The maniacal laughter of the mage echoed in the debris-strewn hallway as Luenor stumbled back, cloak torn and blood trailing from the wound in his back. He took shallow, sharp breaths, the echo of steel clashing, the detonation of spells sounding like drumbeats of war in his ears. Someone fighting from the crowd charged him: a bruised man, slashing Luenor across the shoulder.
Pain tethered him—but only momentarily.
The wind mage leered and launched her next round of attacks: elemental lances, compressed blades of wind, and gale-force strikes from all directions slammed into Luenor's form in quick succession. He stumbled, blood spurting from his lips as he crashed against an broken stone pillar. Debris poured down around him. Guards and some of the rogue participants who had escaped the root trap of Thalanar were closing the gap. The remnants of the support beam alone dwarfed Luenor and surrounded him.
But Luenor appeared unfazed.
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword as he inhaled—long, deep and intentional. The amount of mana left from the chaotic wreck of the auction hall nearly yelled at him like lightning racing to house itself in the eye of a storm. The wind clattered his hair against his forehead. The wind mage froze, sensing, finally, something shifting. The mana shifted and became erratic.
Luenor
lifted his head slowly, half again his face was blood and he whispered through an ice-cold maniacal smirk,
"Die, you a pain in my ass witch."
And then came the explosion.
A blindingly bright shockwave of pure, concentrated mana erupted from him, cutting through the auction hall like a shockwave. Whole rows of seating cracked apart. The podium evaporated. Screams arose as many tables and chairs flew through the air. The mages in the audience could only place their arms to their head and protect their faces as the dust and stone fell through the air like judgment.
The wind mage screamed as she caught the shockwave, her barrier shattering, before she flew through a wall.
Thalanar in the VIP booth, his eyes still as wide as saucers. "Luenor—!" he said in horror, just before—
A knight hopped into view on his side, sword glistening in the light.
Too late.
Steel pierced Thalanar's back and the blood flew on the booth's wooden railing. He coughed and fell to both knees, The knight grinned and stepped forward to finish it.
Thalanar clenched his teeth and, in one final desperate surge, slammed the bottom of his staff as hard as he could into the knight's jaw. His body forced the jagged wood into the knight's mouth, and it crumpled back, lifelessly smacking against the floor, blood beginning to pour from a battered lip and a lacerated tongue.
Cupping his bleeding back, Thalanar staggered out of the booth. He pulled himself through fallen wood and fleeing bodies, taking on the odd guard in his way.
_____
Elsewhere, before the explosion—
An onslaught of blood drizzled off Hunter's body from the auction master. Now, the man lay under the weight of a butcher's cleaver and a seething Hunter, groaning flesh.
"Help…" the man gurgled.
Hunter leaned in, flicking a surge of mana through his fingers to seal the man's lips shut, as if gluing a parchment shut.
Then the floor walls rattled with panicked shouts.
Hunter looked up and went on high alert. He plucked all of the scrolls and documents from the desk and crammed everything in the leather satchel slung over his shoulder. Just before he stepped out the office door—
Hunter recognized the sound, and his awareness immediately heightened. He grabbed the scrolls and paperwork scattered all over the desk, shoving them into a leather messenger bag he had on his shoulder. He stepped through the office door—
As he stepped to the end of the hallway, a tall woman in regal black armor was crouched over a downed guard.
She looked up, removed her mask, and narrowed her eyes, saying "You. You have no idea what you are doing. Do you realize the meaning of going against Duke Siegfried?"
Hunter only raised the bloodied butcher knife in his hand.
She smirked and unsheathed a golden longsword. "Then die with regret."
She lunged.
Their clash reverberated through the stone floor. Hunter's butcher knife met her golden sword, bursts of sparks exploding behind each impact. She was fast, and skilled—but Hunter had experience. His time as a Grand Knight, a former Guardian of the Sureva Family, was not just for show.
Her parries began to slow. "Who are you? How does a man like you hide here for so long?"
Hunter's response was without words.
The bombastic aura—deadly and expansive—rushed outward crush her into the ground, her knees buckling.
Then the butcher knife plunged into her side.
Her eyes rolled back and she fell unconscious.
Hunter let it out, and without a moment's pause, he lifted her and ran for the storage room.
In the storage room.
Arwin had freed the slaves—humans and elves and all manner of folk—all packed with malnutrition, beaten, and shackled in chains.
"You are free," he said between heavy breaths, blood spilling from his shoulder. "You belong to Alfrenzo now, you're a part of our family."
The slaves stared. Some were blank, some wide-eyed. Some were trembling.
He stepped forward to a cowering worker. "Get the contracts. Now."
The man nodded all too quickly, reached into a drawer and pulled out a hundred scrolls—contracts of sale, ownership, binders. Arwin grabbed the whole mess.
Then he turned to the other worker, pointed his sword at his face.
"Open the exit."
The scared man fumbled at a switch and it revealed a hidden gate that opened into a narrow dark alley at the back of the auction structure.
Arwin smiled. "Go. The path is there. You are free."
As the crowd began to move cautiously, Arwin lit a wooden torch and moved backwards toward the connecting tunnel of the main hall and threw it in.
Flames began licking at the sides of the corridor.
Arwin turned back to the freed slaves. "This place burned you all with chains. Now, let it burn good."
Some of the elves looked at him in wonder.
He knelt, addressing them: "In Echlion, you will have food. Water. Beds. None with collars. But you have to learn to fight. To protect. To have pride in living."
Among the crowd, one elf child looked up. "Are you... a knight?"
Arwin smiled through his sweat and blood. "No. I am worse. I am Arwin, sword of Alfrenzo."