Chapter 23
The assassin held his daggers in a ready position and lunged forward at Bob. They were so close together now that Bob had no time to devise a plan on which flasks to use. The assassin was deceptively quick and was practically on top of Bob both daggers flashing towards him. One dagger was aimed at his stomach, while the other came down in an arc aimed at his neck. Bob grabbed the arm that had the dagger aimed at his neck and tried to move his body out of the way of the other dagger. He wasn't successful, the dagger pierced his leather armor and sank into his side. Screaming he fell backward onto the ground the assassin on top of him. The assassin had let go of the dagger that was sunk into Bob's side and put his hand on the pommel of the dagger trying to use his body weight to sink the dagger into Bob's throat. Even though he was in agony Bob brought his other arm up to stop from getting stabbed again. The assassin put his full weight onto his arms trying to force the dagger down, he was in a weird stance with his legs on either side of Bob's body in an awkward standing position. Bob instantly knew the assassin made a mistake by putting all his body weight so far forward and capitalized on it. He bucked his hips upward and drove his knee into the assassin's groin.
Bob felt his knee connect with the man's testicles. He almost lost his grip on the assassin's arms, the jerky motion he made driving his knee up shifted the dagger in his body causing more pain But he didn't let it distract him from trying to finish the fight. The assassin yelped in pain and started to fall to his knees. His arms were yanked to the side, he felt Bob's legs hook around his. His vision blurred for a moment as he was spun around, now finding himself on his back with both of his arms pinned to the ground above his head. Bob was able to keep both of the assassin's arms pinned down with only one of his. With his free hand, he grabbed a hold of the dagger stuck in his side. With a loud scream and a jerk, he pulled the dagger free. The pain caused him to lose his grip on the assassin's arms. The assassin was able to get one of his arms free, unfortunately for him, it wasn't the one with the dagger in it. He threw and landed a punch on Bob's face knocking him more off balance. He thrust his hips upwards launching Bob off of him.
Bob landed hard on the ground, he lost control of the assassin's arm holding the dagger. He got to his feet as quickly as he could, the assassin doing the same. Bob clutched at his side where he pulled the dagger out. His original plan was to stick it in the man's throat but wasn't ready for the pain when he jerked it out of himself. He backed a few steps away, the assassin doing the same. He knew the assassin was going to activate his teleport ability so he threw the dagger in his hand to the ground and grabbed the smoke flask from his bandolier. Sure enough, the assassin used his ability, as soon as he disappeared from his sight he rolled forward dodging the attack, and dropped the smoke flask. It didn't detonate like he anticipated but the assassin wasn't paying attention to the ground and stepped on it, crushing it.
Smoke quickly filled the air, completely obscuring the assassin from view. Bob moved trying to get as much distance as he could. He grabbed the ice flask and threw it into the smoke cloud, he didn't care if it was a direct hit, he just hoped the area of effect was big enough to lock down the assassin. The flask hit the ground somewhere in the smoke. He heard the ice spread quickly over the ground, but there was no scream or noise from the assassin. He didn't know what was going on, he focused on the smoke cloud trying to see if there was any movement from inside.
Unbeknownst to Bob the assassin had activated a defensive ability. The ability turned him into a shadow, making him immune to damage for a short period of time. The catch was he had to be completely obscured from his target. Bob's smoke flask played right into his hands, the only problem was that Bob wasn't in the smoke cloud with him. He couldn't go on the offensive. His ability ran out and he became solid again. He almost slipped on the sheet of ice that had formed from the flask that was thrown. He didn't like how bad his footing was but he didn't want to expose himself to any more ranged attacks. He knew his opponent was a ranged fighter, which confused him as to why he was so good at close-range fighting. The thing he did know was the poison on his blades should be playing hell with his opponent's nervous system by now.
Bob suddenly felt very lightheaded and fell to a knee. He didn't know what was happening, but his body was starting to feel numb. He felt like he was losing control of his limbs and motor functions. He knew he didn't have much time, he needed to finish the fight. He felt like his mana was ok to summon more flasks. He pulled the fire flask from his bandolier and summoned one more in his other hand. He threw the first flask as hard as he could into the smoke cloud near the center. He threw the second one to the left of the first, then quickly summoned another and threw it to the right of the first. The first flask detonated, no sound from the assassin, the second one hit, no sound, the third hit, still, no sound. Bob swore loudly, he was losing more and more control of his body and knew it was only a matter of time before he was fully paralyzed. He felt his mana was low, but still summoned another flask in his hand, it was an ice flask. He felt he might be able to bait the assassin into showing himself. He slumped to the ground half pretending to be paralyzed. It worked, as soon as he slumped down the assassin moved, disturbing the clearing smoke cloud. Bob saw his chance and hurled the flask with the last bit of strength his strength. He watched the flask, his throw was more of a high-arcing lob. The assassin hadn't seen him throw the flask. Bob watched as the assassin's face broke into a wide grin of triumph, they thought it was over. They thought they were going to casually stroll up to him and finish him. Bob kept his eyes on the man, whatever paralytic that was used, allowed him to keep his eyes open, Bob thought that was horrifying, having to watch as his opponent would be able to just slowly take their time killing you. This assassin though wasn't going to be able to do that however. Bob felt glee in his heart as the flask dropped right in front of the assassin's face. The look the man made when he saw the flask was priceless. Shock, disbelief, and fear all flashed on his face. He wasn't able to stop his forward momentum and had stepped right into the flask. It detonated, completely freezing his body. The momentum he had still carried him forward and his body shattered into thousands of pieces as it hit the ground. Bob heard the crowd erupt with cheers and applause. His vision blurred as he was teleported out of the arena.