A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"Useless boasts," Erik heard the man called Nasir spat somewhere to his left. "Your omnisense is suppressed and you can't see anything. We may have lost the element of surprise, but you're still doomed!"

Seemingly relaxed, Erik rested the hammer on his shoulder and shrugged with an irreverent smirk. "Not afraid my allies will show up before this is over, one way or the other?"

"Hmpf," Nasir snorted, his voice coming from the same spot. "They won't find us unless they happen to come looking for you in this exact spot. We're far away from the inhabited area, sigil signals are blocked, sound is blocked, and I'm sure they won't come looking for you immediately!"

His eyes still closed, Erik's wolfish lips curled into a confident grin. "If you say so…"

Suddenly, dark-blue runes flashed on his skin at the same time as a bestial roar reverberated through the air. Erik disappeared and reappeared a few steps behind him, already in the middle of a downward swing with his hammer, crackling with icy-white lightning.

Boom

The hammer connected with something, and another roar erupted—this one of pain. "Zohran!" Nasir cursed as Erik heard him begin to move.

Nasir, who Erik had identified as a vampire by smell, had been trying to distract him while the shapeshifter, Zohran, charged him. Unfortunately for the latter, Erik wasn't so helpless in the dark. The smell and hearing of a werewolf were already some of the most powerful among shapeshifters, but with Eira boosting his senses as well, there was truly no ambushing.

Fighting like this was still much worse for him than normal, but he wasn't any less aware of the world around than a mortal human with sight would be. Unfortunately, he suspected his assailants's omnisense was unaffected.

Fortunately, as was the case with his sight, his omnisense was only suppressed to the space around his body. Thus, he could still prevent his assailants from seeing too much by covering himself with omnisense.

"What kind of frikking affinity is that blue stuff?!" Zahra yelled in frustration as she witnessed Erik's ability to dodge the sneak attack.

Meanwhile, Erik's hammer was still in mid swing. After crashing against his attacker, he heard a loud thump some light cracks, but doubted he'd seriously wounded a third-rank Runebound with just that attack. Another roar erupted as the shapeshifter crashed against the ground, surprisingly not cracking the stone floor of this public square.

He also heard a blade swishing past him. Surprisingly, he heard it thrum with power, something that mortal weapons couldn't do, but he had no time to wonder about it.

Zohran, after hitting the stone, cursed in pain. Noticing his target tried to roll away immediately, Erik snorted, planted the head of his hammer against Zohran's back, and pushed to keep him in place. Then, he opened his maw wide and charged a thundersnow blast, aiming straight for where he suspected Zohran's head was located.

"Raah!" Zohran grunted below him. Erik felt him trying to resist and move, but Erik had also placed a large, armoured foot next to his hammer. "Do your worst, kid!" Zohran snarled, unwilling to show weakness.

"Hold it!" Nasir exclaimed with some alarm as Erik heard him rush closer. Fortunately, he wouldn't make it before Erik's thundersnow blast was done.

Suddenly, his instincts screamed, so he flinched to the right.

Pow

Something impacted Erik's shoulder, even somewhat penetrating his armour. The armour's skeleton absorbed the impact, so it caused him no harm or pain, but he was forced to stagger back with a surprised snarl.

Before he could recover, he heard Nasir arrive at Zohran's side and help him up. Yet, rather than press the attack, they backed off a moment. Erik knew the shapeshifter was likely still suffering from the thundersnow he infused into his hammer attack and needed a moment to recover.

'What the fuck was that…' he frowned, confused. He hadn't heard or smelled anything approaching him. Looking down, he noticed a flickering red shard stuck in his armour. Grabbing it, he managed to shatter it with just a little bit of pressure, disintegrating it into specks of red light.

'Illusion arcanist,' he realised immediately, having seen this before. Though only a third-rank affinity, illusion was relatively rare among those, but not so rare he'd never encountered them over his seven years on Söl.

Because of that, he also realised the suppression of his sight and omnisense was not a sigil, but likely this Arcanist's spell. The only sigil in place, was likely what they used to block sound and signals from getting out.

As for the attack, illusion Arcanists could often trade attack power for the masking of sound or sight. Having already taken Erik's sight, they only needed to mask sound for Erik not to notice a thing.

Instantly, Erik took no chances and activated the helmet on his armour. He usually preferred leaving his head uncovered, but these illusory attacks made things a little more dicey. Fortunately, the Arcanist likely had to focus on keeping Erik suppressed and wasn't able to launch many attacks.

Besides, to be fair, he hadn't even figured out the other affinities yet. Perhaps they'd used them; he simply wasn't able to see it.

"Care to tell me who you three are, and how you got here?" Erik grumbled, now two-handing his hammer and crouching a little in an alert stance.

"Care to tell us where you got all those fancy tricks from!?" Zahra retorted angrily, clearly not in a mood to talk.

"Is that why you're here?" Erik asked, genuinely curious.

A pained Zohran growled a response. "If we'd known about these tricks we would have prepared better, kid! We came here to nip a problem in the bud before it gets worse!"

Some scuffling sounded as Zohran and Nasir recovered.

"If you'd just focused on those cursed hunters, we wouldn't have to deal with you!" Nasir added scathingly. "But you're just a kid on a power trip who should be using his strength to take down hunters, instead of attempting to force all of Africa under your banner!"

"Hehe, I see now," Erik chuckled meaningfully, a grin appearing on his lips. "You three are from a country I haven't met yet, but you've heard about my speech when I married my beloved Naeku. Although I still don't understand how you got into the city, you must have been waiting nearby for you to be able to react this quickly."

They stayed silent, and Erik continued by pointing his hammer in their general direction challengingly.

"What you fools don't understand, is that the only way to deal with the hunters is by uniting!" he bellowed with force. "I do now know if your country has scuffled with them already or if you're just cautious, but I can promise you, they barely devoted a fraction of their power to you."

"But I'll show you the error of your ways," he chuckled, fighting intent rising as he palmed his hammer again. "By hook or by crook…"