Shalltear - 31 arrows to the knee

“Wahhhhhh!” A scream went up and one of the mercenaries, terror driven, fired his crossbow.

The arrow sliced through the air and stuck itself deep in Shalltear’s chest. She swayed slightly from the impact.

“Fire!”

At the sound of their leader’s voice, the mercenaries came to their senses and, wanting to deny fear, fired their crossbows all at once. The bolts flying downrange sounded almost like rain as they pierced Shalltear’s body.

There had been a total of forty crossbow bolts launched. Thirty-one hit their target. Each one bit deeply into her body, which was to be expected given that at this range they could pierce even metal armor. There were even four burrowed into her head. If she was human, these wounds would have been fatal.

“We did it...,” someone whispered, laying bare the hope they all clung to. She was still standing, but she was a pincushion of crossbow bolts. Common sense said she had to be dead. But even if they could think that logically, the spark known as fear still smoldered in a corner of their minds.

Spurred on by something like animal instinct, the mercenaries loaded another volley.

Then Shalltear moved.

Like a conductor raising her baton, she raised both arms and then slowly opened them. The projectiles stuck in her gradually began to move, then were spat out of her body and finally landed in the dirt. None of them had any blood on them. Nor was there any wear on the arrowheads. It was exactly as if they had never been used.

She smiled—it was an ugly smile that could be perhaps better described as a derisive grin.

Shrieks of fear went up here and there, and as if that was the push they needed, countless arrows once again sliced through the air and rushed into Shalltear.

An eyeball was pierced, her neck was shot through, her stomach was skewered, and her shoulder was gouged. In the midst of all that, she seemed no more put out than she would be by a light rain.

***

Volume 3, Chapter 2.3