Chapter 82: Attack on redhead

“Are you guys going to reveal yourselves?” Anastasia turned back. The moment she said that though, a dagger flew towards her with barely perceptible speed.

Anastasia simply tilted her head to the side, making the dagger narrowly whip pass her, the air in it’s wake billowing her veil.

The dagger though, slowly halted mid air, before, flying back towards Anastasia’s unguarded back with even greater speed.

As if she had eyes behind her head, the redhead turned, her hand aiming for the hilt of the dagger. But just as it was an inch from her palm, she suddenly withdrew her hand.

“Poison.” she muttered as the dagger flew back into the hand of one of the four black garbed individuals that suddenly appeared, as if formerly hidden by a veil.

When Anastasia had tried to catch the dagger, her eyes caught an extremely thin transparent liquid coating it’s entirety, at the last moment.

“So this is the brat we’re supposed to eliminate?” Grumbled one of the black robed assassins, his voice clearly distorted to hide his identity.

“Don’t get cocky Twelve, the reports say she is quite dangerous.” the one who threw the dagger chided.

“Fine Eleven, let’s get it over with them.” the other conceded, as he begun swinging a chain which had a short blade attached to it at the end.

“Formation D.” The one tilted Eleven grumbled. Then all four individuals shifted, each disappearing and appearing to surround Anastasia in a wide circle.

“Veil Sanctum: skybound barrier.” they chanted, pressing their palms to the ground at the same instant.

A violet light split across the ground in the circle formed by the four black garbed individuals, before rising up to about ten meters, and closing into a dome, enveloping themselves with Anastasia in the violet dome.

The violet dome was a barrier spell/ sorcery, designed to keep whatever was happening inside it to stay inside. While it was active, none could leave, including the casters. Though, it had another selling point, those outside wouldn’t be able to see, or hear what was going on inside.

While it might have looked long, in reality, the barrier took less than two seconds.

Their target meanwhile, stared at them with an amused smirk while all that happened.

“Normally, I would dispatch my assailants as quickly as possible.” Anastasia said lifting her veil. “But today, I think I’ll play for a while.” She said with a cold smile.

“You three, attack her while I stabilize the barrier.” Eleven ordered. At this moment, it was quite obvious that he was the leader, or at least the one who called the shots.

The assassins didn’t reply. The first one to lunge at her was Twelve, the bladed part of his spinning chain uncoiled at the redhead.

Anastasia jumped back just in time for the blade to bite into the stone where her ankle had been.

But, one of the other two assailants was waiting for her, sword in hand. Anastasia spun mid air, a long sword appearing in her hand.

Clang!

Their swords met in a clash of sparks, the ground beneath the black garbed individual shattered in a spider web of cracks, and Anastasia who was still mid air, spun once again, and delivered a crushing kick to the their head, sending them flying.

Meanwhile, twelve dragged, making his chain snap tight, and reverse back towards the hands of it’s master.

The next one to attack Anastasia, was the other black garbed individual, who appeared at her side like a slithering shadow. His clothes were pierced by the spikes emerging from his skin.

Anastasia parried his spiked fist, and tried to kick him, but withdrew her leg at the last moment, lest she got pierced by the spikes.

So instead of that, she channeled her aether into her sword, and weaved in between his attacks, then, “First art: Flowing jet wheel.” Anastasia muttered in a serene tone. High speed pressured water followed her sword as she swung at the spiky individual’s arm. The sword carved through the entire chunk of the arm, irrespective of the spikes.

Sprut!

“Ahhhh!” he screamed as blood bursted from the severed stump. But Anastasia didn’t stay still, like the name of the art she used suggested, she flowed into another stance.

“Second art: Severing jet wheel.” Her sword, along with another jet of high pressured water flashed past his neck. Everything ceased, and was silent for a second, before the black garbed individual’s head slowly slipped from his shoulders, and fell to the ground.

Chrrkchrrk!

A strained crushing sound broke the silence, as Anastasia’s leg crushed the severed skull, spilling out the bulging eyes, and the blood contaminated brain matter.

“I know I said I wanted to play a little.” Anastasia said facing the other three with a soft smile. But at this moment, her smile seemed anything but soft to them. That was the smile of a devil.

But guess I got a little carried away.” she muttered, almost to herself, but was forced to raise her sword in defense to deflect the dagger aimed at her throat.

Eleven stepped forward. At this moment, his body was completely coiled with tension. Their organisation was a newly formed one, as it was formed only five years ago.

As for eleven himself, he only joined three years ago. So when the higher ups gave him a mission to eliminate this girl, saying it was an assassination specifically put forth by the leader, he was ecstatic. The reward for the task would be given by the leader himself.

No one knew who the leader was except for the vice leader, not even the higher ups. All they knew was that the leader was a figure of considerable status in this world. There were whispers that the leader might even be an emperor, after all, the vice leader was a Beta- ranked aetherial.

Eleven was especially ecstatic when he found out that the target was only a Theta-ranked aetherial. He himself was a Theta ranked aetherial, and the rest of the three were Theta-. He felt that even though the report said that the target was quite dangerous, the three alone should be able to deal with who ever it was.

But reality had a history of letting people down. In just less than ten seconds it took for him to stabilize the barrier, one of his subordinates had already been killed.

Eleven’s ability wasn’t that strong, all he could do was manipulate the trajectory of the projectiles he threw. Since it was like that, he took quite the liking to daggers. Lately, he even had Twelve, whose ability was poison secretion to coat his daggers with poison.

Eleven retrieved multiple daggers in between his fingers from his spatial storage, and threw them all at Anastasia in one swing.

The daggers cut through the air, but something suddenly went wrong the moment they came in a two meter radius from the girl.

The daggers were still going in different directions like he wished, but they had suddenly became considerably slow, while their target seemingly became a blur and swatted all of the out of the air, including Twleve’s chain away from her.

’So the information about her ability was true huh?’ Eleven thought.

Before Anastasia turned, parried the sword of the third individual who attacked her from the back, then latched onto his hand, and pushed her sword right through his chest like it was nothing.

Still, Eleven redirected his poison coated daggers back at Anastasia with a smile. The redhead withdrew her sword from that assailant’s chest, and turned to send the daggers flying once again.

Twelve also did the same swinging his blades chain back at her. Thanks to the information, and what they had seen, they knew not to go close to her. The report stated that her ability had a certain range. And from what they’ve seen, if they got into that range, they would be at a disadvantage.

But to their astonishment, Anastasia weaved through all the projectiles as if they were in slow motion, which they were from from their perspective.

She caught onto the chain at the bottom of Twelve’s blade, and yanked hard, sending him flying towards her.

“Third art: Stillwater severance.” A jet of blood burst out as Anastasia’s sword carved into Twelve’s left shoulder, all the way to his right waist.

He didn’t even have the time to let out a wail, before his torso fell back, followed by his legs which followed a moment after.

Anastasia turned towards Eleven with a chilling smile, her blood soaked face mesmerizing in it’s own strange way.

Eleven took this as his cue to run away. He would probably be punished for it, but his life took precedent.

But before he could even take a step, the redhead appeared before him as if she had teleported.

Eleven’s eyes widened. He knew he and his squad were quite weaker than elite Theta- or Theta ranked aetherials, but he had no idea the difference was this much. And it seemed this girl was holding back the entire time before.

Meanwhile, Anastasia, who had no idea what he was thinking gave him a reassuring smile.

“Fret not, whoever sent you, would come to accompany you in the afterlife soon enough.” She said in a reassuring tone, before her sword flashed past his neck.

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