Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 149: The Witch Beneath the Tower
In hand-to-hand fighting, numbers were an advantage no one could ignore.
But when ordinary men were facing someone who could close one hand around a man’s skull and lift him clean off the ground, someone who could kick without even drawing back his leg and still knock a man out of a braced stance and into the air, “numbers” did not mean much unless there were dozens of them. Preferably a hundred.
None of them carried Longswords. Daggers at most, clubs for the rest.
Lannor put the men with Daggers down first.
With their strength, and in the cramped space of the alley, the clubs striking his Plate Armor could not even make him sway. Only blows aimed at his head were worth a little attention.
His large hand had already swallowed the gang leader’s fist whole. A slight press of the wrist forced the man’s joints toward an angle they were never meant to reach. The leader dropped to his knees with a howl.
A whistle of air came from behind his head.
Lannor did not even move his eyes. His free hand swept back and caught the striking end of a club as if it had been handed to him.
He twisted his wrist. The club tore free from its owner’s palms, taking skin with it.
Then he flicked it upward.
The man behind him froze wide-eyed, both hands clamped over his groin, then slowly folded to his knees. A moment later he curled on the ground like a cooked prawn, twitching from the pain.
“Hey, Lannor, I heard eggs crack!”
Arya sucked in a breath and shouted from the alley mouth.
Without turning, Lannor scolded her.
“Little girls should know that some things are better left unsaid, even if they hear them.”
Then the Witcher’s cat eyes settled on the kneeling gang leader. He gave the man a faint, apologetic smile.
“Brother, look at the situation. I’ve got a little girl here, and I’d rather not make this too ugly. Bad for children. So do yourself a favor. You and I both know you’re not a hard man. If you were, you wouldn’t be a cutpurse in an alley. Tell me what I want, and we both save ourselves trouble.”
The kneeling man’s eyes were webbed red from the pain in his joints. Rage and panic twisted his face into something feral.
Before he could spit out a curse, Lannor hooked the man’s little finger free from the fist and bent it upward.
“Go fu ... Aaaagh!”
Crack.
The finger joint snapped cleanly.
A gang leader could be vicious all his life. How vicious could he become? Worse than a Nekker? Worse than a Drowner?
To Lannor, that sort of viciousness was less threatening than a fishbone in a bowl of soup.
“Huff!”
The man who had looked so stubborn a breath ago spat out the name in a rush.
The instant Lannor loosened the broken finger a fraction, he poured out words like a burst wineskin, terrified that another heartbeat of delay would cost him another digit.
“Ser Huff! Newly knighted by King Robert not long ago! He used to be Squire to the former Hand of the King! Now he’s come into a pile of money from gods know where. The boy’s mad over his knighthood. Wants everyone to see it. He’d pay heavy coin for that fine sword on your back!”
Lannor nodded lightly, as if to say the man had done well enough.
“A man drunk on honor and status. Not rare. But you said he collects odd things too. What sort of things? Why?”
“That started after the former Hand died. Dried Lizards said to have Spells on them, Dragon Bone charms, things like that. I don’t think he likes them. I think he wants them to ward off some Malediction. The former Hand’s death scared him witless.”
Dragon Bone caught Lannor’s attention. The rest was thin gruel.
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