Chapter 10: Subjugation

Drawing upon the lifeblood of the fallen misshapen strewn about her, Vina infused her blade with their essence, fortifying its lethality. The prospect of combat was not of her choosing, yet the alternative—surrendering her free will—was unthinkable. However, her vulnerability gnawed at her, the scarcity of accessible blood a glaring concern. Her reserves were limited to her blood lake and the scant supply within her pendant. Her lantern lay on the ground nearby, a potential source of additional blood, if only she could reach it.

Kaliq's gaze fixed on the blade as blood rose from the floor to combine with it, his expression betraying a flicker of intrigue. “That ability…” he murmured under his breath.

“It’s not an ability”, Vina countered swiftly.

Kaliq’s smile was thin, edged with a newfound understanding. “I perceive the outline of your decisions. You stand at level seventeen, your life force at three hundred. Agility, a mere forty-one. Your essence is becoming clear to me, and soon, your skills will too.” His eyes gleamed with a predatory anticipation. “Your repertoire is intriguing—Blood Blade at level two, Blood Cloak at level three, and Blood Shot Eyes, a rarity among your kind. Such fortune you possess to own them, unlike Oyna, whose capabilities, while formidable, do not mirror yours.”

Vina's gaze dropped to her weapon, noting Kaliq’s accurate assessment of her active abilities, albeit with one minor discrepancy. Her Blood Blade had progressed beyond his estimation to level three. “You’ve seen these before with the other Blood Weavers?” she probed, seeking leverage in his familiarity with Blood Weavers.

Kaliq's assertion was chilling in its confidence. “I have witnessed the full variety of existence.” As he spoke, he gestured toward the ground, and the blood there answered his call, coalescing into a ruby claw in his grasp—a display of his mastery over their shared medium. Yet, when he reached out again, the blood recoiled, eluding his touch. A shadow of confusion crossed his face.

“You’ve never seen anything like me”, Vina declared, a fierce determination swelling within her as the blood rallied to her side.

Kaliq's response was a sinister grin, “Your shape is starting to come into focus.” he taunted before launching himself forward with a ferocity that would have unsettled a lesser opponent. But Vina was no stranger to this charging tactic. She sidestepped with practiced ease, eschewing the mobility skill for raw instinct.

As she moved, her connection with the blood of the fallen creatures became a weapon. Small blood knives formed at her command, each a deadly extension of her will. However, her target was not Kaliq as he rushed past her, but Siany, whose eyes widened with fear at witnessing Vina.

The first knife struck true, eliciting a harrowing scream from Siany. "Kaliq! My blood!" she cried out,

Kaliq's reaction was immediate, his face contorted with rage as he faced Vina. Even as he extracted the knife from Siany with a grotesque backward twist of his arm, Vina did not cease her assault. Yet, as each blade found its mark, she observed with frustration their diminished effect on Kaliq, a stark contrast to the damage inflicted on Siany. "Why do they penetrate only an inch?" she wondered, noting the modest decrease in Kaliq's health.

Kaliq advanced on her, wielding her own blood-forged knife against her. Vina commanded the blood in the room to form a puddle, a moat of her making. Kaliq's advance was momentarily hindered by a Blood Trap, his foot catching in the pool, yet the trap failed to pierce him as she intended. Instead, it served only to stagger his charge.

Undeterred, Kaliq closed the distance, his ruby claw and her blood knife menacingly poised. But Vina sensed her dominion over these extensions of herself. "Those belong to me," she whispered, reclaiming them through Blood Call. The weapons obeyed, stripping from Kaliq’s grasp to form a formidable blood claw on her own hand.

Kaliq's surprise was short-lived as he launched a furious assault. Vina raised her newly formed claw in defense, the impact jarring her to the core. Realizing the mistake of matching his strength directly, she executed a Shield Bash, the recoil sending shockwaves through her body. Kaliq was knocked back from the blow with eighty health points vanishing from his bar, but the cost to Vina was palpable—a draining of stamina and a numbness down her arm that threatened her ability to continue the fight. Despite her efforts, Kaliq's health remained hauntingly high at twenty-three hundred, a mountain she had barely begun to scale.

Kaliq, regaining his composure, eyed Vina with a mix of curiosity and caution. “None of my blood skills or abilities will work on you, will they?” he posed, retreating slightly, seemingly measuring the distance between them.

“All blood answers to me,” Vina declared, her voice resonating with a defiant ownership. Beside her, she sensed Oyna steadying herself, preparing to dive back into the fray.

Kaliq scoffed, his gaze dissecting Vina's tactics. “That was a Shield Bash, a Ruby Claw at level two, and Blood Condensement at level three. And what's this about sisters?” His demeanor darkened, the threat implicit as he lifted Oyna’s sword. “Harm my sister again, and I shall visit the same fate upon yours.” With those chilling words, he moved to challenge Vina once more.

As he surged forward with a renewed Charge, Vina's instincts screamed for mobility. “Two activations left,” she reminded herself, executing a nimble tumble to evade his onslaught. Kaliq, relentless, used the tower's architecture to his advantage, launching himself off a wall in a powerful rebound aimed directly at her.

Vina's evasion was instinctual, her body reacting just in time to leap over his sweeping strike. Landing gracefully, she wasted no time, her focus turning to the blood pooling at her feet, willing it into a formidable shape. The result was a weapon of unprecedented scale for her—a massive two-handed blood sword.

“Oyna! Take this!” Vina called out, though Oyna was already in motion, her instincts in perfect sync with Vina’s intent. Grasping the colossal sword, a wicked grin revealed her unnaturally sharp teeth.

“Is this right for your skill?” Vina inquired, as Kaliq advanced, undeterred by their united front.

With a fierce determination, Oyna answered, “Yes!” and stepped forward to confront Kaliq, the blood sword an extension of her resolve. “Support me from afar,” she directed, her voice a blend of command and camaraderie.

Kaliq, his focus split between the two adversaries, issued a dismissive command, “Step aside, Oyna!” Yet, as his foot once again disturbed the blood beneath him, Vina seized the opportunity to spring another blood trap. Although it resulted only in a minor distraction for Kaliq, disrupting his balance, it afforded Oyna the opening she needed. Her bone wings recoiled, then snapped forward, propelling her into a powerful overhead strike. Kaliq couldn’t catch himself and the sword cut deeply into his shoulder, driving him down to a single knee.

Vina felt Oyna’s red appendages bury themselves into his body in a surprising feat of power that her own weapons couldn’t manage. Blood sense warned her of the spray of his blood. She reached out, drawing on it, attempting to exacerbate his wounds and hasten his defeat.

Kaliq’s laughter, however, cut through the tension in clear defiance of their efforts. Effortlessly, he cast aside Oyna's attack and lunged forward to grab her. Oyna, undeterred, utilized her wings for a swift retreat, evading his retaliatory grasp. “Blood trap, mobility, avoidance, level three Blood Blades. We’re nearly there, Vina!” Kaliq taunted, locking his gaze on Vina, dismissive of Oyna’s continued threat. The blood continued to stream from his body as Blood Dance’s bleeding effect reached its maximum stacks.

Vina pooled Kaliq’s blood around herself, preparing to begin her use of blood bursts, but then she sensed an alarming shift. Kaliq’s blood, spilling freely, began to defy her manipulations, transforming into an ethereal blue hue “It’s Stigandorian blood”, she realized.

Kaliq’s grin widened, his wounds miraculously beginning to mend as his transformed blood reabsorbed into his body, denying Vina her advantage. “Yes. The extent of your limits are becoming clear. How many more skills and abilities must I unravel before I can mould you?”

Oyna's urgent whisper cut through the tension, "Vina, he's using the ichoric conversion skill." Gratitude flashed in Vina's eyes as she nodded, turning her attention back to Kaliq with a renewed focus.

She nodded her thanks to Oyna. Turning to Kaliq, she addressed his ongoing commentary. “Is that how your aspect works? Do you need to see all of a person’s skills and abilities before you can shape them? And why is Trina’s aspect inside your body?”

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Kaliq gritted his teeth and the blood spilling from his body formed a blue blood claw on his arm once more. “We would never tarnish our body with Trina’s filth.” As he spoke, his own blood morphed into a menacing blue claw. He attempted to reclaim the blood at his feet, but Vina whisked it away, denying him once more.

“Not anymore, Vina,” Kaliq declared. The claw on his arm shifted back into liquid and boiled off his skin into little blue bubbles. He swept his arm through the air and scattered the bubbles. Vina watched in fascination as they floated up and spread around the room. Where they landed they simply popped, scattering bloody mist vapors everywhere.

She felt the blood in the room dim from her control. With a sense of urgency, Vina scrambled to isolate the blood still loyal to her command, thwarting the conversion that threatened to engulf the room. Her eyes flickered to the lantern, silently urging it to salvage any blood that Kaliq sought to corrupt.

Kaliq, undeterred, claimed a pool of transformed blood, consuming it with a triumphant "Finally!" As he addressed them with a dismissive taunt, his body collapsed, signaling the onset of a grotesque transformation. Siany’s cry of anguish underscored the horror of the scene as Kaliq's form contorted and expanded, bones audibly snapping and reshaping into a nightmarish tableau. His limbs stretched into spindly, segmented appendages, each ending in razor-sharp talons, while his face underwent a hideous division, birthing additional sets of eyes atop the remnants of his nose. Amidst this horror, Siany remained disturbingly unchanged.

The monstrous form Kaliq had assumed was an aberration, a nightmarish figure that defied recognition. Yet, his transformation was only a prelude to the violence that followed. With a sudden leap, propelled by his grotesquely elongated limbs, he launched himself at Oyna. Reacting with barely a heartbeat to spare, Oyna managed to interpose her colossal sword between them, bracing it with a wing for added defense. The collision sent her crashing into the tower wall, rupturing one of the grotesque sacs adorning it, releasing a deluge of blood onto the stone floor.

Seizing upon this unexpected resource, Vina conjured swirling orbs of blood around her. With Oyna momentarily sidelined, Vina unleashed her fury. Wave after wave of blood bursts pummeled the Kaliq creature. The creature, caught off guard, faltered under the barrage, presenting Vina with what appeared to be a critical advantage.

Desperate to use all of the blood around her, Vina channeled her Enduring Blood boon and forced more blood into one of the orbs until it unexpectedly turned into a dense projectile, its vibrance thrumming with the contained power. With precision born of desperation, she hurled it towards Kaliq. Anticipating his attempt to convert it, she triggered a paint burst just before it reached her target, pushing the boundaries of the skill beyond its usual application. She felt the skill resist her interpretation of paint, but a moment later the skill activated. The resulting detonation was cataclysmic, a maelstrom of pain and destruction that tore through the room with indiscriminate fury.

Vina, engulfed in the aftermath, was pelted by her own attack's shrapnel, the fragments biting into her flesh before she could control them. The room's gothic windows shattered, admitting a chilling gust that swept through the newly wrought chaos.

Unable to ignore her grievous injuries, Vina summoned blood aid, directing any ambient blood to mend her wounds. The toll on her reserves was immense, a stark indicator of the severity of her condition. A quick glance at her health showed she had 52 health out of 300 remaining. But she felt her wounds knit themselves closed and a modicum of strength return to her limbs. She rose back to her feet and grabbed one of her last two healing mixtures from her belt. A moment later her health had recovered to 216.

Oyna, momentarily dazed by the explosive onslaught, found a semblance of shelter under the arch of her bone wing, which shielded half of her form from further harm. The comforting glow of her lantern had been extinguished in the chaos and destruction, yet the urgency of the moment left no room for concern over lost light. Bathed in the ethereal silver of moonlight, which now alone pierced the darkness of the tower, Vina relied not on sight but on her Blood Sense. It whispered the location of her adversary with unerring precision

Vina faced Kaliq and saw the damage her attack had done. His left arm was missing from the elbow down and red blood spurted from the stump, now flowing faster than he could convert it. His health bar had dropped precipitously, but she saw the Kaliq creature still had over sixteen hundred life left. His slow, menacing approach was a grim reminder of the threat he still posed. "Level three blood aid. Level three blood recovery. Level two hemophage. Painting skill," Kaliq enumerated, his voice filled with anticipation. "You have but one class ability left to reveal, Vina. Show me."

In the spectral glow cast by the moon through the shattered windows, Kaliq launched himself at Vina with unprecedented speed. Her attempt to trigger her avoidance skill faltered, too slow to evade his swift assault. His talons left a stinging trail across her face as her attempt to avoid him failed. Frantically, she countered with her sword, aiming for a lethal blow, yet Kaliq's enhanced form outmatched her, his every movement proving his superior agility and strength.

With terrifying ease, Kaliq overpowered her, pinning her against the cold, unyielding stone wall of the tower. His hands, unnaturally spread and thin, ensnared her like a spider trapping its prey. "Show it to me," he demanded, his voice garbled by his split jaw, a monstrous mimicry of speech.

Defiance flared within Vina as she retorted with a vehement "No!" She understood now the true extent of Kaliq's strategy, baiting her to reveal her skills one by one. Despite her desperation driving her actions, she wasn't about to succumb to his demands, not when he had her cornered. She turned her gaze away from the aberration that Kaliq had become, her thoughts briefly touching Oyna with an unspoken apology. Silently, she began to channel what blood she had left into the hidden reservoir within her bones, bracing for an escape attempt.

"I can shape your destiny at my whim, Vina. Reveal your ability, or your sisters will suffer in your place." Kaliq's menacing ultimatum hung in the air, a chilling declaration of his power over Vina's fate. Slowly his transformation receded, his form diminishing in size, yet the intensity of his grip remained as forceful as ever, unweakened by the change.

In a desperate bid for freedom, Vina summoned a blade directly from her bloodstream, her actions driven by instinct and the urgent need to protect her family. She drove the makeshift weapon into Kaliq's hand, where the blue crystalline armor began to crack under the force of her Improved Stab. With each subsequent strike, she chiseled away at his defenses, revealing vulnerable flesh beneath the barrier.

However, the moment her blade made contact with his bare skin, it betrayed her. The blood knife, once a vibrant red, succumbed to Kaliq's influence, its essence shifting until it dissolved into a puddle of blue at her feet. Frustrated but undeterred, Vina reached out to the scant blood resources left in the room, attempting to muster another blood burst. Yet, the lack of available material thwarted her efforts.

Kaliq's snarl cut through the tension. “Fine.” His touch sent a shiver down Vina's spine as he made contact against her chest. The sensation of an alien liquid coursing through her veins was immediate and terrifying, wresting control away from her and redirecting her own blood against the foreign intrusion.

You are afflicted with…

Every emotion she had ever had of her sisters flashed through her heart in an instant. Every hug, laugh, and discussion that had generated warmth in her soul was laid bare. The exhilaration of duels with Etana, the camaraderie of shopping adventures with Ann—all were vividly recalled. Their faces of caring, concern for her safety, the affirmations she had received from them were on display.

These experiences, so full of life and love, began to fade into the distance, each cherished feeling growing numb, as if sealed behind an impenetrable barrier. The fervent blaze within her, the relentless drive to protect her sisters from harm, was extinguished in an instant, leaving a chilling void where once there was unyielding determination.

Personal Quest Failed: Keep your sisters alive for 6 months.

Vina screamed in rage at the violation. She pressed her fingers into the hole she had made in Kaliq’s armor and activated Blood Stained Hands. Blood gushed from the man’s wounded stump of an arm, but it soon rose back up again to seal off the wound. It wasn’t enough however, his eyes and every other place of his body soon began oozing blood at a slow, but consistent rate.

Siany's urgent plea echoed through the tumult, "Hurry Kaliq! It’s happening to me too!" Kaliq's fingers tapped a relentless, excruciating rhythm on Vina's chest, initiating a transformation that began to seep into her very consciousness. Skills and unknown experiences rushed into her mind, an overwhelming torrent that threatened to submerge her identity beneath their weight. Among the deluge, a glimpse of her mother, working with runes, flashed before her, but it was quickly drowned out by an influx of Siany's memories and emotions, forging a forced empathy within Vina for this person she now recognized as a 'sister.'

Yet, within Vina stirred a defiant clarity. "No," she silently refuted, rejecting the alien connection. "Siany isn’t my sister." Her Transcendent Memory seemed to stall the invasive shaping.

Kaliq's voice, tinged with desperation and disbelief, broke through the chaos. "Something is wrong. I can’t shape her memories!" Siany's voice, strained with urgency and fear, pressed him. "Take control of her now, Kaliq! I can’t keep bleeding like this!"

But a palpable panic emanated from Kaliq, his vibrance quivering with the realization of his failure. "I can’t! I can’t remove her memories!" he roared. “How is she doing this?”

Through the haze of enforced connection and pain, Vina sought the moon’s light, a beacon of clarity in the fog of manipulation. With effort, she whispered her defiance, “I already told you.”

Summoning the last reserves of her will, Vina accessed her skills menu mentally, directing her final specialization point with decisive clarity. As she did, a sense of self, sharp and undeniable, flooded back into her consciousness, washing away the foreign imposition on her mind. Kaliq's expression transformed, his eyes stretching wide not just with surprise but with a burgeoning realization of fear.

Releasing Kaliq's arm, Vina positioned her hands firmly against the tower's stone wall, her feet anchored and ready. "You’ve never seen anything like me," she affirmed, her voice a harbinger of her resolve. Without hesitation, she triggered her charge skill, propelling them all with unstoppable force towards the gaping maw of the shattered window.