Chapter 23: Wild hunt V

The girl was stopped in her tracks, along with the rest of the Phantoms.

“Hmph… Amateurs.” snorted the criminal.

The hooded girl’s head bobbed around aimlessly, her thin body threatening to fall down any minute. She could no longer hear anything, her vision had been turned into a blurry mess.

She stumbled back, trying her hardest to keep her own balance. She had to get over it. They would be reaching her any second. She couldn’t see them, nor hear them, but she wanted to trust her other senses.

Their scent…

That should be enough for her to anticipate them, so she concentrated on that instead.

“...?”

Nothing. She couldn’t smell anything at all. Just like the night they’d found Vince.

She could still, of course, feel everything else. The ash from a fire nearby, all her allies lying on the floor.

Jeff, Leroy, Marco, Monica, Stacy, Jon, Chavo, in that order. Everybody else, some still standing behind her, others lying on the floor, many still coughing up on the allicin dust. She felt the faint stench of residual garlic powder that remained in the air, though it had nearly subsided already.

With some more effort, she was quickly able to determine the exact location of each and every single one of those elements, their sources, relative to her own position on the roof.

There was nothing her nostrils couldn’t catch on to, all she had to do was isolate a single foreign odor that stood out from everything else. But from that individual, specifically… Nothing at all. It was as if the shadowed figure had no scent of its own. It felt unreal.

The prowler readied its blade. Its target stood right before it, stagnating in place. It lowered the weapon and aimed for her left arm. Despite everything they’d been saying, incapacitating her would still be the preferable option as long as she remained of use. Answers should come first.

It swung its arm, but before the edge could connect, the sharp object had been stopped dead in its tracks, preventing further movement as well. It looked her in the eyes.

Her left hand bled, covering the floor in crimson. Even though she’d neutralized the weapon by grabbing it directly, she now had a deep, powder-covered gash on her palm and fingers, eating away at her until it reached the bone. She did not seem to care in the slightest.

Even in their blind stupor, her eyes stared the killer down as viciously as before.

How marvelous, it must have thought. Even while deprived of her own sense of smell, sight and hearing, she had still somehow managed to locate it. Or was it luck, maybe?

The girl blinked twice. Her whole body had fired up, sensing the upcoming danger, but she couldn’t say where it had come from, or how she’d noticed it, and only when the sharp pain filled her hand did she realize what had transpired.

(What… What’s going on…?)

She didn’t know why. She’d just felt something, an erratic movement near her, and moved on instinct alone. All she knew was that it was close, and her left hand was somehow injured.

The black figure quickly took out a knife and tried to stab her right shoulder. Another hand came to prevent it, this time grabbing its wrist. No, it wasn’t just luck. Perhaps she possessed some form of sixth sense? Or her skin was sensitive enough to feel changes in the air around her?

The creature mused to itself as it held its ground. Did it really matter, in the end? The battle would go on.

Regardless, she was still disoriented, and they managed to free themselves with a kick to her gut, jumping backwards several steps as she stood there all the same.

Another useful hint. The kick seemed to have barely done any damage, so one could assume her body was even tougher than others they had encountered, who’d at the very least doubled down slightly in discomfort.

The prowler put back the blade and kept the knife, taking out another just like it. And another. And another, and another, and another, and another, until their hands were completely filled with them, every nook and cranny in-between.

Meanwhile, the girl would squint as the blur started to fade, slowly. Her vision hadn’t fully returned yet, but it didn’t matter. In a haste, she ran forward as the countless projectiles flew at her from different angles. She could sense them.

It would’ve been easier had they been bullets, the smell of the smoke would’ve been easier to identify. She also doubted they could properly apply allicin on more than one or two of those, if that had been the case. It was likely too valuable for them to waste it like that. Still, she could surely take on the knives as well. They were throwing them from the front, first and foremost.

Blind, deaf, and with barely any kind of scent to aid her, she was dodging nearly a knife a meter, about three for each four they threw, it seemed. Every single one of them aimed at any vital points were promptly avoided, but she could tell they had noticed where she was lacking.

Each time one was aimed at a minor muscle or one of her limbs, the blades would hit right on mark, without her even trying to get out of the way. She couldn’t dodge all of them, so it was only obvious she would try to focus her attention on the deadliest throws she could sense.

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The masked killer would take an interest in it, inevitably.

It was undeniably magnificent, just how easily she could differentiate between them in the state she was in. The way she would move to the side or duck whenever one of the blades neared her face, how eagerly she precisely moved both her arms and legs deflect lethal injuries she could simply evade, even at the cost of her own skin. They reckoned they could not simply neutralize her with some barebones countermeasure.

The Phantom leader was almost onto them. They prepared yet more blades for throwing, but before they could do so, she shot up into the air, arching towards them, aiming her talons directly at her face.

Their amusement had grown to be immense, by now. She had become desperate enough that she would be willing to borrow tactics from someone else.

An effective use of them, as well. No time for a counterattack. Before she could hit them, they dropped to the floor, rolling back diagonally on it until they reached the edge of the roof, as her claws hit the area of the concrete surface they’d previously stood on.

They quickly sprung up and readied yet more throwing knives. Once more, they gawked in amazement. From the projectiles alone, she’d figured out their location and reacted accordingly. Her sense of distance and direction had exceeded expectations. There was still more to see, however.

The deadly pitch and catch game started once again. Hurling the first couple, they noticed her still running in their general direction, and waiting for her to reach the roof’s central point, which separated the two, they stepped further back. Once she did, they ran clockwise around her, tossing yet more knives. Astonishingly, it took her only few seconds of puzzlement to figure out the maneuver and reproduce it herself, finishing it off with another near hit to her target, which she nevertheless wound up missing again as the criminal rolled right back to safety.

By then, their movement had devolved into random circles, leaps and retreats and the process repeated several times. The supply of throwing weapons was closing shortage.

They stopped at once. Nearly a whole minute had passed already, and her vision would be back in a moment.

But that was fine. Regarding that particular setup, they had tested enough. They’d gathered enough. So, it was time to change the game.

“Th… There you are…!!” she hissed, turning towards them one more time as she regained her bearings.

Her vision was back, at last.

They stood several meters ahead of her, nearing one of the edges. She felt the urge to chase after them again, before they escaped, but stopped herself for a second. It didn’t feel right, for some reason.

Though she hadn’t fallen so easily for the first wave of poison they sent, diluted as it was… And considering how long she was lasting against their underhanded tricks…

She’d fought countless opponents in the past far mightier and more ruthless than that one.

(Ah…)

Ruthlessness. That was it. She herself knew bloodlust firsthand. She knew what it felt like to be pursued by someone who wanted you dead. So she could tell that just wasn’t it. The feeling wasn’t the same. It wasn’t right.

(Interesting fellow…)

They took out a pair of pistols and started shooting, aiming first at her feet. She instinctively vaulted over the first barrage of bullets, but was then hit with a second one upon landing, which phased right through her and filled her body with holes, like a piece of cardboard.

It wasn’t long before they started healing, though the pain was immense. Tiny holes. Simply wounds. And no vital points had been hit at all, once again. In less than a second, she was up again. The projectiles were indeed not poisoned at all.

That did not change all the cuts and gashes spread out throughout her limbs, which kept bleeding over her clothes nevertheless.

She focused her eyes on the black mask, letting the stench of smoke guide her. All she had to do was reach it. It was painful, but neither bullets or poison would finish her off so easily.

“I see… Recovery time for allicin-free injuries: 43 seconds!” sang the criminal, seemingly detached from her piercing glare. “A record among records with you creatures, especially considering how deep your wounds are, so congratulations. Now, next up is…”

She kept moving, further forward and beyond their line of fire, and before they could dodge out of the way, she was already over them. Five sharp talons promptly pierced through the thick field jacket, directly on the left side of their chest. But it was useless. She’d expected to feel their skin shred and bleed on contact, but her fingers only barely sank into the material instead. It was all nothing but dense, hard plating under the creature’s jacket. Whatever material it was, there was no way she could tear through it.

She pulled her arm back and threw them a fist from the left, but only for them to lightly swing their head to the side, avoiding it completely. They kicked her directly in the stomach, stepping back as she growled.

She was starting to understand, however.

They were testing her. Forcing her to act in specific ways in order to determine the extent of her strengths and weaknesses…

“Well…” she chuckled. “That will cost you dearly.”

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