Chapter 83: The Blood-Fiend’s Last Stand

Chapter 83: Chapter 83: The Blood-Fiend’s Last Stand

"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

•••

The bridge of light stretched forty meters from the damaged island to the central temple.

Joel crossed it calmly, with his legion following behind him.

Back on the island, the expedition was adjusting to its new situation.

Valerius, the escort who had betrayed everyone, was dead. His mana core had been reduced to golden powder.

The thirty-seven survivors remained near the entrance to the bridge under Proctor Harrison’s authority.

Although Harrison had recovered from his injuries, he understood that his authority now depended on the first-year walking away from him.

Ahead, through the temple’s open doors, the Apex Tear glowed within a dark, enormous chamber.

Its strange light had existed since the Fall.

The Syndicate’s ambush had failed completely.

Its second wave had been destroyed, its left flank wiped out, and nearly all its forces eliminated.

Only one enemy remained.

Gideon Vane.

The mutated Blood-Alchemist stood before the Tear’s vault, his back against it.

Almost nothing remained of the professor he had once pretended to be.

Only his spotless cuffs were still recognizable.

"You’ve taken my soldiers, my skiffs, my mages, and even my bargaining power," Gideon said.

His voice sounded like several people speaking together.

"A thorough audit. I’ve trained under better accountants, but never one who enjoyed his work quite so much."

"Your account is empty," Joel replied. "And the Syndicate can’t save you here."

Gideon smiled.

"The Syndicate is the one master I no longer answer to."

For nine years, he had been developing a way to steal the power of the Apex Tear.

His experiments with body modifications had only been preparation.

The Tear itself was supposed to be his final achievement.

But now Joel stood between him and that goal.

That left Gideon with one final option.

"The serum is cosmic-grade," Gideon explained casually. "Completely undiluted. Nine years of preparation, and extremely unstable."

He tilted his head.

"One in three recipients dies after taking it. Another third transforms into something nobody can properly classify."

He didn’t explain the remaining possibility.

That was the outcome he was gambling everything on.

Then every vial embedded beneath his mutated skin cracked at the same time.

KRKK!

•••

TSSSS!

The transformation didn’t happen slowly.

It exploded outward.

Forty liters of unstable serum burst from the shattered vials and flooded through Gideon Vane’s body, rewriting him completely.

His mutation didn’t grow.

It consumed.

Mass poured into him from nowhere, as if reality itself had signed off on the change.

His shoulders expanded into something massive and unnatural.

The many extra arms twisted together, then split apart again into enormous limbs that seemed to move with minds of their own.

The last sign of the professor disappeared.

Even his immaculate cuffs were gone.

And then the thing that had once been Gideon Vane rose to its full height.

Fifteen meters tall.

A Blood-Fiend.

Standing inside the temple.

Bleeding light.

[Ding!]

[Threat reclassified: Gideon Vane. Level 55 → 60.]

[Form: [Blood-Fiend] (Behemoth). Source: unstable cosmic serum, self-administered, entire inventory.]

[Note: he no longer keeps his humors in jars. He is the jars.]

"The rates," Gideon declared through all his throats at once, "have been revised."

Vulcan was the first to respond.

"Salvo one," the Forge-Lord announced.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Columns of burning kinetic slag shot across the temple toward the Blood-Fiend.

But before they could strike, crimson blood rose from the creature’s body and spread through the air.

TSSSS!

The blood touched the incoming shells.

They immediately began dissolving.

Within seconds, the powerful barrage had turned into harmless drops of warm liquid that fell onto the temple floor.

Then the Blood-Fiend counterattacked.

A massive wave of burning crimson blood swept across the temple and slammed into Vulcan’s chest.

TSSSS!

His armor, which had endured the heat of countless furnaces since the Founding, began sizzling.

The glowing cracks along his body turned gray.

THUNK!

Vulcan drove his feet deeper into the floor to hold his position.

But the burning liquid had already begun damaging the metal beneath his armor.

"The premises," Vulcan rumbled as steam escaped from his body, "are on fire."

Thalassa immediately raised her hand.

Three walls of seawater rose between the Blood-Fiend and Joel’s legion.

Each wall reached hip height.

But the crimson blood didn’t crash against them.

It passed straight through.

SSSS!

The first wall boiled away into white steam.

The second followed.

Then the third.

Thalassa lowered her glowing halos.

"The tide has been overruled," she reported calmly. "The solvent is stronger than the water."

"Architect."

Nyx’s voice came from Joel’s shadow.

She had flattened herself against it, hiding in the only remaining patch of darkness.

The Blood-Fiend’s burning body illuminated the entire temple with reddish-gold light, leaving almost no shadows for her to use.

"He’s ruined the lighting," she complained. "I can’t work like this. All I can do is insult him."

"Then insult him," Joel replied.

Nyx studied the monster.

"He favors his left arms whenever he makes a false attack. Someone taught that enormous body how to fence."

She paused.

"Very badly."

The Blood-Fiend suddenly feinted with its left arms.

But Joel had already moved inside its reach.

He landed one clean attack against its ribs before the burning blood forced him to withdraw.

Less than ninety seconds had passed.

Yet every ranged advantage his legion possessed had been neutralized.

Vulcan’s artillery was being dissolved.

Thalassa’s water defenses couldn’t withstand the blood.

And Nyx had almost no shadows left to move through.

The Blood-Fiend began advancing.

CRACK!

One enormous foot struck the temple floor, splitting the stone beneath it.

Then another.

CRACK!

Joel planted his feet firmly.

If ranged attacks couldn’t work, there was only one option left.

Close combat.

"Domain."

WHUMM!

[Ding!]

[Pinnacle authority projected: Domain of the Inertia Sovereign.]

[Radius: 50 meters. All kinetic energy within the sphere is subject to the Sovereign’s ruling.]

[Advisory: the intruder’s blood is not kinetic. It is chemistry. Rulings pending jurisdiction.]

The Blood-Fiend swung its enormous arm.

A spray of crimson blood flew ahead of its fist, spreading through the air in strange patterns.

Joel’s Domain caught the blood instantly, freezing the glowing droplets in midair.

But the fist continued toward him.

Joel crossed his forearms and deliberately took the blow.

Just as he had done countless times before, he allowed his defenses to absorb the impact.

The Bastion immediately stored the kinetic energy.

But then something unexpected happened.

The burning blood coating his forearms began eating through his armor.

TSSSS!

[Ding!]

[Caustic Filtration: jurisdiction exceeded.]

[Reminder: your filter covers organic toxins and acids below the 10th Stratum. This vintage predates the stratum system.]

The burning blood didn’t strike like an ordinary attack.

It slowly ate through everything it touched.

And once it settled on Joel’s arms, it refused to come off.

First, the skin around his knuckles disappeared.

Then the flesh covering his muscles began dissolving.

Soon, even the silver-white bones beneath were exposed.

But Joel continued fighting.

He thrust his halberd straight into the Blood-Fiend’s wrist joint.

SHNK!

The spike sank deep into the creature.

But when Joel pulled the weapon free, half of it was gone.

The burning blood had dissolved its blade.

Joel discarded the ruined weapon and moved closer.

If weapons couldn’t survive the Blood-Fiend’s blood, he would use his body.

He drove an elbow into one of its twisted joints.

KRRK!

Then he kicked through its knee.

KRRK!

He followed with a powerful headbutt against its enormous jaw.

Every successful strike transferred kinetic energy.

And every bit of that energy could be absorbed and stored.

But there was one problem.

Kinetic energy couldn’t repair flesh destroyed by the burning blood.

His Class could control physical force.

It couldn’t stop the chemical reaction eating through his body.

The Blood-Fiend quickly took advantage of that weakness.

One of its enormous limbs swept toward Joel.

The attack carried enough force to crush him.

"Inert."

The limb stopped barely an inch from his chest.

Sixty tons of force had been brought to a complete halt.

But the Blood-Fiend wasn’t finished.

A shallow wave of burning blood spread across the floor.

The creature had been leaving it behind with every step.

And unlike its physical attacks, the blood didn’t need momentum to hurt him.

Joel stepped away from the boiling liquid.

But it followed him.

The Blood-Fiend raised two enormous limbs and brought them together, forming a channel above his head.

A massive stream of burning blood poured toward him.

Joel activated his Domain.

The crimson waterfall froze in midair.

Its weight pressed against him, allowing his Class to absorb more kinetic energy.

But the blood that touched his shoulders continued burning.

KRRK!

His flesh began dissolving again.

Joel finally understood the full danger.

He could stop the Blood-Fiend’s movements.

He could absorb its physical attacks.

But he couldn’t prevent its blood from destroying his body through direct contact.

And the creature was covered in it.

Still, Joel wasn’t going to let the monster attack without paying a price.

He stepped onto the frozen waterfall and climbed upward.

Then he grabbed the Blood-Fiend’s upper limb with both badly burned hands.

"Return."

All the kinetic energy he had absorbed from the falling blood was released at once.

THOOM!

The Blood-Fiend’s limb was violently thrown backward.

It smashed into the distant stone pillars.

BOOOOM!

The columns shattered under the impact.

For a brief moment, the creature’s burning light flickered across the temple.

Joel had finally forced it back.

But his injuries were getting worse.

His condition began dropping rapidly.

Integrity: 71%.

The Blood-Fiend suddenly wrapped its enormous limbs around him.

Its grip tightened.

Joel struggled against the crushing force while the burning blood continued eating through his defenses.

Integrity: 38%.

The blood had reached his ribs.

FSHHHH!

Juggernaut Vitality desperately tried to regenerate the damaged tissue.

But the healing couldn’t keep up.

Integrity: 19%.

More flesh dissolved.

For one horrifying moment, Joel could see part of his own sternum through the damage to his chest.

The Blood-Fiend lowered its enormous head toward him.

Its many throats spoke together.

"Aegis."

The creature sounded almost disappointed.

"The last of the bottle."

It remembered the single drop of Joel’s blood it had tasted in the quiet archive.

And now, it intended to finish what it had started.

But Joel wasn’t ready to die.

He used the same power that had carried him through countless battles.

Every physical impact he had absorbed remained stored within him.

And now he released the energy from the Blood-Fiend’s crushing grip.

Straight downward.

WHUMM!

The force slammed through the temple floor.

Sixty tons of pressure were brought to a complete stop inside his fifty-meter Domain.

For one full second, everything around Joel stopped moving.

Everything except the burning blood.

TSSSS!

TSSSS!

TSSSS!

Integrity: 9%.

The corrosive liquid continued eating through his body, reaching areas he couldn’t afford to lose.

His vision blurred.

Then doubled.

Then tripled.

The world seemed to split into three identical images.

His legs finally gave way.

Joel dropped to his knees on the temple floor.

And the blood surrounding his ruined arms continued boiling.

[Ding!]

[Fate Points minted: +4.]

[Sources logged: four separate appointments with death, all kept, none rescheduled.]

[Balance: 19.]

[Note: the mint pays best on the brink. It has always been the house’s most cynical line.]

The Blood-Fiend raised its enormous limbs above Joel, preparing to strike with all sixty tons of its monstrous body.

Blinding light poured from its twisted form.

For a moment, the entire temple seemed to fall silent.

Then, above the boiling floor, something appeared.

Through Joel’s blurred, triple vision, pale-gold segments began forming out of thin air.

They arranged themselves around an invisible center.

It was the Wheel of Fate.

And it had appeared just as Joel reached the edge of death.

[Ding!]

[The Wheel notes the venue. Most clients spin from chairs.]

Joel rested his badly burned hands on his knees and looked up.

Through his blurred vision, he saw three overlapping images of the Wheel of Fate.

He gathered what little strength he had left and spoke a single word.

"Spin."