Chapter 389: Battle Part 7
"..." I’m struck by a heavy blow that throws me back, I see Hana using a large war hammer.
’What a heavy blow...’ The bones in my arm cracked, and my hands are trembling from the impact.
’This is getting too dangerous... my body can’t handle all this constant damage.’ I’m getting exhausted, I need to end this quickly.
"[Divine Domain]" I use one of the sacred spells I learned before when I needed to deceive Lucios.
[Divine Domain] - Conjures a field with a range of 200 meters, within this area any magic considered impure is canceled before it can be cast, the effect of the field lasts 3 minutes.
I advance towards Sakura, I need to get rid of her since the more exhausted I get, the harder it will be to deal with the copies she creates. Hana appears in front of me to try and stop me.
But I, being small in this form, slip under her legs and with my tail push her to the ground while using mana to create platforms and jump from one to the other with extreme speed.
Sakura creates dozens of clones to try and stop me, but I dive into the shadows and emerge near her, leaping at her body while shattering all her clones with the shadows.
Clack.
"Argh!!!" I let out a painful groan.
’T-Trap!!’ Three walls appear around me, one on the left, one on the right, and one on the ceiling. From the walls, chains connect to my body in several places, locking me suspended in the air.
But the chains have blades and cut my wrists, ankles, and make an unpleasant cut on my neck and tail, while the position of each chain twists my body in a way that if I weren’t extremely flexible, the bones would have been completely broken.
In addition to the damage, I’ve been horribly immobilized. Trying to break free will cut my hands and head off, and I can’t use mana on them. A damn powerful and dangerous trap.
’Quick! How can I get out of this?’ I try to transform the trapped parts into black mud, but I can’t I’m too exhausted for that right now, so only the outline turns into this black mud, but not enough to escape.
Of course, they’re going to take the opportunity to kill me. Hana, who approached, strikes violently downwards on my back. I feel my spine breaking as the impact forces my body against the blades, cutting me even more.
’Regenerate! I need to regenerate!’ It’s too slow. No matter how fast my regeneration is, after a certain degree of damage, its effectiveness is greatly reduced. Considering the damage, I’m only alive because of the passive [Ancient Blood].
Ancient Blood - As a being of the Abyss, your vitality is abnormal by the standards of living beings, so you can survive even if you receive severe damage or have vital organs destroyed.
"Gaah" She delivers another violent, mana-charged blow downwards, the pain is high and the restraints hurt a lot.
’Damn, damn, just 4 more... I have to have something that can help.’ I taste blood in my mouth, the cut on my throat has deepened a lot, and since the blade is still inside, the wound won’t close.
Another blow, even stronger, which makes the blades press even deeper, cutting my flesh. This has always been a problem my resistance has never been high.
My body has always focused on having high regenerative power instead of resistance, which has always made me take damage, but support it without problems. However, now that the regeneration has diminished a lot, the lack of defense my body has become a problem.
Biological alteration could be an option, but the fact is I can’t. These restraints mess up my abilities a lot it was like when I got trapped in that first trap and had to chew it to get out.
But this one is more complex. It seems to be affecting my ability to change form, so I can’t generate extra mouths to chew through the restraint.
Another heavy blow comes, forcing me even more against the blades of the restraint. My spine is in fragments while the blade in my neck is halfway through it.
’Is this it? Am I going to die for something so ridiculous?’ I think of all the options I have. Ironically, at this moment when I’m really close to death, my first thought goes to Grimm.
I wonder why her I like her, but I love Delphina and Zephyra more, so my thoughts focusing on Grimm is strange.
’Great, I’m going to die thinking about that blood-sucking bitch and... blood... blood...’ I think of Grimm again and her abilities, and immediately I deactivate any function of my body that uses energy.
I stop breathing, my vision turns black and white, abandoning color processing, blood flow is reduced to a minimum, my heart slows down, my body stops producing various things while all energy is concentrated in a single area of my brain.
The world seems slow now. I’m naturally fast, but now that I’ve abandoned all bodily functions to give 100% of my energy to my brain, the world seems slow.
All my focus goes into creating a spell. Normally, creating a spell from scratch takes time, but here I already have a foundation, a function, and a model to create the spell, so my brain focuses mainly on completing the theory 100%.
I don’t need practice, I don’t need testing, and I don’t need it to work perfectly I just need it to break this damn trap.
I receive another hammer blow. Hana seems to be trying to decapitate me using the blades of the trap itself. I’m so well trapped here that this plan would work if I couldn’t think of what to do.
’Faster... faster...’ 70% of my neck is already cut, the blade occupying that space preventing it from regenerating, but I ignore anything, focusing 100% on the function of the spell.
I’ve always found it ironic how in stories, heroes awaken power from nothing it’s really "comical," after all, they’ve never worked hard to have it. It’s a power that arises from absolute nothing to help them defeat the villain.
They’re losing and in the moment of death, they gain this power, survive, and defeat the villain, while I, to survive, literally have to create a spell while I’m being killed.
Unlike them, I would never receive power from nothing while I’m dying so I have to literally create a spell using the power that is already mine.
It’s really unfortunate, but I know that no one will give me a power from nothing that will make me win. Unlike stories where the hero gains power from nothing, I’m the villain and I have to conquer it with what I have.
And to survive, I do anything, even if it has a high cost for me, even if creating and using an unstable spell at the current moment is risky and is practically suicide.
It doesn’t matter. If it’s for my revenge, I’ll pay any price. I feel the hammer delivering another blow that pushes me even closer to death. I look at the ring on my finger.
That beautiful cursed ring that Grimm gave me. She said that blood magic is more special than it seems and said she would teach me more about this magic I should learn more from her afterwards.
’Ah yes... of course I won’t accept dying here in this stupid way... I should thank Grimm afterwards...’ I restore the senses I deactivated. My eyes return to seeing colors as my heart races wildly, as if it’s about to jump out.
"I... sacrifice my arm... [Rite of the Black Rose: Grimm]" I say, coughing up blood. My voice comes out hoarse and almost inaudible due to the nearly completely destroyed vocal cords.
[Rite of the Black Rose: Grimm] Vampiric blood magic. It is based on sacrificing parts of the body as an offering to the vampire queen Grimm. The greater the blood sacrifice, the more freedom you have to manipulate every aspect of the blood. Sacrificing limbs allows the use of this ability for 20 seconds.
As soon as the magic activates, my mana drops to 20%. My right arm deforms and explodes into a bubble of blood, covering everything nearby. Hana tries to strike again to finish me off.
But I solidify my blood to such a high level that when Hana hits my body and I’m pushed against the blade, it ends up breaking. I violently pull my remaining arm, the chain breaks, and the blade managed to cut the skin and flesh, but as soon as it reached the blood, it shattered.
With similar movements, I break all the chains as the blood quickly returns to liquid form. In each open wound, the blood coagulates and solidifies, instantly closing the wounds.
For internal damage, the blood quickly begins to force the multiplication of stem cells, forcing the regeneration of various areas. To restore the fragmented bones, the blood temporarily replaces the fragmented spine until it can heal on its own.
While on my nearly completely decapitated neck, the blood rebuilds everything that was lost and restores normal functions, all of this done in a mere 7 seconds.
Of course, with obvious aftereffects that will take a long time to recover. The magic is unstable, and this regeneration was done in an extremely messy way, just enough to allow me to return to the fight.
"I’M GOING TO KILL YOU, YOU FILTHY BITCH!" I yell at Kaori. That bitch has screwed me over twice since this fight started. She’s terrified and tries to run towards Sakura.
But I still have 11 seconds of use of the ability. Unfortunately, even with the blood, I can’t reconstruct a new arm I’ll have to wait for my natural regeneration to give me a new arm.
I point the rest of what used to be an arm at Kaori, and then gather 50% of all the blood in my body. Soon I begin to change its composition it becomes black, rigid, and even turns into poison.
I fire this blood, which at extreme speed pierces Kaori’s abdomen, lodging itself deeply. Still manipulating the blood, I make it expand with hundreds of thorns.
Killing Kaori, from within her body, hundreds of blood thorns pierce, creating a macabre sight as the blood venom ensures her death. My blood, which is naturally different from the blood of other beings, begins to "consume" Kaori’s blood.
Soon the effect of this spell ends, and I spit a lot of blood on the ground. The instability of this spell is greater than expected. My vision becomes completely red due to my eyeballs being full of blood.
I also breathe heavily as my body begins to sweat cold, my hands tremble, my posture becomes shaky and clearly twisted due to the poorly regenerated spine.
’My brain, some organs, and my veins were severely damaged... but I’m alive.’ I look at Hana and Sakura, the only ones still capable of fighting. Yuki is still being spun by that shadow tentacle while stupidly asking for help.
"You miserable bitch, you almost killed me. I hope you’re ready." I have a special hatred for Hana, and this damn bitch managed to increase my hatred even more.
"..."
"You’re a grotesque thing. I don’t know how something like you was born and continues to live." Hana speaks with disgust at seeing my body obvious red marks where the veins burst in some places, a missing arm, covered in blood, red eyes due to the blood, and various other damages along with a twisted and macabre posture.
I really can’t claim to be beautiful at the moment, but in a fight to the death, anything that helps me survive will be used.
I could have died with that spell. In fact, the spell was so unstable that using it almost killed me for real, and even though it didn’t kill me, it was still an immense pressure on my already injured body from previous blows.
’Weeks...’ I believe it will take me a few weeks to fully recover from all this damage, which is absurd since until now the maximum time I’ve taken to recover was a few days.
"That’s right, I’m a grotesque monster, and it will be this monster who will kill you." I say with pure hatred, preparing to continue this fight despite the absurd damage to my body.