The air in the clearing was thick, metallic, and heavy with the scent of iron. Raphael's lungs burned. Every breath felt like inhaling glass, and that familiar, dull ache in his chest—the price of his own making—was beginning to throb in time with his heartbeat. He was slowly reaching the ceiling of his reservoir, and he knew it.
Across the churned earth, Quel and Gunther stood like monoliths of a dying era. The ex-generals of the Devil's Flames weren't just soldiers; they were relics of a violence Raphael was determined to eclipse.
"Still standing?" Raphael muttered, his voice a raspy edge. He glanced toward the periphery where the horizon flickered with the chaotic discharge of magic—Darion and Jay were locked in their own hell against Armal and Pyrax. He couldn't falter. Not here.
He gripped his crimson blade, the hilt slick with sweat and gore, and lunged.
Raphael was a blur of motion, closing the gap with desperate speed. As he entered Quel's reach, the general's spear whistled through the air in a punishing thrust. Raphael twisted, the tip of the spear grazing his ribs, and pushed forward. He was inches away from a killing blow when Quel's free hand ignited.
A pillar of concentrated crimson light erupted from Quel's palm. Raphael threw his sword up, the blood-steel vibrating violently as it absorbed the brunt of the beam, but the kinetic force was absolute. He was hoisted off his feet, skidding backward across the dirt until he hit the exact spot where he had started.
"Pathetic," Raphael spat, wiping a smear of blood from his chin.
Irritation flared, sharper than the pain in his chest. He didn't have time for a stalemate. He summoned more of his flowing reserves, weaving a translucent shield of hardened blood before him. He charged again. The spear struck the shield with a deafening crack, but this time, Raphael swung his blade downward with the intent to cleave the spear in two.
He never finished the arc. Above him, the five arrows—Gunther's lingering toys—snapped into motion, and dived down. Raphael snarled, forced to abort his assault and roll backward to avoid being pinned to the earth.
He stood up slowly, his eyes dark. He had wanted this to be his victory. He wanted to prove his singular dominance. But the ache in his chest was a reminder of mortality he couldn't ignore.
He put two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp, piercing whistle.
Shadows detached themselves from the street corners. These weren't the disorganized dregs of Fluxton. These men moved with the synchronized lethality of a unit. Five figures stepped into the light, clad in the uniforms of the Abyssal Gang: Kales, Jarul, John, Savier, and Hemlock.
And then there was Ezekiel.
The boy looked like a ghost among them. He was trembling, the sheer atmospheric pressure of the gathered power making his skin crawl. But as he looked at the back of Raphael's head, his fear was eclipsed by a simmering, poisonous resentment. He looked at the bodies—the wasted "essence" littering the field.
All that power, Ezekiel thought, his teeth grinding together until they clicked. He's just letting it rot. While I starve.
Raphael didn't need to turn around to feel the boy's gaze. He didn't care. He wasn't a mentor; he was a master. He felt the faint, rhythmic pulse of the slave marks etched into their chests—the tether that ensured their "loyalty" through the promise of agonizing pain. He had interrogated Ezekiel with that pain once; he would do it again if the boy tripped over his own ego.
"Kill them," Raphael commanded.
Gunther let out a booming, hollow laugh. "The Great Raphael, reduced to hiding behind his soldiers? You're a spineless coward. A leader fights his own battles."
Raphael's lips pulled back into a cocky, jagged grin. "A leader wins. This wasn't a fair fight when there were two of you, Gunther. I'm just balancing the scales. I don't play by the rules of dead men."
At his word, the vampires surged.
Jarul's longsword flickered like a tongue of flame. Kales swung a massive mace that hummed with density. John's axe bit into the air, while Savier's dual blades wove a tapestry of steel. And Hemlock vanished into the periphery, his twin daggers held in a reverse grip.
As the chaos erupted, Raphael finally turned his head. His eyes, cold and calculating, settled on Ezekiel. He snorted at the boy's wide-eyed shock.
"Don't just stand there shaking," Raphael said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous silk. "I'm wearing them down for a reason. I expect you to deal the finishing blow to every major adversary on this field. Don't waste the gift."
Ezekiel felt a jolt of adrenaline compete with his terror. Raphael was actually doing it—he was feeding him the scraps of giants. Ezekiel gave a stiff, silent nod, his eyes darting back to the explosion of blood magic in the center of the clearing. His hands shook, not just from fear, but from the power he could gain from these four formidable men.
From the shadows of the periphery, Ezekiel watched the world dissolve into a symphony of gore. The air was thick, heavy with the humid scent of freshly opened veins, but the dynamic of the battlefield had shifted. Raphael had stepped back, and in his place, the elite vanguard of the Abyssal Gang—the five nightmares who held Fluxton in a grip of iron—had descended upon the two remaining generals of Wilson.
Gunther didn't wait for them to close the distance. His fingers moved with the frantic grace of a harpist in a burning room. He notched five arrows, the crimson light illuminating his sweat-streaked face, and released. Ten arrows—the five new projectiles joining the five already dancing through the air—screamed toward the incoming vampires.
But these were not the rank-and-file soldiers Raphael had just slaughtered.
Jarul, the lead vanguard, moved with a terrifying, heavy momentum. He didn't dodge; he reached out, his hand a blur of iron-clad strength, and snatched three of the arrows out of the air. He crushed them in his fist, the dissipating blood magic sparking like dying embers between his fingers. The other four elites followed suit, snatching and shattering the homing projectiles before they could pivot for a second strike.
"Now!" Jarul roared.
Before the echoes of the command died, they were upon the ex-generals.
Jarul's longsword whistled through the air, clashing against Quel's spear with a sound like a thunderclap. Red sparks showered Quel's face, stinging his eyes.
At the same moment, Kales, a hulking figure with a spiked mace that hummed with kinetic malice, swung from the flank.
Quel's instincts saved him for a heartbeat. He manifested a blood shield to catch the mace, but the moment the weapons met, his stomach dropped. The impact was gargantuan. Unlike Raphael, who fought with a flashy, overwhelming elegance, these men fought with the raw, concentrated weight of the earth itself.
The shield didn't just hold; it groaned. Insidious cracks spider-webbed across the crimson surface before it shattered into a thousand jagged shards.
Quel was trapped in a lethal vice. Jarul was leaning into the longsword, his strength pinning Quel's spear in place. If Quel pulled away, the sword would shear him in half; if he stayed, the mace was coming back.
He didn't have a choice. The mace struck.
The spiked iron collided with the side of Quel's face with the sound of a breaking crate. Blood lightning surged from the weapon, cooking the nerves in his jaw and sending a spray of teeth and gore into the dirt. Quel's vision tilted, the world becoming a smear of gray and red.
Jarul saw the opening. As Quel's balance faltered, Jarul stepped in close, smelling the copper on Quel's breath. He drove his longsword forward, the blade sinking deep into Quel's chest, piercing the heart with a wet, final thud.
Quel let out a strangled, bubbling scream. He dropped his spear, his hands clawing at the blade buried in his ribs, trying to pry it out even as his strength turned to water. His fingers, slick with his own lifeblood, slipped against the steel.
Neither Jarul nor Kales offered the mercy of a quick end. They were executing a lesson that Quel and Gunther had tried to teach Raphael: the many swallow the one.
Kales pulled the mace back, the spikes dripping with Quel's skin, and swung again. The second strike hit the top of Quel's head, a sickening crunch echoing through the square as the skull began to cave in. Quel's vision receded into a pinprick of light. He was drowning in his own blood, his powers flicking like a dying candle.
Jarul twisted the blade in Quel's heart, a cruel, horizontal grind that shredded what remained of his vital organs.
Simultaneously, Kales brought the mace down for the third and final time.
The impact was absolute. The spiked weapon sheared through the left side of Quel's skull, obliterating the bone and brain matter in a single, heavy burst.
The young vampire who had murdered Selina's child and betrayed his king slumped against Jarul's sword for a second before being kicked away. Quel's body hit the dirt, a mangled ruin of meat and ambition. The silence that followed was broken only by the wet drip of blood from Kales' mace, as Gunther stood alone, the last enemy from Wilson still capable of putting up a fight.