"What are you doing, dummy?!"
A loud voice snapped Julius out of his thoughts, he turned to see the foolish bully glaring at him with a frown.
"Go get your weapons, we are going to need every hand possible if we want to kill that thing!" Just then, the fool ran forward at impossible speed, waving his hands strangely towards the wall.
Harley watched how ice creeped up the wooden wall, quenching the flames. The creature itself finally managed to claw into the village, letting out a deafening roar that shook the air subtly.
It's obsidian scales reflected the moonlight, while it's strange, black transparent claws felt like they were just shadows.
Its body was over ten metres long, while it's tail was equal in length. With a twirl the beast obliterated sturdy wooden buildings like sand castles.
The three jesters were wearing masks with red smiles on them. Their bells rang as they all attacked the creature together. One of them wielded a short sword, another held two sicles, while the third had daggers in his hands.
Their speed was unlike anything Harley had ever seen, seeming blurry and moving unpredictable.
'So they can do that? No wonder fool was laughing at me earlier, I'm trash!' Harley gritted his teeth, turning around towards the weapon shack.
He ran passed Granny bells who met him in the dressing space before. He frowned, seeing her walk on... air?
He didn't care about her right now, he needed to escape this damned place.
'Damn it. I still don't know much about my objective here.' He clenched his teeth.
Entering the wooden shack the fool pointed for him, he immediately froze in his track as he saw that... All around him, there were dead bodies of people wearing clown hats.
They were ambushed!
For some reason, he couldn't feel his heartbeat. One would expect that at a time like this, his heart would be racing, but it was not.
He could only feel a sense of dread.
Harley leapt forward with all his strength.
*Clank!*
The sound of metal clashing against sold ground resounded behind him.
Harley faded into nothing, activating his invisibility skill with his mind. The ambusher's heavy bootts, rang just right outside the shack.
The person stepped through the entrance, looking around. An axe was in his hand, swirling black air gathering around it to keep it in form. The transparent blade of the axe seemed like glass, forged from swirling shade, edges trailing smoke-like wisps.
"What tricks are you playing?" The man smashed a barrel, spilling a strange scenting alcohol all over the place.
Harley's purple eyes flashed in the darkness, seeing how this man moved, and acted, he was an experienced killer. It was by no sheer luck that he cut all these people down.
The liquid soon reached his legs and that's when he notices the shape of his feet showed on the ground and he immediately got out of the way.
*Boom!*
The entire left section of the weapon hold was shattered and that invisible force shot out from the man's hand.
'Dangerous.' Harley thought, weighing his chances of survival.
Taking a sudden decision, he ran towards the man, deactivating his skill. The person smiled, slicing his axe horizontally to cleave him in half.
The jester leapt over the cut, a calculated move nearly costing his life. A soft this rang out as he landed on the floor and the axe followed.
*Clank*
He ran out of the door, escaping the shack.
"Argh!" The man ran out in frustration, as he stepped out of the door his eyes widened.
A cold line pressed to the his throat. A dagger Harley had seized from the dressing space earlier. The shadow axe dissolved instantly, its form breaking into vapor as the man instinctively froze.
Harley did not waste breaths on threats. He twisted around the man's blind spot, hand clamping over his mouth to silence any alarm, then drove the blade into the side of his neck in one brutal, efficient motion.
Blood spilled over the ground in front of him as he watched the man twitch and spasm on the ground, but he had no mercy in his eyes.
It could be him on the ground too...
Harley hauled the corpse back inside, kicking the door shut with his heel. Well, that did nothing as an entire side of the building was destroyed.
The firelight outside flickered through the wooden cracks, painting the dead clowns in trembling orange.
He laid the axeman on the ground and exhaled, the first steady breath he'd taken since entering the shack. The dread was still there, but now tempered by focus.
He began stripping the man of his gear—armor, cloak, boots, anything that could pass as a disguise or carry information. He was methodical, almost surgical about it, avoiding the gore as much as practicality allowed.
A small vial rolled from the cloak. Inside it, a swirling bead of liquid shadow pulsed faintly, as if trying to remember its shape.
Harley narrowed his eyes.
[You have acquired a consumable item!]
[Liquid shadow, when consumed, gives you the ability to manipulate a shadow item.]
He pocketed the vial and continued removing the rest of the equipment, dressing himself in the ambusher's outfit—not for vanity, but for camouflage.
If the village defenders or the porcelain-masked circle found him next, he needed to look like someone else. Someone expected to be here.
Luckily for him, he heard the man's voice. So now he could mimic it with his ability... Hopefully.
*ROARRR!!!*
A loud roar rang out making Harley block his ears with his hands.
The obsidian beast roared outside, a couple of explosions rang out and Harley looked out from the shack.
There, he saw that an entire limb and a horn was missing from the creature. It's greenish blood leaked to the ground, and it looked in pain, staggering backwards.
In fromt of it was... The white haired prophetess, holding nothing in her hand. With a wave of her hand, the entire landscape changed. Everyone went silent, stuff, but it was only the immediate area around the drake.
The woman's hand cut into the scales of the creature easily like a knife, ripping it apart like a butcher.
Harley noticed that all the jesters were dead, most being roasted alive and one of them was even cut from the waist in half.
He wiped the dagger clean on a spare cloth, stood up in his stolen jacket, and became invisible once more—not as a fleeing civilian this time, but as part of the ambush that had been waiting for him.
And somewhere in the dark, the universe chuckled. Not because it was funny, but because it had teeth.