The crimson light of my Blood Bow pulsed like a dying heart. It lit up the damp, suffocating stone of the cellar. I stood in the middle of all the carnage. My breath got stuck in my throat. My face wasn't the same as the girl who used to walk to school. It was a delinquent mask. My eyes burned with hunger and raw fury.
I looked at him. Dominik. He was a monster I'd met in this dark world. He was a career criminal. He killed the manors staff just because they were in his way. To him I was another target.
With smithering glare on Dominik, I used inspect.
Dominik Meyer
Skills: Invisibility, Brawl
Vitality: 3000
Strength: 6500
Defense: 5000
Agility: 6900
Mana: 10000
Then I inspected his skills.
Invisibility- become invisible and vanish into thin air.
Brawl- doubles the strength when in hand-to-hand combat.
"That psychopath… we're the same stats as mine."
"Don't doubt his appearance, Roxy. Dominik has invisibility and has a good strength."
"Yeah, I'll swear I'll kill him."
Dominik didn't flinch. He wiped blood from his cheek with a shrug. His face twisted into a sneer.
"Nightmare? Kid you're a girl playing dress-up with a curse you don't understand. Those maids were practicing. You are a paycheck."
He laughed. He mocked me. He thought I couldn't stand against him.
"In my world the weak don't get justice. They just get buried."
The Blood Bow groaned as I drew the string back. A bolt of blood arrow tore through the air. It was aimed at his heart.. The arrow hit only the stone wall. It shattered it into dust. Dominik had vanished.
"Too slow " his voice hissed. It seemed to come from everywhere.
I spun around. My heart was hammering. I didn't know where he was. He had activated an invisibility skill. He was a trickster. I scanned the mist and my heat signatures.. My vision showed nothing. There was empty air and the sound of blood dripping.
"Roxy, his invisibility skill was too advanced. I cannot see his heat signatures."
"Shit!"
My mask began to crack. I felt suffocating terror. I was being hunted by a killer.
"Where are you?" I screamed. The bow trembled in my hands.
"Right where I want to be. " a chilled whisper breathed into my ear.
The air shimmered. Dominik materialized. His hand moved fast. A hot flare of agony erupted in my chest. I gasped. A jagged rusted dagger was buried in my sternum.
Dominik didn't pull the blade out. He leaned in. His forehead pressed against mine. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
"How does it feel? To have all that power and still be nothing but a shivering little doll for me to break?"
He twisted the knife. The world began to grey.. I wasn't ready to give up.
Pain Manipulation. I forced my mana to surge toward the wound. The agonizing heat vanished. It was replaced by a numbness. I couldn't feel the blade. I couldn't feel my heartbeat.
My grip on the Blood Bow tightened. I willed the crimson engine to shift. It warped into a serrated blood-red sword. I swung it. The blade hissed through the air. It was aimed at Dominik's chest.. He dodged it.
"Pathetic, look at you. You're bleeding out from the inside." Dominik spat.
He stepped over a maid's body. His boots squelched in the pools.
"You should be ashamed. They looked at you. They thought their hero had arrived.. Instead they died."
"Shut... Up!" I roared. The numbness couldn't stop my rage.
I charged. My vision blurred. The internal bleeding dimmed my sight. I gripped the blood-sword with both hands. I swung it in a furious arc. Clang! Dominik caught my blade with his small rusted knife.
Before I could pull back his boot connected with my stomach. The force was cataclysmic. I was launched backward. My body tore through the stone wall. I tumbled through the wreckage. I finally skidded across the floor of the manor's grand dining room.
"Ugh… what was that, Plasma."
"No, no, no… Dominik's a huge threat, Roxy. He has a brawl skill."
"What was that, exactly?"
"When Dominik faces hand-to-hand combat, his strength doubles. Don't expect that his kick was more powerful than the chimera."
I tried to push myself up.. My arms gave out. My health was a sliver of red. I was a mess.
Dominik walked through the hole in the wall. He looked down at me. His face twisted into that mask of pure evil. He raised his knife high above my head.
"A clean kill for a failure " he sneered. He plunged the blade toward my skull.
"NOT... TODAY!"
With a burst of strength I threw my arms up. I caught his wrist inches from my face. The knife quivered. My muscles screamed as I fought him off.
My hand brushed against something heavy on the floor. It was a brick. My mind went blank. I grabbed the brick. I slammed it into Dominik's head.
CRACK. The sound of a stone meeting skull echoed through the room. Dominik staggered back. His predatory grin vanished. Blood began to pour down his face.
The metallic tang of blood filled my senses.. It wasn't mine this time. As Dominik staggered his composure shattered. I saw my opening.
Ignoring the agony in my chest I lunged forward. I tackled Dominik with my broken body. We slammed into the hardwood floor. I didn't reach for my sword. I reached for the monster inside.
"Let's see what you taste like, Dominik."
My fangs grew on Miera's body, it expanded and elongated. I buried them into Dominik's neck. The rush was electric. His blood tasted like copper and old sins.
As I drank, my energy was fully restored and the jagged hole in my chest began to knit itself together.
Suddenly, two icons pops out on my vision, each of them serves a different reminder.
[Drain Activated Extraction Completed consumed one liter of blood]
[DNA copied, you can now shapeshift to Dominik Meyer]
Upon receiving those messages, I didn't care about them. I'm worried about my life. I smashed the brick onto his head and drank some of his blood. Now I have fully recovered.
Dominik's screams weren't mocking anymore. They were high-pitched and raw. He clawed at my face.. I didn't let go. I was a parasite turning the table on its host.
"Get... OFF!" he shrieked.
His heavy boots found my stomach again. The impact was a thunderclap. He kicked me off. I went flying through the air. My body crashed through a mahogany dining table. Fine china shattered beneath me. Silver platters clattered across the floor.
The kick was five times stronger than any normal human. The brawl skill was a huge threat from me, my bones shattered completely, but the regeneration still remained and my bones repaired by itself.
I rolled onto the floor gasping for air. The pain was really bad like a fire in my stomach.. My special power to deal with pain kicked in and made it a little better. I pushed myself up through the stuff from the meal. My lips were stained red with his blood. My wounds were closed. I felt strong again.
Dominik stood a feet away holding his neck. He looked pale. His eyes were wide with angry fear.
"You... You animal!" he said.
His body started to shimmer. He was going back into the shadows using his power to become invisible.
"Coward!" I shouted.
I didn't have my bow ready. So I grabbed some plates that were nearby. With my strength I started throwing them like discs at the spot where his image was fading. The plates whistled through the air. Shattered against the walls and floor.
"Damn it, he got away."
"No Roxy, he didn't."
The world spun around as Dominik stopped retreating. Plasma's voice was loud and clear.
His invisibility didn't move away; it lunged forward. Before I could even see what was happening he appeared in front of me. His eyes were like pits of happiness.
The sharp edge of his knife flashed in an arc.
"Suprise ya bitch!"
I didn't even hear the sound. I only felt the scary heat as the blade cut my throat. I stumbled back with my hands flying to my neck trying to hold my life.. The blood pulsed through my fingers, hot and relentless. I tried to scream. Only a wet gurgling sound came out.
"Still struggling?" Dominik's voice was like a saw.
He didn't give me a second to breathe. His heavy boot slammed into my stomach with the force of a battering ram. I was launched backward, my body tearing through the dining room wall and into the kitchen. The impact was a roar of wood and plaster.
"Hghhuh… hugghuh" I said while gasping for air.
"What? Can't even speak. Ya slut!"
Dust and flour filled the air as I lay there clutching my throat. My vision was swimming in red. My Pain Manipulation was the thing keeping me from passing out.. It couldn't fix the hole in my windpipe.
Dominik's footsteps echoed on the tile. Slow, deliberate and heavy.
"Look at the difference between us, girl. I am a predator. You're a butcher who forgot her place. You really thought that little 'drain' trick made us equals? You're a flea biting a wolf." he mocked.
I huddled in the corner, my throat whistling with every breath. I needed a plan. I need a plan to stop this madness, suddenly. Plasma arrived on time.
"Roxy, did you see those sacks of flour on that hole."
"Hyugah… yes Plasma."
"Shoot it to counter Dominik's invisibility spell."
My eyes darted through the settling dust landing on a sack of flour near the hole in the wall.
Dominik stepped into the kitchen, his silhouette flickering as he activated his invisibility again. He thought he was a ghost. He thought he was untouchable.
I forced myself up gripping my Blood Bow with shaking hands. I didn't aim at him. I aimed at the floor at the powder scattered everywhere. I shot three arrows in succession. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The explosions of my blood arrow sent the flour erupting into a blinding white cloud.
Dominik reacted instantly, his form moving through the mist. But he was no longer a ghost. The flour clung to his clothes and skin outlining his every movement in a ghostly silhouette. He was a beacon in the middle of the kitchen.
I seized the opening. I willed the bow to shift the mana hardening into a serrated blood-sword. With a blood-choked roar I charged. I swung with everything I had aiming to cleave the shape in half.
Clang!
Even blinded and covered in dust Dominik was a monster. He parried the blade with his knife, the metal shrieking under the pressure. His right hand held my sword at bay. His left hand was free.
Before I could pull back his fist collided with the side of my head.
"Take this your bitch!"
Dominik punch me in a head, the brawl skill that he posses was no other human could adapt .It was like being hit by a falling mountain. The world didn't just go dark. It shattered. My grip on the sword.
My knees hit the cold tiles. The last thing I heard was Dominik's cold, mocking laughter as the darkness finally rushed in pulling me down into unconsciousness.
The world vanished. The cold tiles of the kitchen floor were the thing I felt before my mind splintered under the force of Dominik's blow.
When I woke up it wasn't lit. It was a jagged pain at the back of my skull. I felt a jerk, my head snapping backward as Dominik gripped my ponytail. He hauled me up my knees dragging across the porcelain and flour-dusted floor. I couldn't even lift my arms; they hung like weights at my sides.
"Wake up flea " Dominik hissed, his voice grating against my ear.
As I struggled to pull air into my throat something shifted deep within me. The mana that sustained my form. The fangs, the sharpened features, the delinquent mask of Miera. It was flickering. My mana pool was dry and I lost a lot of blood.
With an agonizing shiver of magic the shapeshifting ability collapsed. My skin softened the fangs retracted into aching gums and my hair lost its blood-stained edge. In his grip I was no longer the Miera.
[DNA trace depleted. Shapeshift deactivated.]
I slowly turned to me, Roxy. Dominik knew exactly my face, the features, the mutilated limb, everything.
Dominik froze. He yanked my head further forcing me to look up at him. His eyes, still rimmed with the flour I'd thrown, widened in surprise. He scanned my face. The face of the girl who had once bought him a card the face of the "doll" he thought he had discarded in another life.
A slow twisted grin spread across his face more terrifying than any monster I had fought.
"Well well..." he chuckled, a vibrating sound of pure malice. "So this is the 'nightmare' you promised? Beneath all that stolen blood and mana you're still just that wide-eyed brat from the crosswalk. All that power. It wasn't even enough to change who you really are: a loser destined to die in the dirt."
He let out a mocking bark of laughter, his hand tightening so hard on my hair that I felt my scalp begin to tear.
"Your power wasn't good enough, Roxy. You weren't good enough."
He let go of my hair letting my head loll forward and gripped his knife with a reverse hold. The blade caught the light of the kitchen reflecting the white flour that coated his skin like a funeral shroud. He pressed the edge against my exposed trembling throat.
"At last, I will finally avenge Lord Edrie" he whispered.
He raised the knife high, his muscles tensing for the lethal plunge. I closed my eyes waiting for the cold steel to end the masquerade forever.
"Hey, Hey, Hey…"
The sound of rhythmic footsteps echoed from the dining hall cutting through the silence of the kitchen. Dominik stopped, his blade hovering inches from my skin.
A tall figure stood silhouetted in the hole in the wall framed by the wreckage of the dining room. The dust swirled around him. He stood perfectly still, his presence cold enough to freeze the very blood on the floor.
"White..." I wheezed, the name a spark, in the darkness of my mind.
Dominik turned his head, his expression curdling into a snarl of uncertainty as the newcomer watched us from the shadows leaving the fate of the butcher and the criminal hanging by a single blood-red thread.