Just as Arthur pushed himself back to his feet, Ed charged.
A storm of slashes, each one sharp enough to split steel, tore through the air toward him. Even with Ryan's domain distorting space, there were simply too many. The shimmering walls of illusion cracked, and some of the attacks reached Arthur. Sparks burst around him as he barely managed to deflect them, his breathing heavy, his arms shaking from the impact.
He was being pushed back, forced only to defend. Each strike from Ed's claws left shockwaves in the air, bending the ground beneath their feet. Arthur's domain weapons materialized one after another, thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, but none of them could withstand the ferocity of the his assault. Each sword shattered almost instantly under the pressure.
Ed grinned, his fangs glinting in the dim light. With a single, fluid motion, he swept his claw upward, shattering Arthur's fortieth sword completely. Before Arthur could summon another, both of Ed's claws were already descending, fast, heavy, and aimed for the kill.
Then came a sound.
Ding.
The echo of bells rolled through the battlefield like the voice of the heavens.
Arthur froze for half a heartbeat, then felt it, the surge. Power flooded through his body like a river of molten fire. Without summoning any weapon, he raised both hands and caught Ed's claws mid-strike, the impact sending a wave of wind outward. His feet dug deep into the dirt, but the claws stopped cold.
Ding.
Another ring, louder this time. His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin. His hair began to lose its golden hue, shifting into shining silver, while his eyes burned crimson. A force unlike anything before awakened inside him.
Ed growled, pushing harder, but the tide had turned. Arthur's muscles tensed, then he shoved forward.
The ground cracked. Ed slid back several meters, leaving deep marks where his feet had been. His expression twisted from rage to disbelief. "How the hell do you keep getting stronger!?"
Arthur exhaled slowly, his voice now deeper, resonating with something unearthly. "Looks like you were wrong," he said, his tone filled with restrained fury. "He's alive."
A sound like tearing metal filled the air as a new sword formed in his hand, this one darker than before, its golden light tainted by shadow. Threads of black mana coiled around its edge, pulsing with violent energy.
This time, Arthur charged.
He struck faster than Ed could react, his blade moving like a beam of light. Each slash carved deep lines through the air, raining sparks as Ed parried and twisted to dodge. Their movements blurred, sword against claw, gold and silver against dark fur and red aura.
Then Arthur's sword split in two, his domain bending to his will. The second blade appeared from shadow, crossing the first, and one of them cut deep across Ed's chest.
Ed stumbled back, eyes wide as blood dripped from the wound. He looked down, then smirked, breathing heavily. "Looks like you're almost an S rank too. But your power…" he tilted his head slightly, his grin widening, "…it's unstable, isn't it?"
Arthur's red eyes glowed brighter. "Don't worry," he said, voice trembling with rage and energy. "It's enough to end you."
He dashed forward again, twin blades striking in a blur.
From afar, Ryan watched, disbelief freezing him in place. The energy radiating from Arthur was different, colder, darker. It was as if divinity and corruption fought within him at once.
He tried to focus, to find an opening, when a shadow leapt from behind, a werewolf, its claws gleaming.
Ryan barely had time to turn before an arrow cut through the air. It hit the beast square in the side, throwing it off course and slamming it into the dirt.
Ryan turned toward the direction the arrow came from. There, Briva, her eyes narrowed, walking toward him through the haze. Her bow glowed faintly, and her pupils burned red.
"Briva?" Ryan called. "Why are you here?"
"I couldn't see Leo anywhere," she said, pulling another arrow from her quiver, her voice steady but her aura blazing. "And I saw that beast moving through the shadows. So I came to help."
"What about the others?"
"Arlasan has everything under control, and we have Alina there, stronger than ever." she said.
Ryan frowned, glancing between her and the battlefield. "What's going on with all of you?"
Briva lowered her bow slightly, her crimson gaze fixed on the chaos ahead. "It's our god's call," she said softly. "The Creator's call."
Ryan's breath caught. "The Creator…" he whispered, eyes wide. The air itself trembled with power. "Is this his call… or his wrath?"
…
Elna's body lay limp in Edgarth's arms, her blood pooling beneath them. He pressed a potion to her lips, pouring it carefully, but the liquid slid down her chin, evaporating before it could take effect. Her wound was too deep, dark and pulsing with residual mana from Lecia's strike.
He examined it closely, his expression calm but his eyes sharp with focus. Every potion he used, restoratives, regeneration tonics, even blood elixirs, failed instantly, their energy repelled by whatever power had carved through her.
Far from them, the air rippled. Lecia hovered in midair. Two vast bat-like wings unfurled from her back, each beat stirring the wind like a storm. Her legs dissolved into shadows that spiraled down to the ground, forming a dark tornado beneath her. The pressure of her mana made the air heavy, the ground beneath them cracking.
Luciana's fangs showed as she glared upward. "So she's finally getting serious," she said, voice low and bitter. Then she turned toward Edgarth. "How is she?"
"She's not healing," he replied evenly, though his brow furrowed.
"Why the hell not?"
Before he could answer, Lecia's voice carried through the air, clear and resonant, like a queen addressing her court. "Do you think a wound from an S rank can be mended so easily?"
Luciana's claws flexed, fury boiling behind her eyes. She wanted to fly up, to end that arrogance right then, but Elna's pale face held her in place.
Then—
Ding.
The sound of a bell echoed through the city, deep and clear, cutting through the suffocating tension.
Ding.
A second toll followed, softer but stronger somehow, and Elna's eyes snapped open.
Light and shadow erupted from her wound, twisting together like two living forces. Her blood reversed its flow, the torn flesh knitting itself with impossible speed. Within moments, she stood on her own, steady and unshaken. Her crimson eyes glowed, brighter than before, reflecting the faint light of the moon.
Luciana and Edgarth watched in stunned silence.
Then Elna lifted her gaze to the sky. Her voice was quiet, but every word carried a weight that made the air tremble. "He's is alive."
Luciana's heart pounded.
Elna looked down at her already healed wound. Her breathing was heavy, shallow at first, then steadying. Just a minute ago, before Lecia told them that Leo was dead, she had felt it. The moment his spirit had dimmed, a hollow pain had struck deep inside her chest. It wasn't just the bond between them; it was something else, primal, as if the very core of their connection was tearing apart.
And yet, in the middle of that pain, something else began to stir. It wasn't sorrow, at least, not entirely. It was rage. Raw, endless rage. A fury so vast that it didn't feel like her own anymore. It was as if the air itself trembled with her heartbeat, and her mana, once calm and precise, now pulsed like a storm trapped in her veins.
She lifted her head. Power hummed beneath her skin. She turned toward the vampire in front of her, her gaze sharp and unyielding.
She walked forward until she stood beside Luciana. Her voice was calm, but beneath the calmness there was fire. "Let's go."
Luciana nodded, her own aura flaring to match. A heartbeat later, they both leapt forward, shadows tearing open beneath their feet as they vanished from sight and reappeared mid-air.
Lecia's wings spread wide, two enormous, bat-like constructs dripping with black smoke. The air rippled as she sent tendrils of blood and shadow in every direction. They cut through the wind like whips made of razors, slicing the stone and cracking the ground wherever they struck.
Despite Lecia's overwhelming pressure, Elna moved through it like a dancer through water. Her body blurred between light and darkness, stepping through shadow after shadow, faster than even Luciana could track. Each motion was smooth, deliberate, and inhumanly fast.
Lecia's expression darkened. She flicked her wrist and a dozen tendrils snapped toward Elna at once. The air cracked from their speed. Elna twisted mid-air, dodging five of them easily, but the sixth came straight for her stomach.
Luciana's eyes widened. "Elna…!"
But Elna didn't even blink. The air around her shimmered as the tendril lunged for her stomach, then that part of her body rippled and turned black, her flesh and clothe dissolving into liquid shadow. The blood tendril didn't vanish or stop; it simply passed through her side, slicing through the hollow void that had replaced her midsection before bursting out the other end. The instant it cleared her body, her form knit itself back together, whole again as if nothing had ever happened.
Luciana froze for half a breath, her blue eyes widening in disbelief. "That's not shadow manipulation…" she murmured. "She became the shadow."
And she was right. This wasn't just control, it was transference, a complete unity between her being and the element she wielded. Elna wasn't commanding the shadows; she was the shadows. Her mana bled through every flicker of darkness around her, answering her instincts as naturally as breathing itself.
Lecia's eyes narrowed. A pulse of crimson mana spread from her body, and more tendrils burst from the ground and the walls around them. They came from every direction, above, behind, and both sides, each strike as fast and sharp as a spear.
Elna didn't dodge. Instead, her form reacted, arms, legs, shoulders, even half her face dissolving into shadow for the split seconds before impact. Each tendril that should have pierced her only passed through, continuing their course and striking the ruined ground behind her with wet, slicing sounds. Her body flickered between flesh and darkness, reforming fluidly each time, never losing balance, never hesitating.
Then the battlefield trembled.
The sky above began to shift. The thick layer of shadows that had covered the city started to tear apart, revealing a faint glow beyond them. The air grew lighter as streaks of deep crimson light spilled through the gaps, painting the shattered rooftops and ruined streets in red.
Slowly, the full moon emerged, massive, red, and alive with power. Its eerie radiance poured down upon the battlefield, casting long, sharp silhouettes over the broken city. Every drop of blood in the air caught the moonlight, shimmering like liquid fire.
The glow in Lecia's eyes deepened to an eerie scarlet. "Now we fight with our full strength," she said, her voice echoing like a chorus of whispers through the air. Her mana spiked, so dense that the air itself twisted around her.
But before she could unleash it, something stirred inside her chest.
Her expression shifted, first confusion, then shock.
Elna's voice came which seemed to echo from within her. "Moon has light… and light creates shadows."
Lecia's eyes widened. She looked down.
Elna was emerging out of her chest, her entire body phasing through as if Lecia herself was nothing but mist. Her hands held two daggers, each one wrapped in a faint red glow that shimmered like moonlight reflecting on still water.
Time seemed to stop.
Lecia tried to react, to summon her blood to defend, but she was too slow.
Elna's arms crossed in a blur, and both daggers sliced through her neck in a single, fluid motion. The cuts were so clean they didn't register for a heartbeat. Then blood burst outward, spraying into the air in a crimson arc that glimmered under the red moon.
Lecia's head, hanging by barely half her neck, tilted to the side as her lips parted in stunned disbelief.
Elna landed lightly on the ground, her daggers dripping with the same blood that had tried to drown her a moment before. Her shadow rippled beneath her feet, alive.
…
"The sound of the bells has already reached them." Leo's voice was calm, almost cold. As he spoke, his head turned back toward Lucius, crimson eyes locking onto the man floating before him.
Then, without hesitation, all of Leo's phantoms charged forward at once.
Lucius's expression barely changed. His right hand lifted, and blood surged around it, coiling like a serpent before hardening into the shape of a blade. When he swung, the air itself screamed.
The first phantom burst apart in a shower of blood mist. Then another. And another.
But these phantoms weren't like the ones Leo used before, they were forged from compressed blood, their forms were dense and heavy, each strike they landed against Lucius ringing like steel meeting steel. Even so, the S-rank vampire cut through them with practiced precision, his every movement elegant and merciless.
For several minutes the crimson storm raged, the entire space echoing with the clash of steel and the hiss of blood evaporating from the heat of their power. One by one, the phantoms fell, shattered, sliced, and scattered into nothingness.
When the last one dissolved into mist, Leo lifted his sword. All the spilled blood from his destroyed phantoms rippled across the cracked ground and rose into the air, drawn toward the blade. The weapon drank it in greedily until its edge glowed with a pulsating red light, beating slowly, rhythmically, like the pulse of a living heart.
The air between the two vampires grew tense, vibrating with mana. Then, at the same instant, they both moved, two bolts of lightning colliding in the center of the city.
Their clash was blinding. Each strike sent shockwaves through the ruined city, tearing apart the stone beneath their feet.
After a final exchange that split the air with a thunderous crack, Lucius leapt back, hovering effortlessly.
"To think," he said quietly, almost in disbelief, "that I'd have to use the same power I once unleashed against your teacher… just to fight you."
As he raised his arms, the air around him shimmered. Blood spiraled from his back and condensed into two vast wings, smooth, perfect, and gleaming under the crimson light. The moment they spread open, the pressure on the battlefield multiplied.
Even with all his power, Lucius's aura wasn't wild. It was focused, refined.
He raised his hand. "Let me show you what true power looks like."
And with that, Lucius summoned his domain.