Once again, as soon as one of the big three had seen Quinn’s ability, the mention of the Blade family was raised. No longer could Quinn keep this as a simple coincidence, but his search so far had resulted in no solution.
If the Blade family was well known, when Quinn had announced he was being protected by them, the whole world should have known about them. Yet neither the Crow faction leader nor the Eagles had ever heard of the Blade family before.
It seemed like the only ones that knew anything, were those from the Graylash family and those that worked for the Sunshields.
“You probably think we’re going to let you go, let you retreat now we know who has your back, huh?” The squad leader said. “But the orders have changed. Even if you were a Blade yourself, we will be going against you. This is war!”
With that, the ten of them charged in. There were thirty or so men on Quinn’s side, but the opponents were confident in their fighting abilities.
[Inspect]
Using inspect on the leader didn’t give Quinn the instant level up quest, which would have suggested that the leader he met last time might have been the head squad leader. Still, the red bar was slowly filling up, and it looked like five percent of the Sunshield forces had already been defeated with Quinn having contributed so little.
Quinn had spread his shadow either side of him as the Sunshields charged towards them. Whenever they would make a fatal attack towards one of his men, the shadow would rise up and block the attacks.
Splitting his concentration and working on his shadow was something that he had learnt to do from Arthur.
“Your shadow is certainly useful, and I can see why so many people are after it, but if you’re protecting them, then you can’t protect yourself!”
One of the Sunshields ran towards him. Quinn threw out a phantom punch, causing the man to flinch, soon after he felt a sudden grab. A few seconds and the man was shocked as his whole body was being electrified by Quinn’s gauntlets. Quickly stomping his foot on the ground, Quinn gave out a hammer hook, knocking the person down so hard onto the floor that his head had cracked on the ground.
The enemy wasn’t simply knocked out, they were dead.
Quinn wasn’t able to be his usual self in a fight like this where he would normally control the amount of strength he used. If he cared about whether or not his opponent lived, then the men behind him would die.
“I don’t have time for this.”
[Shadow void skill activated]
Somewhere in the Shelter, a large dome made of shadow could be seen encasing not only the Sunshields, but members of the Crows as well. They were frightened by the sight of a dark shadow engulfing them, and had no clue what was going on.
[Shadow hop]
Sinking into the ground, Quinn hopped from one location to another, able to appear by the squad leaders men’s side.
[Hammer strike]
He had hit one of the men in the chest, sending him flying across to the dome wall where shadow hands had grabbed him, holding him in place. The man had survived. Their armour was strong, even if Quinn did use his full strength, he wouldn’t be able to finish them in one blow if hitting the armour without adding his blood attacks.
It was expected of one of the big three, but they were clearly outmatched. A few moments of shadowing around the place and using the shadow in the dome to protect his allies from the fire, the only one left was the leader.
The bar had now filled 4 percent green while 8 percent of it was filled red. The only problem with the bar, it allowed Quinn to know how many people, or at least the strength left of the Sunshields, but said nothing about the Crows.
Therefore it was hard to tell if they were really winning this fight or not.
Quinn wanted to ask this man about the Blades, but now was not the time. Explosions and fire were ripping through the Shelter.
The squad leader, having seen all his men defeated and with no one else to back him up, wasn’t stupid. He decided to run and had entered the alleyway from which they had come from.
Firing fire form the palm of his hands he could travel faster and wasn’t worried about his escape.
‘This guy, I have to warn the others, we need to get rid of him fast. No wonder the Blades are protecting him.’
“Everyone, this is squad leader 6, listen up, we have to get rid of the- “
His speech interrupted as Quinn was suddenly stood in front of him. He felt like it was impossible. The speed for someone to catch up to him would have had to have been that of a speed user.
“No one is looking, and you’re quite strong, but I’m in a rush,” Quinn said.
He could see held in Quinn’s hands in front of him, something that looked like a shadow scythe, with a blood red blade. Swinging it diagonally down with all his strength, it had sliced through the squad leader like butter, breaking through all of his armour.
The added stats had made it much stronger, and his Qi control was getting better day by day.
‘6 percent, so the Squad leaders must be worth more, but if I can get a large group of them, then I should be able to finish the task quicker.’
It may have seemed like Quinn was more concerned about completing the quest then protecting the Shelter. But at the end of the day, the quicker he did his quest, the more it would help.
Walking past the body, Quinn dipped his finger in the squad leader’s blood, taking a small part of it, hoping to increase his stats whenever he could. When he exited out of the alleyway, the others were there waiting for his order.
“He’s so strong, no wonder they made him a squad leader.” The members mumbled.
“I thought we were goners when the Sunshields arrived, but he overpowered them all.”
“And he was even strong enough to defeat the leader.’
Watching their skills in the fight just now, none of them were ready to go up against even a single Sunshield. If Quinn wasn’t there, they all could have possibly died, and Quinn had used up a lot of shadow to protect them. He couldn’t continue like this.
“Listen up, you might not like what I’m going to say, but it’s for the sake of your Shelter. You saw their strength for a brief second, could any of you really say you would have won the fight without my help?”
There was silence between them all.
“I know you mean well, and you want to protect the home and family you built, but I do as well. I care about you so much that I’m focusing on protecting you guys rather than fighting them. So please, I ask you – please head through the teleporter.
“Live on and protect your families, and trust me to do the fighting here for you.”
It took a lot for the Crows members to pluck up the courage and agree to fight. At the time, Blip and Sam were just thinking about the numbers and maybe if Quinn didn’t care for their lives, they would have served to at least be a distraction. However, for the current Quinn, they were just a distraction for him.
Quinn didn’t want to see another person die while they were under his responsibility. In a case like this, he would have prefered to go solo, which was what he was requesting of them now.
One of the men, who was quite young, was the first to break down in tears. He bowed down after wiping them away with his sleeve.
“Thank you. I was so scared. I just wanted to protect my family. After seeing what just happened, we completely understand. We were holding you back, because just now you saved us. How can I go against your orders?”
“Squad leader Quinn, please save our home, save the Crow faction, and blow away every single one of these Sunshield bastards!”
Soon after, the rest bowed down.
“Quinn please!” They said.
Quinn was honestly surprised, he thought they would resist, complain, and ask to fight on. What he didn’t realise was they were thankful, for the first time, someone wasn’t just treating their life as a waste.
Most of the members in Quinn’s squad were lower ranking. They were forced to go on beast hunt after beast hunt due to the Graylash’s greed and excessive demands, and they feared their lives every day. It was the same here, they felt like they had to fight.
And now someone, who didn’t want to just use them as cannon fodder, was telling them to go home and that he would take the burden.
Lifting their heads up, they all saluted to Quinn, before running off back to the teleporter.
“16 percent complete, and I have only one five percent, can I really do this? If I can, then I’m going to have to do that!” Quinn thought.
*****
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