Invincible Blood Sorceror

"That shouldn't be possible," Wei Lin said, his calm facade cracking for the first time. "Physical force can't disrupt space math."

"It can when the physical force is essence-based," Jorghan replied.

He manifested blood essence as multiple whips, each one twenty feet long, each one capable of cutting through steel. The whips lashed out in all directions simultaneously, forcing the awakeners to defend rather than attack.

Cassandra touched one whip, draining its velocity to zero. But there were seven other whips, and she could only affect one object at a time. The remaining whips forced Yuki to dodge, Wei Lin to create hasty spatial barriers, and Dr. Cross to drag himself behind cover while clutching his bleeding thigh.

Marcus re-entered the fight, charging back through the ruined wall with a roar. His stone-enhanced body had already healed the internal damage, his awakened regeneration combining with his earth-based abilities to repair what Jorghan had destroyed. He moved like a juggernaut, caring nothing for the blood essence whips that struck his body and left shallow cuts rather than the deep wounds they inflicted on normal targets.

He tackled Jorghan with the force of a freight train.

They crashed through the back wall of the house, through the yard beyond, into the street where more space was available. Marcus's momentum carried them thirty feet before Jorghan managed to arrest their movement, planting his feet and stopping the massive man's charge through sheer strength.

They grappled in the middle of the street, Marcus's stone-enhanced grip trying to crush Jorghan's arms, Jorghan's blood essence working to invade Marcus's system and kill him from inside. It was a contest of direct power versus insidious corruption, strength against subversion.

Lightning struck again, but this time from the side. Dr. Cross had managed to tourniquet his bleeding leg and returned to the fight, his electromagnetic abilities manifesting as concentrated beams rather than diffuse bolts. The beams bypassed Jorghan's absorption capability through sheer intensity, burning through his blood essence barrier through overwhelming power.

Jorghan felt his skin char, smelled his own flesh burning, and experienced real pain for the first time in this fight. His regeneration kicked in immediately, healing the damage, but it cost essence to repair what the lightning destroyed.

He couldn't sustain this forever. The S-Rank team was depleting his reserves through attrition, forcing him to spend essence on healing and defense, slowly wearing him down through coordinated assault.

So he changed tactics.

*

Instead of trying to fight all five simultaneously, Jorghan focused on eliminating them one at a time.

Marcus was the strongest but also slowest to react. Jorghan stopped trying to invade his entire body and instead focused his blood manipulation on one specific target—Marcus's brain. The skull was thick, the brain protected by both bone and enhanced density, but it was still organic tissue that required blood flow to function.

Jorghan compressed the blood vessels in Marcus's brain, cutting off oxygen, starving the neural tissue that needed constant fuel to maintain consciousness.

Marcus's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. His grip weakened, his enhanced strength fading as his brain began shutting down from lack of oxygen. He released Jorghan and staggered backward, his hands going to his head, trying to physically stop what was happening inside his skull.

"Help," he managed, the word slurred, before collapsing.

Cassandra reached him and touched his chest, trying to accelerate his blood flow to overcome Jorghan's manipulation. It helped, but not enough. Marcus's consciousness faded, his massive body hitting the pavement hard enough to crack the asphalt.

One down. Four remaining.

Yuki attacked from Jorghan's blind spot, her enhanced speed making her a blur. Her strikes were aimed at pressure points, vulnerable spots where even brief contact would inject venom into his system. She moved like flowing water, never staying in one place long enough to be targeted, her serpentine abilities making her effectively untouchable in close combat.

But Jorghan didn't need to touch her to hurt her.

He manifested blood essence as a mist, filling the air around them with crimson particles so fine they were almost invisible. Yuki inhaled instinctively, and couldn't help but breathe in some of the essence-charged air.

The blood essence invaded her lungs, solidified, and began tearing delicate alveolar tissue from inside. Yuki gasped, coughed, blood spraying from her mouth as her own respiratory system was destroyed by the attack she hadn't even seen coming.

She fell to her knees, clutching her throat, trying desperately to breathe through lungs that were rapidly filling with blood from internal lacerations.

Two down. Three remaining.

Dr. Cross changed his approach. Instead of attacking Jorghan directly, he used his electromagnetic abilities to manipulate the environment. Metal objects from nearby houses—pipes, rebar, appliances—tore free and flew toward Jorghan as improvised projectiles. Cars activated and rolled toward him as multi-ton weapons. Power lines came alive and whipped through the air like electrified serpents.

The assault was creative, using the urban environment as an extension of Dr. Cross's abilities, turning the entire street into a weapon.

Jorghan dealt with it by creating a blood essence sphere so dense that nothing could penetrate. The metal projectiles bounced off harmlessly. The cars crashed against the barrier and crumpled without reaching him. The power lines sparked and sputtered, their electricity absorbed and converted before they could deliver shocks.

But the dense barrier required concentration to maintain, which left him vulnerable to Wei Lin's spatial manipulation.

Reality folded around Jorghan's feet. The ground beneath him ceased to exist in normal space, replaced by a pocket dimension entrance that opened like a mouth trying to swallow him. Jorghan fell into the opening before he could react, the blood essence barrier dissipating as he dropped into whatever space Wei Lin had prepared.

He landed in whiteness. Complete, absolute white in every direction. No sky, no ground, no horizon. Just infinite blank space that stretched in every direction without variation or feature.

Wei Lin's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

"Welcome to my spatial prison. You're trapped here now, separated from normal space by barriers you can't break. You can rage all you want, but there's no escape. I can keep you here indefinitely, until you starve or your power fades, whichever comes first."