The Gamer’s POV

Evelyn turned around just in time to see the last of the five hollow dominants still standing.

It turned out that while she had been occupied with the archer, her blood beasts had managed to kill the hollow dominants leaving just one. However, it also turned out that the abilities of this last hollow dominant were strong enough to destroy the blood beasts.

With a sudden, deafening crackle, the boy descended from the air, landing on the final blood ghoul with a blinding burst of lightning that instantly vaporized the ghoul.

As the boy stood over the smoldering remains, sparks continued to dance around his form, arcing off his skin and hissing as they hit the gore-slicked grass. He slowly lifted his gaze, his eyes glowing with residual static, and locked onto a very angry Evelyn who stood several meters away from him.

For a moment, the air between them hummed with tension, smelling of ozone and iron, as Evelyn tightened her grip on her weapons, her silhouette framed by the river of blood still swirling at her feet.

She lifted one hand high, and the vast pool of blood on the ground responded to her call, rising into the air in heavy, undulating ribbons. The liquid began to churn and solidify, sharpening into lethal points until a little over a dozen blood swords floated in the air.

But that was not all…

At the same time, some of the blood rushed toward Evelyn sinking into her back until two large, tattered wings, like those of a monstrous bat took form on her back, dripping gore. The rest of the blood just circled around her like large, thick crimson ribbons.

While this was happening, the silver-haired boy simply tilted his head, glaring at Evelyn with chillingly cold eyes.

Suddenly, a surge of lightning flowed over his skin, covering his entire body. In the seconds that followed, thick plates of armor began to manifest from the raw energy, solidifying around his chest and limbs until he looked like a knight forged from lightning.

He raised his heavy axe, and the sparks around him grew even more intense, crackling with enough force to shatter the ground beneath him. His feet began to lift off the floor as he slowly rose into the air, his cape fluttering in the gale of his own power.

A few meters up, he pointed his axe down at Evelyn, and she immediately answered with a powerful flap of her wings.

As Evelyn flew up to meet him, she pointed her weapon at him, and all the blood swords shot toward the boy in a lethal, coordinated swarm.

He calmly raised his free hand slightly, and a dense sphere of lightning surrounded his figure, instantly vaporizing the swords as they collided with the electrical field. Each blade of blood turned into a puff of red steam before it could even reach him.

When the sphere of lightning surrounding him subsided, the boy then pointed his axe toward the space where Evelyn hovered, and jagged bolts of lightning shot out in a rapid-fire barrage. She quickly swerved, her tattered wings beating the air as she spiraled through the gaps between the searing white flashes. Using the momentum of her flight, she lunged toward him with sudden, explosive speed, her kama raised to strike even as the air around her crackled with residual heat.

Then, with an explosive force and a piercing battle cry, her kama collided with the boy's axe. The impact sent spraying sparks and droplets of blood in every direction as their combined power struggled for dominance.

Both fighters quickly spiraled into a desperate melee in the air. They disengaged for a split second only to collide again and again.

Their weapons locked again, and in that brief moment, Evelyn's eyes widened as she saw the boy's eyes suddenly shine with a blinding radiance.

She immediately disengaged, shielding herself with her hands, wings and the ribbons of blood that had been swirling around her, just as a spherical discharge of lightning erupted from the boy again.

…She winced in pain as her skin had been scalded by the sheer intensity of the shock.

However, through the gaps in her wings, Evelyn could see that the light the boy emitted wasn't nearly as intense as it had been before.

'He's probably running low on mana!' She thought as she quickly raised one of her hands, and a massive spear made of densely packed blood coalesced in her grip.

She waited, her muscles coiled and ready, until a few seconds later when the spherical shroud of lightning surrounding the boy finally subsided.

'Now!'

With all the energy she could muster, she hurled the weapon at him. Just as she suspected, he couldn't immediately create another electrical field to destroy the spear. Instead, he was forced to swing his axe in a desperate arc to deflect the projectile. The heavy blood spear collided with the metal blade, the force of the impact nearly knocking the axe from his hands and sending him reeling backward through the air.

However, right at that moment, he lifted his head only to find Evelyn already upon him. She had used the spear as a distraction to launch herself forward, her body horizontal in the air with her legs extended toward his chest.

The boy was too off-balance to react. Her feet slammed into him with the force of a battering ram, the sheer momentum driving both of them downward. They became a blur of silver and crimson as they plummeted, until the boy finally crashed into the grassy slope with a concussive boom that carved a shallow crater into the earth.

Evelyn, still descending with lethal intent, didn't give him even a fraction of a second to recover. She dropped onto his chest and, in the same breath, drove the curved blade of her kama straight into his skull.

"Die, you ugly, insolent piece of shit!"

The light in the boy's eyes flickered once and then vanished, killing him instantly.