Chapter 202: Crimson Cataclysm

The vampire raised both hands, and the air around her thickened, darkened, as if the very shadows were bleeding into the light. Her crown of thorns pulsed with each word she spoke, the dark halo feeding on her power, amplifying it.

“Blood Dominion: Crimson Cataclysm.”

The spell erupted from her palms as a storm. Blood rained from the ceiling, from the walls, from the very stones beneath their feet. It fell in sheets, in torrents, in drowning waves that swept through the storehouse like a living thing. The soldiers screamed as the blood touched them—burning, searing, eating through armor and flesh alike.

Serris’s voice rose above the chaos, raw with fury. “Bastard… her attacks are getting wider!”

Viks grabbed a fallen soldier, dragging him behind a crate, her silver aura flaring to push back the tide. Her voice was sharp, commanding, cutting through the panic.

“We hold our ground and counterattack! I’ll draw her attention—keep firing from range!”

She surged forward before anyone could stop her. Her blade swept up, silver light blazing, cutting through the blood rain in a arc that sent crimson spray in every direction. The storm parted around her, but only just.

Behind her, soldiers fell. The blood found them, crawled across their armor, seeped through the gaps, and they crumpled one by one, their screams swallowed by the roar of the spell.

“Hold the line!” Serris bellowed, his own sword cutting a path through the tide. “Don’t break!”

Vedran was already moving, his shield raised, his body positioned between the blood and a knot of younger soldiers who had frozen in terror. The blood struck his shield and hissed, eating into the metal, but he held. His boots scraped against the stone as the force of it pushed him back, but he held.

Viks saw her opening.

The blood storm, for just a moment, thinned. Isolde’s attention had shifted—her crimson eyes tracking the soldiers who were still standing, still fighting, still defying her. Her guard was down. Just for an instant.

Viks moved.

“Silver Flash: Serpent’s Path!”

Her blade cut a zigzag through the blood, closing the distance between them in the space between heartbeats. The silver light blazed along its edge, pushing back the crimson tide, carving a corridor through the storm.

She struck.

Isolde’s hand shot up, catching the blade.

The steel bit into her palm, dark blood welling around the edge, but her fingers held. Her crimson eyes, when they met Viks’s, held no pain—only cold amusement.

“You’re persistent.” Her voice was soft, almost kind. “I’ll give you that.”

She flicked her wrist, and Viks was thrown back. She twisted in the air, landing in a crouch, her blade already rising for another strike.

“Silver Fang!”

The thrust was aimed at Isolde’s throat—the same technique that had drawn blood before. But this time, the vampire was ready. Her hand swept up, and a sphere of blood materialized between them, catching the blade and holding it suspended.

Isolde’s lips curved into a smile.

“Blood Orb.”

The sphere pulsed, expanded, and exploded outward in a ring of crimson that slammed into Viks from every side. She cried out, her aura flickering, her body thrown back to crash against a crate. Wood splintered. Her own blood spattered the floor.

The blood storm receded.

Isolde stood at the center of the storehouse, untouched, her crown of thorns pulsing with dark light. The soldiers, those who were still standing, still breathing, stared at her with eyes wide with terror.

Serris’s voice cut through the silence. “All units—ATTACK!”

They surged forward. Swords raised, spears leveled, arrows nocked. They came at her from every angle, a tide of steel and desperation.

Isolde laughed.

“Even if you overwhelm me with numbers…” Her voice was soft, almost gentle. “It’s pointless.”

Her hands rose. Blood answered.

“You’ll all die by my hand.”

The crimson tide rose again—wider, higher, more terrible than before. And the soldiers, brave as they were, could not stop it.

Vedran’s shield blazed with light—the ancient glow of an artifact passed down through generations. One by one, the runes carved into its surface flared to life until the shield seemed less like metal and more like a captured piece of the sun, bound to his arm.

“Aegis of the Dawn! “

The light exploded outward, forming a barrier that swept across the storehouse, pushing back the blood tide, burning away the crimson rain where it touched. Soldiers who had been moments from death gasped as the pressure lifted, as the blood that had been eating through their armor sizzled and evaporated.

Vedran’s voice rose above the chaos, raw and fierce.

“I’ll protect you! Don’t hesitate—MOVE!”

The soldiers surged forward.

Fear had not vanished—it still clung to them, cold and heavy, whispering of death and futility. But something else had taken root alongside it. Hope. The knowledge that someone stood between them and the storm. The certainty that if they fell, they would not fall alone.

Isolde retreated.

Her crown of thorns pulsed as she moved, her blood spells rising to meet the charge. Spines impaled. Waves swept soldiers from their feet. But for every soldier who fell, two more took his place. For every spell she cast, Vedran’s light pushed back, buying them seconds, heartbeats, the time they needed to close the distance.

’Where is the spider?’ Isolde’s crimson eyes swept the shadows, the rafters, the corners of the storehouse where the torchlight did not reach. ’She’s hiding again. What is she planning?’

She deflected a sword thrust, her blood blade shattering the steel, and the soldier who had wielded it fell with a cry. Another took his place, then another, and another. They were relentless.

“You’re distracted.”

Viks’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere. Her blade, wreathed in silver light that blazed like a star falling to earth, swept toward Isolde’s exposed flank.

“Silver Flash: Sundering Strike! “

The blade connected.

Isolde felt something else entirely beneath the cold bite of steel. Heat. Fire. The silver light burned as it cut, searing through her flesh, through the blood flowing in her veins, through the dark power that sustained her. She gasped, stumbling back, her hand flying to the wound.

’She… her aura is burning me. From the inside.’

The wound on her side refused to heal. The flesh around it was blackened, cracked, like earth after a wildfire. The blood that welled from it was thin, pale, tainted—as if something vital had been poisoned beyond repair.

Isolde’s crimson eyes met Viks’s across the chaos.

’This woman… her strikes never burned like this before… what has she done?’

Serris’s voice cut through the clash of steel and screams, sharp with discovery.

“Seems I was right.” His grey eyes were fixed on Isolde’s wound, on the way it refused to close, on the silver light still flickering around its edges. “The vampire is weak to light-based attacks. All of you—focus your strikes! Don’t let up!”

The soldiers roared.

Isolde retreated further, her blood spells faltering, her crown of thorns flickering. For the first time since the battle began, something that might have been fear flickered in her crimson eyes.

’If this continues… I’ll be overwhelmed.’

The vampire’s hands swept outward, and the blood that had pooled across the floor—blood from fallen soldiers, from her own wounds, from the chaos that had soaked every stone—answered her call. It rose in shimmering curtains, spiraling upward, coalescing into a storm of crimson that swirled around her like a living shroud.

“She’s gathering blood again!” Viks’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp with urgency. “Don’t let her finish! Attack! NOW!”

The soldiers surged forward. Swords, spears, arrows—all of them aimed at the vampire’s heart. They struck true, blades biting into her flesh, piercing her arms, her torso, her legs. Blood sprayed, dark and thick, painting the soldiers who had landed the blows.

Isolde did not fall.

Her crown of thorns pulsed. Her eyes, crimson and blazing, swept over the men who had dared to wound her.

’It seems I’ll have to use that.’

The blood that had spilled from her wounds did not pool at her feet. It rose—hardening, crystallizing, forming needles that hung in the air around her like a halo of thorns. Thousands of them, each one sharp enough to pierce steel, each one aimed at the soldiers who surrounded her.

Isolde reached up.

Her fingers closed around the crown of thorns that blazed above her brow. She pulled it free, and the dark halo came with a sound like tearing flesh. The thorns lengthened, twisted, reformed in her grip—becoming a blade. A sword of dark crimson, its edge weeping blood, its hilt wrapped in shadows.

Isolde’s voice, when it came, was soft. Almost gentle.

“Blood Dominion: Thorned Execution. “

She moved.

The blood needles shot forward in a storm, impaling soldiers where they stood. The crimson blade swept in arcs too fast to follow, cutting through armor, through flesh, through bone. Men fell. Screams filled the air. The storehouse, already a charnel house, became something worse.

Isolde stood at the center of it all, her blade dripping, her crown gone, her eyes blazing with cold, terrible light.

“Who’s next?”

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