The door didn’t explode at Michael’s kick, but it did splinter where his foot landed, sending out a spray of wooden debris into the room. The king’s guards were professional, and reacted quickly, attempting to move in front of their ruler, but they made it less than two steps as they began to hack and cough before Pyotr threw his fireball into the room. It flew in a perfect arc and landed right in the center of the largest concentration of guards, incinerating a number of them instantly and catching even more on fire. Their yells of surprise turning to screams of agony.Before the fireball had even landed, Bayle had disarmed the knight nearest to him, taking his sword and leaping back toward a group of five other guards that immediately laid into their erstwhile allies as the distraction hit.Michael ran straight for the King, whose back was still turned, hoping to take advantage of the chaos to end things quickly. He stabbed Rend forward at the man’s back, obscured by his shimmering cloak, but he spun around and raised his shield, managing to catch Rend in its center. His titled sword then whipped forward, slamming against a dozen small barriers Michael had formed around his vital points and shattering them before being stopped at his gorget.Michael slammed his shield forward with enough strength that it would’ve thrown an average soldier across the room, but the king was merely pushed back two steps, allowing him to regroup. “Assassins!” he hissed as he launched himself at Michael, his sword blurring as he sent more than a dozen strikes at him.Michael raised his shield, instinctively deflecting the blows rather than blocking them outright, and reinforcing his defences with still more barriers. In spite of his usually ironclad defense, several of the king's strikes made it through to his armor, but none pierced it. He let out a burst of holy light and fire in the King’s direction. It washed over his armor without damaging him, (...)