Scarlet

“Let’s finish this, shall we?” I state with a grin on my face as the crimson lightning running across my body grows thicker and thicker as I burn all of the life energy being fed to me by the other competitors.

Leonidas grins back at me and answers, “If that’s what you want, then we shall.”

Then my eyes widen slightly as red lightning suddenly strikes once, twice, and a third time. All around Leonidas. And under everyone’s gazes, red energy mixed with red lightning and blood all begin to go wild all around him as his body grows twice as large and his presence and life energy doubles.

I double down on draining everyone around us, making quite a few people drop down to their knees as my stats continue climbing.

“You asked for this,” Leonidas declares, his voice loud and echoing throughout the entire arena.

My eyes narrow when all of the sound in the entire arena vanishes in a moment, only for a loud warping noise to fill it. One akin to a portal.

Everyone in the arena immediately focuses on the writhing red orb of blood floating in the center of the arena between me and Leonidas. And before I can so much as wonder what it is or say anything, the orb slowly begins to expand.

Fuck.

“That’s the mythic version of Blood of Ruin,” Tar states the obvious as I rush backwards, only for the orb to continue expanding until more and more orbs appear in the air with lines shooting out of them. Then little droplets of blood appear all over. And while the droplets don’t do anything to me thanks to my Red Plague armor, I see them badly warping anyone they touch down below with the exception of Aria, the Knights, and the Demon Lords.

Aria because they’re all avoiding her, likely to not hurt her, and the others because they’re blocking the droplets or avoiding them.

I quickly make a barrier of blood that isn’t Red Plague around Aria to protect her before spreading my arms out and activating Bloodborne Apocalypse.

“Fighting one apocalypse with another?” Leonidas says with a slight grin, but I can’t give him any of my attention right now. Not unless I want to slip up and accidentally send out bullets of Red Plague at people. Something that would be pretty damned terrible.

Soon enough the bullets of plagued blood shoot out of me, fortunately free of Red Plague. But at the same time, Leonidas’s Apocalypse of Blood skill unleashes its full might with all of the spheres of ruinous blood bursting before the blood all directly rushes towards me while ignoring gravity.

And my Bloodborne Apocalypse immediately begins clashing with the Apocalypse of Blood as me and Leonidas charge straight towards each other, the man’s Blood Ascension skill finally activating with the crimson light solidifying on his body and starting his countdown.

He has one minute to use that skill. After that minute he faced backlash.

So all I need to do is stall him for a minute and this fight will be mine.

That plan is sent down the drain though when we clash midair, sending a massive shockwave out that destroys the ground and kills more than a few of the other competitors. And more importantly, I’m sent flying like a damned meteor straight past our skills and into the ground, digging far through it in the process as I trail Red Plague blood across it, making the blood begin devouring the ground until I manage to take control of it again.

“Fuck,” I mutter once I finally stop moving.

I knew Blood Ascension quintupled his stats, but seriously? That’s… how am I supposed to hold out for a minute against that?!

“Good luck,” Tar says while vanishing into the in-between to watch.

And honestly? I don’t blame him this time.

I hear pops and cracks as my bones – which were pretty much all shattered – fix themselves back together again. And once they finish, I climb back to my feet, only to find Leonidas appearing right in front of me with his fist raised.

Well, shit.

He lands his punch before I can even react again, sending me flying through the arena. Then he does this again, and again, and again. All the way till I begin to run low on mana, both of our powerful mythic skill attacks in the air having run out while leaving the entire arena a wasteland.

I can barely sense the life energies of just a few others, including the Demon Lords, Knights, and Aria, who I successfully protected only because Leonidas was avoiding hurting her.

But now… I can’t get up. All of my energy is just gone, and while my wounds are still healing, they’re healing very slowly.

Leonidas appears in front of me again and lightly shakes his head before saying, “Don’t get too overconfident just because of the Red Plague. It may be incredibly powerful, but you shouldn’t use it as a crutch.”

The crimson light his body is letting off begins to flicker slightly as the red lightning, energy, and blood floating around him slows down, showing the signs of his skill beginning to run out.

“You did well, sweetie,” he says with a smile before pulling his fist back and then smashing it right down on my face, making everything go black as my vision spreads out to the blood I have in the arena. And as I look on through my blood manipulation senses, I find that Leonidas is currently looking rather confused. Likely because the golden crown didn’t switch from me to him.

Right when his Blood Ascension runs out, the man dropping to his knees as blood begins to leak out of his pores, I gather the blood I had lost while he was beating me up before reforming myself right in front of him with my hands on my hips.

He looks up at me before giving me a wry smile and slightly embarrassed smile.

I can’t help but grin as I look at him, only to step up and kneel down next to him while saying, “Don’t get too overconfident.”

Leonidas lets out a light chuckle at that and shakes his head, still smiling.

Well, nothing left to do now but finish things.

I pull my fist back while enhancing it with all of the life energy I still have left before telling him, “You did well, Dad,” and sending my fist straight at his head right as the shock is spreading across his face from my calling him dad.

And just like my head no doubt exploded when he punched me, his explodes when I punch him, and I soon sense his life energy reappearing somewhere else in the stadium outside of the arena.

Then I stand up straight and pop my neck while stretching a little.

That was a tough battle.

And a fun one.

Although I get the feeling I wouldn’t have won if he realized I’d gotten Blood Life.

Well, I turn around to face the others who are now approaching me through the barren wasteland.

I wonder if they’ll want to fight as well?