[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/k6ISKjx.png[/img]
[hider=𖦭]STR [b][2][/b] | DEX [b][3][/b] | MAG [b][1][/b] | DEF [b][1][/b] | RES [b][1][/b] | AGI [b][3][/b] | LCK [b][4][/b]

[b]《 Luck of the Devil 》[/b]
[i]Fortune favours the foul. +3 LCK.[/i][/hider][sub][@Zeroth][@TheMushroomLord][@PKMNB0Y][/sub][/center]
All he could do was backpedal, sandals slip-sliding against the muck and grime of the slums as he ducked and bobbed, the thin blade of his assailant carving graceful lines through the air. In the corner of his vision, the High Elf could see others nearby simply shuffle away. Doors to shacks closing and being braced. People disappearing down other routes. He understood them. If someone was being attacked on the subway platform, he’d step inside a train and pop in his earbuds. If a kid was crying on the sidewalk with no adult in sight, he’d just walk around the tyke and trust that someone else would deal with it.

This was a threat towards [i]him[/i], after all. Not to anyone else.

He pivoted to the side, right as a thrust drove the point of the sword into the space he had been moments ago. Pain bloomed bright and hot over his arm; the blade had grazed the forearm that cradled the package against his chest, and just like that, Cassius felt his legs weaken. Death had been conceptual, then potential, and now very, very real.

Dread caused his knees to buckle. He fell backwards, his heartbeat turning into a continuous roar within his eardrums. No words could be exchanged. Didn’t even have time to surrender. One step in, lunge.

Blood coated the blade properly, the sword piercing through…

…the package he raised up, and the arm that held it.

Adrenaline suppressed agony, time dilating as a flood of chemicals drenched his brain. The world was so bright in that moment, as discordant intuition took over. A primitive intuition, from that savage era that humanity had yet to evolve away from, as he pushed himself upwards, package and hand slamming into the sword’s crossguard while the rest of his body followed suit, against the cloaked assailant’s body.

The distance closed, enough for him to bury the throwing knife into their gut. He heard the breath escape from them, an exhalation of pain and surprise, but Cassius didn’t stop, not when he didn’t have any thought of stopping. In and out, in and out, like the sewing machine his mother owned, like the keys of his laptop during the final weeks, repetition that drove a sharp point into the soft belly and the organs beneath, until he was forced to stop from loss of breath.

Viscera coated both hands, and the blood that splattered against his robes caused them to cling against his skin. The mask of his assailant had fallen ajar, revealing the face of a youth who couldn’t have been over twenty. The poison that coated the sword was making its way into his system, the veins in his injured arm darkening, his sensations numbing even as his nerves burned. That strange, unnatural feeling intensified from the package, now that a hole was punched into it, now that elven blood had fed it.

Distantly, Cassius could see Meira. He couldn’t tell if she was running or walking or standing or watching.

All that was in his head, up to the moment he passed out, was a simple realization: this was how victims of knife attacks end up with dozens of stabbing wounds, when just a few would have done the trick.