A sharp, mocking laugh echoed through the smoke of the corridor as Lara Meyer stepped out from the rear vanguard line. Her eyes, still bloodshot with the manic fury of her husband's death, locked directly onto my bone-plated mask.
"Kill the intruder! Mow her down! I will heal every scratch, every severed limb! Tear her apart!" Lara shrieked, her hands erupting in a blinding, emerald-green aura of high-tier Divine Regeneration.
The emerald light washed over the remaining Immoral Knights. Instantly, the shattered armor plates on the survivors fused back together, and their flesh knitted instantly. With an immortal healer backing them, the knights let out a unified battle cry and surged straight at me, completely disregarding their own safety because they were effectively invincible.
Recognizing the shift in tactical threat, I functioned with split-second calculation. I slammed the Tommy gun back into my Inventory Ring, swapping it for the heavy Death Chant shotgun in a single, seamless motion.
BOOM!
I leveled the barrel and blew the head clean off the lead charging knight. But before his body could even hit the floorboards, Lara's dense healing mana surged into the neck cavity. A new head violently reconstructed itself out of thin air in less than a second. The knight didn't even break his stride, swinging his broadsword directly at my chest.
Tch. Standard firepower won't work.
I dropped low, executing a tight tactical slide beneath the sweeping blade, the cold volcanic stone scraping against my crimson coat. In a battle against an immortal vanguard, shooting the foot soldiers was a waste of ammunition. My absolute, top-priority target had to be the source: Lara.
As I lunged out of the slide, dodging a flurry of elemental fire spells from the mages, I tapped into my innate Blood Manipulation. Drawing upon the ambient crimson mist lingering in the air from the previous kills, I compressed the fluid into a solid, razor-sharp spike of hardened, high-density blood, fusing it directly onto the barrel of my shotgun to create a makeshift bayonet.
I sprinted forward, weaving through the heavy infantry, parrying a spear thrust with the reinforced stock of my weapon. Closing the distance in a flash of red fabric, I drove the makeshift blood bayonet straight through Lara's silk vestments, impaling her deeply through the chest.
At the exact same instant, I squeezed the trigger.
BOOM!
The point-blank kinetic blast detonated inside her torso, blowing an enormous, gaping hole through her ribs and spine. Her upper body nearly severed completely, blood spraying across the velvet drapes of the hallway.
Yet, even as her organs shredded, the emerald light inside her flared with terrifying, monstrous intensity. The muscle fibers, bone fragments, and skin snapped back together with the speed of a closing vice. Within a fraction of a second, the hole in her chest closed completely, the blood siphoning right back into her flawless skin.
Lara tilted her head up, her lips curving into a twisted, triumphant smile as she looked at me through the bone mask.
"Nice meeting you, Eirene," she whispered, her voice completely steady as her divine regeneration neutralized the fatal trauma instantly.
The battle was completely locked. As long as her high-tier mana pool remained unexhausted, she could survive anything I threw at her… and the entire army of Immoral Knights was closing in from behind to pin me down.
The air hissed as a dozen enchanted broadswords and mana-infused spears converged on me from all angles. With my makeshift blood bayonet still embedded in Lara's rapidly reforming flesh, I had no room to swing my weapon.
Relying on instinct, I activated my Blood Manipulation. Drawing upon the thick, metallic pools formatting on the floorboards, I violently pulled the fluid upward, casting a dense, pressurized Blood Bubble directly at my back.
CLANG! CLANG! BOOM!
The knights' weapons and elemental spells slammed into the crimson sphere, the hardened fluid absorbing the brunt of the kinetic and magical impact. The barrier bought me the exact three seconds of isolation I needed. If I didn't neutralize Lara right now, this entire hallway would become an endless loop of attrition that my stamina pools couldn't sustain.
I tore the shotgun barrel away from her chest, spun my frame, and slammed my left hand violently over her face.
Lara's eyes widened behind my bone mask as my fingers locked around her jaw. She expected another physical strike… something her high-tier divine regeneration could instantly patch over. Instead, I channeled my blood magic directly into her facial cavities. The crimson mist hanging in the air rushed into her nose and mouth, instantly condensing and hardening into a solid, unyielding plug of high-density, solidified blood that completely sealed both of her primary airways.
"Mmph... mmmph!"
Lara stumbled backward, her hands flying to her throat as her eyes bulged. Her entire sensory network fractured into pure panic. Her high-tier regeneration was a passive biological reflex, meaning her cells would endlessly repair physical trauma, tissue damage, and severed organs. But regeneration requires a constant, uninterrupted supply of oxygen to fuel the cellular replication. By physically blocking her airways with solid matter, I didn't damage her tissue… I starved it.
She couldn't heal away a lack of oxygen. Her brain immediately shifted all of her remaining, immense mana reserves into a desperate internal struggle to dissolve the block and keep her own lungs from collapsing.
The strategy worked flawlessly. With her entire focus consumed by the primal urge to breathe, the passive emerald aura coating the surrounding Immoral Knights instantly flickered and died. The line of immortality was officially severed.
"She's vulnerable! Keep pressure on the… " a vanguard mage shouted, but it was too late.
I turned my gaze sharply onto the tightly packed vanguard lining the narrow corridor. With Lara completely incapacitated behind me, struggling for a single gasp of air, I raised the Death Chant shotgun once more.
BOOM!
I pulled the trigger, the heavy vanguard slug obliterating the chest of the lead mage. This time, there was no emerald flash. No tissue knitted back together. The mage collapsed into a useless heap of meat and armor, and the remaining knights froze as they realized their absolute shield was gone. I racked the slide, the empty shell clinking against the volcanic stone, and advanced on the rest of the squad.
CRACK!
A massive, enchanted battleaxe swung blindly through the smoke, catching me directly across my back. The heavy iron blade tore through the reinforced fabric of my crimson trench coat and sliced deep into the flesh of Vanessa's stolen form. The kinetic shockwave staggered me forward, the intense pain flaring through my nervous system.
But I didn't panic. My reflexes were already executing the counter-maneuver.
I spun on my heel, bringing the barrel of the Death Chant shotgun around, and pulled the trigger point-blank into the attacker's chest.
BOOM!
The heavy vanguard slug tore the executioner apart… and instantly, the passive Lifesteal Effect of my weapon kicked in. A brilliant surge of stolen vitality rushed back into my system, heavily amplified by the Green Healing Enhancement Ring resting on my finger. The biological synergy was unbelievable; the deep, bleeding gash across my back knitted together in a fraction of a second, the phantom pain vanishing as my physical sustain completely stabilized. I was a self-healing engine of destruction.
I locked my gaze onto the remaining cluster of knights huddled in the bottleneck of the corridor. They were terrified, their immortality gone, watching their vanguard ranks fall apart. I didn't give them a single millisecond to retreat.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I emptied the chamber, delivering seven consecutive, deafening blasts into the crowd. Shrapnel, shattered dark-iron plate, and severed limbs painted the walls. Without breaking stride, my right hand violently racked the slide, feeding a fresh tube of heavy ammunition into the weapon, and I opened fire again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Eight more devastating shots echoed through the cavernous hallways. When the thunderous echoes finally died down, the inner corridor of Rebelbub Castle was dead silent, save for the crackle of distant fires and the rhythmic blaring of the alarm klaxons. The entire interior vanguard unit lay slaughtered at my feet.
The heavy structural fighting had drained my internal energy reserves, leaving my active magic stores heavily depleted. I needed a reload of a different kind.
Using the sharp edge of my makeshift blood bayonet, I sliced a clean, precise cut across my right palm. I raised my bleeding hand toward the carpet of corpses and channeled Blood Siphon.
The ambient air pressure dropped instantly. My palm acted like a violent, microscopic vacuum, creating a powerful gravitational pull that targeted the fresh, vital fluids of the fallen knights. Rivers of thick, crimson blood rose from the floorboards, defying gravity as they swirled through the air and sucked directly into the open cut on my hand.
[Blood siphon activated Extraction Completed consumed 43 liters of blood]
Exactly 43 liters of blood on the 17 dead knights.
As the S-rank vanguard fluid bonded with my unique anatomy, my Mana-to-Blood Conversion trait triggered a massive chemical chain reaction. The stolen vitality was instantly processed, purified, and converted directly into raw, baseline magical energy.
Mana Meter: 20500/20500
Every single cell in my stolen body vibrated with overflowing, high-tier magical power. The interior forces were completely wiped out, my reserves were entirely replenished, and the fortress belonged to the Phantom.