"Pfft!"
At the critical moment, a dagger tore through the air with a howl, piercing the man's wrist. Its overwhelming force yanked his unprepared body back and nailed him to a tree trunk.
"Ah! My hand! My hand!"
As the central nervous system's brief suppression of pain wore off, the man—who had been lofty and refined just moments ago—looked at his arm twisted like a pretzel and his pierced palm, then let out a pig-slaughtering scream as tears and snot streamed down his face.
"Bzzzz!"
In an instant, several more figures clad in black robes surged out of the night, raising their hands and hurling easily cast spell projectiles at the attacker.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Yet the moment dozens of spell projectiles entered within ten paces of the man, they vanished instantly, broken back down into fundamental particles.
"Don't come any closer! You lowborn trash, I order you not to come any closer!"
At the same time, the figure, besieged by spell projectiles yet not slowed in the slightest, tilted his head aside to evade a stray magic bullet and arrived before the wounded man despite his terrified shouting.
"I am of noble—"
Crack!
In an instant, accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering bones, the wounded man of noble blood clawed at his twisted neck with one hand, wheezing desperately as death approached, his eyes filled with despair.
Why? Why was he dying at the hands of a commoner?
With endless terror and unwillingness, the man's consciousness sank into darkness.
An expert!
The blond young man with the long, thin face, who was leading the group, watched the figure move as though through an empty field, crossing the barrage of spell projectiles and killing one of his companions barehanded. His pupils contracted, and he immediately raised a wand