NOVEL NEXT Chapter 282: Violence Unbound - Thalion vs Ankhet
Thalion raced through a narrow corridor that plunged deeper into the earth, twisting like a living creature. He emerged in a vast, chilly chamber, kilometers beneath the surface. The air was crisp, punctuated by the rhythmic drip of water striking stone. He halted his mistform, panting, as Ankhet reformed ten meters behind him in a swirl of black miasma.
Ankhet's voice resonated like a shadow's hiss: "I wonder how much mana you have left. Your skull will be the first token on my throne, the spoils of the strongest human I've slain since my resurrection." His words reverberated through the frigid space, amplifying Thalion's pulse. The Heart of the Sanguine Archon hammered against his ribs, his blood and the crimson vines coursing beneath, burning with purpose.
Thalion squared his shoulders. "This palace will be your grave," he declared, conviction blazing in his eyes. Before Ankhet could respond, Thalion summoned the Blade of the Blooded Templar in his right hand. Crimson flames roared to life around him, his aura blossoming into a tempest of raw aggression. With a speeding strike, he rushed forward.
Ankhet answered by manifesting dual miasma blades. Thalion breached with a telekinetic dash to the side, feinting then launching a horizontal mana slash infused with his bloodline might. The air shivered and cracked as his crimson slash cut across the darkness. Ankhet gracefully vaulted over it, rolling into a counterattack with two lethal slashes forming an X in the air. Thalion evaded with another dash and responded by unleashing razor-sharp blood thorns.
Red vines erupted from Thalion's back at the elbow, whipping toward Ankhet. They flickered seventy meters in a lightning-fast assault, but Ankhet sidestepped effortlessly. Regrowing strength, Thalion glimmered with renewed confidence: his mana already surged to 40%, inching toward his goal of 80%.
Ankhet pressed back with dark miasma clouds and jagged black spears, each shot propelled by his malevolent aura. Then he conjured telekinetic waves—swift, controlled, devastating—with echoes reminiscent of Jack's lethal finesse. Thalion's enhanced danger sense, honed by his title, guided him through the onslaught.
Sensing fatigue in the undead, Thalion surged forward. Ankhet's veins darkened, his aura flaring; he lunged into melee. Thalion countered with a seismic "Tectonic Slam," disrupting Ankhet's balance and surprising him with its sheer force. Seizing the moment, Thalion slammed his armored elbow into Ankhet's face. The impact strong enough to let the undead stumble back, releasing a pained hiss.
A crimson vine pierced Ankhet's leg, but it drew only a trickle of blood before he severed it with a flash of his blade. The vine fell away, twitching, and black ichor soaked into the earth. In a wisp of black miasma, Ankhet vanished only to reappear twenty meters ahead of Thalion, materializing like a nightmare taking form.
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"You've made me angry," he hissed. Thalion watched as the wound in Ankhet's leg sealed itself unnaturally fast, the torn flesh knitting together as if it had never been touched. Even the cuts across his face faded, leaving behind skin as flawless as polished obsidian. The air warped around him, thickening with malevolence. Ankhet exhaled a dense stream of black miasma, nothing like the frail skill the crippled Eclipsari once used. This was pure undeath, a rotting fog of cursed energy that could poison the living, transform flesh, and rot soul.
Dark wings, skeletal and batlike, erupted from Ankhet's back. His amber eyes flared like twin suns behind smoke, and a translucent afterimage shimmered behind him—an echo of something ancient and unspeakable. Thalion couldn't perceive it with mortal sight, but his title revealed the truth: Ankhet had entered a heightened state, powered by forbidden forces. In a blink, he stood before Thalion and slashed downward with long, clawed hands coated in churning miasma, an unholy mirror of Thalion's own shadow claws.
Thalion stood his ground. He raised the Blade of the Blooded Templar and met the attack head-on, pouring mana into a slashing counterstrike. Steel met death, and the chamber rang with the crash of colliding forces. The pressure between them shrieked like tortured metal. Locked in the clash, Thalion summoned a vine from his shoulder, aiming to impale Ankhet's skull from the blind side. But with a single beat of his wings, Ankhet vanished again, this time reappearing two meters away, mouth open, unleashing a concentrated beam of darkness.
Thalion had only seconds to react. He threw up a mana barrier while diving to the side, narrowly avoiding the destructive blast. The beam tore across the stone floor, gouging a blackened trench. "Alright," Thalion communicated silently to the Sanguis Impera, "Whenever there's an opening, launch blood thorns or vines. Anything new—use it." To his surprise, the plant responded instantly, a surge of bloodlust and murderous intent pouring through his body like liquid fire. Good. Now he could focus fully on the battle.
Ankhet hovered above the ground, wings twitching. In the heart of each leathery wing, ghostly heads began to manifest—twisting, screaming souls locked in agony. The spirits fused in a writhing, painful embrace as the wings hurled them toward each other. The air crackled as the souls collided and merged into one. Thalion could feel their torment with his title. They were damaged, fragmented, forced into this fusion by sheer will, not design.
Ankhet pointed a clawed finger toward the tortured amalgam, preparing to channel another devastating beam. Thalion's danger sense exploded in warning. He didn't hesitate. His body turned into a swirling mist of blood and flame, shooting upward in an evasive burst. Just as he vanished, the beam exploded where he'd stood, carving molten fissures through the chamber below.