Stepping out of the tower, scythe held by his side, Arthur searched for opponents, his eyes darting left and right. What he saw shocked him. Choi was standing over the bodies of Mel, Shar, Jan and one of his own team members. He had just pulled a kris from Shar’s throat.
“How. . .” Arthur gaped. Eyes darting wildly from body to body, he noted that Mel and Jan’s bloodied chests were still rising.
Alive then.
Choi laughed as he turned to focus on Arthur. “So the rat is here. Alive. Good at scurrying away, aren’t you?”
“How’d you beat them?” he said forcefully. He hoped the other two, Uswah and Rani, were still alive. He saw no sign of them.
“I had help,” Choi said, laughing as he kicked the body of his own teammate aside. He peered past the tower entrance, stared at the blood that dripped from Arthur’s head and sighed. “Just you and me, eh?”
Arthur gulped, stepping away from the tower’s double doors. He held the scythe uncomfortably, eyes darting across the ground as he hunted for a better weapon. Only to find nothing near him; the closest weapons were behind the slowly advancing Choi.
Movement in the periphery of his vision as Choi raised his hand, the wavy blade of the kris reflecting light from the guttering fires. The blade was gunmetal gray, almost black in the deep of the night. The traditional short sword seemed even more sinister in the hands of leering Choi as he advanced upon Arthur.
Feeling within himself, Arthur dipped into his energy stores. He had not used the Heavenly Sage’s Mischief much, and so he had a decent amount of unrefined energy left. But his soul still ached, and somehow he knew that he lacked the ability to access it. Not for a day or two at the least.
No help from his techniques. Wielding a weapon he had little familiarity with. And being chased by a man who was stronger than he was and certainly more vicious. Panic clawed at Arthur’s chest as he faced his opponent, freezing his feet to the ground and locking his muscles.
“That’s right. Just hold still and I’ll make it quick,” Choi said, his smile growing wider. Again, the blade that he held in his hand waved, drawing Arthur’s eyes. He could not help but stare at it, as it waved back and forth hypnotically in front of him.
Another step, then another. Each moment, Choi neared but Arthur found himself unable to move. Frozen by the hypnotic flicker of light on the blade, the way it moved. Fear, too, kept his gaze locked on the weapon.
Then, a drop pooled from the blood that had fallen on his head earlier, collecting on his brow. It dropped into an eye, and he shut them both reflexively. The moment his eyes closed, the spell was broken; the unnatural fear disappeared.
Understanding rushed through Arthur’s body as he realized what had happened. He squeezed his eyes closed even harder, not daring to open them. Cursing his lack of vision and his choice of traits. What could he do? What should he do?
The man before him was no longer walking but running. Almost without thought, Arthur reacted, throwing the scythe he held in hand at where he had last seen Choi. And then, rather than fight his opponent, Arthur turned around and ran. A muffled curse resounded behind him, but Arthur never looked back.
Couldn’t.
Back into the tower, back to where death lingered. Away from the man who stalked him with his enchanted blade. Fleeing until he had time to come up with a better plan.
Or any plan at all.
***
Running away was the plan, and so there was only one way to go. Arthur fled up the winding steps. He took them two to three steps at a time, the steps barely visible in the gloom. The paltry moonlight coming in from open windows above and the pair of torches left on the ground floor did little to illuminate the surroundings.
Even so, his Enhanced Eyesight drank in what light there was, allowing him to tread his way upstairs in leaps and bounds. Beneath, he heard Choi run after him but then hesitate and follow Arthur more carefully. A bobbing light reflecting off stone walls spoke of the man having picked up one of the torches.
Arthur cursed a little, having hoped his opponent might chase after him in darkness. There, his Enhanced Eyesight might have provided him with an advantage. At the very least, it would allow him to even the score a little.
Too bad that Choi, for all his uncreative taunts, was not a complete fool. Though. . .
“Oi! Hurry up, lah. I wanna show you how to die,” Arthur called out. “You got the smell, but it’s not worth a bell!”
The steady plod and the bobbing light continued to follow him, pace unchanged. Choi hadn’t even bothered to answer his provocation. No surprise. It was not a very good one at all. If there were a class in taunting, even Arthur would have given himself a fail.
“Hun dan,” Arthur cursed and kept running. He passed the first-floor door, not even bothering to glance at them. If he was to win this, he would need more than just a plain, open floor.
He would need surprise and a way to neutralize that damn kris. In the meantime, all he could do was run and hope that his brain came up with something clever before his body gave away. Because tired as Choi might have been, so was Arthur. He’d already fought one life-or-death battle, had his soul seared and flayed and put back together, and now. . .
Now he had to deal with a psychopath following him up the stairs.
Just another damn Tuesday in the Tower.