John jumped to the side as soon as Vasilis stepped forward. Not a moment too soon, seeing that the Paladin lunged forward after his mother who immediately jumped back. A couple of seconds after that, they broke through the backdoor and were fighting outside.

He wanted to go and help but knew that he'd only be in her way. Instead, he had other things to worry about.

Vasilis’s companions weren’t there to just stand and watch. A balding Fighter donning a wrinkled, white tunic strutted forward, either due to a lack of knowledge or an abundance of confidence. John betted it was mostly the latter. He held an old, uncoated sword, half-again as long as John’s, with various nicks and signs of damage along its edges. “What’s your name boy?”

John remained silent and drew his weapons, ignoring his aching muscles from the morning sparring. Dene always said that enemies wouldn't wait until he was in top condition to fight, so he should always be ready.

The man seemed to know his way around a sword, though not against those who knew how to fight back. There were various nicks on his blade’s edge, but barely a scratch on its side, which tends to happen when the blade is parried by another. More than likely, his opponents would blindly hack against his sword, hoping to win by sheer force and a stroke of luck.

Confirming John’s assumptions, the man made sure to telegraph his intentions. John parried an overhead slash, sidestepped a shoulder bash, and used this opening to shove a sword through his enemy’s chest. The man collapsed, barely moving after that.

Startled, the other Fighters learned from their companion’s fatal mistake and stood back as the Crusader advanced. The man stood as tall as John, with a head of black hair cropped as short as possible. His beard did little to conceal his weak chin, which, paired with beady eyes and a large nose, gave him a rat-like face.

Like his dying companion, he walked with the confidence of someone who didn't believe he could be beaten. Against a single Fighter, he may very well be right. “Drop the weapon kid, you know you can’t beat me.”

“I sure can try.” John smiled in defiance. “And that gives me more chance than surrendering.”

“It will also make it much worse for you afterward,” he stepped into the house and over his fallen companion. “This is your last chance.”

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a chance. Forget whatever you came here to do, take your friends and leave.” John glanced at the man bleeding on their kitchen floor. “If they can still walk, of course, but I’m sure that if you hurry—” A loud crash mixed with the sound of wood splintering interrupted him. He didn’t look back, trusting... hoping that his mother would manage to fend off against the Paladin.

“Sorry kid,” said Ratface before lunging.

John's years of daily training fighting against someone stronger kicked in. He barely dodged a straight punch, the gust of wind brushing against his skin, but he did manage to keep his balance.

The Crusader didn’t pull his arm back. Instead, he went with the motion, twisted, and sent an elbow towards John’s head, who hastily ducked under it.

Those were two close calls, but John remained unscathed. He started to believe that he might have a fighting chance. Faster than he could follow, a kick to the chest squashed any such notion as well as sending him flying.

He fell over the stove, knocking all of the pots aside. The hearth remained warm to the touch. He struggled to get the air back on his lungs and himself back on his feet.

The Crusader wouldn’t allow this breathing space. Sword drawn, he walked towards John when, suddenly, a dark mist formed around his head, obfuscating his vision. A dark tendril emerged from his shadow and yanked his sword arm, throwing him off balance.

His companions moved in to help; John was both faster and nearer. He hastily got up from the stove and slashed at the man's neck.

Dene’s spell blocked Ratface’s eyesight, but not his hearing. Alarmed, he ducked, turning what would be a fatal injury into a nasty, but non-life threatening wound. Still, he recoiled from the pain.

John didn’t let up.

His arm still being held by the shadowy tendril, Ratface wasn’t able to move well. He leaned to the side, barely preventing John from piercing his chest. Instead, the blade sank where the shoulder met the chest.

As soon as he did so, a throwing knife came flying to where John stood, forcing him to jump back. John cursed at himself for not managing to finish the man off before his companions arrived, but hopefully those wounds would put him out of fighting condition.

The man who threw the knife began to hack at the tendril holding Ratface while his companions, a blonde woman and a man seemingly just out of puberty, closed in on John. They did it cautiously though, not because they knew that time was on their side, but because the memory of what that halfbreed boy did to their companion remained fresh in their mind.

As such, John had to be the one going on the offensive. He feinted a lunge towards the woman — who promptly tried to defend herself — and changed it to a slash at the boy’s face, who seemed to be the most inexperienced of them.

That proved to be the case, as he tried to block the attack by holding his sword practically in front of his face. Although it succeeded in stopping the attack, the impact sent the boy’s blade into his own face, splitting his nose in half and almost blinding him of one eye. Not that it would matter, seeing that he would die anyway.

Crying in pain from the wound, he dropped the sword and left himself unable to stop John’s next attack, which cut through his throat. The boy gurgled as he brought both hands to his neck, trying in vain to stop the bleeding, before falling to his knees and ultimately to the floor.

“No!” cried the blonde woman. The boy’s death seemed to hit her much harder than the balding man’s.

‘Good,’ John thought. These people came into their home and tried to harm him and his mother. They would get no mercy from John, and he knew she would be of a similar mind.

Enraged, the woman furiously attacked, leaving herself full of openings that John could have exploited to end her life. Instead, he dodged the first attack, kicked a chair towards her legs, and put her out of his mind as he focused back on the biggest threat.

The knife-throwing Fighter had just managed to cut the tendril holding Ratface’s arm, but the dark mist obfuscating his view still hadn’t completely faded.

Noticing John’s intentions, the Fighter put himself between the two and threw another knife at John, who twisted and barely dodged it. He tried to throw another, but John closed the distance before he could. From there, the outcome was already decided.

The man could compete neither in reach nor in agility and, as such, couldn’t stop John from slashing through his gut.

‘Now to take ca—’

“You bastard!” the blonde woman yelled and rushed, sword held high to slash at John.

‘This bitch,’ John cursed inside as he was forced to focus back on her. With the dying Fighter to his right, a wall to his left, and the Crusader behind him, John had no choice but to catch the attack head-on.

Keeping a tight grip on his weapons, he raised both swords up high to meet the incoming attack. The impact ran through John’s already sore body, but it did manage to stop the attack.

Before she could try again, he shifted his weight to one foot and raised the other to deliver a powerful kick to her chest. Not a serious wound, by far, but it did manage to push her off balance and she fell to the floor.

With nothing left in his way, John turned back to the Crusader, just in time to catch the man’s fist with his face. Ratface’s punch seemed to weight the same as a boulder and felt just as hard. John saw stars and ended up knocked to the floor along with the woman.

Still disoriented, he felt himself being pulled to his feet. He tried to cut at whoever was near, but one sword had been knocked from his hands when he fell to the floor while the other was yanked away as soon as he tried to lift it.

“Kill him,” the woman’s shrill voice thundered inside John’s head, hurting his ears and worsening his headache. “He murdered Kiran, kill him!”

John tried to open his eyes and look around but saw everything doubled, leaving him even more disoriented. It became impossible to breathe through his nose, and a warm, iron-tasting liquid flowed down from it. ‘Probably broken,’ he concluded.

“We still need him,” Ratface’s voice sounded out. “Don’t forget what we came here to—” He paused mid-sentence. “Shit!” he cursed, and John could feel himself being dragged.

He tried to open his eyes again. His vision finally returned to normal, and he found himself being dragged by Ratface toward’s a hole at the back of the cottage where the backdoor used to be. When they finally came to a stop where the door once stood, a strong hand wrapped itself around John’s throat.

“Stop or the boy dies!” Ratface screamed at the top of his lungs.

John raised his head to look and found his mother standing over a bloody Vasilis, her swords buried on his thigh. He almost couldn’t believe it. She had beaten a Paladin by herself.

The surprise of it even made him forget about his current situation. Ratface’s tightening grip around his throat brought him back to reality.

“Surrender, now!”

His mother’s gaze remained firmly on him, as she seemingly considered her options. With his own sword pressed against his ribs, the Paladin didn’t dare to move. In resignation, she finally gave a deep sigh as tears pooled in her eyes. “John. I love you.”

‘What is she…’ John wondered for a moment until it finally hit him. Blood magic. ‘No… No!’ He elbowed, kicked, and clawed at the Crusader, trying in vain to escape his grasp.

The man tightened his grip in response, and John became unable to breathe, but he didn’t care. Just as his mother slid her hand along the sword's edge, he finally recalled the dagger hidden in his tunic. He quickly drew it out and stabbed back at the Crusader’s gut, hoping that the sudden pain would make him let go.

Instead, he put all of his strength into his hand, almost crushing John’s throat. But just before it came to this, John felt himself being yanked back and down along with Ratface.

He heard the sound of wood splintering as well as what sounded like a watermelon cracking. The woman’s shrill scream came next, but John barely paid it any attention as the grip on his neck finally loosened and he could breathe again, although with much difficulty.

The sudden yank left him even more disoriented and he struggled to get back on his feet. The first thing he saw was Ratface’s head crushed into the wooden floor. For whatever reason, the blonde woman didn’t stab him while he was down, which didn’t make him any calmer.

He looked around, searching for the woman, and found her standing over his mother’s body, sword in hands. Despite his sore body and the disorientation, John didn’t stop to think. He yanked the dagger from Ratface’s gut and rushed towards her.

Just as she raised her sword for the final strike, he fell upon her with a fury he had only felt once in his two lives. He stabbed once, twice, thrice, until she finally stopped moving after the fifth stab.

Dead, the enemy woman no longer had any importance, so John focused on the only thing that had. “Mom!” He scrambled to get by her side. She lay on the ground, barely moving. If not for the faint up and down of her chest as she breathed, he would think she had died. Her unfocused eyes looked to the sky, not because she wanted to, but because she could no longer move them.

“J-John,” she gasped out the words.

“Mom, I’m here.” He grasped her hand, tears blurring his vision. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry… this is it...” She breathed in. “My necklace… key… yours now...”

“No, no, no,” John repeated the word in between sobs as if it were a mantra that could turn everything back to how it was.

“All that’s left… of us… our people...” She struggled even harder to breathe. “It was my burden… yours now...”

John shook his head. “I can’t. I’m not ready.”

“You can… I trained you myself...” Her hand moved slightly on his’, and her face showed a faint smile. She said nothing more. She stopped breathing.

“Mom!” John’s sobs turned into crying. For the first time in this new world, he was alone.