Scarlet

I can’t help but grin as Crim and I circle around each other while in the middle of a dark cavern illuminated by nothing but some sort of glowing moss on the walls and my own glowing red eyes. But despite the darkness in the cavern, I can see pretty clearly in it. Not as clearly as I would see during the day, but clearly enough. Just like how I can see in the Fractures despite most of the lights being off in the buildings.

A very convenient change brought about by both my awakening and my leveling up.

“Looks like we’re finally fighting,” Crim says with a chuckle as we continue to circle around each other, both looking for an opening to attack. “So let’s make it a good one, eh?”

I raise an eyebrow at that, still grinning as I have both my arms’ claws spread out turned slightly towards him to be ready for any attack he launches. Meanwhile he has both of his arms turned into blades of blood.

“Blood for blood,” I state, making him grin as well.

Then we both rush straight at each other while activating our various skills. I activate blood boil, life drain, and all of my other combat skills. And at the same time, I feel a strange tingling sensation on my skin. But the sensation doesn’t show any physical changes to my body. So I just ignore it, along with the other strange sensation in my body that doesn’t appear to really be doing anything.

Crim on the other hand clearly feels my skills’ effects as small bubbles of blood begin to pop on his skin and the man slows down because of it and the stream of life energy moving towards me. He doesn’t stop though. Not even when he slashes my own blades of blood out of the air. Blades that I’d sent flying at him during our charge.

His eyes narrow on me as I close the distance by burning a large amount of blood at once before drawing my claws straight into the man’s red metal armor that looks slightly like military gear from the old world movies and history books I’ve seen. And the armor actually holds up for a second before I tear through it with another burst of blood sacrifice, making him grunt. But he doesn’t let it or the popping bubbles of blood stop him from ignoring a blade of blood that strikes at his armor, only managing to tear about an inch or so into him before it’s stopped by it, and swinging the blade of blood at my arm.

I grimace as the blade of blood cuts through my jacket sleeve and into my arm by about an inch as well. And I jump back right afterwards, letting his arm blade come out in the process as I focus on the wound.

Crim has a skill that lets him corrupt the blood he touches, which means…

My grimace vanishes after seeing my wound, soon replaced with a look of confusion.

“Keep your attention on the fight!” Crim shouts, making me barely duck under the swing of his blade, only to be kicked in the gut by his foot and sent sprawling a few meters away. I quickly climb back to my feet again with a frown.

Why didn’t his skill do much? All there was in the wound was a few dots of green in my blood that quickly began to drip out.

That’s not how his skill worked in the last battles. He would quite literally turn entire chunks of their body a few inches wide green and black from it.

Crim seems to finally notice when I focus on him as well, judging by the look of confusion shown on his face while he stares at my arm that is revealed a little through the cut in the sleeve.

A moment of silence passes before he mutters, “A resistance skill…”

I hide my surprise at that.

What’s a resistance skill?

“It’s a skill where someone has a resistance towards a certain type of magic,” Tar answers right away as I keep my eye on Crim.

But I don’t have a resistance skill.

“Of course you do,” Tar says, making me blink in surprise. “All blood lycans have an etched skill giving them at least some sort of resistance against blood magic. They’re one of the seven clans after all. It would be ridiculous if they were taken out by their own magic.”

I barely hold my mouth in place, stopping it from dropping open.

That… that makes sense, but it’s something I would’ve been happier knowing before this battle than now.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Tar mutters right before Crim rushes towards me again. And I meet him halfway, my blood claws covered shifted arm meeting with his arm blade of blood. But thanks to my use of blood sacrifice, I manage to push him back further and further until he loses his grip and I send him flying. I then rush straight after him, not giving him a moment to recuperate as I catch up and slam my fist into his gut before he can even land, knocking him into the ground directly beneath me.

Before I can take further advantage of this though, he transforms his legs into blades and kicks out at me, stabbing an entire inch into my leg and making me drop to one knee.

I grunt while raising my head again to see Crim’s foot heading straight for my head, so I back up, only for his foot to enter my chest and barely miss one of my hearts.

“Not *cough* again,” I mutter while coughing out a mouthful of blood onto him that has him grimacing. But pain diffusion lets me ignore the pain as I activate blood retribution and grab onto his leg. And almost immediately, he loses his balance, falling flat on the ground while groaning as waves of red steam lift off of his body. “You’d think people would learn not to do this by now.”

Considering what happened with Molten Angel.

He tries to pull his leg out from around my collarbone, but I keep it there before raising a foot of my own just barely and using blood claws on it while clawing at the underside of his leg, making him cuss at the pain.

I then repeat this a couple times wherever I can reach in this awkward position and with a blade in my chest until he finally keels over and dies, sending me back to my private booth to collapse into my chair.

Damnit, I’m not gonna have to get used to being impaled, am I?

“At this rate…” Tar mutters, leaving his statement open ended.

I groan at that.