"Eirene, you trick us! Kill that monster."
My body was a temple of ruins held together by the pulsing, violent hum of the Blood Curse. The salt still burned in my raw muscle, and my shattered bones hadn't healed, the blood was simply acting as a living splint, a crimson exoskeleton forcing my broken frame to stand. I knew I was on borrowed time. The energy from the barrel wouldn't last forever. I had to act now.
I extended my remaining hand. The blood dripping from my hair and the gore pooling at my feet rose into the air, swirling like a miniature hurricane.
"Blood Sword." I muttered
In a heartbeat, the liquid crystallized, sharpening and lengthening until it took the shape of a jagged, crimson blade. It was a sword born of my own agony.
I narrowed my eyes at Lara. She was the priority. If I fought the guards and Dominik while she was free to cast her high-tier healing spells, I would be worn down and slaughtered. I had to remove the healer from the board.
The guards recovered from their shock, their faces hardening as they leveled spears and swords at me.
"Kill the freak!" one bellowed.
Dominik's form began to shimmer and blur at the edges. I knew that look, he was activating his invisibility skill, preparing to vanish and strike me from the shadows. I couldn't let him.
Before the guards could take a single step, I lunged. My blood wings snapped shut and then exploded outward with the force of a gale. I didn't go for the guards, I went straight for Lara. She tried to scream, her hands glowing with white light to cast a defensive barrier, but I was faster. I crashed into her, my crimson-soaked fingers digging into her expensive silk dress.
With a powerful downstroke of my wings, I didn't head for the door. Instead, I drove upward. The wings, as hard as steel and as sharp as razors, tore through the wooden floorboards and the stone ceiling of the cellar like they were made of parchment. A shower of dirt, splinters, and debris rained down on the executioners below as I burst through the hole and soared into the cold night air.
The sudden change in pressure and the rush of wind against my flayed skin was a new kind of torture, but the adrenaline drowned it out. I gripped a terrified, shrieking Lara tightly against me as we rose above the rooftops of the manor.
Below us, I could hear Dominik's muffled roar of fury echoing out of the jagged hole in the earth.
"Lara! That damn flea! Guards! Sound the alarm! Surround the whole town! Don't let her breathe! Find that naked girl and bring me her head!"
I ignored him, my one and only green eye fixed on the horizon. My hair whipped in the wind, a black veil partially covering my naked, blood-stained form. I was a monster, a ghost, and a fugitive, but for the first time in six days, I was no longer in the dark. I looked down at the whimpering woman in my grasp and tightened my hold on the blood-sword. The hunt had officially reversed.
The cold, biting wind of the upper atmosphere whipped against my raw, flayed flesh, but it was the most beautiful sensation I had felt in seven days. Beneath me, the town of Caria was a sprawling map of flickering torches and waking streets.
Lara thrashed in my grip, her face contorted with a mixture of terror and elitist disgust. Even now, with her life dangling over a three-hundred-foot drop, she couldn't hide her venom.
"Don't touch me, you parasite! Your filth is staining my dress! When Dominik catches you, he'll peel the rest of your soul away!"
I looked down at her. Without a tongue, my voice was a haunting, discordant rasp, a sound born of a hollow throat and a broken heart.
"You... asked... for it," I forced out, the words wet and jagged.
I didn't hesitate. I opened my, blood-stained hand.
Lara's scream trailed off into a fading goofy ass doppler effect as she plummeted toward the jagged rooftops below. I knew it wouldn't kill her, she was a high-tier healer. She would likely cast a cushioning spell or knit her broken bones back together the moment she hit the cobblestones. But she was out of the fight. She was grounded, terrified, and miles away from the guards she relied on for protection.
I leveled out, my massive wings of crystalline blood beating with a rhythmic, heavy thrum. I turned my gaze toward the Merchant District of Town Tata. In the center of the square, bathed in the pale, burgeoning light of dawn, stood a tall, wooden structure, the guillotine. It sat there like a hungry beast, its steel blade glinting, waiting to take the head of Eirene Rynd.
As the morning sun finally broke over the horizon, hitting my face for the first time since my descent into hell, I felt the Blood Curse accelerate. The sheer volume of blood I had absorbed from the barrel began to knit my body back together with supernatural speed. I watched, fascinated and horrified, as new skin, pale and unblemished, raced over my flayed thighs and shins. The shattered bones in my right leg snapped back into place, clicking like clockwork.
But the curse had its limits. My left arm remained a stump, my toes on my left foot were still missing, and my mouth remained a silent, scarred cavern. These were old wounds, or perhaps wounds so deep the curse recognized them as part of my new, broken identity.
"R-Roxy? Is that you."
"Plasma!"
Suddenly, the echoing voice that I know of suddenly talked through my mind, it was Plasma. Ever since I heard his voice in the last six days of isolation.
"Goodness gracious Roxy, I thought you were dead." Plasma muttered
"I've been through hell Plasma, now this is the start of my revenge arc." I said through my thoughts
"I'm so worried Roxy, I'm so glad you unlocked your fifth evolution, now, start your vengeance. This is your opportunity to avenge the maids."
Now, I can speak fluently through my thoughts, my tounge was removed entirely. I can have a normal conversation with Plasma without raising my voice.
Suddenly, a low, wailing horn blasted from the Callus Manor. Then another. And another. The alarm bells of the town began to clash in a frantic, metallic panic.
They were coming for me. The deceased girl had taken flight.
I looked down at the manor, my red eyes burning with a light that rivaled the sun. I felt no fear. I felt no more pain. The girl who loved knitting and sunshine had been buried in that salt-filled cellar. The woman rising on wings of gore had only one purpose left
"Kill anyone."
The air around me began to vibrate as I plummeted back toward the earth, the blood-sword in my hand glowing with a murderous intensity.
"Vengeance," I whispered into the wind, a soundless promise.
The massacre was about to begin.
The night air screamed as I banked hard, my blood-wings slicing through the wind like twin scythes. Below, the Callus Manor was no longer a home; it was a hornet's nest. Dozens of bandits and guards swarmed the courtyard, their crossbows leveled at the sky.
"There she is! Bring her down!" one roared, but his voice was cut short.
I plummeted. I became a crimson comet of pure, concentrated hatred. I hit the first line of bandits with a bone-shattering impact.
At the same time, I drank their blood easily upon landing, the longer and new fangs drained the bandits in less than a second.
[Drain activated Extraction Completed consumed nine liters of blood]
The mana that drained at the celler suddenly restores in an instant, the other passive from my fifth evolution is that, it increases the regenerative process of both health and mana.
My blood-sword flashed in a blurring arc, the hardened ichor slicing through steel armor and flesh as if they were wet paper. I moved with a speed that defied my broken state, my wings acting as secondary blades that disemboweled anyone who dared to step within my reach. I impaled three men at once, my sword extending through their chests and anchoring them to the stone floor.
This wasn't a fight. This was an exorcism of six days of agony.
As more reinforcements poured from the barracks, I leaped back into the air. With a thought, the blood-sword in my hand shimmered and liquefied, re-forming into a massive, recurve bow made of obsidian-dark blood. I drew back a string of pure energy.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
I fired a volley of blood arrows. They weren't made of wood or flint; they were pressurized spikes of my own curse. Each one found its mark with homing precision. One by one, the bandits' heads exploded in a spray of red as the arrows pierced their skulls at terminal velocity. They didn't even have time to scream. The courtyard became a graveyard of headless husks.
I didn't stop to savor the carnage. My red eyes were fixed on the jagged hole I had torn in the earth earlier. Dominik and Bernard were still down there. They thought the cellar was my tomb; I was going to make it theirs.
I flapped my wings with a violent, bone-chilling force, creating a shockwave that shattered the remaining windows of the manor. I dived straight back into the darkness of the cellar, the blood bow shifting back into a jagged, serrated blade.
I descended through the ceiling like a vengeful god. As my feet hit the blood-soaked salt on the floor, I looked up through my matted hair. Dominik and Bernard were backed against the wall, their faces pale, the torchlight reflecting the first real taste of fear in their eyes.
The silence returned, but this time, I was the one holding it. I raised my blade, the crimson light from my wings illuminating the rotting remains of my own toes on the floor.
"My... turn,"