The world around them was nothing but wreckage now.
The spirit realm, once a kaleidoscope of ethereal landscapes, had been reduced to a shattered wasteland. The ground—if it could still be called that—was fractured into floating islands of debris. The air itself seed wounded, torn and bleeding with spectral energy that flickered like dying stars.
Neither combatant noticed.
Neither cared.
Blake's body was hardly recognizable as human anymore. His form had beco a writhing mass of burning blood and molten flesh, constantly shifting, constantly breaking and remaking itself. What remained of his face was stretched in a permanent rictus of pain and fury.
Nesis circled him, its body a sinuous shadow that occasionally solidified just enough to strike. Its elongated limbs twisted at impossible angles, sotis splitting into dozens of tendrils, sotis condensing into hamr-like fists that could shatter mountains.
"You disappoint , blood-weaver," Nesis purred, its voice a chorus of whispers that seed to co from everywhere at once. "All this power... all this rage... and yet you hold back."
Blake spat a glob of burning blood that sizzled when it hit the ground. "I'm ripping you apart, you shadow-fuck."
"Are you?" Nesis's laughter echoed across the battlefield. Its body suddenly split open, revealing thousands of glittering crystals, soul crystals embedded in its shadowy flesh.
Each one pulsed with a different rhythm, a different life stolen and consud. "Do I look wounded to you?"
Blake roared, unleashing another barrage of blood-spikes that erupted from the ground beneath Nesis. The familiar simply lted around them, reforming unhard.
"PATHETIC!" Nesis scread, its voice suddenly thunderous. "You claim to fight for love? For your precious Rose?" It gestured to its chest, where one crystal pulsed brighter than the others—a delicate, rose-tinted gem that beat like a heart. "You don't even put your heart into it."
Sothing in Blake broke.
His heart.
His mind.
His restraint.
"My heart?" Blake whispered, his voice suddenly calm amid the chaos. His burning eyes fixed on the rose-colored crystal. "Is that what you want?"
Nesis's grin stretched wider. "Show what you're really made of, blood-weaver. Or I'll keep her soul forever... just another trophy in my collection."
Blake stood still, his molten form cooling, hardening. For the first ti since the battle began, he closed his eyes.
"You want my heart?" Blake's voice was barely audible. "Fine."
His dug his hands into his chest and cracked it open.
Not taphorically.
Not as so artistic flourish.
His actual chest split down the middle, ribs spreading like fingers, revealing his beating heart—a mass of pulsing red that glowed with unnatural fire.
Nesis tilted its head, curious now.
Blake reached into his own chest and, without hesitation, ripped out his heart.
Blood didn't pour out. It hovered, suspended around him like a galaxy of red stars. His severed arteries and veins extended from his chest cavity, still connected to the heart in his hand, stretching like red ropes.
"You talk too much," Blake said.
Then he squeezed his heart.
Power erupted from him—not the wild, uncontrolled explosions from before, but sothing calculated. Deliberate. Terrifying.
Every drop of blood he had spilled during their battle suddenly rose from the ground, from the air, from Nesis's own shadowy form. It all rushed toward him, orbiting his body like planets around a dying sun.
Nesis's grin faltered for the first ti.
"What are you—"
Blake didn't let it finish. He thrust his heart forward, and the orbiting blood condensed into a single, massive spear that pierced straight through Nesis's chest.
The familiar scread—not in pain, but in surprise.
"This battle, for however long it's been going on for. Days, I don't know. Has made ...made into sothing else. I now know the true extent of my power. Thanks to you. In this world, dying is useless. You've made that pretty clear. But let's test what it is to be on the edge...be close to death,"
"That won't kill ," it snarled, already beginning to reform around the blood-spear.
"It's not ant to," Blake replied.
The blood-spear suddenly blossod, branching out inside Nesis's body like roots seeking water. Each branch found a soul-crystal and wrapped around it, creating a network of blood vessels throughout the familiar's shadowy form.
Nesis thrashed, its body contorting as it tried to expel the invasive blood. "What is this? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Blake didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on his heart, still clutched in his hand, still connected to his body by those impossibly long veins and arteries. He squeezed it again, harder this ti.
"Siphon," he whispered.
The blood roots inside Nesis began to pulse, each beat synchronized with Blake's heart. And with each pulse, the blood vessels grew thicker, stronger, more intricate.
Nesis howled, its body stretching and compressing as it tried to tear itself free. But the blood network had spread too far, too fast. It was embedded in the familiar's very essence now.
"GET OUT!" Nesis shrieked, its voice distorting, becoming sothing even more inhuman. "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"
Blake stood unmoved, his face a mask of concentration. Blood continued to pour from his open chest, feeding the network inside Nesis. His heart beat slower now, each pulse more deliberate, more powerful.
The roses-tinted crystal—Rose's soul—began to shimr brighter as the blood vessels wrapped tighter around it.
"You can't have her," Nesis hissed, its voice suddenly desperate. "She made the oath. She belongs to ."
"She belongs to herself," Blake replied. Then, softer: "And I belong to her."
He squeezed his heart a third ti.
Blood exploded from every part of his body—eyes, mouth, fingertips, every pore. It all rushed toward Nesis, no longer as weapons or constructs, but as pure, raw power.
The familiar's shadowy form began to bulge and twist, its darkness infected with pulsing red veins. The soul-crystals embedded in its flesh glowed brighter, vibrating with increasing intensity.
"STOP THIS!" Nesis scread, its voice breaking into a thousand different voices—all the souls it had consud, crying out at once. "YOU'LL DESTROY US ALL!"
Blake took a step forward, then another. His body was withering, shrinking, as more and more of his blood flowed into Nesis. But his eyes never left the rose-tinted crystal.
"Let her go," he said quietly. "Let her go, and this ends."
"NEVER!" The familiar's body was barely holding together now, stretched thin between the soul-crystals that were trying to tear free from its shadowy prison.
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Blake nodded, as if he had expected this answer. "Then we do this the hard way."
He brought his heart—now pale and nearly drained—to his lips and whispered to it. The words were too quiet to hear, but the effect was imdiate.
The blood inside Nesis began to burn.
Not with the wild, destructive fire from before. This was sothing else—a cold, calculated heat that didn't destroy the blood, but transford it. The vessels hardened, becoming like steel, trapping the soul-crystals in a cage of blood-forged tal.
Nesis thrashed more violently, its body tearing itself apart as it fought against the blood cage growing inside it.
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" it wailed. "THE OATH—"
"Fuck the oath," Blake said.
He closed his fist around his heart.
The network of blood vessels inside Nesis suddenly contracted, crushing inward with impossible force. The familiar's body imploded, collapsing into itself like a dying star.
For a mont, there was silence.
Then—an explosion of light.
Thousands of soul-crystals burst free from Nesis's collapsing form, hovering in the air like a constellation of multicolored stars. Each one pulsed with its own rhythm, its own life waiting to be reclaid.
At the center of it all floated the rose-tinted crystal, still wrapped in a delicate cage of Blake's blood.
Nesis's voice, now barely a whisper, rose from the shadows pooling on the ground. "You... can't... have... her..."
Blake looked down at the pitiful remains of the once-mighty familiar. It was nothing but a puddle of darkness now, clinging desperately to existence.
"I already do," Blake replied.
He reached out and gently took the rose-tinted crystal, blood cage and all, into his palm. The mont he touched it, the blood vessels unwound themselves, flowing back into his body through the veins still connected to his heart.
The other soul-crystals began to drift away, each seeking its rightful owner in the vast expanse of the spirit world. Soon, only Blake, the puddle of shadow that was Nesis, and the rose-tinted crystal remained.
Blake looked down at his heart, still clutched in his other hand. It was pale, nearly drained of blood, beating weakly. Without hesitation, he placed it back into his open chest cavity. The ribs folded back into place, flesh knitting itself together.
He felt empty. Hollow. He had used nearly every drop of his blood in the fight. But in his palm, Rose's soul pulsed with warm, gentle light.
"Worth it," he whispered.
The puddle of shadow that was Nesis began to bubble and hiss. "This... isn't... over..." it rasped.
Blake didn't bother to look at it. "Yes. It is."
He turned away, cradling the soul-crystal close to his chest, already thinking of the journey back to the physical world, where Rose's body waited.
Behind him, what remained of Nesis gave one final, hateful hiss before dissipating into the ether, too weak to maintain even its most basic form.
Blake walked away from the shattered battlefield, his body broken, his blood nearly gone, but his heart—now reunited with Rose's soul—beating stronger with each step. He was going back to the blood cocoon, where Rose's body was.
He had won.
Not through superior strength.
Not through clever tactics.
But by putting his heart into it.
Literally.
Blake smiled as the crystal in his hand pulsed in ti with his heart.
"Let's go ho, Rose," he whispered. "Let's go ho."
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