The silence of the crater was shattered by the war cries of the people. A dozen demi-humans, led by a towering wolf-beastkin whose eyes were bright with the hope Mochi had given them, leaped over the rubble. They saw Dominik standing over my broken form and charged with a desperate, collective fury.
"FOR TATA! FOR THE CHILDREN!"
The wolf-beastkin roared, he was like a old man at this point, willing to fight, his pitchfork leveled at the space where Dominik's golden mana flickered.
"No! Get back! He's not a man, he's a…"
I was too late.
Dominik didn't even fully de-cloak. A shimmer of gold was the only warning before his fist connected with the beastkin's chest. The sound wasn't a thud, it was the sickening crack of a structural failure. The sheer kinetic force didn't just stop the charge, it punched a jagged, hollow cavity straight through the warrior's torso.
The wolf-beastkin didn't even have time to gasp. His body was launched backward like a projectile, slamming into the comrades following behind him with the force of a falling star. Bones snapped and bodies were tossed aside like ragdolls as the momentum plowed through their ranks.
The revolutionary fervor that had carried them through the gates evaporated in an instant. The sight of their strongest warrior being erased with a single, casual strike broke them.
"Run! He's a demon! We can't kill a devil in disguise!"
The crowd began to scramble, tripping over one another as they retreated toward the shattered manor walls. The king of the slums had given them a spark, but Dominik was the cold, suffocating vacuum that extinguished it.
Dominik finally flickered back into full view, standing on the edge of my crater. He wasn't even winded. He looked down at the blood on his knuckles with an expression of mild annoyance, as if he'd just stepped in a puddle.
"Do you see now, Roxy? Hope is a disease. It makes people forget their place in the dirt. I broke the heart of your little rebellion."
I pushed myself up with my one remaining hand, the metal shards of my prosthetic digging into my shoulder. I could see Mochi's unconscious form slumped against a distant pillar, and the retreating shadows of the people I had promised to protect.
I was alone in the pit with a monster.
"The heart isn't broken yet,"
I whispered, coughing up a mouthful of copper-tasting grit. I plunged my hand into the blood-soaked soil of the crater, drawing every ounce of spilled mana from the fallen warriors into my sword.
"It's just getting colder."
The courtyard was a theater of carnage and flickering gold. Dominik stood as a god of iron and ego, but a shadow flickered behind him. Mochi, bloodied and gasping, had forced himself to his feet. His Agile Eyes burned like twin dying stars.
With a roar that tore through his throat, Mochi lunged. His longsword carved a deep, jagged canyon across Dominik's back. For a second, the spine was visible, then, the emerald glow of Lara's Divine Regeneration surged from the manor windows. The flesh knit together with a sickening, wet hiss, leaving Dominik's skin as smooth as polished marble.
"You are fighting the inevitable, stray,"
Dominik mocked, spinning with a force that shattered the air. He launched a punch aimed directly at Mochi's solar plexus… a strike designed to liquefy organs and exit through the spine.
CLANG.
Mochi caught the fist on the flat of his blade, the impact sending a shockwave that cracked the stones beneath him. Gritting his teeth against the pressure, Mochi reached into his belt and slammed a heavy, obsidian-edged dagger straight through Dominik's boot and deep into the bedrock.
"I've got you pinned, you bastard! Roxy! Unleash your fangs, NOW!"
I didn't wait for a second invitation. I exploded out of the crater, my one remaining hand clawing at the air as I closed the distance in a blurred streak of black and red. I didn't use a sword. I used the monster inside me.
I slammed into Dominik's chest, my jaw unhinging as I buried my fangs into the side of his neck.
"Ahhh… all the time, you drink my blood you flea!"
The taste was overwhelming, thick, golden, and saturated with more mana than I had ever encountered. Because of Lara's constant regeneration, his heart was pumping a literal infinite supply of life force. It was a fountain of power. I drank until my veins felt like they were filled with liquid fire, my broken skull fully mending in seconds, my senses sharpening to a terrifying degree.
"Get... off... ME!"
He reached out to crush my skull with his massive hand, but Mochi moved like a flash of lightning. His longsword whistled, severing Dominik's arm at the elbow before the fingers could touch me. The limb fell to the grass, only to begin regrowing instantly from the stump.
But that split second was all Dominik needed. His half-formed new hand balled into a fist and hammered into the side of my head with the weight of a falling building.
I was ripped away from his throat, my teeth tearing through his flesh as I flew backward. I hit the stone wall of the manor, the impact leaving a spiderweb of cracks in the masonry.
The feast I drank lasted ten seconds, ten seconds to fully heal and restore some of my mana. There, an icon appeared.
[Drain Activated Extraction Completed consumed 15 liters of blood]
In a full ten seconds, I drank 15 liters of his blood, the fangs were improved, but his blood keeps regenerating by Lara and he was able to recover quickly.
I slumped to the ground, blood dripping from my mouth, but it wasn't my blood. It was his. And for the first time tonight, Dominik looked pale. I had drained enough mana to dim his golden aura, and the power now coursing through me was screaming for release.
"He's not infinite, Mochi. He's just a battery. And I'm going to short-circuit him."
The world went cold and silent as the golden mana of Dominik's aura flared with a blinding intensity.
Dominik grunted, wrenching Mochi's obsidian dagger from his own foot with a violent pull, the flesh knitting together instantly in a disgusting display of emerald light. When Mochi surged forward to strike from behind, he was met with a terrifyingly fast response. Dominik didn't even turn around; he parried the longsword with the stolen dagger in his right hand and, in the same motion, drove his left fist into Mochi's waist.
"Mochi… No!"
The sound of shattering bone was audible over the roar of the fire. Mochi was launched like a cannonball, his body skipping across the cobblestones until he crashed into the center of the Merchant District's stone fountain. The water turned a dark, murky red.
"Roxy...I... I can't move. The people... the demi-humans are pulling me away. They're saving me... but I'm leaving you... I'm sorry. Roxy, I'm so sorry... please... forgive me..." Mochi said via earpiece
The signal went dead.
Fueled by a mixture of Dominik's stolen blood and raw, desperate fury, I forced myself up. I raised my Blood Sword, the blade trembling in my one remaining hand as I lunged for his back.
"Enough games, flea," Dominik growled.
He spun with predatory speed, his massive hand closing around my throat before my blade could even touch his suit. The impact slammed my head against the stone wall of the manor, the world exploding into a kaleidoscope of white sparks.
He lifted me off the ground, his grip tightening like a hydraulic press. I clawed at his iron-like wrist with my fingers, but I could feel my windpipe beginning to collapse. My boots kicked uselessly at the air.
"Look at you, you stole my blood, you broke my gates, and for what? To die in the dirt with the rest of the trash. You were never a warrior, Roxy. You're just a broken tool that doesn't know when to stop working."
The oxygen in my lungs vanished. The screams of the riot, the smell of the smoke, and the golden glow of his aura began to fade into a dull, grey haze. My hand dropped from his wrist, my sword clattering onto the stones below.
"Sleep, I'll make sure the knight watches while I finish what's left of your people."
My vision tunneled into a single, tiny point of blackness before the world finally went dark. I slipped into the cold embrace of unconsciousness, the weight of the failed revolution pressing down on me as I fell into the void.
"Pathetic Roxy, you're more than a parasite."
Dominik whispered, his voice the last thing I heard.