The saber came down before Crow could even process the motion properly. One instant Wolf stood in front of him with the blade raised, and the next the strike had already passed through him. His left arm vanished alongside a massive section of his shoulder, severed so cleanly that for half a second his body did not even seem to realize what had happened. Then blood burst outward and the force spun him sideways across the rooftop.
A normal person would have collapsed immediately from either shock or pain, but Crow was a wight. Pain existed for him in a dulled, distant way, suppressed enough that he could still move through injuries that should have completely incapacitated someone else. Even as pieces of his body scattered across the rooftop, he managed to lift his remaining hand and let the sniper rifle fall away. Green necrotic flames immediately exploded around his palm as he poured every bit of mana he could into a single attack. The energy condensed violently into one unstable sphere before he unleashed it directly into Wolf at point blank range.
The blast struck dead on.
Necrotic fire erupted outward and swallowed Wolf entirely in a wave of green flames thick enough to melt stone and rot flesh instantly. *That much energy could probably rot hundreds of people,* Crow thought to himself as he immediately threw himself backward, rolling across the rooftop before hurling himself over the edge of the building. He hit the ground hard enough to crack the pavement beneath him but forced himself upright instantly and broke into a sprint.
Meanwhile, Wolf stood inside the fading necrotic flames.
Hit directly by enough rot to massacre entire crowds of people, he merely coughed once and covered his eyes with his arm as if someone had blown smoke in his face. "Bastard," he muttered irritably before lowering his arm and looking down toward the street below. Crow was already fleeing as fast as his body could carry him, and as a wight that speed was immense. His body had none of the limits normal human flesh suffered from. Muscles did not tear, exhaustion barely mattered, and pain slowed him far less than it should have. Under normal circumstances it would have made escape almost guaranteed.
Against Wolf, it meant nothing.
Wolf angled himself slightly and crouched down before launching forward hard enough to crater the rooftop beneath his feet. He shot toward Crow like a rocket, crossing the distance so quickly that Crow barely even registered movement before Wolf had already passed him. A blur of motion cut through the street and suddenly Wolf stood several meters ahead while Crow stumbled mid-step.
Then the pain finally registered.
Crow looked down and saw that a huge portion of his torso was simply gone. The saber had carved straight through him while Wolf passed by, leaving a massive hollow cavity through the center of his body. "Still not falling over?" Wolf asked while raising a brow slightly.
Crow grit his teeth. *That barely had an effect on him!?* he thought in disbelief. The necrotic blast should have done far more than that. Instead of panicking though, he immediately shoved his remaining hand into the massive hole in his own torso, fingers pushing into exposed flesh and bone until he grabbed hold of one of his ribs. He snapped it free with a sickening crack.
*Equivalent Exchange,* he thought desperately. *I sacrifice this rib permanently for a boost in my necrotic magic!*
The rib vanished from his hand as the deal completed.
Wolf stared at him with open disgust. "Disgusting. You did that to what? Maybe hurt me a little?" he asked before letting out an annoyed exhale.
Crow narrowed his eyes as green flames erupted around his hand again. Bone twisted outward and reshaped itself into a long pistol glowing with concentrated necrotic energy. The moment it finished forming, he fired. The weapon discharged with explosive force, launching a flaming bone bullet forward more like a railgun shot than a normal round.
Wolf casually knocked it aside with the saber.
"And it did nothing. What a surprise," he remarked while beginning to move forward again.
Then suddenly he stumbled.
The bullet had curved back around.
It slammed into Wolf's back and lodged itself deep inside him before detonating with necrotic corruption powerful enough to rot through what Crow estimated would be people in the low thousands. *That should do something,* Crow thought immediately.
It did.
Wolf stumbled forward a single step.
Then continued running directly at him anyway.
Crow barely had time to react before the saber flashed again and cleaved him cleanly in half. "You thought that did something you moron?" Wolf mocked before bringing his foot down onto Crow's face with enough force to tear his jaw completely off.
At this point Crow had effectively gone from throwing pebbles at Wolf to shooting him with a pistol, but the problem was that none of it actually mattered. Even though his attacks had become drastically stronger, the difference between them was still overwhelming. Crow was still essentially a normal man trying to kill a tank. The gap was simply too massive for his increased firepower to mean anything.
*Guh… I can still do something,* Crow thought frantically while his ruined body twitched on the ground. *Maybe if I sacrifice my lower half and make a bone knife, it might be able to—*
His thoughts stopped abruptly as Wolf stomped down on his head again.
The impact drove shattered bone fragments into Crow's skull and finally knocked him unconscious, which for a wight was extremely difficult to accomplish through conventional means.
"Finally," Wolf muttered in exhaustion before putting the saber away. He bent down, grabbed Crow by the neck, and hauled him upward like dead weight. "I want to fucking kill you, but you got explaining to do," he told the unconscious wight before beginning the walk back toward the Coliseum in a thoroughly irritated and frustrated manner.