All of these thoughts flashed through Hector’s mind in rapid succession, until he ultimately decided to just take the initiative while he still could. He created a thin cloud of dust over the area--tens of thousands of iron flakes, just big enough for his eyes to register specks in the air but also small enough that they would hover like tiny feathers instead of falling like raindrops.
“Hmm?”
“What’s this?”
“Oh!”
But they were too slow to realize. Hector had gotten his glimpse. There were many more gaps in the dust than he could count in a single look, some crouched on the adjacent roof, some on the wall between the houses, some sitting in the trees above, but none in the grass, presumably because it would’ve revealed their footsteps. Specific numbers weren’t important, though. Right now, Hector only cared about general proximity, and by the time they’d begun voicing their surprise, Hector was already slamming an iron fist at the ground.
Clusters of iron pillars shot out at each area, their bladed tips extending forth at arrow-speed, all retaining physical contact with his fist so that he could empower them with his soul.
A few of the pillars struck true. Horizontal geysers of blood appeared among the dust, and a couple of the voices cut off mid-sentence, but the invisibility itself remained unchanged. The victims of Hector’s attack were not suddenly revealed in full to him as he’d hoped they’d be.
He could, however, see new movement among the dust--all converging on him.
“He actually intends to fight!”
“Good!”
“Now we can have some real fun!”
And the first challenger must not have realized that Hector could see him coming, because the fool charged headlong into a gauntleted uppercut, which--from the sound of it--rocketed him right into one of his buddies in the trees.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.