Astrid's POV
Breathing heavily through my mask, I willed myself to run a little longer. My mind was filled with the scenes from the incident that happened around an hour ago. The lifeless eyes of the victims and their screams of pain and terror. At least I saved some of the people there. A group of men in armour and a lady. I wonder if the lady was someone important if she had to travel with those men.
In just a blink of an eye, I was on the ground. I cursed at myself for getting to distracted by my thoughts. I got myself off the ground and continued to run. Suddenly, I heard a grunt from my right. I looked to my right only to find the group of people I saved earlier running a few trees a part. I gasped and one of the men turned to look at me, his eyes widening as he caught sight at me. He immediately alerted his other friends and they began to run and encircle the lady, leaving her in the middle of the circle.
I shook my head and focused on running to safety from those monsters. How the Shadow Knights came to be this way, I will never know. Soon, as I ran, the group came closer to me and I joined the lady in the middle of the man-made circle. I looked at the lady with a questioning look on my face and she just smiled. I must've had a weird look on my face as the man in blue-ish armour said," We are leading you to our village". I nodded and continued to run within the circle, using the lady as my pacer.
A few moments later, we finally reached the ruins of an abandoned village. If this is their 'village', I really don't know what to say. One of the men must've have sensed my confusion as he told me to just keep running. So I heeded his instructions and soon, we came upon another village with a gate. Before we could run into the village past the open gate, the Shadow Knights were running towards us. I managed to slip through the circle and summoned my armour and sword.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? COME ON, WE NEED TO GET PAST THOSE GATES!", the same man who told me to keep running shouted in an alarmed tone.
"JUST GO ON WITHOUT ME. I'LL HOLD 'EM OFF FOR YOU GUYS!", I shouted to them before turning my back on them and taking a stance.
Before I could even move a muscle, one of the Shadow Knights swung his blade at me the moment I was within striking distance. I ducked and used my sword to stab him through a chink of his armour. He gasped and that momentarily distracted me, giving the second Shadow Knight time to deliver a hard blow to my stomach. I fell down to the ground feeling winded after the blow to my stomach. I struggled to stand up and was immediately kicked back to the ground. I clenched my teeth in anger and willed the shadows to envelop the Shadow Knights' bodies and threw them aside, their bodies hitting the trees with a loud thud. As soon as their bodies reached the ground, I was already blacking out from. How unfortunate, I thought to myself.
