“Three.”
He looked into the building through the man whom he had cut in half.
Four enemies left. Two were dressed as civilians and were armed with longswords—foot soldiers. The man breathing heavily and equipped with a staff must’ve been their mage.
The last of them was the most dangerous of all: a man wielding an estoc. He was dressed like a government official, but his piercing gaze bore into him. He was unfazed by the death of his comrade and was calculating Zig’s strength. He reminded Zig of the two that attacked him the other day.
This must’ve been the one who killed the assassin.
Zig stepped in as the bifurcated corpse began gushing blood.
He pulled a dagger out of the corpse and threw it at the mage while rushing the two soldiers.
The assassin tracked his movements as he zoomed toward the mage.
“Back me up.”
He easily deflected the dagger and readied his estoc. The two wielding the longswords were as good as dead at this point. It seemed like the man had no intention of helping them.
“Shit!”
The abandoned longsword wielders desperately readied their weapons. They swung their swords down, only for them to be deflected by the twinblade’s horizontal slash. With his grip on the lowest part of the twinblade’s handle, Zig’s weapon could reach the outside range of his enemies’ longswords.
After perfectly timing his attack to match his enemies, they were unable to dodge or defend against it.
“Gaah!”
The longsword wielder shrieked and fell to the floor as the flat side of the dark red blade collided with his head. He hadn’t been cut, but the force of the impact was so strong that whether he was alive was to anyone’s guess.
Zig didn’t mind him being dead since he had already captured two of the suspects… And with that kind of motivation powering his strikes, even he wasn’t sure whether the foot soldier had survived.
“Eep!”
The remaining foot soldier lost his nerve after seeing what happened to his friend. He no longer had any will to fight, so Zig decided to give him the same treatment to incapacitate him.
“Huh?”
“Guh?!”
A blade emerged from the man’s chest—the blade, which was made for piercing, moved toward Zig.
“Urgh!”
A vertical swing could have robbed Zig of precious time. Fortunately, he was already in the middle of a horizontal swing to knock his opponent unconscious, and he defended himself by putting up his left gauntlet.
A metallic screech rang out as the estoc missed its target, but Zig was shocked by the force it produced. The thin blade managed to form cracks in the tough rainbow mantis shrimp gauntlet. Unable to completely evade its penetrating power, it left a shallow cut in Zig’s left shoulder.
“Tch.”
The man who skewered his comrade clicked his tongue after failing the ambush and pulled out his estoc. As his comrade fell on his knees, he ran his sword through his neck, severing his cervical vertebrae and causing the man to go limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Thought you were on the same side.” Zig asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get a reliable answer.
The man laughed and shrugged.
“Wouldn’t you rather be killed by your own friends than face torture?” the man joked as he cast a sideways glance outside.
Beyond the burnt doorway, two of his friends were already captured by the mafia.
“I’ll kill them too once I’m done with you.”
“Doesn’t sound like good business. Want me to teach you how to make a living?”
The man with the estoc turned his piercing eyes toward Zig. “Oh?”
Zig raised his arm toward his opponent and beckoned him to come. “One job at a time,” Zig answered him with a fearless smile. “Make sure you do it right.”
“Mind enlightening me?”
The man grinned as he sank into a ready stance.
He took a step back with his left foot, the right side of his body facing forward. He folded his right arm toward his chest. Poised like a spring, this was the best form for an estoc, a thrusting weapon.
In his left hand, he held a dagger in reverse grip, although he kept it close to his waist for some unknown purpose.
“Sure. I’ll even give you a discount. Let’s see… Your life should be payment enough.”
Zig lowered his hips and took a step back with his right leg, facing the left side of his body forward. The top blade of his twinblade was pointing down while the bottom blade was pointed at his opponent in a tail guard.
They observed each other’s stances, calculating one another’s strength.
The man dangled the point of his estoc playfully and grinned. “Life is cheap in your line of work too, huh?”
“Sure is.”
They kept their eyes on each other, looking for an opening to exploit. The estoc man wiggled the tip of his blade as if inviting Zig to attack. Zig’s twinblade remained still, waiting for its moment to strike.
“Hm—”
The man made the first move. He glided forward, not making a sound.
He shifted weight on his back foot to propel his front foot, allowing him to lunge quickly at Zig. An average swordsman would be caught off guard by the sudden motion.
The lowered sword tip bounced as it went straight for Zig’s hand.
“Hmph.”
Suddenly, the man stopped and retreated. He pulled back his lead foot and arched away. The dark red blade missed his chin by inches.
The wind created by the sword whipped at the man’s face and shook his hair. He looked less than pleased now. If he hadn’t dodged the attack, his face would have gone missing before his estoc could make contact.
The twinblade far outclassed the estoc in matters of reach.