I moved towards Cassandra as she sounded the retreat to the gang members. The fortress of the gang was gone, as were many other buildings. Some gang members looked roughed up from their own battles, but we were still in the rival gang's territory.
The badly scarred man showed me that my fighting style was behind the times. I most definitely should have leveled up from that kill. He died before his last in-death spell went off. I didn't know what that man pursued in his mana, but that was scary in many ways. I was left wondering many things as well. What was that smoke? How did he seemingly move behind me without me being able to see him do it? Did he teleport? How had he done what he had done?
None of those mattered as I caught up to the gang members passing them by. We were definitely not out of the situation. Guards and gang members would be responding to the apparent damage that had been done. I felt the cloak around me and covered my face. The Gang members seemed to flinch while I was around and moved past them to take the lead.
It was at this moment I saw Carl run-up, looking back at the now missing warehouse. His expression was dark, and he was the first one to say something. "Be on guard! People are moving this way." Carl said, and I knew this would happen. It would be better If I didn't just lose both my weapons, and I didn't want to extend my claws again. Suppose I did so, then it would show that I wasn't human underneath this cloak.
That would start with questions that I really didn't want to be asked. My identity needed to be hidden, and I would try to keep it that way as long as possible. Therefore everything would have to be done with fists. The only things I had on me that could act as weapons were in my inventory, and they would be riding crops and more along the lines of sex toys than to maim and kill. However, I struggled to contain the giggle of beating some people to death with a dildo.
My inner chuckle ended, though, when I noticed a group of guards running towards us. I heard them yell to put down our weapons. That call was stupid as I was already cutting the distance between them and me. Soon I was right in front of them, and my fist was through the armor and stomach of the Guard Captian. Their spears were already turning towards me as I was retracting my fist.
They were so slow compared to me as my foot lashed out to the fastest guard. His spear was already pointing towards me. That made him my second victim, with my foot already crushing between his legs with the armor buckling up into it. A high-voiced scream erupted into the night as I was already retracting my foot as the other spears leveled to me.
My muscles tensed, and I sprang forward on one foot, cutting the rest of the distance to the second man. My hand reached his throat and ripped it out. The man's warning cry died in his throat as a spear came towards my thigh. My body moved to wrap around the spear and snapped the head off.
My instincts moved my body, and I used my flexibility to dodge another spear. I twisted into his range, and my fist smashed the helmet in. Iron buckled under my knuckles, and the man went down. My foot lashed out, and the last guard standing went down in a heap. The high-pitched scream continued announcing our location, and I walked over to the guard, and I curb-stomped him once, feeling brain matter under my foot.
At this point, Cassandra, with the gang members, finally caught up. Daggers flashed, making sure they were dead and pockets were looted with surprising efficiency. Then we were continuing our retreat of the territory. We were deep, though, and I quickly killed one's and two's of enemy gang members. They were scouts, though, and seemingly trying to find us.
Someone on the other side was in a high enough position with enough thought to coordinate against us, I realized. They were slowing us down for the guards to get prepared. Runners must have gone out, and response teams must be coming in. I cursed under my breath. I could have already been out of here, but the gang members were slowing me down. I needed them out, though and Cassandra wasn't a fighter. She was an administrator with good strategies. I brought her along for the clean-up of the taken-over territory.
With that fucking smoke taking out all the loot and a large portion of the gang members that we brought with us, we were now sitting with our asses in the wind. Carl snarled, and I ran forward back into the leading position as we came up to the corner of the gang outpost we passed on our way to the main fortress.
I bit back a dozen curses seeing the gang ready for war. Crossbows ready and a fucking ballista. They had somehow got their hands on many other weapons, and they were loaded and prepared to kill. The random clothed men and women looked ready to fight. I didn't feel any strong people in there, but I knew there were C rankers in that pile of bodies around the corner.
I bit back yet another dozen of curses. We went this way, knowing the others would have us running into guards. Or that was why I chose this route. The others would have brought us to strong points of the Guards. Due to my own idiocy, too, they had more patrols in the area and, therefore, more men to hamper us while waiting for reinforcements. A long stream of loud curses stuck in my throat, and I recognized I had to go through instead of around. When we walked by earlier, it was due to them not being able to see on this dark night. It was still just as dark, but torches and lamps were swarming the streets, now illuminating it so no one could sneak down the roads as they searched for the perpetrators.
We could try to go around, but the guards would become the problem, and I didn't want to create an even more significant response to tonight's activities. I already killed the quickest patrol, and any more would only create problems for myself in the future.
I was going through. I needed to act fast, and the gang members came up behind me. I motioned for them to stop without saying anything else. My ears twitched hearing hushed conversations and turned sharply to Cassandra, making a cutting portion across my neck. She gave hushed rebukes to shut the dumbasses talking up, and I thought of my entry.
I didn't have much time, and I didn't take much time. I climbed the wall of the building I was near, wishing for my whips to help propel myself up the wall and for the incoming fight. I reached the top of the building, and I looked down, and my eyes widened. I jumped to the side just as I heard the twang o a crossbow. The spot I was standing in had a bolt pass through it, and I heard shouts.
I was there less than a second, and I was spotted surprised that the system's less noticeable buff didn't work for me now. It didn't matter. I was now on all fours running to move as fast as I could across the roof tiles and leaped down off the roof as bolts flew to the positions I occupied only seconds before. There were about a hundred or two hundred enemies from the outpost that I saw. Someone from the other outpost must have guessed that we were coming this way and figured out who we were.
They knew it was our gang and were responding quickly. In our original numbers, we could have taken care of this. Hell, If I still had my whips, I could have killed dozens of them at the same time easily. I cursed under my breath as my fist went through leather, taking out a heart, and my instincts sang to me.
I felt myself give way to those instincts. My natural thought patterns would only slow me down, and I released my body. My fist would concave a skull as my foot hit a solar plexus hard enough for them to stop breathing. My hand landed on the ground as I twisted to dodge a sword and a crossbow bolt. I heard several screams, and a ballista bolt missed me by centimeters. My body wrapped around it, and I took it out of the ground whipping it around, killing a couple of men and women.
My world was in constant spins as my instincts continued to sing to me. Warning me of a cut here or a bolt there. I started to feel swords attempt to cut my skin as energy surged half a second before it punctured my skin. The mass of bodies began to build as that Ballista bolt became my spear then tossed back at them. I killed the man about to fire another one at me.
I continued to move, hearing screams and shouts of orders towards scared men and women as the battle raged. My body moved just as that ballista was fired again. The next man a much sloppier aimer as I discovered he missed. My instincts still sang, and I felt a bolt enter my arm. I gritted my teeth and killed more men. Blood lust taking over, and I moved inside their outpost with extended fighting. A trail of blood was left in my wake with men and women who fought and died where they stood against me.
Soon the rest fled, and I was covered in blood. I chased down as many as I could as they ran in many directions, and I heard people follow me up. I found Carl killing in a frenzy through the enemy gang members and chasing them down with the last of the gang members with us. Blood flowed into the streets, and many wanted to loot.
Cassandra's voice yelled, "We need to move! Guards will be here soon with reinforcements!" She yelled it multiple times, and the gang members stopped looting the dead bodies, and we were back to running down the streets.
I didn't take kindly to following her orders, but I needed the reminder to move. A blood haze had obscured my vision, and we were on the road again with bodies littering the streets behind us. The noose around our throats was slightly loosening under the killing.
I moved forward ahead of the pack of us. Guards in small pickets died many young men. Left to bleed out on the road as I killed or maimed. I couldn't care less; we needed to escape as we came, left the rival gang's territory, and entered our own.
The guards were still hunting, but hideouts here were friendly. I just needed to get just a little bit farther.
We moved into familiar alleyways as the main street started to hear whistles and shouts.
Guards were here, and the reinforcements arrived seconds after. We had just entered our territory covered in blood, and Cassandra was smiling even though guards littered the main streets and started to enter alleyways in order to find us.
"I planned for this," Cassandra said. She hustled us down the alleyway slightly farther and opened a door in the alleyway. Inside you could hear hushed conversations and a barmaid yelling at some man to keep his hands off of her.
Cassandra opened a false wall to a hidden cellar. This must be one of the old gang's hideouts, and we moved into the cellar, and you could visibly see the tension in the room lessen as we found nothing but food and drinks for us to consume.
I found a chair and sat looking at the bolt in my arm. Pain spiked through me as I looked down at it with gritted teeth.