Chapter Thirty-Six

It turns out all the winged bastard had to do to deal with it was slide the blade out of his chest in a smooth motion and let his wound regenerate. Jackson pointed,

“That is very unfair,” he said, deadpan.

Melanie chuckled, though it was painful.

“Can’t you do the same thing?”

Jackson shrugged,

“It’s fine when I do it, of course. Not when the enemies do it.”

Melanie laughed. Of course, the jokes were cut short when the vampyric angel blurred toward Melanie. She cursed and tried to create distance, ducking and weaving away from the slashes of the sword. Jackson blurred toward the vampyric warrior, attempting to distract him, and it definitely worked. He turned his attention towards Jackson and began trying to cut him to ribbons with his sword.

Unfortunately for the angel, Melanie did not stand idly by, and she attacked the weak points in his defense. The vampyre warrior was very good; he was like a living tank. He just didn’t care about any of the damage they inflicted. Yet he was struggling; he was just one being after all. His wings were not idle, folding around him to block strikes on particularly vulnerable areas of his body. It was just too much for him, though, and Jackson was able to land a few veilstrikes.

In the end, it was the veilstrikes that did him in. He just had no defense against it. Not when one landed, anyway. He seemed to only have one ranged attack, and it didn’t do him a whole lot of good since they could block it relatively easily. This meant he had to engage in close combat, the way he was now. The weapon would normally give him a huge advantage here, and indeed, it forced Melanie to disengage nearly every time he attacked her with it.

However, there were two of them, and that fact was insurmountable for the warrior. This allowed Jackson to hit him with a veilstrike—in the ribs, in the face, low and in the hip—anywhere he could. Jackson hit him with a veilstrike and bound him in darkness and blood. It was only a couple of seconds, but that was more than enough time in a fight.

Jackson took the blade from him again, moved to the back of him, slammed a veilstrike into his back to give him another couple of seconds of time, and then he cut his wings off. Blood spurted from his back as the wings came off, coating the stone in a sickly red. Jackson didn’t stop there; he took the gladius and attempted to behead the warrior, the blade slashing into his neck with incredible force.

The angel's head popped off like the cap from a bottle, blood fountaining from it in a violent spurt. Jackson threw the gladius to the stone as the body slumped to the ground like a sack of meat.

“Well, I’d say we win,” Jackson breathed.

Lazarus clapped his hands,

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” Jackson looked at the spirit. He hovered high in the air, looking down at them with a knowing grin. Jackson did not like that grin at all. Melanie pointed,

“Uhh, Jackson?”

Jackson looked down at the vampyric angel's body. It was writhing on the ground, and the blood around him was flowing into him. Jackson stepped backward a few steps.

“Oh, come on. You’re telling me there’s a second stage to this boss fight?”

“Bingo, fledgling! Better get ready, because here we go!”

Lazarus raised his right hand as he spoke, closed his fingers together, and then pushed his hand forward, opening his fingers in a sort of mini-explosion gesture. Jackson cursed as the body began to twist, the head reattaching, and it rose upward, a mass of black, red, and silver mana warping around it.

Jackson saw the claws first—silver, sharp, and large. They were attached to a corpse-like hand. The hand was attached to strong, but thin, arms. Those arms were attached to a very bony and thin torso. The head was now bat-like, the ears pointed, and he was now larger and taller. He didn’t have wings, but he was hunched over slightly, standing on bowed, clawed feet. A cloak of red and black surrounded it.

His crimson eyes were still there, but filled with hate rather than indifference. It was much faster too, rocketing towards them with nightmare speed. Jackson tried to intercept; he honestly did, but it was faster than he was—faster than Melanie was. They had been ready, prepared, however, and Melanie was able to get a half-dome of emerald green up and ready to intercept the once vampyre warrior angel's blow.

It didn’t do her an ounce of good. The dome shattered as easily as untempered glass, and clawed hands rammed themselves into Melanie’s stomach, lifting her up.

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“Melanie!” Jackson screamed.

The thing hissed at her, fangs gleaming as spittle splattered onto her face. She yelled in agony as the creature tightened his claws. It was at this point that Jackson slammed into it, veilstrikes rapidly slamming into its body.

Except now it didn’t work. Whatever transformation the angel had gone through, it was enough to give him resistance. That didn’t take away from the fact that Jackson hit hard, the sound of the punches on the creature's bony body echoing throughout the arena. It grunted in pain and tossed Melanie aside. She groaned, and she was bleeding heavily.

“She’s bleeding out, fledgling; what are you going to do?”

Jackson ignored Lazarus, focusing all of his attention on the creature, which swung at him with its vicious claws. The Ebon eruption gave him a huge advantage here, and he easily dodged it. This thing was absolutely faster than Jackson was, but not by much, and it had slowed down since Jackson had hit it. This form seemed more susceptible to pain, showing more of a reaction than his other form.

Jackson didn’t have a lot of time. Melanie was bleeding out, as much as he hated admitting that Lazarus was right. He needed to act. Of course, he was acting, but it wasn’t enough. As Jackson moved, he quickly considered his options. Veilstrike wasn’t working, so he couldn’t rely on it. He could dodge for now, but that wouldn’t end the fight, and the longer it went on, the more dangerous it was for Melanie.

Jackson hadn’t tried a lightning surge on it yet, but something told him the angel would just regenerate; all Jackson would be doing is wasting mana. Blood Lord's gaze had not worked before, but veilstrike had, so clearly the creature’s resistances had changed. The skill took a lot of mana, but Jackson didn’t have many other options. If this didn’t work, Jackson really wasn’t sure what else he could do. Unfortunately, he only got one shot at this. Veilstrikes were not cheap, and he had very little mana left. Jackson could feel the absence of it inside his Domain, the aspects a bare trickle of what they had been. He would either need to rest for them to replenish, which clearly wasn’t an option currently, or he could feed.

Jackson had a plan, and it was something he had tried before. It was perhaps becoming a little repetitive in the way he finished these fights. What did that matter, though? He was what he was. A vampyre. Jackson had been fighting that for so long, thinking of himself as some kind of monster. Riselle’s face haunted him, and the faces of those corrupted haunted him, but those choices did not define him and did not make him a monster.

Jackson was what he was, and it was about time he started accepting that.

“Okay, ugly. Let’s do this.”

As a low claw came in, attempting to skewer him as the creature had done to Melanie, Jackson let it. His claw dug into Jackson, and he grunted as sharp, hot pain exploded throughout his body. Jackson pushed the pain away, banishing it to the back of his mind, and gritting his teeth. He grabbed onto the creature's bony arm; it felt cold, cold as stone during winter, and as it tried to lift Jackson, he grinned and lowered his center of gravity, keeping himself fully on the ground.

Then Jackson began to drag himself forward. It was beyond painful. It was pain beyond anything else he had felt so far. But his phoenix regeneration skill was putting in a crazy amount of work, already trying to heal him, and the process was fighting against the pain.

It was a lot, but it made it bearable, somewhat. It was bearable enough for Jackson to keep dragging himself forward and pulling. Until the creature’s clawed hand burst through his back. Blood had burst out of the wound initially when his claws had entered Jackson’s stomach, and it covered his entire front. It did the same when the clawed hand burst forth from Jackson’s back.

Jackson let out a scream of agony, but he did not stop pulling himself towards the creature. A few more tugs, and he was in the creature's face. Its breath was rank, smelling of sewage and rotting meat. His crimson gaze was filled with unfocused hatred and hunger. He had a deep, insatiable hunger for anything he could get his hands on. He wanted to consume Jackson—every part of him. Jackson was familiar with that kind of hunger, and he admitted it scared him a bit.

Jackson vowed that he would not end up like the creature. He made that vow then and there as he looked into its hateful red eyes. Jackson grinned a bloody and defiant grin at it and activated Blood Lord's gaze, using up the rest of his mana. He almost howled in triumph as it worked! The creature froze up, unable to move; its claws and arm were no longer moving. Good thing too, because it was about to use its other clawed hand to slash at Jackson's face.

Jackson didn’t waste any time; he reached up and yanked the bat-like head to the side and bit down into its bony, skeletal neck. His fangs sank into it, and its blood started to flow into Jackson's mouth. You wouldn’t think that it would taste delicious, but it did. In fact, it was the most delicious blood Jackson had tasted thus far. Sweet, like a freshly baked apple pie. It came along with a deep surge of power, rushing through him and invigorating him. Jackson's wound attempted to heal entirely but couldn’t due to the arm passing through his stomach and back.

That was fine. Jackson didn’t care. All he cared about was the sweetness of its blood—the sweet, sweet power that filled him from within, wrapping around his body. His jaws tightened, and he gulped even more blood, swishing his tongue this way and that to savor the flavor of it. The creature grew weaker as Jackson did this, its arm eventually growing weaker and its body losing strength.

It wasn’t long before it was totally spent. Jackson made sure to drain it of every drop, and when he was absolutely sure the creature was dead, he unlatched his jaw and lifted his head. It was easy enough to slide off the thing's arm at that point as the body fell to the ground for a second, and hopefully, last time. Jackson looked down as the gaping wound in his stomach began to close up.

Jackson rolled his head from side to side, and then he widened his eyes. Melanie.

Jackson rushed over to her. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were closed. He looked up to find Lazarus there, and before Jackson could say a single thing, Lazarus was tipping a healing potion down her throat. Her wound closed, and her hazel eyes fluttered open, her gaze finding Jackson's before flicking down to where he held her hand. She gave him a small, knowing smile and squeezed him slightly.

“We did it,” she said weakly.

Jackson nodded,

“Yeah. We definitely kicked his ass.”

Jackson looked over at Lazarus.

“We done? No more challenges? No more training?”

The spirit gave Jackson a grin.

“Stop learning; start dying. But yes, for now, you’re done and have more than earned your inheritance. Come on, it’s time for the good part—the rewards.”

The world shifted.