I had been so focused on taking down Glonek himself that I had failed realize that Tural was already here. And unlike Escinca, who seemed to be strong enough to resist Glonek’s control, Tural obviously wasn’t.

Rolling after the collision, I managed to somehow prevent the mindless Scarthrall from biting my face off, my forearm pushing back against his neck. “Snap out of it, Tural!”

The only thing he snapped were his fangs trying to rip the tip of my nose off. His eyes were practically vacant, staring at something that wasn’t even present. But his face… his face was the rictus of a beast, skin twisted, brows furrowed way too heavily, death in every breath.

I managed to kick him back. Mana Injection fired, and I was already channelling Infusion. With a snarl, Tural tried to rise, but found that his shirt was weighing down way too much.

There. He was dealt with for the time being. Now I just needed to—

I had turned to face Glonek, but the vampire had already reached my location, his arm a blur as it did swipe at me this time. His blow hit my mace, which I had managed to bring up just barely in time. I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer power behind the strike. My feet left the ground as I went flying backwards.

At least I was able to recover, biting through the pain and rolling backwards until I was on my feet again.

Glonek, unfortunately, was relentless. I hadn’t even fully righted from his last blow before he was almost flying at me, his coat flaring like a cape. “Die!”

I had tried raising my mace to ward off the blow once again, and it kind of worked. But the real reason I didn’t fall back as hard this time was because, just as Glonek’s blow struck, his whole hand burst into golden flames. I was sent staggering back, barely able to maintain my footing.

Glonek scoffed. “Such a pesky Oath.” He turned his fanged grin at me. “Would you be so kind as to stay still and allow me to bite your neck?”

I cricked my neck in response. “Fuck off and die.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Glonek’s hands moved almost too quickly for me to follow. His unharmed hand ripped off his burning one, which fell away and disintegrated into ashes. Of course, his stump bled profusely, but the blood didn’t drip away. Instead, it reformed and coalesced around the spot it had struck and soon formed a new, deep-red appendage.

One that turned into a real hand, complete with skin and sharp nails, a heartbeat later.

“Let’s try that again, shall we?” he said.

He rushed me again. The height of madness, to try the same trick over and over. I wasn’t complaining, though.

Glonek had attacked a little too fast to get my Gravity going earlier. But now, I had all my threads out and pulsing, ready to be fired. Infusion worked overtime as I turned heavier and heavier in just a breath.

The vampire hit me hard. His nails dug into my flesh, skin and blood and meat lacerating and spraying out, the impact fracturing my ribs. Gravity hadn’t raised my defences. That was still the base I had with Vitality, which wasn’t enough against a high-Silver like Glonek. But the difference from before was that I didn’t move. Despite the direct pummel, I stood my ground.

And countered.

My mace rose with all the Power I could muster, striking Glonek hard in the chest. It was strong enough to send the vampire stumbling back a couple of steps, aside from also leaving a massive dent in his torso.

But even as the impact made him lean backwards, Glonek was twisting his leg around in a roundhouse kick.

I just got my arm raised up in time. The weight of it made sure my forearm didn’t budge, but the powerful impact had me nearly screaming. I could feel my flesh turning into pulp at the blow, could feel the bones cracking and fracturing. It hit so hard, the shock of the agony had me dropping my mace.

But then Glonek’s eyes widened as he was forced to keep leaning. Gravity had weighed his shirt down from where Mana Injection had sent new threads into it.

I caught the mace in my left hand and yelled out as I summoned all my strength in another upward blow, weighting the hammering head just before impact.

Half of Glonek’s face burst apart. Was his Vitality that low, or was a mace blow to the skull just not something any sort of Vitality would really protect against?

Teeth went flying, lips burst, cheeks collapsed, and I was sure I saw one of his eyes pop into a burst of glassy fluid as well before he really was staggering backwards, leaving a trial of drippings on the floor. Staining the ground of the temple. That just made angrier.

I wasn’t about to give him a single moment to recover. With a scream, I ignored the riot of pain in my right forearm and rushed at his back, mace raised high.

He was fast. Not just at reacting but at recovering too. I caught the briefest glimpse of a mask of blood as Glonek whirled around faster than I could have predicted. He caught my arm in something like a judo flip and then sent me flying overhead.

What in the absolute fuck? Wasn’t this guy supposed to be some sort of accountant?

I shouted as the world twirled around me, my mace dropping out of my grip at the sudden change in momentum. The wall. I was approaching it way too quickly. Before every bone in my body shattered upon the colliding with the bricks, I managed to send out the livid threads within me to create a field of repulsive violet force with Field Manipulation and Siphon.

Then I weighed myself down with Infusion powering the threads still inside, dropping quickly. Just in time, because Glonek had picked up my mace and thrown it right at me.

With me dropping away, though, the mace got hit my field of repulsive force and slowed down as well, arcing down towards my location. I was about to thank the vampire for returning my weapon to me in person, but I was stopped from doing so when he rushed at me with blinding speed.

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He was going to reach me long before my mace did. His arm blurred forward, blood bursting around it to create larger, clawed limb. I only just managed to raise my own weight even higher before the red arm of blood slammed into me.

The pain of the impact was bad, but something I could deal with, even if the force powering it had made me take several steps back.

What I screamed at, though, was the blood glowing for a fraction of a second before bursting into crimson fire.

Glonek’s blood-arm was so large, my shoulder and half my chest were aflame, burning away, burning inside somehow, like my flesh and blood were being roasted from within.

All of which happened in the split seconds my mace was still airborne.

I bit down on the pain and raised my hand, palm facing outwards as a small circle of Gravity materialized with Field Manipulation. At the same time, I found I could send my mana treads into the arm constructed of blood, so I did just that. Maybe because it wasn’t really a part of the vampire’s body.

No time to think as my counters landed at once. The little circle of Gravity on my hand had drawn in the mace just enough for it to land on Glonek’s head. My aim was far from perfect, but it was enough to hurt. Enough to stagger and distract.

I pushed as many threads, as much of Infusion, as I could into the blood-arm. Then I kicked him back hard as his own limb dragged him down.

Glonek ripped himself out of the arm of hardened blood, and I caught his own hand burning away with more golden fire. Not just one, but both this time, the flames travelling up his arm.

I bit down on my roasting agony and tried to press my advantage. This was nothing. Gutran had hit me harder and I had fought through that too. I could take this

.

Picking up my mace, I rushed forward, trying to channel my Vitality Augmentation this time. I had mana threads I didn’t need lying around. The ones in the blood-arm, specifically. Which meant I had mana to spare for Mana Heal to—

Mana Heal fired. Or, I felt like it did, because the burning in and on my chest and shoulders lessened a lot. Enough to let me focus on taking the bastard down for good.

Glonek’s hands might have been incapacitated, but his face and teeth were completely fine. He leaped away before I could reach him. I cursed his undoubtedly greater Agility. It prevented me from taking advantage of the burning condition of his limbs, especially since he proceeded to rip off both hands with his teeth so he could grow new ones.

I still felt like I could get close enough to exploit his handless state, reach him before his limbs reformed fully. But Glonek’s blood never shaped itself into real hands.

Instead, he flung it all at me in a huge wave. A wave that caught on crimson fire.

Determined not to experience the same kind of pain again, I jumped straight up, my weight reducing thanks to Siphon. The wave of burning blood passed underneath me. Though, it also set the ground ablaze, ruddy light now lighting up the whole dark hall.

I immediately used Infusion to reverse the effect of Gravity and fall straight back down. The damn vampire had thrown himself straight at me, thinking he was going to take me by surprise. Not on my watch.

Trying to prevent my body from crashing into the ground with more Siphon just before landing did strange things to my guts. I felt like barfing but managed to hold it in for the time being. Still, I did scream though. I hadn’t been able to prevent myself from landing in the lake of burning blood, and I could feel those strange flames eating away at my legs outside and inside.

I got moving the very second I touched down. Glonek’s collision with the ceiling had shattered it, enormous chunks of it raining down around my location. I was just glad Escinca wasn’t anywhere close.

My head glanced at the Elder as I burned Power through my legs to evade while also relying on my Agility to move as fast as I could too. He was still kneeling farther off, his arms upraised, golden light spilling off his whole body. I didn’t know how long his Ritual was going to take, but I couldn’t rely on it.

I needed to kill Glonek. Somehow.

The ground was shaking terribly as the chunks of the ceiling landed. But they weren’t the worst I had to deal with. The back of my neck itched, and I looked back just in time to see the vampire shooting at me again.

I rolled away, getting back upright as fast as I could. My arms burned, my legs threatening to cramp and seize. Every breath was a gust in my lungs, every muscle in my body burning like the crimson flames were chewing on them. But I couldn’t back down. I couldn’t stop until my enemy was dead.

With a yell, I swung. Glonek just dodged back.

“You know,” the vampire said, evading another swing from me. “Trying to fight you is rather annoying when your silly little Oath keeps holding me back.”

“Then. Just. Die.”

I stopped after the fifth or sixth missed swing. This guy was toying with me. I focused for a second, thought for a moment. Then attacked again.

He swerved around my swings with far too much ease, even when I tried a feint. But I smiled. All the empowered blows I had driven, successful or not, had still created threads of mana floating around me. It was those that I drove straight at the uppity asshole vampire’s shirt.

Glonek’s fanged grin never faltered. Just as the threads dove into him, blood appeared almost spontaneously. I was already turning the threads heavy, Infusion hueing them a deep purple. But all they caught was the blood.

A heavyweight coat of hardened crimson simply sloughed off Glonek as his arm shot in with unerring accuracy, taking advantage of my surprise.

I could hardly breathe. His hand had clasped around my neck, lifting me up like I weighed nothing at all, even after I used Infusion to raise my weight. My other arm brought down my mace, but that got caught too. Shit.

Shit.

“I don’t need to fight you, worthless little human,” Glonek said. His eyes blazed with malicious triumph. “I just needed to catch you. And now, I can just draw you in gently…”

His workaround was working. Even as he held me in his implacable grip, even as he pulled me in closer, no golden flames appeared.

I was well and truly fucked.

Not that my body had given up. My legs were kicking out, but it was like hitting a fridge. My free hand had come up to claw at the vampire’s fingers around my neck. I was cursing up a storm in my mind. What the hell had all that training been for if my efforts had next to no effect?

Sacrifice.

If my blows had no effect, then I could just Sacrifice them.

“I… won’t…” I choked out.

[ Sacrifice

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Instance of Impact. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Effect of next impact is raised by 3x ]

Just before my every strike landed, I channelled Sacrifice, burning away the mana threads around me with a flash of white. I was too busy focusing on my goal to be properly thankful Sacrifice was focusing on the impacts like they were casts of my Aspects and not momentum of motion.

The weird change in hits made the vampire paused. His mouth was less than a foot from my neck, but he was looking at me with obvious suspicion.

Then he jerked me at him like he was done playing games. Well, too fucking late.

I didn’t Sacrifice the next blow, which was a hammering hit from my fist. It landed right on his skull, and once more, half the vampire head just exploded in a shower of gore. For a brief second, I even got a look at Glonek’s brain. Surprisingly humanlike, I realized, a second before my stomach churned.

But that blow was enough. His grip around my neck slackened and I kicked myself free, dragging in heavy breaths.

Glonek was forced into a staggering retreat once more, but he was already recovering. Even his skull injury was fixing itself. I needed space. I needed a little room, as now I knew what I needed to kill him.

That was when I spotted the huge chunks of the ceiling, lying in the pool of burning blood.

I gusted in another breath, found myself grinning, before spreading my arms wide with my palms facing the closest giant broken block of the shattered ceiling. Then I channelled Field Manipulation into both hands, Infusion driving up the power of the fields’ attraction higher and higher with every second.

A blink later, the giant chunks began moving, rushing straight at the vampire.