Another group tried to gang up—four soldiers circling Ivan near a burning cart, its wheels charred and smoking.
They lunged together, swords and axes swinging, but Ivan moved with a sudden burst of speed, his crimson eyes leaving a streak of mana in his wake, too fast to track. He ducked a sword, grabbed the attacker's arm, and snapped it backward, bone popping as he yanked the man into a burning pile of crates, flames licking up his screaming body.
Ivan's daggers spun—a series of rapid slashes, one cutting a second soldier's thigh, blood spurting onto the scorched grass, another slicing through his neck as he fell, head rolling into a ditch filled with smoldering planks.
The third soldier's axe missed; Ivan sidestepped, drove a dagger through his eye, and kicked him into the cart's flames, the body sizzling as it hit.
