7 The Warhound

Arillis Leoelia waved her friends at the pub goodbye before walking home. Despite being the darkest hour of the night Arillis was confident in her ability to get home safety. The reason being the trusty steel sabre she had by her side. Arillis was a warhound, a title she was very proud of. As a warhound that meant the Arillis belonged to the upper classes of physical and mental prowess and strength within the Kingdom.

This wasn't an idle boast either as the warhounds are renowned for their near perfect job completion rate with nearly minimal casualties. A single warhound is comparable to an average knight of the Kingdom in terms of combat capability.

Although Royal knights and knights of the upper nobility would win nine out of ten times against warhounds, that was still an impressive feat considering the amount of combat training a common knight was brought up with.

The knowledge that Arillis who was born as a commoner with next to no background in knighthood would end up as a warrior comparable with those knights who were snobbish and arrogant simply because they were lucky enough to born into a knight family filled her heart with joy.

With prideful strides Arillis reached her house within the maze of dark alleyways. However, before she grabbed the doorknob to open the door she felt something. A premonition of sorts. As if someone was watching her... And that someone had some malicious intent.

[Damn who would be bothered to follow me home? Normally rats would mug people in the darkest alleyways so that no crowd can intervene and there was no need to follow that person home just to mug them. Whoever this is, they aren't here with good intention.]

Arillis flicked her right wrist in a inconspicuous manner, sliding down the dagger she had hidden in her sleeve. Arillis used her instincts as a warhound to judge and predict the location of this mysterious person who foolishly decided to follow this veteran warrior to her own home.

Arillis turned around in a swift motion and threw the dagger at the unknown enemy. The dagger whistled through the air, spinning before embedding itself into the skull of the enemy... or at least that's what should have happened. The dagger simply bounced backwards and fell on the floor before it could hit the figure, almost as if it hit an invisible wall. No. Not an invisible wall. For a split second Arillis saw it. A barrier made of nearly transparent red light briefly appeared to deflect the the dagger. Arillised glanced at her foe, she was adorned in a rugged pitch black cloak and wasn't armed with any weapon, emphasising that she most likely didn't need a weapon to be effective in combat.

[Damn it. What must her trait be for her to be able to deflect projectiles and not need anyway weapons to fight? Honor? Glory? Durability? No that can't be... while all three of them were capable of forming barriers to defend once-self against projectiles, none of those conjured a barrier that was transparent-red in colour. No matter what her trait is... She will regret crossing paths with me.]

Arillis knew that her trait "competency" meant nothing against foes that she know anything about, especially if she didn't knew nothing about their trait. Therefore, that meant that she simply had to deduce their trait through other means.

"What do you want from me? Surely you didn't come here to display some party trick."

Those other means being to provoke them to discover their core personality and from that personality deduce a small list of all the possible traits. From there she can deduct her enemies trait based on their personality, magic and combat abilities that they just displayed before her.

In response to her question the cloakled woman replied one word in a blunt, cold voice.

"Everything."

Arillis felt her blood freeze in response to such a blatant, malicious threat that clearly aimed to take her life. Knowing that words would now mean nothing Arillis flicked her left wrist and threw her other dagger at the cloaked woman in a similar manner to before. Like before, the dagger was deflected by the transparent-red barrier but piercing the barrier was not Arillis' goal.

Arillis took out two daggers from her belt and once again threw them at her foe. Unbeknownst to her enemy, with every throne dagger, Arillis was actually getting a step closer. Arillis was also aware that with every dagger deflected, the enemy would be lulled into a false sense of security. Arillis' memories of her long history of battles told her so.

With her sixth dagger being deflected, the enemy was now in sword's reach of her sabre. Arillis smiled in heart for she was about to slay this powerful yet foolish adversary with her skill and sword alone.

Arillis' sabre, like all other warhound's was no ordinary sword. It is a warhound secret that their swords are actually enchanted with increased durability and sharpness. Arillis already tested the strength of her sabre against many enemies' barriers in the past, this red-transparant barrier would only merely add towards that long list of obstacles that meant nothing before her prized sword.

[You fool! You dare attempt to challenge a warhound! How utterly foolish! Now taste the power of my blade!]

In an agile motion Arillis quickly stepped foward and unsheated her sword, immediately swinging it at the cloaked woman in an almost inhuman speed. As her sabre cleaved through the enemy, Arillis smiled brightly as she went to admire her sword.

Only for her to find that half of her Sabre had been snapped off and multiple cracks and fissures were formed on the blade of her once beautiful sabre. With wide eyes Arillis turned back towards her foe. She was not harmed as Arillis expected and it was as if the sword never touched her at all!

[IMPOSSIBLE! This is a warhound sabre, able to pierce any form of armour not matter how sturdy! Her barrier should have meant to nothing to it! But yet again.]

As Arillis tried to process the chain of events she realised that unlike before her opponent didn't form a barrier like she did against Arillis' daggers. As this thought struck Arillis she noticed something peculiar. Her foe's hand was raised, with her hand blocking the area where her sword should have struck but that was not the most alarming point.

It was the fact that the hand was enveloped in a ball of red light and crackling red lightning.

"T-that light... can it be? How is this poss-"

Before Arillis could even finish her question, she was consumed in a bright red light before everything turned to darkness.