Chapter 50: Aspire

Vina coughed and weakly reached up for the sword still impaled in her chest. Before her clawed hand could wrap around the blade, Seassa withdrew her weapon and kicked her. Vina cried out from the pain as she was knocked back, trying to keep her balance and weapon in front of her. Blood suddenly poured out from both sides of her body.

She struggled to take a deep breath as blood sense warned her that something was deeply wrong inside of her. An application of her focus attempted to stop her bleeding, but it was met with limited success when her focus began to fade. Vina kept her eyes locked on Seassa as she tried to activate Blood Aid to heal her despite the edges of her vision slowly fading to black. Her legs suddenly gave out, and she collapsed to her side.

Seassa, sadness etched on her face, approached cautiously. “It’s over now, Vina. Rest, knowing The Supreme will deal with Langternem.”

Seassa’s words have activated your promise to Trina. Trina is enforcing your promise. You must now kill Seassa or face Trina’s consequences.

A sudden heat filled Vina’s core as a wave emanated from within her with invigorating energy. The pain in her chest was replaced with burning, causing her to wince until it faded moments later. Vina blinked several times as her vision abruptly cleared, but her health and stamina bars had vanished from sight as well. She didn’t even need to glance down to know her bleeding had stopped.

New Passive Ability: Sanguine Surge

She remembered the strange taste of Trina's blood, her memory blending with Kaliq’s when he too drank from Trina’s hand. Vina’s intention to bolster her attributes from a single stolen blood tear now caused her to doubt. Had she made a mistake or lucked into enhancing herself? Now, the power felt wrong—foreign, as if her blood was not just enhanced but transformed, carrying with it something else. Something not hers.

“What is Trina’s blood doing to me?” Vina whispered in concern as she struggled back to her feet. She swallowed hard, trying to clear her throat. “Not dead yet,” she managed after a moment.

Seassa, observing Vina's unexpected recovery amidst the chaotic battlefield, was incredulous. “Did your promise save you?” She shook her head, dismissing the thought. “Impossible. Promises cannot avert death. How are you doing this, Vina? Is this some special ability from your first world?”

Seassa suddenly threw her scimitar, which arced towards Vina, who braced to evade, but the strike intentionally missed. Seassa’s lips tightened as she launched into a charge, her slender sword leading her swift advance.

Vina braced herself with her blood claw poised to deflect the thrust and run the swordmaster through with Selenia. The thin sword Seassa wielded, however, began to glow white and gray once again, and Vina thought better of waiting for the inevitable beam that would spear her. She tried to move to the side, but Seassa immediately vanished in a dusty gray smoke. Blood sense warned Vina of Seassa’ reappearance at her side, where she knew the white scimitar lay embedded in the ground.

Pain sliced up her arm as that same scimitar cut into her before she could react and more of her blood splashed onto the ground below. Vina swung Selenia toward Seassa, but the swordmaster had already darted away. A flash of metal appeared between Vina’s legs as Seassa threw her scimitar down, and she vanished again. Vina spun around, bracing for her reappearance. Too late—Seassa had already materialized behind her. Pain seared through her flank as the thrusting sword was forced into her body. Vina cried out, grabbing at the weapon with her blood claw. Desperately, she tried to take control. But Seassa was faster. The scimitar came down hard on Vina’s wrist, cutting deep. Selenia fell from her grasp.

Vina felt her hand lose sensation as metal sliced into her. Crying out from the pain, she swung out violently with her blood claw, trying to desperately strike Seassa. She missed when Seassa simply stepped back with a somber look on her face.

Vina twirled as if drunk while she scattered her blood around herself. She knew she was outmatched. Amaya had claimed to be a swordmaster, but Seassa was on an entirely different level. Every strike, every feint—effortless, perfect. Vina had never felt so powerless, so completely at the mercy of skill.

As she twisted, she tried to backpedal but found her foot couldn’t hold her weight. She fell backward onto the ground. A quick look showed Seassa had managed to stab through her boot right after slicing her wrist. “She’s changing damage types too quickly for my armor to keep up,” she realized as she tried to crawl away, but she found her wrist was hanging limply, also unable to support her weight. Fear at the inevitability of her death filled her as she stared at Seassa’s face.

Seassa's tone was resolute, tinged with regret. “It’s time, Vina. My next strike will be fatal. I lament that we couldn't bridge our differences.” She casually threw her scimitar down between her feet and activated charge once more with her thin sword held in front of her.

Time seemed to slow down as Seassa traversed the distance between them. Vina, in desperation pulled at her blood and tried to form a blood crystal, hoping to bring it between them. Something resisted her attempts to manipulate her blood, however. After a moment, it overrode her control entirely, her blood refusing to compress into crystal. Her mind raced as she tried to come up with a counter.

Instead, a curious warmth spread rapidly from her core, a stark contrast to the cool air that pressed upon her wounds. It was as if her very lifeblood had awakened to her dire need. With an authority that brooked no dissent from her, her blood surged, answering a call that Vina had not made. It was unlike anything she’d felt before—not her own power, but something else, far older, as if her blood had gained the will of another.

New Passive Ability: Reflexive Hemoguard

Seassa’s estoc descended towards Vina's vulnerable eye, however it met not flesh, but resistance. An undulating shield of crimson, intricate and dense, materialized out of Vina’s own veins.

Vina’s breath caught. She hadn’t summoned it. She hadn’t even thought of it. Her blood was moving of its own accord, as if it had a will beyond hers. It was like her body had been hijacked, a puppet to some alien force coursing through her veins. She tried to grasp at the reins of control, but her blood refused to obey her title’s ability.

A shiver ran down her spine. Was her blood still hers? The power felt different, alive, and unyielding, like a current pulling her deeper into something she didn’t understand.

Vina's eyes widened in astonishment. The sword's tip hung, quivering a mere hair's breadth from her eye, embedded in a lattice of hardened blood that glistened like a ruby in the torchlight.

Seassa staggered back, her charge interrupted, her eyes mirroring the disbelief that clawed at her composure. Vina’s blood hardened into a shield, pulsed before beginning to inch toward Seassa’s hand. The swordmaster vanished in a burst of white dust, and the blood liquified once more and moved back toward Vina, protectively nestling around her waist.

Vina, still lying prone, felt a resurgence of strength in her body, the majority of which went directly to her broken foot. She knew this was not her end. Not yet. With a newfound sense of hope and the primal urge to survive, she grabbed her flailing hand, painfully forcing the parts back together, and held it, feeling it heal back into place with the next wave of strength passing through her. Then she felt an attack at her back, but her blood moved once again to intercept it. With her foot now healed, she pushed against the soil, her mind racing to comprehend these evolutions and the unexpected ally within her own body.

Vina looked over at Seassa and saw a grim look on her face. She couldn’t help but take the moment to taunt her. “How often have you failed after saying you were going to kill someone?”

Seassa seemed to take a moment to consider. “Rarely.” She reached down to her hip, temporarily sheathing her estoc, and pulled out a second white scimitar. “Prepare yourself, Vina. There will be no more leniency.”

Vina groaned, “So, the thrusting sword isn't your forte. It's scimitars. Tell me, is Seassa really dead? Can you revive her?”

“All of us are Seassa,” the swordmaster replied, a note of weariness in her voice. Suddenly, the tempo of the battle escalated. A scimitar hurtled towards Vina, her blood instinctively rising to intercept it causing it to fall to the ground between them. A beam of destructive light from above signaled another imminent attack, and Seassa, reclaiming the estoc, unleashed a gray laser of light in Vina’s direction. Nimbly dodging both attacks, Vina made a dash for Selenia, only to find Seassa materializing to the side of her where the scimitar still lay on the ground, intercepting her path. Seassa laid her hand on the discarded scimitar, calling down another beam of light that vaporized Vina’s protective blood.

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She barely reached halfway to Selenia before the sky lit up with two more beams. Her legs burned from the effort. 'I can't keep this up,' she thought, diving aside. The explosion rocked her, sending her rolling across the ground. Coming to a stop on her back, Vina squinted when the sky overhead opened up once more with a gray light. “Shit!” she squealed, wrapping her blood cloak around herself and hoping it would be enough. She tried to roll again, knowing she couldn’t keep still or she would be pummeled, but the force striking her from above was enough to momentarily stun her.

You have been hit with 523 points of Lunic Damage. Your armor did not block this damage. 445 Damage negated by Blood Cloak. Blood cloak has failed. You have suffered 78 points of Lunic Damage. You are stunned for 3 seconds.

The numbers felt distant, mechanical. The pain, however, was all too real. Vina gasped, the force of the strike leaving her reeling. Stunned, she was helpless, unable to move even as another light opened up above her. Her mind raced as she hoped her armor would absorb this next blow. She felt some of the blood in her locket leak out involuntarily, but it did not move to block the light above. It swept to the side, blocking the weapon thrown at her. Then the Lunic beam struck her, destroying the blood that had just defended her once more.

You have been hit with 544 points of Lunic Damage. Armor reduced damage by 99.9999%. You are no longer stunned.

Vina jumped to her feet as the next sanguine surge rushed through her. Desperate, she grabbed the estoc that was thrown at her. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the weapon as she tried to come up with a plan. “Laser beam… how do I do a laser beam…?” she asked herself. She wasn’t given long to try to figure it out, however. Seassa was back on her, resorting to using her mastery of her dual scimitars once more, making Vina suspect she might be out of divinity. Vina backed away, trying to keep her distance as she desperately tried to come up with a plan of her own. She deflected strike after strike, not even attempting to attack against the swordmaster.

As she backed away, she felt the dead creatures’ blood on the front line. As soon as she had she converted it, it moved toward her, unbidden. It joined the conflict with Seassa as if it were a living shield, making its own decisions to disrupt Seassa’s rhythm of attacks, but never getting in Vina’s way. This brief respite gave Vina enough time to pull at the other blood in the area and quickly she had amassed enough to begin an assault all her own.

Seassa's concentration intensified as she pressed her assault against Vina's makeshift defense. As Vina detonated her first blood crystal, Seassa flung her scimitar skyward, reappearing overhead with a resounding lunic strike to Vina’s back. The impact sent Vina tumbling forward onto all fours, her previous blood-formed shield splintered by the attack. More blood rushed to replace it, but Seassa was relentless, bombarding the area with lunic blasts, scattering the blood that came to save her. Vina feared she couldn't conjure a defense or offense swiftly enough to prevent her impending doom.

Pinned to the earth, the weight of Seassa’s looming presence was almost suffocating. Vina tensed, anticipating the inevitable. The swordmaster's blade cut through the air, a viper swift and merciless sliced Vina’s back.

A searing line of fire traced across her shoulders, her backpack providing little in the way of protection. While the cut was not deep, Vina’s blood ejected from her body as if it was fighting to escape her. For a moment, it hovered, quivering in the air between them. Vina felt something within her flare in response, heat coursing through her veins hotter than the wound itself. A primal cry escaped her lips as her senses reeled from the transformation unfolding within. Her body, no longer content with passive suffering, heeded Trina's implacable will, and Vina knew she was undergoing another change.

New Passive Ability: Blood’s Dominion

Vina felt a surge deep within her veins—her blood came alive, pulsing with a will of its own. She no longer commanded it. It moved with a lethal precision she had never imagined. This wasn’t her power. It was something else, something foreign.

Panic flared in her chest. She tried to rein it in, to exert control, but her blood surged again, responding to some unspoken command—but not hers. She was a passenger now, carried along in the wake of a force that was part of her, but not her own. For a terrifying moment, she wondered if her own blood would turn against her, devour her from the inside.

The airborne droplets of blood coalesced with newfound purpose, independent from Vina’s intention, forming a sanguine cloud that Seassa failed to notice as she prepared for another strike. When she finally realized the danger, it was already too late. She had inhaled the very essence of Vina's power, the hemophages now coursing through her, converting her blood into Vina’s.

With a surge of will, Vina invoked Blood Call, and Seassa staggered, a scimitar clattering to the ground as she doubled over in agony. Blood escaped from her body, unceremoniously tearing holes through her skin. Vina reached out, attempting to call the blood back to her command, but it seemed her title ability paled against the newfound autonomy her blood now wielded. It obeyed her call but only as a prelude to its own violent sequence of attacks.

Seassa backed away, holding an arm over the stinging wounds covering her body. Her eyes displayed a rage that surpassed words. But the silent reprieve Vina’s blood call provided The Swordmaster ended quickly when her blood lashed together in long thin tendrils that flung themselves toward Seassa.

Seassa circled as she avoided their whip-like attacks, her eyes darting between Vina and the errant blood that swirled around her like a tempest. With a snarl she threw her last weapon wide and in an unexpected direction. Vina’s eyes identified her goal almost as soon as Seassa vanished in a cloud of dust. “She’s getting Selenia!” she thought and her blood reacted to her realization, flying through the air like a spear toward the weapon still lying on the ground. But Seassa beat her to it. She kicked the thrusting sword up to her hand with a single toe and hit the ground running, keeping enough momentum to avoid the red spear flying in her direction. Her blood scattered as soon as it missed Seassa’s body, seeming to come to its own realization that a singular attack was not going to be sufficient.

Vina couldn’t help but be equally fascinated and concerned watching her blood act of its own accord, but she didn’t have time to figure out what was happening to her body. She had already thrown more daggers of her own blood toward Seassa, influencing their trajectory with her title skill while she ran toward the sword master with her estoc. However Seassa simply obliterated her thrown weapons midair with a well timed lunic blast.

Going on the offensive, Vina activated charge once she was within range, but she saw the grin on Seassa’s face and realized she must have made a mistake. She attempted to abort by changing her direction, but Seassa raised Selenia above her head and slammed the weapon into Palitern up to its caged hilt.

Despite her skill’s aggressive acceleration, Vina felt something arrest her forward movement and drag her toward where Seassa stood with a scimitar still in hand. She wasn’t alone in suffering from this influence, however. Her blood was also being pulled with her. Vina struggled to take a step away from the weapon, her boots dragging in the soft soil, leaving furrows as she was inevitably pulled toward Seassa, pulled toward her sword embedded in the soil.

You are afflicted with Lunic Pull. You will be drawn to Luni.

Seassa threw her scimitar down, disappeared, and then reappeared after recovering her other scimitar. Assuming a stance of readiness, she smiled cruelly while she waited for Vina.

Vina looked around, trying to figure out what was happening to her. It was clear to her now that Seassa’s weapons, including Selenia, all had special abilities. If moving directly away from Selenia was impossible now… “Maybe…” she thought and her blood responded already to her idea. They each moved lateral to the anchored sword, circling around the swordmaster even as they continued to be pulled toward her in the middle. Her blood attacked Seassa’s front while Vina struck at her from behind.

The swordmaster's movements were precise and swift, focusing on avoiding Vina’s attacks while blocking the bizarre and dizzying tentacles of her blood. Only occasionally did she strike out at Vina and her blood moved to form barriers countering Seassa's every thrust and slice. Gradually, Vina found herself and her blood were fighting Seassa at the same time head on when the swordmaster stepped backward, neither of them able to flank her due to Selenia’s powerful pull.

Together, Vina and her blood held their own against Seassa, the swordmaster's expression twisting into one of frustration as her usual fluidity was stymied by their relentless assault. Vina knew she should have felt triumphant, but instead, a cold sweat ran down her spine. Her blood wasn’t just defending her—it was attacking, lashing out with a fury she hadn’t summoned even if she did desire it.

She wasn’t in control of it anymore. Each attack seemed more erratic, less precise. What if it turned on her? Vina gritted her teeth, trying to wrestle her focus back, but it felt like trying to rein in a storm. This wasn’t her fight anymore—it was the blood’s. And her blood wanted more.

A mistimed block, a moment's hesitation, and Seassa's scimitar found its arc against Vina’s armor. It was not a strike intended to kill, and Vina immediately recognized it for what it was. “She changed my damage resistance…”

Then Seassa’s blade was flung skyward once more, a spotlight appeared above her, warning her of the impending attack. But she was rooted to her position over top Selenia, unable to move out of the way. Vina's blood reacted, creating a blood cloak around her, but the beam was swift, a column of lunic wrath along with Seassa herself descended with the inevitability of nightfall.

You have been hit with 512 points of Lunic Damage. Your armor did not block this damage. 445 Damage negated by Blood Cloak. Blood cloak has failed. You have suffered 67 points of Lunic Damage. You are stunned for 3 seconds.

Despite her stunned status, Vina felt a scimitar also cut into her body. She closed her eyes against the pain as Seassa cut into her repeatedly for three painfully uninterrupted seconds. The cutting stopped a moment later, but Vina was barely holding on as she grappled with the pain of dozens of deep cuts. A spotlight appeared above her once more, and Vina's eyes closed as another beam crashed down upon her. Her last thought before the darkness claimed her was not of death, but of fear—fear that when she woke, if she woke, she would no longer be herself.