Chapter Thirty-Five

After absorbing the spirit, things really picked up. Every day, all Jackson and Melanie did was fight. That wasn’t to say there wasn’t any variety or difficulty. Jackson began to believe that the ancient spirit wasn’t really a spirit but rather a devil. A devil that delighted in their suffering. Sometimes Lazarus would pit them against each other, and not only would they have to defeat the monsters he pitted against them, but they would also have to defeat one another in order to claim victory.

Lazarus’s pocket dimensions also changed a lot. Sometimes they would battle atop a mountain where the air was shallow; other times they would be in a vast forest, having to hunt for one another. The hunger got so bad for Jackson at one point that he was forced to feed on any squirrels and rats he could find. That was when he found out that not all blood tasted the same.

After every battle, they would absorb spirit and refine their concept. Lazarus had told them,

“If you don’t direct your spirit and strengthen your concept pieces at a time, you’re going to end up with a lot of wasted spirit and an unbalanced concept. An unbalanced concept is an unbalanced Domain and an unbalanced Domain is a weak Domain, understand?”

It was harder to direct the incoming spirit; Jackson couldn’t just seize it like he usually did; he had to revert towards directing it with his will, allowing it to flow where he wanted rather than forcing it. He decided to focus more on the surroundings of the phoenix. The sky became a dark red and pink, ash floated along the wind, and tears of ember danced between the ash.

Every so often, Jackson watched the mythical fire bird form, and as he studied it, he realized it looked like a raptor, if that raptor was made of burnished crimson fire. Eventually, Lazarus finally called them to a halt. He looked at them with pride in his eyes.

“You have trained diligently for a long time now; I can tell you that it’s been at least six months of constant training. I only have one more challenge for you. You’ll have to work together, as you have been, to win. If you do, however, I will be able to give you your real inheritance, the items I have put here. Are you ready?”

Melanie spoke up, asking a question.

“What’s the challenge?”

Jackson nodded and pointed at her. Lazarus grinned,

“You’re going to have to fight a vampyre. One like Jackson, but a little bit more advanced. One who’s Domain has ascended to journeyman rank. I ask again, are you ready?”

Jackson looked at Melanie, who met his gaze with determined eyes. They nodded and bumped fists, a gesture they had adopted recently. Lazarus beamed and raised his hands, and once again the world shifted and twisted into a wide stone arena, surrounded by darkness. Dark crimson clouds floated in that darkness, twisting into nightmarish shapes.

Jackson felt like they were in some kind of hellscape. In the center of the arena, a figure formed out of a mass of red and black, a mini-abyssal tornado that twisted in on itself to form... an angel? His skin was paler than fresh snow; he was tall and broad-shouldered, with hair as white as his skin, though it was curly and fell to his shoulders—a white mane. His eyes glowed with crimson light.

What really stood out, however, were the wings that extended from his back. They were as black as the void, stretching out in either direction, at least seven feet long. They looked soft, soft, and deadly. In his right hand, he wielded a blade, a gladius of silver white that actually seemed to gleam, despite there not being much light.

Lazarus hovered above it all, grinning and clasping his hands in front of him in a picture of excited glee.

“Alright kids. This is it. Your final challenge. Have fun now!”

With that, the vampyric angel pointed the gladius at them, and dark crimson shards began to form in the air in front of him. Jackson’s eyes widened, and he saw an eruption. He was just in time as the shards shot forward with deadly speed. He managed to get out of the way in time. Melanie, for her part, held up a hand, and an emerald green half dome appeared in front of her. The crimson shards exploded against it, golden light bursting from the dome with each shard that hit it. When the shards faded, Melanie pulled out her bow and shot several emerald arrows in quick succession at the angel.

The dark-winged vampyre cut each arrow down with his gladius, his movements wicked fast and graceful. Even with the Ebon eruption, Jackson had trouble keeping up with him. Thinking to end the fight quickly, he wove a blood lightning surge into the weave built in the palm of his right hand, a swirling orb of black and red that hummed with destructive power. He whipped his right hand forward, palm facing the dark angel, and the beam shot forth, crackling with power.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The angel's crimson eyes locked onto the beam, and he held up his gladius, flat of the blade, towards the beam of destruction and lightning. The beam slammed into the blade; it’s hunger—nearly a living thing. Jackson’s face tightened into a determined, if grim, expression, and he poured more mana into the blood lightning beam, weaving it into the start of the beam in order to give it more force.

The angel’s face didn’t even twitch; there was not a hint of strain on his face. He folded his left wing over himself as a kind of shield as Melanie shot a powerful arrow at him, which boomed with concussive force as it split the air. It slammed into his wing, and other than ruffling his feathers a bit, the vampyre angel seemed to be unharmed.

“What is with this guy? How is he just shrugging off our attacks like this?” Jackson growled.

Melanie frowned and then looked over at him.

“Distract him for a while,” she said.

Jackson gave her an exasperated look as the angel began to slowly walk towards him, pushing his beam of destructive lightning back as he did.

“Why?” he asked.

Melanie let out an impatient growl and waved him off as she began to weave. Jackson decided he would just need to trust her, something that was easy for him. His blood lightning surge was a powerful weave, but it was draining his mana and clearly doing nothing, so he cut it off.

“Alright, let’s make this a little more personal.” Jackson growled and rocketed towards him, fist-cocked.

You may think that getting up close and personal with someone who had a sword while Jackson had nothing was a bad idea. You’d be right, except he had a few advantages. First of all, he activated Blood Gaze, and he felt the skill work as the vampyre stopped, rigid as a stone. Then he wove veilstrike around his fists and began to pummel the angel's nerve clusters, his vulnerabilities. Darkness began to enshroud the vampyre, a smothering and restraining jacket, and bloody ropes of mana wrapped around the angel and rooted him to the floor. The warrior vampyre did not react at all to Jackson’s strikes or the binding.

“I can’t keep this up for long, Melanie; finish what you’re doing!” Jackson yelled over to her.

“Move! Now!” she yelled back.

Jackson did, with absolutely no hesitation, push himself back with all the speed he could muster, fairly flying out of the way. He looked over at Melanie, who was grinning in anticipation at their foe.

“Let’s see how you like this, pretty boy.”

She threw her hands outward, and an explosion of emerald light lit up the sky. Jackson looked upward, and his mouth fell open. In the sky, a massive wolf’s head appeared. It was made out of nature mana, glowing an iridescent green with eyes of molten gold. The wolf howled, and the sound of it was a hurricane that echoed in the surrounding void. The wolf’s head began to descend.

The angel looked up and frowned. He held up a hand, but Jackson didn’t give him the chance to weave any kind of defense. He hit him with the blood lord’s gaze. Or he tried anyway; it didn’t work. Jackson frowned. The angel must have come up with some kind of counter once he was taken by surprise by it.

Jackson hit him with a blood lightning surge, which he did not bother blocking. The destructive lightning beam started to eat into his skin, doing the first real damage of the entire fight. What shocked Jackson was that he just did not care. The wolf’s head opened its maw, revealing rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. A dome of silver and red force formed around the angel, just as the wolf’s jaws closed around him. Cracks began to form in the orb as the wolf’s teeth tried to crack through the dome and devour the angel.

Melanie did not stop there; she fired arrow after arrow into the dome, trying to break it. The dome had cut off Jackson’s beam, but he kept it up, trying to break it himself. The angel’s skin was cracked and broken, revealing ribs and organs underneath. As Jackson watched, though, the skin began to regenerate and heal.

Unfair, but he was a vampyre; Jackson couldn’t be surprised. The angel wasn’t sitting idly by; he was moving his left hand, clearly weaving something. The dome was cracking, but it wasn’t fast enough. A large gladius formed in the sky, black and silver, radiating an aura of power as it slashed downward with destructive speed. It cut into the wolf, slicing it to pieces. Emerald nature mana exploded, shards of emerald and gold shooting off into the void.

The silver dome around the warrior exploded into shards of its own, and Jackson’s destructive lightning surge ate into him again. The angel's wings flared, and he launched himself into the air. Jackson cursed and cut off the beam.

The angel held out his gladius, and a ball of black, red, and silver energy began to form at its tip. It swirled into existence and began to grow, becoming larger and larger.

“Uhh, that’s bad,” Jackson stated.

Melanie cursed and began to weave.

“Get over here!” she called out.

Jackson did, and an emerald-green dome erupted around them. Just in time too, as that destructive and large ball the size of a truck erupted towards them. Melanie gritted her teeth as that ball slammed into them. Jackson felt a little helpless in that moment, unable to do much.

He could have dodged or shot a beam at it, but he chose to trust in Melanie’s defensive dome instead. Though it was vastly unfair to leave it all on her, a concussive boom echoed throughout the arena, and Melanie’s dome began to form cracks of its own.

Yet it held—oh, thank all the gods, it held.

At least until the angel descended with all the force of a meteor, his gladius piercing through Melanie’s dome as easily as you might puncture a bubble. It exploded outward, their hair ruffling from the blasted air. The vampyre slashed at Melanie, but Jackson got in the way, blocking the strike with a raised right arm.

Jackson hissed as the blade bit into his forearm, all the way to the bone. The pain was immense, and he yanked his arm away, blood spattering on the ground and coating the silver gladius. His wound was already closing; however, phoenix regeneration was putting in the work. He dove under a follow-up strike and slammed a fist into the vampyre’s gut with a veilstrike.

The weave surrounded their foe once more, rooting him in place so Melanie could get some distance. Jackson slammed into the vampyre with a forceful combination of blows, the darkness and blood weave bindings growing. Then he slammed a fist into his hand that held the gladius. It clattered to the floor, and faster than a blink, Jackson picked the weapon up and rammed it into his chest.

Then Jackson created some distance between them by watching.

“Let’s see how you deal with that, you winged bastard,” Jackson said, panting.