Carmine’s blood boiled. Almost literally. Her entire body was covered in scratches and wounds. Her feet were aflame and she could not care less. The blood that dripped out of her body regenerated the lost flesh and skin. The flames burned her, but her regeneration could absolutely keep up.

  “Damn, girl! You’re enjoying this more than me! I just might like you!” Dalan laughed.

  “Keep that up and I’m gonna splatter that stupid hat with blood,” Carmine sneered with just as much energy.

  Carmine’s blood flowed from her wrists down to her axes. They swirled around the axeheads and enveloped it, forming larger axeheads out of blood.

  “I hate to use this, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to absolutely eviscerate you.”

  [Blood Crystalline: Encase]

  The blood solidified into crystalline structures around the axeheads. The inner axeheads looked as if they were frozen inside of the blood, almost like flowers frozen in ice.

  “Hoo… So you’re not the only one-“

  Before Dalan could finish, Carmine rushed at him with renewed vigour. The crystalline axes swept at him with power. His daggers didn’t meet her axes, they instead slashed through her arms as he backed away.

  “Feisty, huh!?”

  “Damn right! I’ll play till my body’s destroyed!”

  Carmine’s arms sprayed a fountain of blood into the air. She swiped forward and all the blood in the air flew at Dalan.

  ‘It’s pushing me to the storm boundary!’ Dalan recognised.

  He spun his daggers and launched a flurry of slashes. His mana flew out and turned into flying slashes, which cut through enough of the blood where his head and cap went un-splattered. The rest of his clothes unfortunately were. But that wasn’t all.

  Dalan felt his body being pushed backwards. Backwards towards the storm boundary.

  ‘It’s not just normal blood! How’d it get this much force behind it all of a sudden!?’

  Dalan’s eyes followed the trail of blood upwards, only to see a Carmine in the air, one hand pulling the blood and the other hand gripping her axe, about to slam it right into his head.

  “Knew you’d care too much about your hat. But now, you’re gonna fry with me!”

  ‘She can’t be fucking serious.’

  Carmine’s arm threw the blood line into the storm boundary. It was still attached to her, and by proxy, Dalan. Dalan’s eyes watched as the blood line flew in the air and had to come to a rapid decision.

  It was either cut the blood line or block the strike. He didn’t have enough time to do both. He gazed into her insane eyes and made his choice.

  Carmine’s crystalline axe crashed into Dalan’s daggers. The two of them roared as their weapons clashed, and even with the lightning jumping through the blood that connected them both, it did nothing to deter them. In fact, they roared even louder!

  “OuuuuUURGHHH!”

  The rotating blades surged and spun even faster, despite meeting a tough object. Dalan’s heart was on fire. The ground was aflame, lightning coursed through him, but his gaze was focused solely on shredding through the girl attacking him. For the first time in a long while, he felt the desperation of a life or death fight. And that energy resulted in a surge of power.

  The crystalline axe shattered. Carmine was blown back and still being in the air, she was unable to reposition herself. Dalan’s daggers shone with whitish-yellow mana. It was almost like the power of his Grinder Drive was no longer being suppressed.

  His hands moved almost like the wind. He slashed Carmine’s body with what seemed like a thousand cuts before kicking her aside. A hole formed in the storm boundary, letting her out, but he didn’t pay attention to that. No, he didn’t need the hole anymore.

  “What!?” Mikoko screamed as Dalan stabbed a hole into her storm wall.

  Seeing a clear path before him, he rushed at her. His daggers met her staff for the first time. The lightning she usually coated it with tried to jump into his daggers, but his shredding blades battered it away.

  Mikoko grunted as she tried to push him away, but he wasn’t going to make it easy.

  ‘Sound’s coming from… here!’

  Dalan stabbed into her pockets and swiftly retreated. He held his dagger up to observe just what he cut into.

  “I thought I’d get to cut that guy when I rushed to where the sound was comin’ from. And it turns out it was just 2 fucking phones!? Where the hell is he!?”

  “…” Mikoko didn’t say anything. She was too focused on the situation at hand.

  According to the plan, she was meant to retreat. Her alongside Carmine. It didn’t matter so long as Dalan followed them up, however-

  ‘Plue’s insects haven’t given us a signal yet. Carmine didn’t hold him off for long enough.’

  Preparations weren’t complete. Dalan had thrown Carmine out, and she couldn’t be sure if Carmine was conscious or even alive. Worst of all. Dalan’s Grinder Drive was strong enough to allow him to clash with her staff without worrying about being shocked.

  “What? Ya scared? Can’t handle your big sister’s britches?”

  Dalan didn’t give Mikoko room to answer. His powerful blades sheared a bit of her staff off with each clash. Mikoko parried each and every blow as she could, but she could not find a single opportunity to attack herself. Each and every moment was focused on defence.

  It wasn’t long before a cut got through her defences. In her eyes, the stab moved almost as if it was in slow motion. When she tried to parry it, Dalan had kicked her staff, which she didn’t think he dared to do. The only thing she could do was jerk her head.

  The dagger slashed the side of her neck, almost in the exact same spot Reina had pierced Dalan’s neck.

  The two froze for a brief second as if the both of them realised just how significant this was. Dalan could have killed her here. Had he aimed for the centre of her neck instead of the side, he might have- no, he would have killed her. Mikoko had only survived because of Dalan’s ire for her older sister.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  A spark of lightning shot out from the neck wound and forced Dalan back. Mikoko released one arm off of her staff and grasped the wound on her neck.

  It stung. She had been injured many times and suffered even deeper wounds before, but for some reason this stung extra hard.

  It stung harder than when she was foolhardy and made her sister rush her to a hospital. She knew the reason why. Back then, it hurt because she had made a mistake, but this time, it was a fact that she didn’t measure up. It was cold, hard reality. She was not skilled enough to take this enemy on.

  ‘… No, that’s wrong.’

  Mikoko refused to accept that was the case. No, the reason why it stung was because the man in front of her had never been fighting her in the first place. All she was to him was a vehicle for his hatred. A representation of Reina, something he could use to get back at her. Not even a person at all. It might be that he saw everyone like this, that she wasn’t special. But nevertheless, it stoked her heart.

  Mikoko jabbed her fingers into her neck wound and used a bit of mana to draw some blood out. She pressed on it, causing more blood to flow out.

  It stung. And she wanted to remember this pain.

  “The next one will kill ya,” Dalan declared gleefully.

  Mikoko formed a small cloud, formed of the blood in her hand. As she let out a deep sigh at what she was about to do, her eyes caught track of a few bugs on the ground. They formed into an arrow.

  “I’m…” Mikoko thought over her words. She almost decided to repeat a line Reina had said many times but chose not to. “I’ll show you what it means to be scared to die. I’ll fry your entire nervous system until you’re paralysed. And then I’ll crush your skull.”

  Suddenly, with a speed she had never shown before, Mikoko tossed the blood cloud away and swung at him.

  “Good, you’re really getting into it!”

  Mikoko’s entire body briefly coursed with lightning, forcing him to back away. With a deep exhale, storm clouds formed all around her. She spun her staff and swung it, sending them flying.

  Dalan’s blade got to work. He slashed through each and every storm cloud that came near him. It was at that moment Mikoko jumped and slammed her staff towards him. It had the form of an Indigo Crash, but none of the power. More and yet more clouds filled the area.

  Dalan sneered as he pushed the strike back, only for Mikoko to throw her staff back mid-air. She formed various hand-signs before intoning.

  “Convergent Lightningrod!”

  Every single storm cloud in the area shone as they followed her command. They all shot a purple lightning bolt towards the metal staff as it approached Dalan. His eyes widened as he moved to dash out of the way.

  Suddenly, two arms grabbed ahold of his.

  “Let’s do this shit again! This time, I won’t let you wimp out!”

  Dalan could only watch as the staff flew straight into him. The staff crashed into his chest and conducted every single lightning bolt into him. He and Carmine shone with purple lightning.

  “AAAAAGGGHHHHH!” He screamed out.

  Mikoko landed, caught her staff, and promptly swung it into Dalan at full force.

  [Lightning Burst]

  Carmine released him just as the blow connected, allowing him to be sent flying away. The blow was so strong, his body wrecked a pillar as it flew.

  “Your blood tasted fine by the way. Machia’s was better.”

  “Oh, of course your favourite is Machia’s.”

  The two women’s attention was suddenly taken by a loud buzzing noise. They turned in its direction and spotted a large bee near the ground. On the ground were a bunch of ants that formed into an OK.

  “Time to go, Carmine. We’ll finish this upstairs.”

  Mikoko turned to leave, but Carmine didn’t move. “Oh, I bet we can finish him off right now. You wanna bash his face in with your stick, don’t you?”

  “You can barely stay standing. You’re nearly out of mana too otherwise you’d have healed yourself to a better state.“

  “He’s not any better,” Carmine pointed out.

  “Really?” Mikoko held up her staff. A deep gash could be seen on it. “Even when he was fully shocked, he still blocked my strike. That man has a dangerous amount of battle intuition and stamina.”

  “Tch.”

  “Besides. I’ll be the one to land the finishing blow.”

  Mikoko ran off before Carmine could respond, forcing the heavily injured Carmine to dash after her. The escalators were quite a distance away, but the two made it. They had only taken a few steps up it before they heard roaring noise of the chainsaw again. But this time, it felt as if it did actually burst.

  A flood of mana washed over them. The two instantly recognised the danger they were in and fled. They didn’t send a single look back, they knew, instinctively, that if they stayed, they would die.

  Carmine jumped up and Mikoko launched her upwards with her staff. Carmine sent a blood line her way and pulled Mikoko up as fast as she could. The two looked back in the air as what looked like a giant blade ran up the escalators.

  It was not a giant blade however. It was a Dalan shrouded in an intense amount of mana, but he had sped up the escalator so quickly it was hard to believe it was the same man. His whitish-yellow mana was more visible than ever, almost like it was turbocharged. Anyone that looked at it could tell. His mana held the entirety of his Severance.

  Dalan sent out a flying slash. The two women blocked it with their weapons, but this time, the weapons couldn’t handle it. The axes and the staff broke with ease, and the flying slash nearly tore through them both.

  Two pairs of hands caught them. Machua caught Mikoko and Rasa caught Carmine. They dragged the two back a bit, nervously watching Dalan’s every move. Machua and Rasa stood in front of them, Rasa’s hands ready to play at any moment.

  “Mikoko, Carmine! What the hell happened!?” Machua called out without looking back. She didn’t dare to take her eyes off of him.

  In her vision was an injured Dalan. His feet were burnt and his entire body was still crackling with electricity. His chest was slightly caved in, and there were many gashes on his body. Blood oozed out of him, to the point that she didn’t know how he wasn’t dead yet. The scariest part though was that somehow the number of injuries on his body kept increasing. More and more gashes appeared on his body by the second, but he didn’t even react. He had a singleminded focus. To slay them, and nothing would deter him.

  “Is his mana… cutting him?” Machua muttered.

  “He’s pushing his Aspect too far. This must be Severance’s Aftereffect,” Rasa stated. “To want to sever everything even if you yourself might be severed as well.“

  “Ma…chua,” Mikoko managed to mumble out.

  “Yeah?”

  “The plan. You have to be the one to deal the finishing blow,” Mikoko spoke with great difficulty.

  “H-hold on! It was supposed to be you! Or Carmine! I can’t-“

  Carmine interrupted, “Do we look like we can? You’re his sister. You can do it.”

  Carmine’s blood flowed from underneath her and coated Machua’s Walestein shoes. It was Blood Crystalline: Encase. Mikoko’s hand touched those shoes and sent a surging current through them. The shoes did their job and protected Machua’s body from the shock.

  “Is it… really up to me?”

  Machua didn’t receive an answer from the people around her. There were no words that could further emphasise the fact that there was no other choice. It was either she won or she lost and everyone died with her.

  *Bzzt!*

  Machua focused her mana into her legs. The moment she moved, Dalan was sure to leap at them.

  “Hello, hello? Machu, can you hear me?” Plue’s voice buzzed in over the mall intercom.

  She wasn’t sure why she felt that was the case. It honestly felt like he was barely conscious, and he was moving only on pure instinct at this point.

  “I wanted to say, Machu, that I really admire you.”

  All of her senses observed Dalan’s presence and every motion. He huffed with deep breaths and stared listlessly at her and the group. The air itself seemed to tremble.

  “You keep trying so hard. You don’t give up, even when you were the only one left that could protect Machi.”

  Her heart was beating a million miles an hour. Every single one of her nerves stood on edge. But at the same time, everything felt right. Fell into place. Her mind was clear.

  “I was so scared. To be honest, when auntie Reina told us we could leave, I wanted to. But when you said you already made up your mind, I suddenly felt like we could do it.”

  Her mana flowed like a river. For the first time in a long while, she felt as if the river wasn’t fighting her. Instead, it flowed alongside her. She could swim down the river and allow it to gush out, but she couldn’t.

  “What I was scared of the most though was any of us dying. I was scared when I heard your plan, and I almost wanted to argue with you.”

  She had to hold the river back. Until the time was just right. Dam it up until right before the impact. The timing had to be perfect, but she knew in her heart that she could land it.

  “But your eyes told me we could do it. Your eyes were shaky, but you believed in us. So, I trust you.”

  Machua knelt down. All that had to be done was execute. Jump, spin, and land the flying kick. Like how Machia taught her.

  “Machu. You can do it. I believe in you.”

  Machua ran and leapt. Dalan shot forward, his dagger raised to totally cut her into pieces. Machua spun her body and positioned her leg to meet his blades.

  “Ahem. Now playing, Rasa’s neutralising screech.”

  Following the announcement, every single speaker and intercom in the mall blared with the neutralising screech. Rasa played the screech as well and led the performance. It was a cacophony of noises. Not every single speaker or intercom worked, many of them broke down partway through. But the myriad sources of sound all resonated together.

  Rasa played as best as he could, as hard as he could. He used every single drop of mana he had. He pushed himself so far that he too suffered from an Aftereffect. Resonance’s Aftereffect caused him to reverberate internally and could cause his organs to be damaged, but nevertheless, he played.

  The mana surrounding Dalan’s daggers softened. They weren’t neutralised, dissipated, or even suppressed. They were softened. Ever so slightly. But that was enough.

  The daggers met crystal shoe but did not cut through it instantly. They pierced the crystal and met the metal outsole, but they stopped in their tracks.

  “HAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Machua screamed as she shot her other foot to the side.

  She envisioned an imaginary wall and leapt off of it into the air, twisting her momentum. Her foot raised up high and with raging flowing mana, she allowed the dam to burst.

  [Bloody Conduit Shard Burst!]

  Machua’s shoe landed squarely on Dalan’s head. The force of the blow was so strong that the lightning in the crystalline shoe surged, causing the crystal to fully shatter. Dalan rocketed straight down and crashed through the escalators. The escalators collapsed in on him and buried him with rubble.

  Machua stood in the air and watched the rubble with a bit of apprehension. The mana surrounding him was dying down, but it wasn’t fully gone. She could sense his mana signature still clinging to life down there, or at least, it was trying to.

  Suddenly, a hand shot out from underneath the rubble. The hand was still holding a dagger, but as soon as it shot out, it limply collapsed. The mana signature disappeared soon after.

  “You did it, Machu! You really did it!” Plue exclaimed.

  “Yeah. I… did it. I did it,” Machua repeated. “Machi, I got your vengeance for you.”

  “You definitely did.”

  “That was awesome!”

  Machua turned to where the two voices came from. A motorcycle with a cute little sidecar had driven into the mall. Machia was driving it and had an encouraging smile, while Ernest was in the sidecar, looking like he was about to cheer.

  “Come here!” Carmine fucking leapt at Machia and tried to force him to the ground. He held her in his arms and allowed her to drink as she wished.

  Machua took her time walking to them. It was a little disturbing watching Carmine feed off of her brother, but her eyes were focused on something else.

  Ernest had rushed to the side of the hole, where the escalators formerly were. He knelt before it and peered down as far as he could.

  “He’s gone,” Ernest mumbled. “He’s… gone.”

  Almost as if the words broke the dam of tears he had been holding back, teardrops gushed out of his eyes.

  “He’s really gone. He’s gone!” He repeated. “I’m not gonna die. I’m really here. Alive.”

  “Ernest. You’re safe now,” Machua crouched down and comforted.

  “I survived. I survived didn’t I? I…” Ernest tried to get up, but he found he lacked the strength to. “I’m the only one… that did.”

  Ernest tried to laugh through the tears but he found it impossible. They kept flowing and flowing. All of his tears, all of his emotions. Everything he had built up was finally allowed to flow freely.

  “Mama… I… I made it through. I’m gonna… I’m gonna be a good man like you wanted mama.”

  Ernest had so much to say, but he choked on every word after. But that didn’t matter. Everything he wished to convey to her, she surely understood.

  He was still alive. And that meant everything.