Chapter 601: The Immortal Witch.
Ring Ring…
Soon, Na’thir received a video call from Cruor’s Bishop… The Bishop left him with a single warning.
"Get your dogs out… the Blood Arts Academy’s reinforcements are one minute away from the shared location."
Na’thir gave him a short head nod and hung up… the Bishop hadn’t warned him out of the goodness of his heart.
Na’thir had also purchased access to the Bishop’s surveillance network to track the reinforcements on the way.
Soon, he switched to Fang’s wisp… the last elite still standing… alas, instead of getting some good news for once, he found him still trapped inside Shia’s Dominion.
VRRRRR!! HAHAHAHA!!…
The shriek of revolving teeth assaulted his senses, mingling with a woman’s crazed laughter!
Shia stood upon a fractured floor of crystallized blood, her tangled crimson hair plastered across her face and shoulders.
She was missing a piece of her shoulder, an eye, and a leg, and had dozens of deep claw wounds covering her body, some wide enough to expose the bones within.
Her state was utterly harrowing… and yet, she didn’t seem to be in pain or care that much.
The answer showed itself right away… her Gorathi tattoos kept flashing without pause; each flash sent blood surging into the injuries, rebuilding torn flesh and pulling the wounds shut so fast that droplets scattered from her body!
"HAHAHAHA! AGAIN!"
Shia slammed her weapons together, scattering crimson sparks as their grinding roar reverberated through the Dominion!
These weapons were nothing like a glaive…
Blee’der Chainsaw Twins.
Shia’s newly awakened weapon.
They resembled two small shields shaped like manta rays with their wings spread… sharp crimson teeth raced along their curved forward edges like chainsaws, while the edges nearest her wrists remained smooth.
Shia held one in each hand, her fists protected behind their dark red faces, while a thick rope of Sticky Blood linked the two… it remained hanging around her neck.
It was clear that a lot of thought had gone into the weapon design… it hadn’t been created in less than the fifteen minutes that Levi had given her.
It was expected… as no one was dumb enough to think of their awakened weapons after the Solarbound evolution.
It was the weapon that would encapsulate their new fighting style after their evolutionary path became clearer.
In the case of Shia, she had given up on the glaive’s staff completely, left only the crescent-like design, and improved it into butcher-like chainsaws that fit her reckless and bloody fighting style.
Through the gaps in her tangled hair, Na’thir caught sight of her shimmering crimson eyes… fixed on Fang with a hunger that made her laughter all the more disturbing.
Na’thir watched a new leg grow fully in less than a second, as if it had never been sliced off…
The fact that she was still alive after all the time he had given Fang to finish her left him feeling like these three fuckers had plotted to give him a stroke.
’Even you… even you, Fang, huh…’
He let out a long exhale while rubbing his face, too charged to curse any more… after Levi had managed to kill both Rain and the Hound, he had believed that Fang could at least make him slightly happy by capturing Jasmine or Shia.
Anything to help him keep a chain around Levi’s neck.
Instead… his third elite was struggling as well.
’She keeps rebuilding herself! Every time I tear her apart, she gets back up!’ Fang protested furiously.’I’ve tried everything… this witch is immortal inside her territory!’
Did the Bishop think he had spent all this time watching her laugh?!
Hell, he was even more pissed than the Bishop was.
The moment Shia challenged him to a Dominion battle and dragged him into the Rift, the madness clouding Fang’s thoughts began to clear.
His Tree took root, and a gigantic Blood Moon rose behind it… Together, they sustained his monstrous strength while allowing him to regain his intelligence!
Cruor’s full moon had pushed his Blood Moon Sovereign Form far beyond its usual state, stripping him of the reason needed to cancel it… Unless someone hid that moon, he could only surrender to the frenzy.
Inside the Rift, his Tree kept the frenzy from overwhelming his mind and sustained the form with spiritual energy instead of life force… his reserves still dwindled, but he no longer burned away his life to maintain it.
Shia freed him from that state by bringing him here, where he could wield the same savage power with a clear mind!
This combination made him a nightmare inside the Rift of Binding Laws… and Fang even thanked her for giving him access to it.
"You saved me some trouble, girl… I’ll make your death quick."
He meant to grant her that small mercy before returning to finish the others.
With the difference in their strength, he saw no reason for this battle to last beyond his first killing blow.
And for a moment, everything went exactly as he expected.
Shia’s body imploded under a single strike from his monstrous fist.
But before Fang could enjoy his victory, the surrounding blood rushed toward her remains… and the girl he had just killed rebuilt herself before his own eyes!
He attacked again, driving his claws through her throat and ripping her head from her shoulders… yet her body barely staggered before blood rose from the floor, gathering above the torn neck and forming another head!
Fang refused to give her time to recover.
He split her down the middle, tore through her chest, and severed her limbs whenever she brought those chainsaw weapons within reach.
Yet every wound closed almost as quickly as he inflicted it… Sometimes, her flesh sealed around his claws before he could pull them free!
The more she recovered, the more vicious his attacks became, until he finally unleashed one at point-blank range that blasted her entire body into a cloud of blood!
A Cloud of Blood!
The impact shattered the floor around them, scattering crimson fragments through the mist while her weapons tumbled across the ground.
For a moment, he finally stopped hearing that creepy laughter.
Then, the blood stopped falling.
Droplets hung around him before rushing toward one another, drawing long streams from the fractured floor into their midst!
A spine formed within the gathering mass, ribs grew around it, and flesh spread over the bones as two arms reached toward the fallen weapons.
Her chest barely finished rebuilding before she started laughing again!
For the first time since he had faced Shia, Fang felt shivers course down his spine the moment he heard it… Never in his life had he felt so helpless, even when he clearly had an advantage over his opponent.
Worse… he had a role in that frenzied laughter as the Crimson Moon hanging above their heads did more than empower him… the longer its victims stayed under its light, the more it cursed them with the same frenzy he had gone through.
Only this time… it only made Shia more bloodthirsty and reckless in her confrontations… seeking to kill him while her Dominion kept her alive at all costs!
If it hadn’t been for Fang’s Sovereign Form turning his body into a near-unbreakable fortress, making Shia’s attacks barely leave a scratch on his skin, he would have lost already.
Shia had tried rushing toward his Tree too… but Fang intercepted her every time, tearing her apart before her chainsaws could reach its trunk.
But this was a Dominion battle… and Shia’s death wasn’t the sole measure of victory.
Without hesitation, he abandoned her, turning his fury toward her Tree.
If her body refused to stay dead, he would destroy the thing sustaining it!
Shia intercepted him and fought him along the way, but she still failed to stop him… In the end, his first slash ripped through its trunk, sending branches and crystal leaves crashing around him.
He followed with another, widening the split until the enormous Tree began to tilt… Alas, before he could celebrate, blood filled the cracks and healed them just as fast as he damaged them!
By the time Shia reached him, the Tree stood whole again, raining on both of them with blood droplets.
"It can’t be…"
Fang struck her aside as if she were an annoying bug and continued attacking, approaching from another direction, cutting through the roots, even launching successive attacks at the same wound in the Tree… but every opening drew more blood from the surrounding territory, repairing the damage before he could finish it!
"How much fucking blood do I need to exhaust?!"
As his gaze swept across her crystallized blood territory, Fang began to understand what he was up against… blood covered the ground, filled the broken channels, and dripped endlessly from the Tree’s crystal leaves.
Worse, his own Laws governed Blood too!!
The blood his attacks scattered beyond his control sank into her territory, where her roots absorbed it… Then the crystal leaves returned it as her own living blood.
By then, it answered to her.
Every attempt to tear her apart left more blood for her Tree to claim!
Inside her territory, he could tear through her body and damage her Tree… but he possessed nothing that could stop either from drawing upon the blood around them!
As long as that supply and her spiritual energy lasted, they would recover.
To Fang, it already felt like they could go on forever!
And now, with Na’thir demanding to know what was taking him so long, Fang still stood in a Dominion overflowing with it.
This situation had an infamous name.
’Master… the girl put me in a Dominion Deadlock.’
A Dominion Deadlock.
Shia couldn’t overcome his strength, and Fang couldn’t overcome her immortal regeneration… neither possessed what it took to finish the other’s Tree!
Fang gritted his fangs as he gazed at Shia, who was standing below her Dominion’s Tree, bathing under its rain while laughing like a crazed witch, the crystallized chainsaws screaming nonstop.
’Then… get the hell out of there,’ Na’thir ordered with tightened fists.’She only needs to keep you here until the reinforcements arrive… they’re less than a minute away, and both Rain and the Hound are dead.’
’You’re the only one left…’
’Dead… both?’
Fang was left stunned… he had thought he was the one having the worst of it inside Shia’s Dominion.
He hadn’t thought for a second that the other two would already be dead… and before the reinforcements arrived, which left him with a single scary assumption.
’Don’t tell me…’
’Yes… It’s him,’ Na’thir stressed coldly.’Now forfeit the challenge and eat the backlash… I can’t lose you too.’