The mont Albedo leaned closer to the glass, the entire arena seed to vibrate as the two Astro Prowlers reeled from the successful strike.
The beast that had been cut across the shoulder let out a warping snarl, space distorting around its throat in rippling rings that made even the reinforced viewing glass hum.
Instead of backing down, however, both prowlers doubled in intensity, their movents sharpening like the world itself was struggling to track them.
The lee warrior who landed the hit didn’t even have a chance to finish exhaling before the prowler retaliated, its form flickering through three separate afterimages, each one phasing through pillars, stone, and even the very layout of the arena.
Another vampire, the spear-user, threw himself in the path of the charging beast, dragging his palm across his forearm.
Blood seeped out, not as liquid, but as glowing crimson light that spiraled into a shifting sigil around his arm. Glyphs spun like a rotating gear of living runes before snapping into place, forming a barrier that expanded into a semi-transparent wall.
The prowler slamd into it and the sigil cracked imdiately, the crimson glow flickering like a heartbeat under strain before it finally shattered, sending that Vampire hurling backwards, skipping across the arena floor like stone across water.
Albedo’s eyes narrowed, he could tell the fighter had broken at least a rib, yet there was no hesitation. Blood magic flared along the cut on his arm, sealing it instantly with glowing crimson threads.
"He’s good," Albedo murmured as he saw that.
Lilian nodded slightly, still lounging back but her eyes razor sharp, "Nightborne Battalion. They’re not nobles. They’re trained killers, and when they’re off the job, they spend ti here making extra money,"
As Lilian finished speaking, the second prowler blurred beneath a shifting pillar, appearing directly beside the archer, who spun and fired at point-blank range. Three blood-light arrows launched with explosive force, spiraling like coiling serpents.
The prowler bent space around the arrows and a ripple of warped air blossod outward. All three arrows curved mid-flight, bending in a sickening angle, booranging behind the archer.
The archer cursed and dove as the arrows whistled past him, exploding against a pillar with enough force to disintegrate the stone into raining debris.
Below, the lee fighter who had cut the beast earlier roared and slamd a palm to the ground. Blood-like runes erupted around him, crawling across the stone in geotric patterns, forming a complex territory spell that spread in every direction like a crimson circuit.
The prowlers paused, for the first ti, sensing the shift while the vampire smirked and twisted his fingers, igniting the runes, which caused crimson chains to manifest from the glowing lines, lashing upward like striking serpents.
The chains pulsed like arteries, each link glowing with a heartbeat rhythm. They shot toward the prowlers in intersecting angles.
The first prowler tried to warp, but the runes under its feet pulsed, anchoring the surrounding space for half a second, enough ti for one chain to wrap around its hind leg and another around its torso.
The prowler snarled and twisted, bending space to escape, but the runes counteracted, locking the local reality.
The second prowler lunged to save its companion, ripping through the ground like a streak of living darkness. The archer fired again, this ti lacing his arrows with spiraling runes that ford mid-flight, a complex weave of light and blood essence.
The arrows clashed with the prowler, not hitting it, but exploding in controlled bursts that forced it to dodge right instead of forward.
And that right turn brought it directly into the path of the spear-user, who planted his weapon into the ground and activated a sigil beneath him.
A do of crimson hexagons flared into existence, then collapsed inward, condensing into a single point right as the prowler ran into it.
A crimson pulse detonated and the prowler was flung sideways, crashing into a jagged stone pillar.
The lee fighter imdiately tightened the chains around the first prowler, his arms trembling from the strain. The chains pulsed with crimson light each ti the beast fought them, holding it in place with a half-dozen layered runes.
Just as they were about to prepare another attack, the prowler’s eyes glowed dark purple and the air around it twisted, space unraveling like soone pulling a thread from fabric.
The chains began to distort, one link stretched into impossible length, thinning into nothing. Another curved into a Möbius arc. A third snapped back on itself.
"No, no, no, no," the lee fighter gritted, trying to reinforce his sigils but it was far too late, as the chains imploded, allowing the prowler to burst free, reappearing behind him with its fangs bared instantly.
"MOVE!" shouted the spear-user, and the archer fired a scatter-shot of crimson bolts. The healer-support threw a hand forward, runes swirling into a defensive veil but the prowler tore through all three efforts at once.
It collided with the lee fighter and blood sprayed from the impact breaking his nose and throwing him twenty ters across the arena floor.
"Damn," Albedo murmured.
Lilian’s eyes narrowed, "Still alive. Barely."
The other prowler, anwhile, had fully recovered from the do blast and rippled into the air with a predator’s grace, moving with fluid speed that bypassed the battlefield’s gravity.
Both beasts repositioned, circling the fighters with thodical precision.
"They’re hunting properly now," Lilian said. "This is when most teams die when facing them,"
True to her words, the prowlers lunged again, synchronized, one from the ground and one from above.
The archer dove, firing upward. The spear-user intercepted the ground assault with a sweeping glyph-shield. The healer chanted, blood essence swirling into a halo of runes above her hands.
But this ti, the lee fighter, blood dripping from his nose, stood tall, eyes glowing fiercely as he slamd his palm onto the arena floor again.
But instead of a territory spell, six runic circles erupted around him.
Each one a rotating wheel of glowing crimson glyphs, orbiting him like planetary rings. The air humd violently, and the living heartbeat of the magic resonated through the arena.
The crowd roared.
Even Lilian leaned forward, eyes bright. "He’s going for it."
"What’s he doing?" Elara asked.
"Overclocking his blood, it ans he’s using it as a dium for a spell," Lilian replied with an explanation, "It’s suicidal if he sses up."
The runic rings spun faster until the air bent around them, and the vampire thrust his hand forward.
All six rings aligned, the runes locked and a pulse of crimson light erupted, not outward but into the other three fighters, linking them in a web of blood essence, connecting their mana, amplifying their reflexes, their strength, their speed.
Albedo’s brows rose, "A team-augntation circle."
Lilian nodded. "At full risk to himself. If the spell breaks, all the backlash hits him alone."
Below back in the arena, the results were imdiate as the archer’s arrows doubled in speed, trailing cot-like lines and the spear-user’s weapon radiated enough force to crack stone with a graze, even the healer’s barriers solidified into layered shields with self-repairing runes.
As the lee fighter, his figure blurred, as blood sigils spiraled up his arms, his speed skyrocketing. He reappeared near the first prowler mid-lunge, intercepting it with a punch that exploded with runic force, sending the beast crashing into a barrier wall.
The second prowler flickered into existence above the group, claws extended, but the spear-user hurled his spear upward. The weapon left his hand and split into nine crimson projections, forming a rotating lattice.
The prowler tried to warp through them, but the space around it locked, causing the beast to freeze in mid-air just long enough for the archer to fire a spiraling arrow infused with dozens of tightly layered runes.
It detonated with a spatial compression burst and the prowler was slamd into the ground, sliding across the arena and roaring in fury.
"WOOOO!" The crowd erupted, fangs flashing in excitent.
"They’ve turned the fight around!" Elara shouted.
"Montum," Lilian said softly. "That’s real training."
But Albedo wasn’t convinced, "They’ll need a finisher. Those beasts aren’t close to dead."
As if responding to his words, the prowlers stopped holding back and the arena darkened, the shadows deepened unnaturally.
Reality wavered as the prowlers’ bodies dispersed into a haze of bending light and void. Their forms beca silhouettes of star-studded fur and razor contours, no longer distinct creatures but concepts of predators, shadow and space intertwined.
The temperature dropped and the two prowlers vanished causing the runes in the arena flared in warning.
"Where’d they, " Elara began, but the words caught in her throat.
The beasts reappeared, one directly above the healer and one directly behind the lee fighter.
"NO!" the archer yelled.
But the healer was already reacting. She slamd both hands together, and an intricate mandala of runes blood above her, six layers of geotric crimson light that pulsed with organic force, beating like a heart.
The prowler descended and the shield cracked, the rune layers shattering one by one.
First layer - Cracked.
Second - Shattered.
Third - Obliterated.
Fourth - Crumpled.
Fifth - Fractured.
Sixth, the prowler broke through, jaws stretching impossibly wide and the healer scread, but just in ti, the lee fighter blurred across the arena, appearing in front of her. His arm lit with a spiraling vortex of runes, and he punched upward with everything he had.
The prowler’s skull snapped sideways. The beast flipped in the air, slamming into the ground as the second prowler lunged at the lee fighter’s exposed back.
The spear-user appeared behind him, slamming his spear, now reforged from crimson light, into the prowler’s trajectory, splitting its charge.
The prowler twisted, spatial bending spiking outward in violent waves. The archer fired six arrows simultaneously, each one etched with starlike red patterns as the runes in the arena began to vibrate.
Albedo’s eyes narrowed. "They’re forming a tri-linked spell. A converging formation."
Lilian nodded, voice low, "This is their finisher."
Below, the lee fighter stabbed his hand into the ground, anchoring the prowler with a gravity-locking blood rune. At the sa ti, the spear-user unleashed a rotating spiral of glyphs that encased the beast in a collapsing cylinder of force.
And the archer drew one final arrow.
A complex web of runes ford along the shaft, layered in eleven segnts, each one an intricate sigil. Blood essence surged around him, forming a scarlet halo.
He pulled back, the bowstring groaning as the mana in the arena shifted, the entire audience falling silent in anticipation.
The spear-user shouted, "NOW!"
The lee fighter roared, "LOCK IT!"
The healer, trembling but focused, extended both arms and sent her own runic mandala downward, sealing the prowler’s movents with a lattice of crimson light.
The archer released and the final arrow streaked through the air, splitting into hundreds of afterimages, each rune igniting in sequence like a firing chanism.
The prowler, trapped in collapsing sigils and gravity-locks, let out a warping howl as the arrow struck.
All eleven runes detonated in perfect unison. A crimson vortex burst outward, collapsing space around the prowler into a singular implosion before erupting outward in a shockwave of bloodlight.
When the light faded,
The prowler lay unmoving.
The remaining beast snarled, but before it could react, the spear-user thrust his weapon through its shadow, pinning it. The lee fighter crushed its spine with a final rune-enhanced strike.
The arena fell deathly still.
Then erupted into deafening roars.
Albedo let out a slow breath. "That was... impressive."
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