PreCursive

  I found an ill-fitting suit of light armor on the racks and threw that on quickly, while I snatched up a nearby spear and pair of fighting daggers. It was all trash pared to my Order armor, and especially my hand-crafted Oninite bdes.

  But it would have to do.

  When I was ready, I met up with the others at the door, simirly kitted out in Loyalist junk. Longstripe and his squad eyed us evilly for wearing their colors, but didn’t say anything.

  Dusk barely waited a moment after we fio kick open the door to the courtyard without another word. She charged out the door, with Longstripe and his loyal soldiers right after her. Sylvia, Crook, and Thirty-Two followed right after, but I paused for a moment before I left.

  I looked over my shoulder at the gathered, frightened masses of i refugees that had been pulled into Nerexxa’s scheme. I…wish there was more I could do for them right now, but there wasn’t. I couldn’t reassure them that everything was going to be alright, because I didn’t know. I couldn’t get them out of here, so they were out of the line of fire. And I couldn’t even protect them, when Nerexxa was so much more powerful than I was.

  The only thing I could do, was my best to deal with the Vampire holding us all captive.

  I took a deep breath, turned around, and charged right out the door. I was hoping to see the battle going well. Either Baldric had been matg Nerexxa, or the addition of everyone who had joihe fight had turhe tide against the Vampire.

  Unfortunately…

  That wasn’t the case.

  Illuminated by the menag crimson glow of Nerexxa’s disturbing runes, I found the situation rapidly deteriorating.

  I watched as one of the Loyalist soldiers following Longstripe was torn in half almost nontly by Nerexxa, little more than fodder for her razor-sharp talons. At the same time, she grabbed the head of the mace that Longstripe had grabbed from the armory, as the man did his best to crush her head with a roar. She didn’t even flinch at the force of the blow, and I was sure that it was more than strong enough to kill me from a graze alone. Nor did she care about the other soldiers trying to hack at her with their standard-issue bdes.

  Longstripe was being supported by Crook, but it didn’t look like she was having much success either. Crook tried to attaerexxa with her bat stave, only to have to frantically block a sweeping blow from one of the Vampire’s four wings. The woman-thing was using her newly groeo great effect, either blog or striking out with them as true extensions of her own body. The hardened edge of the wing snapped Crook’s stave in two, causing the woman to stumble bad stare at the shattered wood in her hands in disbelief and despair. After a moment, though, she rallied herself and jumped bato the fray, swinging the splintered ends of her on in both hands.

  Meanwhile, Sylvia and Thirty-Two were trying to pepper the Vampire with arrows from the Loyalist bows they had grabbed. They had found vantage points around the courtyard to do so, but…it didn’t seem to be very effective. Nerexxa was barely paying attention to the arrows that were arriving in a steady stream from the two archers. Most of the time she didn’t even flinch as they either ricocheted off of the scaled surface of her skin and wings, or were disturbingly absorbed by the nearly fluid surface of her blood-red ‘dress’.

  I didn’t see Dusk, or importantly, Baldric for a moment. I only found them when I looked up at the remains of the baly that I had been captive on, now resting in pieces on the bedrock of the courtyard.

  I hurried over to them, barely skirting the furious melee in the ter of the courtyard. I was able to see what was keeping Baldric out of the fight when I got closer to them, and I grimaced at the sight.

  Dusk was frantically trying to treat a massive gash in the dwarf’s abdomen which threateo spill his entrails all over the shattered stone below him. He barely seemed to notice it, however, and was struggling to push himself up into a sitting position.

  I guess that answered the question of if Baldric could take Nerexxa by himself.

  I hurried over to the two of them, dropping my spear as I did so and into a skid that stopped at his side. Over his protestations, I ripped off a se of his cloak, dissolved it into individuals with Aetherial Melding, and got to work stitg him up.

  I did my best to ighe sounds of battle behind me as I treated my leader.

  With the practice I’d beeily, it only took me moments to do a spdash job of stitg Baldric closed. As soon as I was done, he abruptly sprang to his feet and snatched up his hooked bdes lying oone nearby.

  I hissed at the movement. “Be careful, damnit. That isly medical-grade thread keeping your insides from the outside.”

  Baldric spared me a brief nod of aowledgment, before his eyes lingered on Dusk for a moment with frustration visible in his gaze. “Shouldn’t have e bae, girl,” Was all he said, before he rushed to join the fight with Nerexxa, ung for his wounds.

  He missed Dusk’s answer. Or…maybe he didn’t, sidering how high his perception must be.

  “I couldn’t leave you behind…” She whispered, before shaking her head. Dusk didn’t even look at me before she followed after him.

  I sighed and stood up, snatg up my shitty spear as I did so. When I turo face the battle again, I saw that in the brief moments I had spent patg up Baldric, all of the Loyalist soldiers but Longstripe had been sughtered.

  Now it was only Longstripe, Crook, Baldrid Dusk in melee range of the monster in the shape of a woman. Longstripe and Baldric were w in a surprisingly well-coorditack pattern to try and keep her occupied, while Dusk and Crook were dang around at the edges. They seemed to be trying to hit her from multiple ao at least take her attention away from our heavy hitters. The le attacks from Sylvia and Thirty-Two tinued in the meanwhile.

  Well, I knew where I o join in.

  I ighe head of this spear with The Stilnt Bde, and dove into the edges of the melee with Crook and Dusk.

  This close to the transformed state of Nerexxa, I swear I could physically feel the sensation of blood sliding against my skin. The world was tinged ever so slightly crimson, and the air was thied somehow, even though I could still breathe. I wasn’t sure if it was just the copious amounts of blood that had already been spilled in this courtyard, but the st of iron hung heavy all around me.

  This…this had to be her Mantle. In the same way Grey darkehe world around him, and Honoka ratcheted up the heat, Nerexxa drowhe world in blood.

  Baldrid surprisingly Longstripe as well, had Mantles deployed as well. I was familiar enough with Baldric’s razor-sharp air scraping against my skin t for what it was, even if it was still unpleasant. The other sensation, that of a rge, angry animal breathing heavily against the bay neck, was hough. This must be what Longstripe’s own Mantle maed as. It made me wonder in the bay rings why he hadn’t deployed it during our duel, but I dismissed the thought.

  Instead, I focused to focus in the first pce. The bined effect of all three Mantles weighing against me was beyond oppressive. Not just mentally, but physically as well. The sheer weight of their power pressing down on me was so great that I had to deploy Sylvan Vigor at half-strength just to move through it.

  But I endured, and once I was in position, I struck out at the joint of one of Nerexxa’s wings guarding her back. She obviously somehow felt or saw the strike ing, but seemed to believe that her wing would be able to protect her from my burning bde.

  I felt a surge of triumph at how she wasn’t taking it seriously.

  Because it worked on her.

  The head of my low-quality spear, enhanced by my racial Skill, cut right through the scaled membrane of her taloned wing. It reached the ball joint of her monstrous appe speed, and with a slice, pletely severed the limb.

  As it fell to the bloodstained bedrock below, the battle slowed for a moment as my rades took in the sight of the first real wound anyone had dealt to the Vampire.

  Nerexxa didn’t cry out in pain at the blow that had deprived her of one of her maihods of battle. Instead, she looked over her shoulder in bewilderment at the sight of her severed wing. “Well,” She blinked. “That’s new.” Her eyes shifted up to trace the path of the spear that had cut the wing from her back, meeting mine. “Nathan dear, I’m…afraid you’ve grown too dangerous to keep around.”

  Nerexxa’s entire demeanor shifted at that. Where before she yful as she’d been since I’d met her, now she looked serious, as if we were no longer mere flies buzzing about her head. My Skill had shown Nerexxa that at least one of us had the ability to actually hurt her, which caused the Vampire to stop pying.

  I nearly died in the few seds.

  I didn’t evehe attaing from the Vampire that nearly took off my head as I suddenly lost my y to her. I was only able to tell what had happened after the fact. In a move faster than I’d ever seen, from anyone on Vereden, she had wheeled around to sh out at me with long taloned fingers, sharper than any bde.

  Baldric saved my life.

  He appeared right in front of me, his daggers swirling with razor-sharp winds, to block the cws that nearly beheaded me. He struggled against the strength of the Vampire, but didn’t seem distressed by this. Instead, I was at just the right ao see him grin at her with bloody teeth. “Got you.” He breathed.

  The ce of the battle ged, then. Seeing that I was able to hurt her, the efforts of everyone else fighting Nerexxa ged fr to kill her with their own abilities, to proteg me.

  Because Nerexxa had realized that I was the real threat to her. Not Longstripe. Not Baldric.

  Me.

  She was serious now, in her assault. Baldric had shifted almost eo proteg me, his bdes fshing in movements too quie to follow as he deflected her talons and wings. Longstripe, meanwhile, had ged his approach. Instead of merely trying to crush her under his might, he was now attempting to box her in. I was so much slower than Nerexxa, after all. I couldn’t be relied upon to nd regur attacks on the Vampire. Instead, she had to be funneled into the path of my spear bde, so she had o dodge.

  Dusk and Crook shifted to emute Longstripe, even though they weren’t as strong as him. They started to do their best to harry her in whatever way they possibly could. Skills and Spells and Arts I didn’t know started to pepper the monster before us, trying to at least distraerexxa.

  Sylvia and Thirty-Two abaheir le assault to join in. The three of us may be the three weakest batants on the field right now, but they still had something to tribute. Illusionary Skills and Arts from Sylvia may barely affeerexxa at all, but even a fra of a fra of a sed of distra from the Sculpted woman was invaluable. Meanwhile, Thirty-Two began to dispy previously unseen abilities with fire, of all things. She shed out with rge, diffuse fireballs aimed at Nerexxa’s face, trying to blind her with either the fme itself, or at the very least the smoke of it.

  With this bination from everyo was slowly, slowly w.

  We began to push Nerexxa bad er her. She was surrou all times by others trying to practically force her onto the length of my spear, and it was w. I was managing to nd more and more strikes against the vampire, my brilliantly burning spear carving ks of already rotted corpse from her inhuman frame. The shreds of the facsimile of humanity that she g to began to fall away, bit by bit, until all that I could see before me was beast.

  A monster.

  Unfortunately…

  This made Nerexxa desperate.

  And the desperate do desperate things.

  Nerexxa exploded, a vomit-indug haze of Aether charged blood f us back from her. In the midst of it, she suddenly shed out with all of her remaining limbs, moving even faster than she had before. I…don’t think anyone repared for this sudden dispy of reserved might.

  Not even Baldric.

  I saw a wing sever Crook's right arm at the shoulder, sending the woman staggering ba a cry of agony.

  I saw a talon scrape across the face of Dusk, removing her left eye in a haze of gore.

  I saw…aalon pierce the Mithril abdomen of Sylvia and wrench outward with a tortured shriek, opening the metallic surfay partner for the world to see.

  And…

  I saw Baldric’s throat release a spray of blood, as Nerexxa ope with the swipe of a taloned wing.

  I was so shocked by the sudden incapacitation of half of hting force that I froze for a single, solitary moment.

  And that nearly e my life.

  It was only thanks to my solid gold, enhanced prosthetic that I didn’t die. The blow from Nerexxa came from my left side, and impacted the fake limb in a shower of sparks. I instantly lost feeling in the mystical limb, a flying to impact the far wall of the courtyard, near where Baldric had been ying earlier.

  I hit the stone and nearly bcked out.

  Nearly.

  Groggily, I looked up from my resting pce, a distant sense of panic growing in the bay rings.

  Across from me, in the ter of the courtyard, I saw that Nerexxa had grasped Longstripe with both of her taloned nds. They had pierced straight through him from both sides of his abdomen, almost as if he had been run through with the bars of a sharpened cage. He was still alive, if only barely, and staring up at the creature holding him with dull eyes.

  “I wahe final sacrifice to be the dwarf,” Nerexxa hissed, in a strangely resonant tohat carried across the courtyard. “But…you’ll have to do.”

  She wrenched outwards with both of her monstrous hands, and Longstripe came apart in an explosion of gore.

  The instant his life’s blood touched the runes below, their glow…

  Vanished.

  Instead, a rumbling began to emanate from deep within the earth, inating from somewhere below the pace. The world began to shake around us, as more and more of the pace started falling apart into rubble.

  Nerexxa threw back her head and ughed. “FINALLY!” She screamed into the heavens. “IT ES! AWAKEN, OH HARROWER, AND BRING OUR MOTHER HOME!”

  The ground below us began to fall away, as the stone of the courtyard revealed itself not to be built on bedrock after all.

  Just…the roof of a cavern.

  I was too stunned ao do anything, as the world fell away from me.

  Into near infinite darkness.

  And as I fell, a shadow rose. It rose and rose and rose, until the crimson tainted light of Tarus above….

  Winked out altogether.