On the other side of the city, beneath the castle and the storm-dark sky, a different kind of confrontation had begun.
Inside the enormous sealed stairwell, two red blurs collided and separated at speeds that left afterimages on the air. For the first time in any fight Raphael had been in, he was not holding his own on speed,he was being dominated.
A genuine Lv5 vampire with Blood Frenzy active reached a physical capability of Lv8, a ceiling that seemed to represent the limit of what the ability could produce, and even at that ceiling it was enough to completely suppress a Lv6 Blood Frenzy from Raphael's side.
Crash.
Another high-speed collision. Blitz moved through the space like his name, a single coherent lightning strike, there and gone, materializing at Raphael's back before the perception could register where he'd been, and the claws opened his abdomen in a clean stroke.
"Damn it—!"
