrounded by guards should be a simple task now that he had a class weapon. Gone were the days of having to play on a razor thin edge of success and failure, now was the time to show his talents.

Sven walked through a well worn out training yard, it seemed this place had been well used over the past few decades the ground they walked on paved in blood sweat and tears from the orc warriors in training as they broke through the regime or were broken by it. How many tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of orcs were sent here against their will to be yet another cog in the **** machine? This hallowed ground was sacred to some, but only because they have grown to love their abusers, to grow found of the invisible shackles that bind them, to lay down their life for men who would not do the same for them.

Sven had gained entrance into the training grounds by use of a special writ given to him by the king himself, pertaining to some arbitrary state of politics or another, the reason didn't matter, the valid and state ordained access to the general was what truly mattered. Being lead by a couple of guards, Sven could see in front of him a fit looking orc, shirtless and well built wearing a red bandanna around his head. This must be the captain Sven needed to kill, inspecting his character sheet, Sven sighed in relief.

Name: Vlad
Title: Admiral General
Main Class: Skirmisher
Sub Class: None
Proficiency: Smithing
Guild: Triadom U
Level: 43
Experience: 4020 / 4100

He was weaker than Bergh, admittedly Bergh wasn't surrounded by other fledgling warriors, but then again at that same time Sven didn't have a flail at that point either. Looking at the orc generals gear, he was ill equipped for the most part armor-wise, just low level leather garb and jottings of metal armor around his shins and wrists. However, his swords looked something fierce, a Titanium Falcon Blade in one hand and a small Orchaloid Defender in the other. A skirmisher was a potent 1v1 class, really effective in duels but in team battles, the class left a lot to be desired. Looking at the small dagger like defender, one might be inclined to think the off hand is useless due to its size and range of defense in an proper battle, but that's actually where the class pulls all of its strength from, the defender itself boosts a bunch of stats for the main hand weapon to make use of, so while it might appear that the falcon is doing all of the work, the defender is certainly pulling the strings from behind the scenes.

Finally, Adriana and Sven approached the general, being told to wait while the guard alerts the general to the surprise audience he had with a human, courtesy of the kings orders of course. The general looked over to the pair and eyed them up, thankfully he wasn't able to read Sven's character sheet or he might be a little more cautious. Sven could strike right now, but if he could connect his first attack then the second would almost certainly land as a follow up.

"And why would the king send a human and a dark elf to speak with me, I wonder." The admiral known as Vlad spoke, walking up to meet with the two would be assassins. "It makes me nervous, when the king would send one of our enemies to talk politics in place of a true blooded orc. What's your gain, pale face?" Vlad spat on the floor, his face turning up in disgust at the very notion of having to play nice with someone he considered his foe.

"The king wants to make sure the men are training efficiently, so he sent me, an adventurer, to make sure of that. So far, I find-" Sven began but stopped mid sentence as Adriana fell over onto her side, the guards went to go help her up but meanwhile Sven was watching Vlad. The general looked to the 'fainted' elf with a hint of amusement, like he was enjoying seeing her make a mess of herself. With his attention preocupied, Sven in a snake like motion equipped his flail and cast his Hook Shot spell, a class ability that requires a flail to be worn in the main hand.

With shocking accuracy, strength and control that can only have come from decades of refining his skills - Sven shot his flail towards Vlad's face in one quick and savage motion, Vlad was too preoccupied with the distraction and took the powerful blow straight to the face in a devastating fashion. As the hook was returning, Sven tried out one of his techniques from the game world to see if it still worked, flicking his wrist he cast the skill again now that the hook was on a different flight path. This was a technique called skill buffering, during the animation where a spell is typically returning, the user could manipulate the animation and interrupt it with another spell cast. In theory you could chain this infinitely, but it required a lot of frame perfect timing and setup in some cases to achieve.

Reeling the flail back at him, Sven connected another savage blow to his temple, knocking him to the floor. Channeling a third Hook Shot, Sven went to attack once again to finish him off but by this point, the warriors surrounding him were beginning to react. While Sven had been wailing on their general, Adriana had turned into a shadow and was taking out the fledgling soldiers one by one. Just as Sven's third attack was about to finish off the general, two men go in the way of the blow and blocked it with their shields together. Sven exerted all of his strength and managed to break both shields along with both of their rib cages, but found that the two had bought enough time for the other soldiers to drag their general to safety.

"Intruder!"

"Rally the troops!"

"We need medics! The general is gravely wounded!"

Came the various call outs from the growing crowd. Sven frowned as he realized his predicament, with the general still alive and with a growing number of guards coming to his rescue, finishing off the general would be a difficult feat if they chose to simply run. There was no way Sven could fight off an entire city, he had to finish this now.

Soldiers surrounding him from left to right began to charge at him all at once, seeing he was being enclosed on, Sven cast his Hook Shot ability and manipulated the trajectory to be somewhat like a whip, using it like an AOE projectile he smashed anything that got too close to him. One by one, corpses of dead soldiers went flying through the air as Sven protected the area around himself and Adriana. Seeing they weren't making a dent on Sven's defense, the soldiers stopped and waited out his spin. Sven suddenly expanded the range of his hook and delivered a savage swipe that crushed the skulls of an entire row of soldiers who were caught completely off guard by the sudden increase in attack range. It seems the metal of the flail can expand and detract at will, if only they knew that beforehand.

"I should have known you'd play dirty, all you humans are cut from the same cowardly, snivveling cloth. Unable to win without your tricks and your traps." An angry voice came from behind the line of soldiers, parting for him, Vlad himself appeared in front of Sven, much to Sven's surprise. Why wouldn't he just run? He must know that it was his head Sven was after.

Sven dodged out of the way of a piercing thrust from Vlad's falcon blade, then to the side to barely escape the swords speedy slash at his chest. The skirmishers attack speed was far above other classes in terms of base stats like attack speed, this meant that in a pure melee 1v1, the skirmisher has the advantage. If Sven was going to win this battle, he'd need to put a little distance between them. Just as Vlad was about to stab Svens neck with a particularly fierce jab, Sven held out his shield and cast his Tower Shield ability.

Timing it just right, Sven took 90% damage deduction from the blow and then used the shields astral projection to knock Vlad backwards, canceling the Tower Shield spell early, Sven quickly cast his Hook Shot ability which missed its primary target of Vlads head, but somehow managed to clip his ankle, sending him incapacitated to the ground. Wasting no time, Sven canceled his first Hook Shot and manipulated a second directed at his head this time. Now that Vlad was floor ridden, there was no chance he could-

Rolling to the side, Sven grumbled as the speedy skirmisher deftly avoided his kill shot. Rummaging into his bag, the man retrieved a health draft that he wasted no time at all consuming. That must be how he was able to fight after having taken two blows earlier. Sven found himself surrounded again, Adriana was doing her best at taking the rookies out one by one, but there was so many of them. Swinging his flail about again, Sven squashed the heads of the approaching soldiers in a display of vulgar power, his skill with the flail being unrivaled in all the world, or so the soldiers seemed to think.

"We can't even get close!" One of the soldiers from the back cursed out, at times like these they wished they had been trained in archery as well as with the sword. Looking at Sven, then to his men, and finally resting his scheming gaze on Adriana, the dark elf girl was panting lightly from the exertion while Sven hadn't even broken a sweat. A nefarious plot began to form in the generals head.

"Rush him! Any man left standing will be given a full fledged harem! Gold and riches, titles and properties, anything so long as this man dies here today!" Vlad bolstered his cowering ranks, the men who had at first seemed apprehensive to so much as walk forward were now charging in earnest at the surprised Sven. Sven increased the tempo of his Hook Shot and span it around his head as quickly as he could, like a lawnmower blade it sent bodies hurtling left and right, the innards of the men splattering against their comrades only for moments later for they themselves to join their fallen's ranks among the dead. Sven couldn't spare a second to think, their resolve was so fierce that they would gladly throw down their life if they could so much as dream to taste what it would be like to lay with a woman, or to have any autonomy over their life such as owning a house, or having capital to spend on goods, to spawn offspring - amidst the bloodshed and the gore and all the wailing screams, Sven couldn't help but feel sadness and pity for the poor orcs who had done nothing more than fight for what Sven considered basic human rights.

Pools of blood seeped around him when he had finished, every man that had charged him either lay dead or critically injured at his feet. The bodies had piled up on one another in a sea of red and white, there could perhaps be a hundred bodies or more scattered across this supposedly sacred training ground - but Sven wasn't among their number, he breathed lightly through his mouth to avoid the stench of **** that tickled his nose every time he inhaled. Looking around Sven panicked as he couldn't find Adriana, had he accidentally hit her?! No, she knew the plan, there was no way he swung his flail even close to their inner circle, so where was she?!

"Looking for your little friend?" Vlad's voice boomed out from across the field, peering over at him among the mist of red that still seemed to permeate the air around him, Sven saw the admiral holding Adriana to him with one arm and pointing at him with his falcon blade with the other. With his defender pointed to her throat, he smirked triumphantly as his plan came to fruition. But how had he snagged her under his protection?! It was then that his question was answered, looking to her lower leg he could see a puncture mark where she was bleeding from, at some point Vlad had used his Grapple Shot ability to wrap his defender around her leg, dig in and then pull her off of her feet and below Sven's Hook Shot swing.

"You know I've never seen a Gate Keeper move like you, honestly watching you fight was like a religious experience I have to say. Even if you are a filthy pale ape, you have my respect as a warrior for showing me something so... Incredible." Vlad spat out a mouthful of blood that had been pooling there for a while. "But this is where it ends, you drop your weapon and shield and then you unequip your armor. If you fail to do this then I won't hesitate to butcher your bitch." Vlad raised his defender so that the cold metal of the blade made Adriana jump in surprise. Looking at Adriana, Sven saw her wink at him just for a second. So that's how it is, smiling Sven charged at Vlad without a moments doubt, this sudden development caught Vlad off guard as he wondered why Sven would run at him when he held Adriana's life in his hands.

"Foolish whelp! You'll never make it in time to save her!" Vlad brought down his defender and pierced deep into Adriana's neck - however what follows was a surge of pain coursing through his chest as he realized it wasn't Adriana's neck he was cutting, but his own chest! Adriana had shrunk down into a shadow and reappeared behind Sven, looking up from his self inflicted wound - Vlad had perhaps moments to contemplate his own ****. Moments then passed and he was no more, Sven's flail splattering his grey matter against the rocks beside him.

"One down." Sven panted as he fell backwards onto his ass, propping himself upright with one arm. Adriana limped to his side and propped herself up against his back as she caught her breath. Sven handed her one of the health drafts he had recently acquired, taking it and downing the liquid almost instantly, the wounds and cuts around her legs began to disappear.

At first Sven had thought Vlad to be weaker than Bergh, but in actuality the fight had been much harder and for a multitude of varying factors, but thinking about it logically - even if Sven had the rest of his party with him, even if Vlad didn't have his whole army with him, would Sven have been able to defeat Vlad if he did not have his flail with him? Perhaps not, Sven concluded darkly. The ability to utilize Hook Shot was a key component to defeating someone like Vlad who was a skirmisher. If Sven couldn't create distance against him and then **** the Hook Shot mechanic, he would have stood no chance against Vlad, even if his team was able to spare a moment between batting off the swarms of orc soldiers to gang up on the general, it perhaps still wouldn't have been enough.

"Where to now?" Adriana finally asked, her breathing becoming more stable now that she had a little time to rest. Clearly she wasn't so used to real combat, but that would change in time. Sven was wondering about that too, there was 8 generals in the capital that needed removing and they had just defeated 1 of them. The king and his forces would be going out to deal with the remaining 7 as well, but that didn't mean that they could kill 1 and call it a successful mission. No, they had to pull their weight too if the king was to honor Sven's wishes.

"What are you, some sort of monster?" Katarina came out of the bushes, hand resting on the hilt of her blade almost instinctively as she walked past a myriad of her fallen brethren. She was used to war and the sight of dead bodies, hell she had inflicted wounds similar to those that lay scattered at her feet, but never in such a short amount of time for such a grand number. It was astonishing to her that any one man could be capable of all of this. She began to feel her heart pounding faster, but was it fear that drove the beating of her heart or something else? Something more...

"Just your average adventurer." Sven tapped Adriana to let her know he was standing up, offering her a hand he picked the dainty vampire up off of the ground. Walking towards Katarina he looked over his work, the red mist that had clouded the air from before had now settled into the ground where it belonged, the nutrients it would provide might just breath some life back into this man trampled husk of a field.

"Average, is that what you call it? If that is so, you humans must be made of more sturdy stuff than I've been led to believe." Katarina conceded, her heart still racing and only picking up the pace whenever she dared to look into his deep red eyes. Why was she feeling this way? It must be some damn spell he or that fucking dark elf was casting on her, or a charm he had enchanted into one of his gear slots. God damn it, it was frustrating her to no end that he brought out such confusing emotions in her without even seeming conscious of it.

"Who is our next target? I want to get as many out of the way today as I can before night fall." Sven asked confidently, Katarina had to **** herself to look at him to see if he was serious. Looking at the field of **** he had left in his wake and the powerful look in his eyes she didn't doubt him for a second that he meant it. Her father had planned to move on the weaker generals first to minimize his losses, but Sven had taken out perhaps the third strongest right off the bat. So, maybe she should say the second strongest? Her heart pounded like a drum at the thought of this man being able to take on whole armies at a time, multiple in a day. God what was he doing to her?!

"S-Snake, he's closest."