Chapter 744: Rune Barrier

Alex stepped onto the remains of the upper platform and looked down at Thepes.

"You said your race would begin by defeating us."

Thepes’s eyes followed him. Streams of his blood still ran between his feet and the remains around the pit, drawing out what power the dead had left.

Alex lifted his hammer. "Then come and do it."

Mingyue moved toward the opening above them, leaving Thepes a clear view of both their retreat and the soldiers beginning to move behind Dorian.

Thepes looked toward his followers. For a moment, Alex thought he would stay beside the pit and send them instead. That would be the sensible choice. He could keep feeding while the pair spent their strength holding back his army.

Then his gaze returned to Alex.

"You want me to chase you."

"Yes."

Alex didn’t bother denying it. Thepes had demanded that the old race acknowledge his superiority. Letting its chosen Progenitors walk away in front of his new followers would hardly prove it.

"But you can stay here if you need all this to face us."

Blood surged beneath Thepes, then struck the platform before Alex finished moving.

BOOM!

Stone burst upward. Alex jumped through the opening above him while Mingyue cut apart the blood reaching for his legs.

Thepes came after them. Mingyue met him at the mouth of the passage, catching his first strike on her swords while ice spread across his path.

"Vesa, now," Alex said through their connection.

Through the opening beneath him, Alex could see Dorian pulling his ghouls back from the broken edge. Selene stayed beside the wounded while Vesa opened the passage to Edonia behind her.

"Those who can’t move first," Vesa ordered.

Marcell tried to rise from the ice.

Selene put a hand against his chest and stopped him before he fell. "You already tried that."

"I can still—"

"Live long enough to help later."

The soldiers beside her lifted the ice supporting Marcell and carried it toward the opening. The woman who had been chained through her side went next, along with the other critically wounded survivors.

Mingyue kept Thepes occupied at the passage mouth while Alex watched the wounded cross.

Edonia would keep the wounded out of Thepes’s reach. Alex needed the army here to stop the red-eyed vampires from spreading through the city, but there was nothing to gain by keeping people who could barely hold their bodies together.

A rescued Sovereign who could stand remained beside Selene. He took the weight of an injured soldier with his good arm rather than following the others through.

"I’m moving," he told her. "Let me help."

Selene looked at him once, then put another guard beside them. A few of the recovering vampires stayed to assist the withdrawal. The rest passed out of the battle.

Vesa closed the Edonia connection as a red-eyed body broke through the fighting line.

Dorian intercepted it before it reached her.

Thepes forced Mingyue back a step and came past her. Alex turned fully toward him as a blood blade swept at his throat.

His hammer struck it aside. The force pushed him into the wall of the rising passage, cracking the stone behind his back.

Mingyue cut through the air above him. A purple line opened, and she appeared at the next level of the buried structure.

"Alex."

He pushed away from the wall and moved toward her.

Thepes came between them.

Blood spread from his arms into long edges, sweeping across the passage. Alex ducked beneath one while Mingyue caught the other on her swords. The first blade split the wall beside them, sending chunks of stone toward the fighting below.

Alex raised a rune barrier beneath the largest piece. The stone struck its edge and fell away from Dorian’s position. Thepes struck at him while he was holding the barrier, forcing him farther up the passage.

Alex let himself be driven back. Every step took Thepes farther from the pit, though he would have preferred to get there without being cut and battered along the way.

A trail of blood stretched behind Thepes, clinging to the broken steps as he climbed. Alex sent fire down toward it, but a blood blade struck his hammer before he could finish. Thepes kept the narrow trail beneath him while he attacked.

He hadn’t abandoned the supply below. Alex needed to draw him farther away before trying to cut it again.

The old route opened into a larger space. Broken walkways crossed between the buried buildings, and the fight had already shaken loose parts of their walls.

Mingyue landed on a surviving stretch of floor. Ice spread beneath her feet, holding the cracked stone together long enough for her to turn and meet Thepes’s next strike.

Beyond Mingyue stood a section of the ruin as tall as a tower. Its upper floors had broken away from the surrounding buildings, leaving it balanced on supports already cracked by the collapse.

He looked past it toward the army.

Vesa had begun moving groups out of the lower chamber and onto a cleared section behind them. Dorian held the rear while Selene brought the remaining wounded toward that position.

Alex pointed toward the damaged supports.

"Clear that side."

Vesa followed his gesture and shifted the next group’s arrival farther away.

"Mingyue, bring him toward me."

She stepped back from Thepes’s blade, letting him press after her. Her swords kept the next strike high while she moved to the side of the space Alex had chosen.

Thepes followed her, then turned as Alex struck one of the structure’s damaged supports with his hammer.

Alex’s Cognitive Matrix had compared the visible cracks and exposed supports. Breaking the whole base at once would drop the structure before he could lift it. He left the last support intact while he shattered the others.

The broken section tilted.

Alex let his blood hammer dissolve and caught the broken arch across the base with both hands. He drove Qi into his arms and legs, bracing beneath the weight.

Thepes raised a blood blade to interrupt him.

Mingyue struck from the side. Her sword forced him to turn the blade toward her instead, giving Alex the moment he needed.

Alex pulled.

The final support broke with a sound that drowned out the fighting below. Dust poured through the lower passages as the enormous section tore free from the rest of the ruin.

The strain ran through Alex’s arms. Stone broke under his feet, but he forced the mass clear instead of letting it fall onto his own people.

Thepes raised his hands.

Alex threw the broken structure at him.

It crossed the space between them, tearing through the remains of a walkway. Thepes’s blood surged outward and hardened into an enormous blade.

BOOOOM!

The attack split the stone in front of him.

The two halves kept coming. Thepes released another burst of power before they could crush him, blasting the broken structure apart.