BXBX NOVEL Chapter 80: At the Mine (2)
They paused their walk and looked at him as his horse trotted over. His face was slightly covered by the shadow cast by the brim of his black hat. A soft wind blew his coat apart just enough for them to catch glimpses of his guns.
"Halt!" One of the two Guards he met first, called out with a hand stretched forward,
"This area is off limits."
Henry said nothing. While riding closer, his eyes darted around to pick out all the Guards he had to worry about. There were about Fifteen of them including the ones playing card games. Even when he was normal, these numbers were hardly a cause for concern. However, there was a reason he had come close and it was to try and preserve the explosives.
"-Nyx, you can get to it, can\'t you?-" he asked.
Nyx let out a snort like she was almost insulted he even had to ask,
"-Before they can blink-" she said.
"-Good.-" Henry told her before getting down from her saddle to take a few steps toward the Guard in front of him.
"Hey, hey, hey," the Guard said and positioned his rifle with the readiness to fire on a moment\'s notice,
"I told you, you can\'t come in here."
"I need something from here," Henry said calmly before glancing over at the Wagon a few meters behind the Guard. Close to where the leisured guards were still busy with their card games.
The guard followed Henry\'s glance while his partner took charge of glaring at Henry and positioning his rifle in a threatening fashion.
"The Wagon?" The Guard that looked away said as he looked back at Henry,
"You want to take the Wagon?"
"Yes," Henry said with a nod.
"Is this a joke?" The Guard asked and he went from smiling to frowning as he cocked his rifle.
"No," Henry answered and in a flash of movement and a quick draw that blurred his hand in the view of the two patrol guards, he pulled \'The Hydra\'s Sting\' from his holster and fired a shot into the Guard\'s chest.
"Ack!" The Guard said with wide eyes. He placed a hand over his wound and dropped his rifle to the ground with a clatter before following it with a thud.
[Kill-Reward: 6 Exp]
The second guard made to point his gun but Henry grabbed it out of his hand with ease before smacking his face with the barrel, sending him to the ground.
The first Guard Henry shot had veins popping out of his body now and was leaking a green gas. As the second Guard breathed it in, he felt his muscles seize with sudden paralysis that, try as he might, he was unable to resist.
"Stay there," Henry told him before pointing \'The Hydra\'s Sting\' toward the Leisure guards who had been playing their card games.
The sound of a gunshot already alerted them but by the time they stood to their feet —So fast that they knocked their chairs down—, Henry already shot a <Numbing Gas> bullet into one of them.
[Kill-Reward: 6 Exp]
[You have gained Skill Exp]
Henry raised his brow at the notification about the \'Skill Exp\'. He had gotten so used to tuning it out that he hadn\'t seen it for a good while even though he had made sure to fire every one of his shots with his {Marksmanship} Skill activated.
The two sub-skills he had gained(Quick Thinking and Reload) after leveling up the {Marksmanship} made it so that, whether he needed the added 5% accuracy or not (And he usually didn\'t), he\'d keep it activated all the same.
"-Nyx-" Henry called out just before he fired his shot.
"-On it-" Nyx answered and galloped away from his side, in a nearly direct path, to smack the wagon and send it rolling back and away from the line of fire.
The other leisure guards watched one of their own die and before they could even react, a black horse dashed over in their general direction, moving faster than their eyes could follow.
When they realized Nyx\'s target was the Wagon and not them, they turned their attention back to Henry. Alas, that second or so, spent on observation, allowed the green cloud of <Numbing Gas> to spread. They breathe it in, their muscles locked in place and they slumped to the ground. Their eyes widened in horror at their inability to react.
-
Meanwhile,
Triss and Charles furrowed their brows as they watched Henry walk up to a guard and when he fired his gun, Charles leaned back in his saddle,
"Welp, he got started," Charles said.
"Do we step in?" Triss asked.
"Hold on," Charles said.
They watched as Henry killed one of the leisure guards but their attention shifted quickly to his horse galloping and smacking into the wagon.
"What\'s it doing?" Charles asked, confused.
"Getting it out of the line of fire," Triss said with a smile, "Smart horse."
Triss\' smile slipped from her face as she watched the rest of the Guards begin to close in and point their guns at Henry.
"Now?" Triss asked but she had already nudged her horse hard, causing it to rear on its hind legs before it dashed forward.
"Yes," Charles answered as he nudged his horse as well and peeled forward after Triss.
Henry saw the guards gather as they ran toward him. He watched them raise their guns and aim which allowed him to properly, and quite calmly, decide where to leap to.
With his agility stat at the level it currently was, he could react faster than the enemy could pull their triggers and was gone from their sights before the bullets left the guns.
Gritting their teeth in annoyance, the guards turned the barrel of their guns at him but an unlucky two already had their foreheads pierced by bullets from Henry\'s bronze and gold painted gun.
[Kill-Reward: 6 Exp]
[Kill-Reward: 6 Exp]
The others continued to shoot only for two of them to arch their backs and yell out in pain before they fell forward, dead. Among the few still alive, some turned around to see who was shooting at them from behind. The moment they sighted Charles and Triss galloping over, they turned their attention to them and fired.
The horses, skittish from the gunshots directed at them, whinnied loudly as they deviated from the path they were galloping in, throwing off Triss and Charles\' aims.
And then, suddenly, Nyx was there.
If any of the Guards had been paying attention to her, they still would not have seen her. With shadow exuding from her body in a mysterious mist, she looked like she had materialized out of nothing.
Whinnying with aggression, Nyx reared on her hind legs before bringing down her front hooves in powerful strikes that broke bones and killed her victim.
[Nyx has made a kill]
[Nyx has received 10 Exp]
"-Yeah, Take that!-" Nyx said with a bit of a yell and in a flow of movement, she brought her front hooves down, turned around, and kicked hard at a second guard with her hind legs.
The hit dented the Guard\'s head and sent him sailing and hitting a rock not too far away. He hit the rock hard but there was no doubt he was already dead before he made contact.
[Nyx has made a kill]
[Nyx has received 10 Exp]
Of the three Guards left, Henry killed one.
[Kill-Reward: 6 Exp]
Triss calmed her horse, took proper aim, and killed the second.
And Nyx yelling, "-Die!-" galloped over and stomped on the third over and over until the light was gone from his eyes.
[Nyx has made a kill]
[Nyx has received 10 Exp]
As he received the notification, Henry saw Nyx trot away from her broken victim while tossing her mane about with grace like a Showhorse.
Like she hadn\'t just made a brutalizing kill.