[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/mg8Zg0dZ/Eun-Ji-Banner.png[/img][/center]
[hr]Place(s): Near the southern border of Ersand'Enise
Time: Pandes, Vardes 29, Dami-Zept 54, 1:30 HD - 3:30 HD
Interaction(s): Many, yet none particularly directly
[hr][color=87CEEB][center][h3]The Absence of Fear in Her Eyes wasn't Bravery[/h3][/center][/color]

Eun-Ji sighed softly. Evidently, the night wasn't going to be like the rather idyllic last few. In hindsight, she should have expected it; why else would Avrael ordered her to accept the position of being one of King Rouis' honor guards? The Volto Bianco must have known that something will happen. She wondered if this was a test. She didn't know much about him, probably nobody did. But one thing she did know was that Avrael loved this kind of test. So there she was now, along with the others, guarding the carriages. She knew at least one of the other guards, Penny Pellegrin, the girl who had noticed when Eun-Ji were taking a peek at her course registry. It didn't seem like Penny nor the others have noticed the figures lurking in the shadows though. Eun-Ji didn't exactly blame them; it usually took an assassin to notice other assassins. And Eun-Ji wasn't just a typical run-off-the-mill assassin, she was extensively trained for this kind of thing. Regardless, the fact didn't make her feel any better about it; thus why she sighed.

Blood will be inevitably shed tonight. Likely quite a bit of it. She was not looking forward to it, but she had been given a task and she will fulfill it to the best of her abilities. For a Lotus Sentry, any mission must be tackled on with the utmost effort no matter the cost. It had been hammered deep into her that her life was worth less than the successful completion of the mission.

Thus, as her ruminations were done, Eun-Ji calmly steeled herself.

The thing about battle between magic users was that the RAS was not the only thing that mattered. Experience mattered. Skills mattered. Raw physical capabilities mattered. The mental capacity to not hesitate mattered. And the ability to seize the momentum also mattered. The first shot had barely been fired when Eun-Ji made her move. She already knew what was about to happen: the chaos that always followed the opening act, and it was this chaos that she must make use of as efficiently as she can. Immediately, she dismounted and kept low while drawing from the loud noises and the chaotic momentum of movements all around her. Then, using both the chaos and her rather smaller stature as advantages, she made as sure as she can that she attracted as little attention as possible. Next, she bolted for the treeline, using both her heritage as a Skyborn and some Kinetic magic to move as fast as she can. There was little need to hide the noise she herself was making; the chaos of the battle already did that for her.

Then she proceeded to the counteroffensive. The defense can be handled by the other guards. With a target as important as King Rouis, the assassins' attention and their fierce attacks will be focused on taking him and any other priority targets down as fast as they can. They were unlikely to expect an unknown factor like her to flank them. And not a flanking maneuver from the back at that. The thing about most people were that they tend not to look upward. Thus as soon as she had reached the trees, Eun-Ji once more used her heritage as a Skyborn to good use, seamlessly propelling herself upward far above the top of the trees. Thus the trees themselves became a wall of barriers for her, providing even more cover from sight and possible attack. But this was not the only reason why she had launched herself up to the sky.

It was such a shame. Such a beautiful night. She stared briefly at the stars above. For that brief moment, she felt sorrow. The stars reminded her of the fireworks she had seen during her first night in Ersand'Enise. Like those fireworks, the stars were majestic and beautiful. And just like the fireworks, the stars were not eternal. Nothing was, in the end, as even the brightest of stars will be extinguished with the passage of time. Why did they have to die? She still didn't have an answer to that. Thus, she can only accept the inevitability of it, no matter how much she wished for it to not be the truth of the world.

[color=87CEEB][i]I'm sorry that they have to die.[/i][/color]

Then the sorrow completely disappeared. It was time to fulfill the other reason of why she had taken to the sky. She looked back down to the trees below. And she sensed them. She had seen some of them earlier, the Magusjaegers, but the eyes were easily fooled. Telltale aura of Illusion magic, not so much. [color=87CEEB][i]Two[/i][/color]. Her eyes were fixed on two different signatures, two of the gun-wielding attackers masking their own presence using Arcane magic. Without further delay, she changed direction midair using her Skyborn ability again, her head facing the direction of the signatures. Then she launched herself at them.

Toward one of the signatures, she threw a dagger propelled with Kinetic energy, making it a far more lethal projectile aimed straight at the target's head from above. Toward the other, the weapon was herself. She enhanced her own right hand with as much Kinetic magic as she can and then pulled the hand back. Then, like a human-shaped cannonball, she performed a bone pulverizing palm strike at the target's head right at the moment of impact; the act both a powerful offense and also a way to break her own fall using her enhanced right hand.

And thus was concluded the first part of her counteroffensive.