Chapter 130 He's Dead
Ivaylo walked slowly, drew a needle from his jacket, and as he drew it, the glint caught the dim light of the room. Before Fleur and Birawa could give any reaction, Ivaylo had already begun to approach them with lightning speed. They instinctively move to a different side, so Ivaylo must choose his opponent.
As Ivaylo lunged forward, he made a feint towards Fleur, throwing the needle in her direction. Fleur, however, was quick to react, expertly brushing the needle aside easily. Fleur then stooped forward to pick up the needle, only to realize too late that Ivaylo had attached an invisible thread. In one fluid motion, he yanked the thread back, the needle swiftly returning to his hand.
Birawa seized the opening and attacked Ivaylo from the side; with incredibly appropriate timing, he used the needle he just took back to swat Birawa's sword out of the way. At that moment, it was clear that Ivaylo was a force to be reckoned with - a ruthless assassin with unbridled skill and cunning.
'It's just a small needle, but it can hold my sword!' Birawa thought.
Instead of just taking Birawa's sword swing, Ivaylo deflected the direction of his sword with the needle,
'Not only does he have good reflexes, but his physique is surprisingly strong,' Fleur thought.
After deflecting the direction of Birawa's sword, it missed and hit the floor, and in that short time, Ivaylo had taken out another needle with his left hand. This time the needle was black, and there was a strange sphere at the base of the needle. He immediately thrust the fragrant needle into Birawa's chest. Birawa, aware of the danger, let go of his sword and protected his chest with his left hand. As a result, the back of his left hand was pierced by the needle.
Fleur quickly rushed forward, thrusting her sword at Ivaylo. Ivaylo dodged, and he somersaulted backwards away from there.
'He backed away? That means the goal has been achieved!' Birawa thought.
Birawa quickly picked up his sword and
-SLASH
Birawa severed his left arm off with his sword.
"Hooo" not only Ivaylo, but Fleur was also shocked by what Birawa did. Without thinking, Fleur immediately made an amnis circle to stop Birawa's bleeding.
"Freeze,"
That froze Birawa's hand up to his elbow.
"Why did you realize it?" Ivaylo said.
"As I examined the puncture wound on my back hand, I couldn't help but notice something off about it. Unlike any other sewing needle, this one had a strange storage compartment on it. I remember a poisonous needle from my favorite video games resembling that."
"Exactly... Since fighting the two of you might be difficult, I tried to kill one person first, but you turned out to be smarter than I thought, as expected of an other-worlder,"
"Thank you for the compliment. You know… the country in my world is very fond of compliments from outsiders. To me, that praise is a power that allows my mana to overflow even more."
'But in this way, I've already lost my left hand; the difficult thing about losing your hand is not enduring the pain but getting used to my movements with it. Losing a body part can have an impact on movement,'
"Hahaha, I like you. After this, I will make you one of my puppets."
Ivaylo again quickly ran towards the injured Birawa. He once again threw his needle at Birawa's face. Fleur immediately swatted it upwards; now Fleur was the one who came forward to fight Ivaylo.
As they faced each other off, both fighters were incredibly fast and precise in their movements. There was no wasted energy or unnecessary movement as they tried to outmaneuver each other. Both were equally skilled, and their fight was full of clever tricks and tactics. Ivaylo used his needle to deflect Fleur's sword while Fleur seemed to be waiting for the right moment to strike. Their fight continued to shift and move; Ivaylo did this so that Birawa couldn't attack them rashly.
'With that small body, he can be the equivalent of a captain. What's disgusting are his eyes that repeatedly glanced at me; he observed my movements while fighting with Captain. It's crazy, as if he has two brains and can focus on two different things,' Birawa thought.
Fleur, who was fighting with him, also felt that Ivaylo's eyes were not looking at her while fighting, but Fleur was sure that Ivaylo was also focusing on her.
'This guy deliberately keeps a close distance from me while using a lot of energy to switch his position. If his position weren't fixed like that, surely Birawa wouldn't have rashly attacked him because his sword could have hit me,' Fleur thought until she smiled and said
"That must be what you're thinking, right?"
"!!!"
Birawa activated his sword rampage skill; his sword extended and attacked Ivaylo. Ivyalo, surprised by the attack, tried to dodge, but Fleur's movements became faster and faster, locking all his ways to run.
-THRUST
The sword tore apart Ivaylo's abdomen, and so did Fleur's. But Fleur's was just a normal laceration, almost like a scratch, while Ivaylo's looked really bad.
'I underestimated him because of the closeness of the two of them; I thought he wouldn't endanger Miss Fleur's life,' Ivaylo thought.
As Fleur had said earlier, she allowed Birawa to ignore her safety by attacking Ivaylo. Both of them were professional knights who abandoned their personal feelings to kill their opponents.
Suddenly, a person came out from the left and right curtains. That person was Ivaylo's puppet, who seemed to be a soldier. They quickly moved to stab Fleur and Birawa.
'This kind of puppet won't be able to stop us.'
Fleur and Birawa split the heads of the two puppets in unison. That's when Fleur immediately realized that something was wrong,
"Birawa! Watch out-"
And simultaneously
-BAM!
The corpse exploded.
The explosion wasn't very powerful but could cause an ordinary person to die.
"Desperate Seamstress," Ivaylo activated another god's blessing, his hands quickly sewing back his wide-open stomach. And the stitches were so neat that there were no visible stitch marks.
"You used someone else's corpse to distract us; how cruel," Fleur said.
"Don't get too sentimental; they're just corpses at the end of the day."
"Yes, it's a pity you did it in vain."
"Hmm?"
Fleur pointed her sword at Ivaylo. Then Fleur said:
"God Blessing: Holland Rose, Red."
Ivaylo looked above his head. There was a red rose floating there that was twice the size of his head.
"This is your god's blessing. Now that I think about it, 15 years ago, you didn't use it on me," Ivaylo said.
'It's likely that the activation conditions were full when he was sword fighting with me, though I don't know what it does. But it doesn't seem like it will kill me right away,'
"So, do you want to explain how this rose works?" asked Ivaylo.
"Of course not!" Fleur ran quickly towards Ivaylo and started swordfighting with him again. Birawa immediately helped Fleur this time. He repeatedly attacked Ivaylo without thinking about Fleur's condition.
As a result, Fleur's finger was severed, her leg was badly injured, her shoulder was bleeding profusely, and the wound on her stomach was also getting bigger. In exchange for all of that, Ivaylo got even worse wounds than her.
And with every wound Fleur gave him, the rose petals on top of Ivaylo's head became less and less.
'These rose petals are the number of attacks she gave me. This might be getting serious. I'm really going to die if these rose petals run out,' Ivaylo thought.
Gradually, Ivaylo stopped attacking. He now focused more on defense, as attacks came from Fleur and Birawa simultaneously. Now there were only 5 rose petals left. But even without those petals, Ivaylo also looked like he would die because of his severe wounds. Surprisingly, Ivaylo was more worried about the roses on him than the wounds on his body.
Although not as much as Ivaylo, Fleur also had many severe wounds. But that didn't stop her from continuing to attack Ivaylo.
"Five..." Fleur started counting the remaining rose petals on top of Ivaylo's head.
"Four..."
Ivaylo's movements started to become unbalanced.
"Three..."
"Two..."
Until finally, Ivaylo retreated very quickly backward and raised both hands.
"Alright, I give up," Ivaylo said.
Even though Ivaylo said that Birawa's sword swung from afar, aiming for his head. Ivaylo, with his left hand, tapped the edge of Birawa's sword to deflect its direction.
"How cold, you should have listened to me... I said I gave up, just catch me..."
"There's no way a surrendered person would smile like that. Besides, even if you surrender or say you want to kill yourself here, I won't allow it. Because the one who will kill you is me!" While saying that, Fleur thrust her sword towards Ivaylo.
But as soon as she arrived
-BAM
"Captaaain!"
Ivaylo's body ruptured with an ear-splitting detonation, similar to the explosive aftermath of the malevolent puppets but with a more intensified impact. Fleur's proximity to Ivaylo proved to be a fatal mistake, as the front half of her body was charred to a crisp. Scarlet droplets gushed forth from the seared flesh, painting a gruesome picture of the deadly occurrence.
"Akh....ah! Ivaylo! What about Ivaylo?!" Fleur shouted with her burned mouth
Birawa checked the source of the explosion.
But there, nothing was clearly visible. Only blood and a few splashes of entrails, indicating that Ivaylo had really blown himself up there.
"H-he... He is dead," Birawa said.