Chapter 291 – The Fated Showdown

Yorn unsheathes his sword and swings it in a single motion, moving the unwieldy blade with unnatural ease despite one arm hanging useless at his side, spasming faintly with the lasting aftershocks of Emily’s opening blow. Qi erupts from the man’s body and wraps around his falling sword, filling the enclosed space with palpable rage that pulls on Emily’s body like a star’s gravity. She shakes off the weight and watches Silvia meet the blow head-on with a five-fingered slash.

Where the vampire’s bloody qi is sharp and filled to the brim with cloying killing intent, Yorn’s is heavy, imbued with crushing weight that seems to cleave the space around it. His sword meets Silvia’s claws, and, in the blink of an eye, Silvia’s arm is pulverised. Her hand remains unharmed, her qi slicing through and cancelling out some of his, but the robe covering her forearm is torn to shreds, and the flesh beneath turns a mottled purple while bending out of shape all the way up to her shoulder.

Silvia twists her body away from the sword’s follow-through trajectory and dashes back to gain some space, a smile still playing on her lips.

“You may match me in phase now, but you’re still weak!” Yorn bellows as a wave of force spreads from his sword and clashes with Elwaine’s barrier, sending faint ripples along its surface.

“I still can’t match you in force,” Silvia agrees, staring down at her mangled limb and wrapping it in a twisting haze of qi that snaps the shattered bones back into place as fast as they broke. “But can you match my speed?”

Silvia rockets forward, circling Yorn in a blur and searching for an opening. She moves as quickly as Emily is used to from their spars, but from an outside perspective she’s just about traceable.

“Pathetic,” Yorn scoffs, tenses his grip on his sword before pivoting. He swings the colossal blade in a circle, leaning back and throwing his weight and bulging muscles behind the attack. A whirlwind of sharp, crushing qi sweeps out from him, forcing Silvia back to avoid getting caught in it. “Why would I need to?”

At the outskirts of Elwaine’s barrier, safe from the brunt of the martial artists’ duel, Emily builds a complex spell full of spatial mana while releasing a flood of troops from her Factory. As Yorn is gaining momentum and pushing Silvia back further and further, she unleashes her spell and sends out an invisible blade of intent. The spatial mana cuts clean through Yorn’s qi before shattering against his spinning sword, opening a tunnel of absolute still for Silvia to slip through.

She leaps on the chance and approaches Yorn before he can blink, sliding under his blade and drawing her claws along his side. He breaks his sweeping attack and plants his feet on thin air before dropping his sword like a guillotine in retaliation. Silvia’s long gone before the blow lands, licking the fresh blood from her claws and staring back at the open wound she’s created with a predator’s gaze.

“You taste like shit,” the vampire purrs, holding a hand out and yanking a stream of crimson from Yorn’s body before he knits his wound back together with a forceful clap of qi. “But I can make do.”

She forms the loose blood into a floating blade that rockets back towards Yorn, and Emily can feel the weight imbued into the attack from afar.

So, the source of the blood she uses for her attacks has an effect? I never noticed.

Siliva vanishes from her place and flies towards Yorn again, sticking to his left side to capitalise on his slowly-healing wound. They repeatedly meet in a clash of speed against weight, both gaining and healing small wounds almost faster than Emily can track.

Emily finishes surrounding them both with her metal army, losing several squads of her troops to the aftershocks of their attacks in the process. She lets out a flood of machina to Overdrive them all, sending Harriet with the wave of energy to manage the army as she pours her focus into building several spells to do the same herself.

Beams of plasma and the crack of gunfire slowly break into the duel of sword against claws, mostly bouncing off Yorn’s innate qi barrier at shallow angles but occasionally annoying him enough to turn a spec of his attention to crushing a swathe of metal soldiers with one blow. Emily flings fire and lightning each time his focus wanes, not doing much damage but eating away at his reserves all the same. She gets a few lucky shots in while his sword is occupied with Silvia’s onslaught and floods his left shoulder with fresh charge to keep the lingering attack going.

Unfortunately, after nearly an hour of playing the distraction, Emily watches the last of the crackling light around Yorn’s shoulder peter out.

“His arm’s-“ Emily calls out a moment too late, watching the raging man drive a fist into Silvia’s side as her eyes are glued to his approaching blade, “-back… Shit.”

He turns his baleful glare on her while Silvia flies into a mass of scrap metal where some of Emily’s soldiers once stood. The vampire cuts through the scrap and hits the barrier behind them with a sickening crunch, but Emily can’t spare a thought for her as Yorn’s sword flies towards her head.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you!” the man bellows, spit erupting from his mouth with enough qi to shatter Emily’s magical ear protection, sending a stabbing pain through her head. “I’ve had enough of your petty strikes.”

She floods her body with machina and lightning mana, casting several acceleration spells to duck as she throws up a wall of stone, metal, and water to absorb the coming blow. Her defences are shattered in an instant, bursting into a hail of shrapnel that bounces off her innate barrier, but she manages to slip under the blade that follows.

A boot meets her chest a moment later, driving her into Elwaine’s barrier with enough force to shatter her subdermal armour along with several ribs. She tries to activate the injectors of healing potion lining her spine on instinct, but not a drop enters her bloodstream; the containers destroyed by the impact as well.

Yorn grins with satisfaction as he raises his sword to finish her, but Emily simply calls back Harriet and draws upon her lightning connection, turning to a mass of charge just before his attack can cleave through her skull. She still feels the force of the blow and scatters, but the only pain that follows is across her chest and manageable.

“Fucking ratch!” Yorn growls, spinning to try and follow the fleeing streaks of charge.

All of Emily’s surviving troops open fire at once, buying her a few seconds to create some distance as Yorn starts unleashing sweeping blows to cut down the rest of her army.

She reforms on the opposite side of the barrier, clutching a bleeding gash that stretches from her right shoulder to her left hip. The wound is deep enough to show several split ribs, but Emily barely spares it a second glance, turning off her pain receptors and reaching into her belt to retrieve a fresh healing brew.

“It’d be a shame to let that go to waste,” Silvia’s voice whispers into her ear as the vampire appears at her side.

The woman’s robes are in tatters, exposing most of her torso, which is almost entirely covered in dark purple bruises and small, half-sealed wounds. Her spine is noticeably bent out of shape, and the side of her chest has caved in around a visible fist imprint. However, her manic grin is completely untouched, and her eyes are alight with glee as she waves a hand and draws all of Emily’s spilt blood towards her mouth. Though bright, her gaze is hazy and distant, but it sharpens into a piercing stare as she gulps down Emily’s blood.

“You’re doing wonderfully, dear,” Silvia coos, her bones snapping back into place and her bruises washing away to leave pale flesh only marked by a few distinct scars. “But do try not to die on me.”

The vampire slashes her own wrist before gently running her hand up over Emily’s open wound, letting her blood pour in and knit it back together faster than any of Emily's potions or spells are capable of. She keeps going past her shoulder, leaving a red smear up her neck and a bloody handprint on her cheek.

“Thanks,” Emily says before turning to charge once again and bolting off as Yorn slams his sword down on her old position.

Silvia meets his attack once again, keeping the wound on her arm open and using some of her blood to form crimson armour that flows from her wrist to her shoulder before solidifying. Her other hand draws a few thin lines across the man’s chest before he pulls back, allowing her to move freely and get away from being pinned against the barrier’s edge.

Emily takes advantage of Yorn’s attention leaving her once again to drop her lightning connection and gather the scraps of her army back into her Factory. She returns to flinging a variety of spells into the fold, never using the same attack twice and quickly running through her long list of magical creations while looking for an opportunity to use something bigger.

With both arms functional once again, Yorn quickly regains momentum, clasping the hilt of his sword with two hands and swinging it with devastating force. Silvia tries to match him blow for blow, but she’s flung back further with each collision, her blood armour shattering and reforming repeatedly. When she tries to slip past his attacks, the space around his blade seems to twist and distort, pulling her back into the line of fire.

Emily wraps the vampire in several strength and speed-boosting spells to little effect, and even begins sending her heaviest earth and metal-based attacks into the side of Yorn’s sword, trying to redirect his swings. Unfortunately, only her more costly spells tinged with space seem to have any effect, giving Silvia a few crucial inches to avoid harm.

Even while doggedly pursuing Silvia, Yorn still somehow has the presence of mind to ensure the aftershocks of his attacks are directed towards Emily, forcing her to keep moving.

Emily begins to tire before the others, the constant use of spatial magic wearing on her reserves. She takes a step back from the attack, pulling several greater lightning crystals from her belt and draining them to recharge: an inefficient but effective process that leaves her with several empty husks before she even regains half her spent mana. She doesn’t stop watching the battle and, by the time she’s satisfied with the crystals’ effects, her keen eye for the flow of the fight finally proves its worth.

She begins to see the barely-noticeable patterns in Yorn’s movements: the telltale twitch in his core before a sweeping blow, the shifting of his footwork before a stab, the faint leaning towards his right side. ℴℴ𝘮

He still hasn’t fully healed from my attack.

An idea begins to form in her mind as she watches the rampaging man catch Silvia’s leg with the tip of his sword, ripping the limb clean off and scattering a cloud of fresh blood that circles around to strike at his back.

‘His guard is hanging left,’ Emily whispers into Silvia’s ear with a faint wave of machina.

‘I noticed,’ the vampire responds, reattaching her leg with dozens of crimson threads.

‘Focus on it. Shift his attention away from his good side.’

‘You have a plan?’

‘I have the bones of one,’ Emily responds, her own lips curling into a grin that matches Silvia’s.

‘And the flesh we’ll work out together!’ Silvia laughs aloud, charging forward recklessly and letting Yorn’s sword pulverise her right arm and send her flying in return for a deep gash along his left flank.

Emily creates a small portal to her Factory, around the size of her torso, and charges it with enough mana to remain open for a while. She moves around to the opposite side of the barrier and repeats the process, sending a few spears of metal towards Yorn as she does to avoid exposing her change in tactic. She slowly creates four more openings, perfectly surrounding the battlefield without drawing too much attention to her actions.

Yorn clearly senses her lingering mana and directs one of his attacks towards one of the openings, destabilising and shutting it, but Emily doesn’t bat an eye. She floods the pocket dimension with machina, priming and Overdriving several warheads before sending Harriet in to handle their launch timings and targeting.

She wraps her legs in wind and lightning before kicking off nothing, leaving a crackling bundle of charge in her wake. Emily darts around the battlefield, creating dozens of decoys before waving a hand and shifting the Factory openings as one to hide among them.

With the trap laid, Emily rockets towards Yorn, slipping past Silvia as she pulls back from a strike and driving a lightning-charged heel towards the man’s left shoulder. He raises his sword to catch her foot with the flat of the blade, not moving an inch as she impacts, but she kicks off before he can strike back, leaving behind sparks that clash against his qi coating the weapon.

“Finally done running away?” Yorn asks, pouring more energy into his blade and swinging it towards Emily’s retreating form.

Silvia leaps on the opening, aiming low for Yorn’s left ankle and severing his Achilles.

“Two gnats are still gnats!” Yorn swings a full circle, sending out a crushing wave that forces them both back.

The two women silently dance around him, intimately familiar with each other’s styles and pushing themselves faster and faster. Emily leaves a trail of sparks with each motion, burning through her mana but leaving too many traces for Yorn to crush at once even as he catches her with several glancing blows, denting her subdermal and bruising the flesh beneath. Silvia notices Emily’s ploy and stops diverting all of their spilt blood towards Yorn, charging it with her qi and letting it fill space around them.

Time blurs as they clash, the incessant counting in Emily’s mind finally quieting as she pours herself into the fight. She occasionally pulls back, letting Silvia take the brunt of Yorn’s focus to drain more mana crystals, burning through resources to keep in the fight.

Yorn matches the two of them blow for blow, but it’s clear from the tightening of his stance that he’s beginning to grow concerned, unable to set up any heavy attacks and constantly on the back foot.

Eventually, Emily feels her Magic Network heating up beneath her skin, the strain of constantly pouring out energy and desperately recharging with crystals wearing on her.

‘I’ll be out of the fight soon,’ she whispers to Silvia, her grin unwavering despite the exhaustion weighing on her. ‘We have to strike.’

‘He’s slowing,’ the vampire responds, faltering as she sidesteps a heavy strike and losing an arm again.

‘So are you,’ Emily mutters, watching the limb reattach after a noticeable delay.

‘I know. You can hold out till my signal, right?’

Their eyes meet from either side of Yorn, a challenging glint shining from beneath the combat haze filling Silvia’s gaze as she draws some of the blood hanging around her as a faint mist into her mouth.

‘Of course.’

Emily takes a knee to the gut and goes flying, slamming into the cage around them and noticing it give more than at the start of the fight.

Shit. Looks like Elwaine’s struggling too.

Emily shifts the liquid metal beneath her skin to pin several broken ribs back into place and downs a healing potion before kicking off to rejoin the fight. Her metal arm is bent out of shape and cracked in several places, and most of her external armour has been lost completely, scattered in shards around the battlefield, but she pays it no heed as she drives a blade of charge into Yorn’s side, cutting through his innate barrier but barely scratching his skin beneath.

She doesn’t have to wait for long as, within a few minutes of their conversation, Silvia steps back, allowing Yorn a moment of respite as she holds out both hands to take hold of the blood droplets scattered around the cage. Emily comes to a stop at her side, pulling on the ambient charge filling the space as well and guiding it to latch onto the flowing blood. Her vision flickers from the exertion, so she trusts the vampire to guide their strike and lets her focus drift to her familiar.

‘Now!’ she commands, feeling Harriet hum in excited acknowledgement.

Yorn notices the change and glances at the building attack surrounding him before purposefully planting his right foot and slowly spinning his sword in a rhythmic motion. His movements accelerate as he whips the colossal blade from side to side, covering his flanks and creating a field of distorted pressure.

Silvia directs her flood of crackling blood to form thousands of barely-visible needles, forming twice as many on Yorn’s left side before collapsing them towards him in an unending stream. Tens of needles are knocked aside, and hundreds are shredded by Yorn’s blade, but a few slip through his guard, driving into his muscles and joints and gradually slowing his momentum.

The man lets out a qi-charged roar, forcing back and shattering a wave of needles, but hundreds more take their place.

Unseen by Yorn as he focuses on the dense qi and mana rushing towards him, three rockets slip from cracks in space above, behind, and in front of his left flank, crackling with machina. The rockets close the distance in the blink of an eye, but Yorn simply scoffs and pulses his qi before sweeping a devastating strike towards them, detonating all their warheads before they can strike.

The resulting explosions swallow half of Emily and Silvia’s combined attack in a cloud of heat and shrapnel, burning hotter than a volcano and scattering the remaining bloody needles with a rippling shockwave. Waves of heat wash out across the battlefield, doing little to no damage to its three occupants but providing the perfect cover for a fourth rocket cutting through space towards Yorn’s right hip.

“Shit!” he screams, noticing the explosive a moment too late and catching its tip with the flat of his blade a moment before it detonates.

Emily’s grin stretches wider as instead of a wave of heat, a focused spray of acidic bile swallows Yorn.

She and Silvia watch with bated breath, both swaying with exhaustion, as the acid bubbles and hisses. A few moments pass where Emily dares to believe they might have won, then the acid ripples and bursts outwards as an inhuman, warbling screech of pure anguish hits them.

Yorn steps into their vision, looking like a corpse. His right arm and leg are stripped to the bone, held together by only a thin film of qi, and half his organs are showing. There’s still hissing green acid eating through his exposed flesh, but it’s fighting a losing battle against his waning qi. One of his eyes is completely gone, and half his skull is exposed. One side of his jaw is hanging limp, and the other side is gritted and twisted in rage.

He doesn’t say a word, his throat half-melted, but the pure hatred in his surviving eye staring back at them speaks volumes as he tosses aside his mangled blade and slowly tries to hobble towards them.

Emily can sense his energy reserves are nearing empty, a faint trickle where there was once a raging ocean, but she can also feel the same from Silvia beside her, down to only a few drops.

“I… can’t continue,” Emily whispers, only managing to stay conscious thanks to Harriet returning with a few drops of the mana given to her earlier.

She glances over at Silvia and sees a litany of half-open wounds still covering her body, only those that would affect her ability to fight even making an effort to close slowly. She makes a snap decision without much need for consideration when she sees the vampire’s glare fixed on their half-dead opponent, filled with the burning desire to continue the fight.

Emily raises her right hand to her mouth, willing her subdermal to part before sinking her teeth into the base of her thumb and tearing the skin away. She holds the bleeding wound towards Silvia, ignoring the faint, uncontrollable shaking from her nerves being overloaded with machina for so long.

“Finish him!” she says, watching Silvia’s gaze flick down to the offered blood, shock overwriting her rage for a fraction of a second as she glances up to Emily’s face for confirmation, finding no hesitation whatsoever.

“Of course,” the vampire purrs, grabbing hold of Emily’s wrist and running her tongue over the wound before pressing her lips to it and drinking freely.

Emily watches Silvia’s healing accelerate, her wounds closing over and her qi returning drop by drop. When she finally raises her lips from the dripping wound and places a gentle kiss against it, her body is back to an undamaged state, and her qi almost matches Yorn’s.

“Thank you, darling,” Silvia whispers, licking the crimson stain from her lips and pushing Emily back towards the edge of the barrier before turning to face the dead man walking. “Now rest. I’ll be done soon.”