?"Aww," the captain feigned concern while waving his sword condescendingly. "Does it hurt? Do you regret it? Regret trying to save your scummy friend? It''s okay; you''ll die just as painfully as he will!"


    Meanwhile, two of the three guards were shouting various lines, insulting me and rousing their captain to action. Thest, with a look of sullen dejection, focused his gaze to the blood-stained floors below, namely the fallen dead.


    I staggered backward, cradling my injured side and pressuring the wound. Blood spilt from the cracks of my fingers, leaving a distinguished crimson trail along the floor.


    Beads of sweat poured profusely from my pores, eventually bing a moist sheen enveloping me entirely. The moisture was akin to glue, dampening, and sticking my clothes to my skin.


    ''I need something better. Something I''m trained with!'' I clenched my jaw, desperately scanning the room for something, anything other than this damn sword, to offset my disadvantage.


    That''s when I noticed a singr curved knife staked into the nked top of a small wooden table. ''There it is,'' I sighed with relief, ''my victory is just a few feet away...''


    Unfortunately, the captain stood between me and my goal.


    I turned toward Joseph to see his eyes were flickering in and out of consciousness. The time he had left was short and quickly diminishing.


    Like sand, I could feel the seconds left to save him slipping through my fingers.


    ''If I''m doing this, I need to do it now!'' I steeled my resolve, ready for an all-or-nothing attempt at victory.


    The guard captain sighed from irritation and rolled his eyes. "What''s this? You''re just going to stand there? Fine..." his lips curved to form a wry smirk beneath his beard. Then, he raised his sword for a reckless rush. "Guess I''lle to you then!"


    With his overcoat pping wildly, he charged toward me, his sinister cackle filling the room. The thundering of his rapid footsteps echoed around us as he closed the distance.


    I sidestepped just in time for his sword''s edge to graze my cheek, creating the slightest cut from which the thinnest bloodstream could flow.


    As soon as I was clear from the captain guards'' attack, with him at my back, I spun around toward him using the heel of my shoe as a pivot. Gaining speed with each second, I raised my own sword up in retaliation.


    The captain sneered, his contemptuous tone ringing in the air. "Amateur!" he spat, assuming a defensive stance to protect his chest. I couldn''t me him for his caution - after all, I made my moves obvious.


    His focus to protect his chest was exactly what I wanted him to do. But, in the end, his assumptions about my intentions were false; my targety elsewhere.


    Using the momentum from my spin, I flipped my sword, angling its tip downward, and thrust it deep into his left foot, rooting it to the wooden nks below.


    "AGHHHHHHH, GOD...DAMMIT! You little bastard!" the captain bellowed angrily while staring at his disfigured foot with widened, bulging eyes.


    He writhed in agony as I darted away with a singr purpose: retrieve the dagger.


    When I reached it, I took hold of its hilt, wrapping my callused palm tightly against the cold, coarsely studded leather. With a sudden jerk, I ripped it free from the worn wood. Tiny shards of tabletop fragmented off as I pulled it free.


    In my hand, the weapon felt bnced and deadly. Its de glinted in the faint light of thentern above, promising swift and merciless justice.


    A smirk stretched across my face, and I savored the feeling of confidence that surged through me. "This is more like it," I muttered under my breath.


    Meanwhile, the captain gripped the handle of my lodged sword tightly with his free hand before ripping the de free from his foot. More cries of agony echoed as he turned toward me. "You''ll pay for that, you little sh-"


    I was already upon him, mid-thrust with my new dagger, its tip trained for the jugr of his neck. However, this man was a cut above the rest. He wouldn''t fall as easily as the two dungeon guards back in ckwood.


    The captain made a split-second decision. His palm, or his life. He chose the former as my de slid into his hand, splitting flesh and bone as it dug deeper.


    "You won''t kill me that easy!" he snarled while wincing. Then, he diagonally shed his sword at me. I avoided it by tearing my knife free from his palm, a blood trail following its tip, and backpedaling. His weapon, again, grazed my skin. This time opening a small incision alongside my abdomen.


    Feeling emboldened by the weight of the blood-soaked knife in my right hand, I taunted him with a smirk, "Neither will you!" I dashed forward, applying as much attack pressure as my injured flesh would allow.


    Despite the dagger''s shorter lengthpared to the captain''s longsword, I found myself parrying his strikes with increasing ease - an ironic twist of fate.


    "What the hell is with you?! Just die already!" The captain''s voice became shaken with growing unease. He thrust his sword toward the left side of my skull.


    "You''ve got this captain! Kill him!" one of the three injured guards shouted.


    I skillfully flipped the dagger in my hand. With the de reversed, I blocked and redirected his thrust. The momentum of his strike carried his weapon forward, skidding it alongside mine in a symphony of screeching and flying sparks.


    The captain growled in irritation, "Lucky block!"


    With his guard down, I seized the opportunity and delivered a crushing blow to his face, using the weight of the dagger''s hilt for added heft. I could feel the snapping of cartge and the crunch of bone reverberating through my fist as I forced it forward.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    After the strike, his nose was left crooked and smashed under the impact, leaving it bloody and dislocated. Crimson streaks flowed down from his nostrils as his eyes swayed from dizziness.


    The captain grunted, stumbling backward in a daze. He shook himself into action with a rousing war cry, his voice nasally from his broken nose, "You... You... You WON''T win!!! I WON''T LET YOU!" He lunged forward in ast-ditch effort, swiping his sword forward, aimed for my heart in a y of desperation. At least, that''s what I thought.


    The captain cackled with a fiendish grin as he ducked low, relinquishing his sword to gravity. His right hand disappeared beneath his overcoat, eventually revealing with the glint of a hidden dagger. "I''ve got tricks of my own!" he cackled as he aimed to strike the underside of my left rib cage.


    Unfortunately for him, his trick wasn''t fast enough.


    In a fluid motion, I dropped my knife, caught it during freefall with my left hand, and swiped it down. The de impaled the captain''s attacking arm, halting his strike''s momentum and forcing him to release his dagger involuntarily.


    The weapon ttered to the floor, followed by the captain''s agonized cries. "AGHHH!" his eyes teared up as his face twisted in pain.


    The captain staggered backward, his boots creating uneven clomps across the weathered nks beneath. While cradling his wounded arm, he backed into a wooden pir, mming into it and shaking free a dust pocket from overhead.


    The grime fell onto his face, coating it and blinding him to my next attack. However, despite the inability to see and profuse coughing from the dust, his instinct carried him through.


    He ducked, narrowly avoiding my lethal cut aimed at his jugr. Thanks to that, my knife had lodged halfway into the pir, burrowing deep like Arthur''s fabled sword of old.


    ''Shit, c''mon!'' I grunted, trying to free the knife from the sturdy wood pir. But my force had lodged it deep, and now various splinters blocked its escape. My attempts were met only by a series of frustration-inducing wooden creaks and groans.


    "Don''t think I''m that easy of prey!" the captain jeered as he added distance between us and cleared the dust from his face.


    ''Screw it,'' I snarled, abandoning my weapon for his discarded dagger. Fueled by adrenaline, I swiped it from the ground. With a new weapon in hand, I once again rushed him to end things once and for all.


    Before he could react, I was already upon him, delivering a series of calcted strikes.


    "GET OUT OF THERE CAP!" one of the injured guards bellowed, his expression the picture of the word "panic."


    First, an overhand feint, turning into a thrust for his injured foot''s leg. He learned and adapted from before, attempting to block my attack with an arm; however, his movements were dulled from fatigue and blood loss.


    "Ah, you fuck!" he hoarsely cried, feeling another gout of blood pouring forth from his impaled leg.


    Next, a forward dodge and duck, avoiding the horizontal swipe of his arm, his tant attempt at retaliation. Without a weapon left, he was reduced to throwing punches and bashes.


    I made a precise swipe along his side while dashing past him. He hunched over in agony as the de''s tip split his flesh in two.


    "I... I won''t lose! I can''t lose! I CAN''T!" his hoarse voice cracked under panic as he realized the gravity of his situation. He cocked his head with a furious expression followed by a violent fit of coughing from lingering dust.


    Again, two of the three guards shouted out. This time, their voices quaking as they, too, realized their leader was losing.


    "C-Captain!"


    "Fight, Jacob! You have to fight!"


    Finally, a kick into his back leg, forcing him into a kneeling stance and…


    "No... I''m s-sorry... Elizabe-"


    ...a deep thrust into the temple of his skull, impaling his brain and instantly killing him. He copsed to the floor, drooling a mix of saliva and diluted blood to the hardwood floor.


    It was official. I was the victor of our duel.


    Towering alone above the captain''s body, I breathed heavily. My chest rose and fell with exhaustion as I stared at the twitching corpse. The once rowdy soldiers fell silent in shock, hiding their faces from my view as if to hope I''d forget their presence and pass them by.


    I couldn''t care about them. My thoughts were consumed by a single phrase.


    ''I... I''m alive...''


    Sadly, there was no time, not even for a brief respite, and my pride in surviving quickly turned to shame. Why? It''s because this guard was just the warm-up, the sh before the bullet.


    My tired eyes soon narrowed upon my true adversary, the one who''d truly test my mettle as a man of the military. The one whose predatory presence subdued my breathing to bated breaths.


    "Vincent Graves..."