The taste of copper filled my mouth as my internal injuries knitted together. My lifesteal was working overtime, burning through my mana reserves just to keep me standing. I spat out a mouthful of blood and looked Mochi in the eye, my gaze hardening.
"Focus on the healer, I'll handle Dominik."
I didn't wait for an objection. I surged forward, my boots skidding on the blood-slicked stone. Dominik stood his ground, a bored smirk playing on his lips as he coiled his arm for a devastating jab.
"Still coming for more? You're persistent, I'll give you that,"
He mocked, his gold-plated fist whistling through the air. I met the blow head-on, conjuring a Blood Sword at the very last microsecond. The blade shattered instantly upon contact, but it served its purpose, it absorbed the kinetic shock and redirected the force of his punch upward. In the same heartbeat, I dropped into a low slide, passing directly between his legs.
Dominik's eyes widened as his fist hit nothing but air.
"What… ?"
He began to shimmer, his silhouette fading as he reached for his Invisibility. He wasn't going to let me get behind him. But I was faster. I lunged from the ground, propelling myself onto his broad back like a starving predator. My fingers dug into the fine silk of his suit, and I bared my fangs, the primal instinct of the vampire taking complete control.
"You can't escape me," I hissed into his ear.
I sunk my fangs deep into the junction of his neck and shoulder. The rush was instantaneous, the hot, mana-rich blood of a high-tier warrior flooded my system. I drained. I felt his immense strength beginning to falter as I siphoned the very life force that powered his arrogance.
[Drain Activated Extraction Completed consumed two liters of blood]
Dominik let out a harrowing scream, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that echoed through the manor.
"You flea! Using that same disgusting trick again!"
Even as his knees buckled, his rage remained. With a surge of desperate, dying strength, he reached back and grabbed me by the throat. His grip was like a vice, crushing my windpipe and cutting off my breath. He wrenched me off his back and held me at arm's length, his face pale and contorted with hate.
"You think you've won because you got a taste? You're still just a maid in a borrowed dress."
With a guttural roar, he swung his arm with the force of a catapult. I didn't have time to manifest a shield or a blade. I felt the glass of the grand fourth-story window shatter against my back, and then there was nothing beneath me but the cold, midnight air of Tata.
"Roxy! No…"
I was falling again, the wind whipping past me as the lights of the manor blurred into streaks of gold and orange.
As I plummeted toward the jagged stone courtyard below, I looked up. Dominik stood at the broken window, a dark silhouette against the moonlight, clutching his neck. I clutched the hilt of my shattered sword, my eyes glowing a glare.
The fourth floor had become a gruesome cycle of divine magic and desperate steel. Mochi was a whirlwind of silver, his Agile Eyes pinpointing every vital junction in Lara's anatomy. He moved with surgical precision, his longsword severing tendons and muscle with every pass, but it didn't matter.
Lara didn't even bother to defend herself. As soon as a limb was parted or a throat was slit, the emerald glow of her Divine Regeneration flared. Muscle fibers knit together like weaving silk, bone fused in a spray of sparks. She stood in the center of Mochi's storm, a serene, terrifying doll that refused to break.
"Is this the limit of a Luminous Knight? You're just carving a statue that heals faster than you can strike. You're exhausting yourself, little cat, while I haven't even broken a sweat."
Lara began growing her arm, before Mochi could retort, a shadow loomed at the edge of his vision. Dominik, clutching his neck where I had bitten him, stood by the shattered window. His face was pale from the blood loss, but his eyes were burning with a manic, vengeful fire.
"Enough of this theater!" Dominik roared.
He didn't wait for his strength to return naturally. He stepped toward Lara, and the healer instantly redirected her flow of power. The blood I had drained seemed to manifest out of the air itself, rushing back into Dominik's veins as his skin regained its healthy, arrogant glow.
"One pest is at the bottom of the courtyard. Now, I'll take the other one's head!"
Dominik charged. He was a freight train of gold and hate. He launched a series of punches that carried enough force to shatter stone pillars.
Mochi's feline instincts saved him. He twisted and leapt, his body a blur of gold and silver as he dodged the shockwaves of Dominik's fists. But he was trapped in a pincer movement. Every time he tried to counter-attack Dominik, Lara's light would wash over the nobleman, erasing the damage instantly.
Mochi was fighting two people who simply refused to stay wounded.
The sounds of the battle, the boom of the brass knuckles and the shriek of Mochi's blade, echoed out the broken window.
I fell through the manor's courtyard.
The world rushed upward in a blur of wind and shattered glass. I hit the stone pavers of the courtyard with a sickening, wet thud. The impact was absolute. My skull cracked, my spine splintered into a dozen pieces, and my limbs twisted into angles that no human body should ever endure.
For a few seconds, there was only darkness.
But the blood I had stolen from Dominik was a curse of vitality. The high-density mana within his cells ignited inside my own veins. I could feel my bone fragments grinding against each other as they were forced back into alignment. My spine fused, my skull knit together, and the internal bleeding was cauterized by the sheer heat of the stolen energy.
"Look at that, the clumsy maid finally took the quick way down."
I opened my eyes, the world swimming in a hazy red. Standing over me were the same two bandits from the hallway, this , without a doubt, the ones who had mocked me when I was Clara. They drew their jagged blades, their faces twisted in cruel amusement as they prepared to finish what the fall had started.
"You're a tough one, I'll give you that, but let's see how well you heal without a head."
The stolen blood in my heart surged. I felt overcharged. My mana pool, which had been a dry well, was now a roiling sea of dark crimson.
I didn't scramble away. I exploded upward.
My hand found the hilt of my shattered sword, and with a roar of channeled mana, I swung it in a violent, low arc. The hummed with the kinetic power of Dominik's stolen life force.
"I'm done being a maid," I hissed,
The bandit's laughter died in his throat as the heavy, broken edge of my blade met his armor. The impact didn't just draw blood, it sent a shockwave through his chest that threw him back against the stone wall.
I stood tall in the center of the courtyard, the moonlight reflecting off my blonde hair, which was now matted with dust and gore. My eyes glowed a feral red, and the air around me vibrated with a half-restored mana aura.
I looked up at the fourth-story window where the battle was still raging. I could hear the clash of Mochi's steel and the boom of Dominik's fists.
"One more time, but this time, I'm bringing the whole house down."
The static in my earpiece cleared as Harold's voice broke through the chaos, sounding like the sweetest music I'd heard all night.
"Mochi, Roxy… good news. The distraction worked too well. The guards at the side gate have abandoned their posts to assist with the invasion at the front. There are no guards in sight. I suggest both of you retreat while the hole is open!"
I didn't need to be told twice. Above me, I saw a golden flash, Mochi. He vaulted through the shattered fourth-story window, his silver-and-gold silhouette a blurred streak against the moon as he descended the exterior of the manor with feline agility.
"Good idea, Harold, Retreating now. Roxy, get to the rendezvous point!" Mochi's voice panted through the link.
I watched him hit the ground and vanish into the treeline, but I wasn't clear yet. I was still in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by stone and rising voices. Dominik would be down here in seconds, and without Mochi to distract him, I was a dead woman walking.
I pivoted, sprinting toward the side gate. I burst back into the service hallways, my boots thundering on the tiles. Several bandits rounded a corner, their eyes wide as they saw the Head Housekeeper sprinting toward them covered in blood and dust.
"Stop her!" one yelled, but they were slow, nothing like the monster on the fourth floor.
I didn't have time to stop and feed. I didn't have time to be the hero. I needed to be the ghost. As I ran, I collapsed my blood sword, the liquid twisting and snapping into the shape of my Blood Bow. Without breaking my stride, I fired a volley over my shoulder.
Thrum-thrum-thrum!
The arrows hissed through the air, finding the gaps in their armor and knocking the front line back. I didn't stay to check the damage. I reached the side gate, the lever I had fought so hard to pull was still down, the heavy iron bars raised just enough for me to slide through.
I dove under the gate, the jagged stone scraping my back, and rolled out into the cool, damp grass of the outer perimeter.
I didn't look back at the manor. I didn't look back at the shadow of Dominik standing at the window. I sprinted into the darkness of the woods, my heart racing as the Elodie form began to flicker
The mission was a failure in some ways, but as I saw Mochi waiting in the shadows ahead, I knew one thing for certain, the Bronze Coin had seen the hero of Town Allure, and they would never sleep soundly again.