Scarlet

Without wasting a second, I use both blood boil and life drain on the two while also manifesting several weapons of blood above my head that I send flying towards them. And out of the corner of my eye, I find Emily assaulting them with all of her skills and sending a wave of the viral mist towards them, disregarding stealth for pure force and speed. Which isn’t saying much since it’s still not moving too fast.

Meanwhile Ace reaches for a card and draws it, a smile immediately brightening his face the moment he sees it. Then he starts outright laughing while his teammate begins singing a rather beautiful song that I can’t understand a single word of, several fireballs beginning to appear around her as she does so. The fireballs then go flying to clash with my blades of blood, making my eyes narrow for a second.

“Maybe we might win this one after all, eh Sof?” Ace shouts, sounding rather hysterical as he raises the card up, a volcano beneath some sort of grim reaper appearing on the card making it look rather foreboding.

“I told you not to call me that,” ‘Sof,’ also known as Songstress says in a tired but not unhappy voice right when she pauses in her song, making the fireballs stop for moment. She then smiles slightly at the sight of the card and focuses on him instead, simply letting the blades of blood approach as she starts singing again, changing her tone this time to be a much softer melody instead of the more intense but beautiful one she had before. And right when she does, a glowing green light shoots from her hand to envelop Ace as the card begins to leak magma, the magma burning the card in the process.

“That can’t be good,” I mutter before glancing at Emily to find her looking at me and nodding. So I begin jumping up the wall straight towards the Songstress, deciding to keep a little distance between myself and Ace for the moment.

And judging by the slight frown he makes at that as the card continues transforming into a literal volcano with some sort of skeleton wearing a cloak and holding a scythe very much reminding me of the grim reaper on the card that is from the old world mythology appearing above the volcano. Ace then points down at Emily, making my eyes widen as the skeleton focuses on her.

Shit.

Without wasting a second, I change my trajectory by jumping off the wall straight towards Ace, ignoring his skill entirely in the hopes that killing him will dispel it. And considering that his eyes widen into saucers when he sees what I’m doing, I think it’s safe to assume it will.

He quickly swipes his hand in front of him, making another deck appear before he draws another card and raises it in front of me. The card then shoots out a fireball right at me, but I simply cut straight through it with my shapeshifted arm, not bothering with dodging it as I continue towards him.

“Redirect!!!” he shouts, making the skeleton, who had been raising its scythe to strike in the direction of Emily suddenly teleport before reappearing in place but facing me instead. It then swings its scythe straight at me, which I move slightly to avoid, only for it to still dig into my shoulder, almost bisecting my left arm off of my body entirely in the process. Then I hear what sounds like electricity coming from Songstress, only for coughing sounds to replace the electricity entirely, signaling that Emily took care of her somehow.

Ace quickly grins as he sees my wound, only for that grin to shift into horror when he sees me continuing towards him and ignoring it thanks to pain diffusion. Although it probably doesn’t help that he’s likely seeing the wound beginning to close up ever so slowly. Not extremely quickly, but quickly enough that it’s visible to the human eye.

“Sof!” he shouts, only to look over and find something that has his jaw dropping open. I don’t bother looking to see what he is looking at though, as I quickly reach him before drawing my claws straight across his chest and down to his waist and around to his hip while landing on the balcony next to him in a kneel. Then I lose my footing despite being kneeling, one of my knees hitting the ground due to the weakness spreading through my body from the blood I’ve been burning along with the blood I lost in almost getting my arm cut off.

Despite that I manage to turn around to find him vanishing in a flash of light along with his grim reaper and volcano skill. But that’s not what draws my eye. What draws my eye is the sight of Songstress on her knees while seemingly dehydrated so badly that her bones are showing with black veins crawling across her skin that has me wincing.

Ouch. And people say I’m painful to fight…

Fortunately she vanishes just seconds later, no longer having to deal with what must’ve been very painful.

I look down at Emily to find her sweating buckets down there, only to see her weakly smile at me and give me a thumbs up with her left hand on her knee as she leans over a little.

Frightening girl.

“You’re one to talk,” Tar mutters, to which I ignore.

I also ignore my arm which is quite painful, even with 32.5% of the pain not being there. Although there’s also the 50% removed from the magical reality itself, so really it’s just about 67.5% of the remaining 50%. So about 33.75% of the actual pain I’d feel if this happened.

Which is still fucking painful, but tolerable at least.

Well, looks like we have their core now. A pity I won’t be able to fight Shifter, but in hindsight, it may be best that I don’t fight until this wound heals.

Stupid card skill. Stupid dumb luck.

I climb to my feet before beginning to walk over towards the room housing their core, Emily quickly making her way towards the stairs as I do so judging by the sound of her footsteps. But right when I’m almost at the doorway of the large balcony, I stop as I hear footsteps from outside of the tower rushing over here.

“No… he can’t be…” I mutter while turning around and still holding my arm so that it’s still perfectly in place for the healing.

The sound of the footsteps suddenly stop as I hear a whoosh outside.

Then the wall of the large room bursts inwards and a man with glowing red eyes and markings spread across his skin flies into the room straight onto the balcony I’m on before slamming his shapeshifted bear paw into the ground and cracking the balcony, destroying the thing, and sending us both falling down to the fourth floor below.