Effie was being healed by Sara, but she was strangely silent. Effie never stayed quiet this long. Ever.
Finally, her voice cracked.
"You're… not really going to die, are you?"
Sara opened her mouth to answer, but all that ca out was a cough and a spray of blood.
"I'm afraid so," she whispered. "I'm too hurt to even move. If I tried to run, I'd just die slower."
Effie shook her head violently.
"You can't be fucking serious. Tell you're not going to die like this. Tell you're joking."
Sara tried to chuckle, but the expression on her face made it obvious she regretted it instantly.
"Sorry, Effie."
"Don't say sorry!" Effie snapped. "You've been my everything in this damned hellhole—my friend, my teacher—so why do you have to die now? Why does it have to be like this?"
"I'm not sure," Sara admitted softly.
"Damnit, Sara. There has to be a way. You can't leave . Please… co on."
Sara lifted a trembling hand.
"I have six broken ribs… and my spine is completely severed. The only reason I'm even alive long enough to speak is because I'm healing myself, but my healing isn't infinite. And even if it was… I'd be paralyzed forever."
"THEN I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!" Effie scread. "JUST SURVIVE!"
Sara reached up, pinched Effie's cheek gently, lovingly.
"It's cute that you think that… but I know better. It's useless to hope. You're healed now, Effie. You should go."
"Sara… please don't leave . Sara, please…" Effie sobbed.
Sara touched Beast's head and nodded weakly.
"Can you do sothing for …? I want to see Alucard's fight."
Effie carefully lifted Sara, but the mont she moved her a horrible snap echoed through the cave. Sara's spine shattered further. Effie froze in horror.
Sara, sohow still conscious, patted Beast.
Her final command:
"Take her to safety. I don't want her to get hurt."
And Beast obeyed.
He grabbed Effie by the waist and dragged her away despite her kicking, fighting, screaming Sara's na until her voice broke.
Before she vanished from sight, Sara mouthed one last ssage to Effie:
"Survive for … okay?"
And that was the last ti the two ever saw each other.
---
(Hope everyone enjoyed the dood yuri.
Now… back to our regularly scheduled murder.)
I stood before the nightmare creature—my eyes glowing red in the cave's darkness. Its single green eye stared back, cold and ancient. It towered over , a moving mountain of bones.
But behind rose a mountain just as large.
Not bone.
Blood.
A throne for its monarch.
This was a battle between lords:
The Monarch of Blood vs. The Lord of Bones.
I started first.
I raised my hand, and the blood behind surged upward, forming a massive armory—dozens of swords, spears, javelins—then launched them forward in a crimson storm.
The Lord of Bones responded instantly, pulling up a colossal shield of bones. My weapons hit the wall, and the mont they touched—
—his bones beca mine.
They erupted in a violent storm of blood and shards, blasting pieces off the creature's body.
Skeletons sward from behind, but I felt the marrow inside them.
A wall of blood rose and crashed through them like a tidal wave.
"Sorry, parasite," I said coldly. "No backup. It's just you and ."
I spoke to it like it was beneath .
Because it was.
My blood spread like a plague, infecting every bone it touched, crushing and detonating them as I advanced. But then the monster screeched—its bones glowing an unnatural green.
My control weakened instantly.
It was using its full power now.
A temporary power-up. I could feel the cost it was paying for it—draining itself.
Good. I just had to outlast it.
A massive wave of bones crashed toward from the front, and more skeletons surged from behind. I slamd blood beneath my feet, launching myself upward like a cannon. In midair, I shaped a wide sheet of blood—a parachute.
Wings would've been cooler.
Sha I had no idea how to make them.
I ford a barrier of condensed blood to shield from the barrage below while hurling weapons downward. They shattered bones with direct hits, but it wasn't enough. My fail-safe tir wasn't going to let drag this out forever.
I needed a decisive attack.
A finisher.
Beast's blood beam.
The one I barely knew how to use.
Didn't matter. It was my last chance.
I condensed every drop of infected blood.
Tighter.
Tighter.
Tighter.
My arm felt like it would explode, but I kept forcing more power into it.
I fell from the air and hit the ground running straight toward the monster, ignoring pain, ignoring wounds, ignoring everything except the glowing eye in front of .
Face to face with the monster—
—I fired the beam point blank.
The recoil hurled into a wall. Bones cracked. My vision blurred.
But I didn't care.
Because through the fading red haze, I saw the runes.
[You have slain a Fallen Tyrant: Lord of the Dead]
[You have received a mory]
All the skeletons collapsed at once.
Their power gone.
Their suffering finally ended.
I hoped they all reincarnated into sothing better.
Except the Lord of the Dead.
I'd make sure his afterlife was pain.
Then I heard a weak voice.
Sara.
"Did… we win, David?"
Her eyes were empty. Lifeless. She had gone blind long ago.
I knelt and hugged her tightly.
"Yes… we won."
"Can you… hug tighter?" she whispered. "I'm scared."
I felt sothing inside tear.
Not taphorically.
My heart literally ripped as a sword was jamd inside it.
Then I heard the worst sound imaginable:
Anderson's voice.
Laughing.
"Hahaha! I hoped you'd die to that undead bastard, but this is better. I killed you myself—
and I finished that little whore of yours too."
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