Chapter 766: Stay Down

Thepes crossed the gap before Alex could close the wound in his shoulder.

The blood blade along his left forearm went toward the injured side. He had seen the arm weaken when the claws tore through it, and he had no intention of giving it time to recover.

Mingyue’s sword met him first.

The edge split his blade near the tip. He turned the loose blood around her weapon and sent it toward Alex’s neck.

A rune opened between them, scattering the blood as it struck.

Thepes pulled the drops back before the white fire could reach them. Every part that returned mattered now. The sealed route beneath the street no longer fed him. As for the web, it had almost drained him dry.

He drove forward with his left arm.

Blood hardened into a hammer in Alex’s right hand as he blocked. The impact pushed him backward, but Mingyue stayed at Thepes’s flank, forcing him to turn before he could follow.

Thepes struck her sword aside.

She gave ground toward the roof behind her.

Below them, an opening led toward his fallen followers near the broken street. Blood remained inside their damaged bodies, close enough to reach if he could descend past the two successors.

He sent a spear toward Alex and moved down behind it.

Purple light crossed his path. Frost covered the nearest bodies, and Mingyue’s second sword drove him away from the opening. She wasn’t letting him reach them.

Thepes’s blade met hers hard enough to shake his damaged shoulder.

"You can’t keep all of it from me."

"We only need to keep you here," Alex said.

The hammer struck from above.

Thepes crossed his arms over his head. The hammer broke the blood shield across them. His damaged right shoulder folded under the impact, and he lost his balance.

He fell through the upper floor of an empty building.

Stone broke around him. He forced his feet against the lower floor and pushed upward before the roof could bury him.

Blood was already gathering around his right shoulder.

It would not stay where he sent it.

Lolth had pulled through the channels he used to shape his body. The power was still inside him, but forcing it through the damaged places took concentration. When he drew blood into a weapon, the shoulder opened again. Another feed would give him room to repair it. The pair kept blocking his way down.

Thepes emerged through the broken roof and looked toward the street.

Alex was between him and the fallen bodies. Mingyue hovered a little higher, with pale lotuses forming around her swords.

He had seen those before. He avoided the flower with the heavier pull and sent blood spikes through the two beside it. Cold petals struck his side as he flew into the gap.

A hammer met him at the other end.

Thepes turned his shoulder into it instead of taking the blow across his chest. Pain burst through the arm Lolth had damaged. He used the impact to change direction, reaching toward a red-eyed follower climbing through the ruins below.

The body looked up at him, and its blood answered.

Before the stream reached his hand, Alex’s white fire crossed the space between them.

Thepes drew his fingers back. The first drops burned against his palm.

Mingyue’s sword followed the fire. He caught the flat of the blade with his left hand. A short edge of blood formed along his right wrist as he struck toward her face. She turned her head aside, but the edge cut across her left forearm.

Red spread over her sleeve. Thepes tightened his grip on her sword, but her eyes stayed on his hand.

Frost entered through his fingers.

He released the blade and tore away before it could reach the wrist. The cold remained in the damaged flesh, slowing the blood he was trying to pull back into place.

Alex’s hammer came again.

Thepes blocked late. The strike broke his guard and threw him across the roof.

He landed on one knee, leaving a dark smear behind his hand.

For a moment, he wanted to turn toward the pale threads hanging over the next building. There was still power inside them. He had felt how easily it repaired his body when he first drew it in.

His right arm throbbed. He remembered the pull through his chest and stopped himself from reaching out.

He looked away from the web.

Alex and Mingyue had come onto the roof together. Blood marked Alex’s left shoulder and Mingyue’s forearm. Thepes could hear her labored breathing between the impacts beyond the building.

They could still be beaten.

He rose and formed another blade.

This time, he did not let it become fully solid. Blood gathered around his arm in a loose mass, ready to move when either of them committed to an attack.

Mingyue approached from his left.

Thepes waited until she raised her sword, then spread the blood across the space between them. Part of it went toward her face. The rest passed beneath the blade and reached for the wound on her forearm.

She swept purple frost across it, freezing the nearest blood.

He pulled the rest around the ice and stepped through the gap it opened beside her shoulder.

Alex moved to block him.

Thepes changed his target at once, driving his hand toward the man’s injured shoulder again.

The hammer caught Thepes’s wrist. Mingyue moved behind him.

Her sword cut behind his right knee. He shifted blood toward it, away from the damaged shoulder, and his raised guard sagged before Alex’s next blow.

Thepes struck the roof on his side.

He rolled and pushed himself upright with one hand. Ice was already spreading beneath him. Thin roots from the shattered lotuses entered the cracks around his foot and climbed toward the wound behind his knee.

He tore the roots apart with a burst of blood that broke the roof beneath him.

He dropped toward the lower floor, seeing another chance to leave their chosen ground.

A barrier of runes waited beneath the opening.

He hit it hard enough to bend its surface. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and the impact forced the air out of his chest.

Above him, Alex lowered one hand.

Thepes looked around.

More runes stood along the edges of the broken room. They had been placed while he was fighting Mingyue and trying to reach the bodies outside.

He recognized parts of the arrangement. A pattern rose from the memories inside his body, and red light formed at his fingertips.

The mark struck one join. The barrier opened a finger’s width.

Alex turned two of his runes before Thepes could widen it. The opening closed against the blood he sent through, and the familiar path inside the pattern was gone.

Thepes tried to recover the memory, but Mingyue’s sword was already descending toward his hand.

He looked toward the street. Frost covered the nearest bodies, and runes brightened along the gap as Alex raised his hand. Mingyue hovered above the broken ceiling, to the side of Thepes’s injured right leg.

They kept driving him back toward the damaged arm, making him choose between defending that side and sending blood outside the room. Each time he tried to reach the street, the rune joins changed again.

He needed one opening long enough to feed. They were giving him none.

He stopped looking for an opening at Alex’s shoulder and faced the nearest way out instead.

Thepes struck the nearest barrier.

It cracked.

He struck again before it could recover.

A sword passed through the opening above and cut the blood gathered around his arm. The broken blade on his wrist fell apart before his next blow reached the barrier.

Mingyue landed inside the room.

Alex came down on the other side.

Thepes looked between them. His right hand shook as blood gathered at the shoulder again. He closed his fist, forcing it back into the blade.

He called his followers. Red eyes turned toward the building from the streets beyond it.

A few bodies began climbing over the rubble, but the army outside moved to intercept them. Thepes saw swords flash beyond Alex’s barrier and several of the approaching figures fall back from the wall.

"Stay down," Alex said.