Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 49: Against Hell

Chapter 49: Against Hell

He had seen me.

Or maybe sensed me. The faint fire of my life, that spark nestled deep in my bones, had been enough to betray my presence.

The infected titan slowly turned its three-mouthed head toward me — three fused skulls, screaming in a silent agony — then, without warning, it lunged at me.

The mountain roared.

I dodged in a leap, muscles screaming, bouncing from rock to rock. One more second, and I would’ve been crushed.

Behind me, the ground exploded in a deafening cacophony, a burst of rocks and molten lava tearing through the air.

A burning shard slashed my side.

Fuck.

I kept moving.

Claws out, Stealth activated, I danced around the colossus. I had to strike precisely: joints, outgrowths, those pulsating pockets of flesh where the stone gave way.

But already, it belched.

Three geysers of infected lava erupted, hissing like liquid screams. I dove behind a basalt pillar just in time.

The lava hit. The world bent under the impact. Heat seeped through the rock. My skin screamed.

I panted.

Shit.

Too close.

My blood control was useless. I’d launched blades, a volley of crimson spikes — in vain.

The blood evaporated before it could reach him, consumed by that infernal heat, that invisible furnace reducing me to powerlessness.

As if the air itself refused to let me fight.

Blood Manipulation: weakened.

I had to dig deeper. Sacrifice more.

Blood Pact.

Stronger than ever. I had sacrificed my own blood, a torrent torn from my heart.

I charged.

Speed. My only chance.

I sliced through the air, severing a tentacle that sprang from his flank, a black spray erupted.

But already, a parasitic arm emerged from the other side.

Too fast.

The impact was brutal. My body was hurled, slammed into the rock wall like a puppet.

Crack.

A rib. Or several. Broken.

Dull pain.

Horror crushed me slowly.

I spat blood... thick, dark, steaming.

I waited.

I waited.

I listened.

A sound echoed. Faint. Distant. But real. A cursed chant, whispered by flayed souls trapped between flesh and stone. Voiceless cries, oozing from his wounds, calling out.

If I stayed... if I listened too long...

My mind would break.

It charged.

I reacted on instinct, roll, slide under it, claws forward. I slashed at the still-visible tendons, braided beneath the layers of living stone.

It howled.

Black fire burst from its wounds, pulsing like blood under pressure. I threw myself back, dodging it just in time — a single drop would’ve been fatal.

Even the lava seemed afraid of it. It recoiled from its wounds as if they led somewhere else.

Then, without warning, it sank into the earth.

Literally.

The rock split to swallow it.

The ground shook. A low rumble rose from the depths.

I stepped back instinctively, every nerve on edge.

It erupted behind me. Like a murderous surge, a wall of rock and hatred bursting from the bowels of the earth.

I had no choice.

Otherwise, I’d die.

I reactivated the Blood Pact.

This time, I gave much more. A massive offering. A piece of myself. My vision blurred, a thunderous migraine exploded in my skull, as if my own mind protested.

I felt my memory split. Memories scattered into the void, ripped out with the blood.

I stood only by miracle. My vitality screamed, regenerating what madness consumed second by second.

Then, the world slowed.

Or maybe I sped up. Brutally. Wildly.

Everything blurred, stretched, distorted. Sounds muffled. Every flutter of ash audible.

And I danced.

It wasn’t a fight anymore. It was a ritual. A movement offering, at the edge of death.

Between lava jets, hissing, tracing arcs of death through the air.

Between tentacles bristling with blades, slicing stone like paper.

I slipped, twisted, wrapped around death in motion. Claws raised. Body aflame.

Each near miss left a trail of heat, each breath a scent of scorched flesh.

I wasn’t a man anymore. I was a heartbeat. A flash. A pulse of pure hatred.

I closed in.

Always moving. Always in that death-dance.

My claws carved scarlet arcs, slashing tentacle after tentacle, carving a bloody path to its back.

But already, they emerged.

Puppets. Dripping. Aflame.

They screamed, deformed, fused into its flesh, trying to grab me.

To explode.

I didn’t have time.

I activated Intimidation.

A roar. Guttural. Vampiric. Raw.

A wave of pure terror rippled, warping the air, crushing weak wills.

The Puppets hesitated.

Just enough.

I pierced the thoracic maw of the parasite.

A jet of acid splashed me.

Pain. Burn. Scream.

My arm... began to melt.

I screamed too. With it. In a chorus of agony.

Then, the explosion.

The Puppets detonated. All of them. In a single breath.

My body flew.

Hurled far, smashed against rock.

I was nothing but a smoking carcass. A mass of perforated flesh.

Any human should’ve died right then. Instantly.

But not me.

Not with my endurance.

Not with the monstrous vitality the Pact had fed.

I endured. Bloody, on my knees, but alive.

The air burned in my lungs. I gasped.

It was about to engulf me.

But it too... was in shreds.

And most of all, it had inhaled.

While my arm melted, it had breathed in a cloud of my blood — evaporated, laced with my weakening poison.

My body screamed. Every nerve howled in agony.

But my abilities still held. My vitality stubbornly, madly, kept piecing me back together.

I leapt. One rock, then another. I rose. Higher. Ever higher. I had no luxury of hesitation.

It was now.

Or never.

About ten meters above the beast, I jumped.

A breath.

Then I dove.

Propelled by a jet of blood at my feet, twisted and compressed under my command. A blood-red spiral launched me into the void.

One arm, claws ready. Aimed. Sharpened.

My mind was a blur of pain, vertigo, and rage. But there was still enough. Just enough.

I sliced through the air.

Faster than ever.

A silent howl. A feral strike. The sum of all I had left.

Below, its tentacles rose.

But they were slow. Tired. Weakened by wounds, weighed down by blood.

And I was boosted. By the Blood Pact. And the speed generated by my blood impulse.

They gave way.

I pierced them.

One by one.

I felt the resistance. The rupture from within. The screams. The yielding flesh.

I nearly reached it.

And then, a tentacle burst out, desperate.

It pierced my belly.

White pain. Sharp.

But I smiled.

It was too late.

Under the pressure of my fall, the tentacle twisted. A wet crack, a muffled scream in the stone.

And my claws...

cut.

Not a limb. Not a piece.

The monster.

In two.

A red wave burst out.

A foul, suffocating pressure obliterated the air around me.

And a scream, not a roar, not a wail.

A scream of the end of the world.

Then, nothing.

I crashed to the ground.

My lungs refused to inflate.

My arms trembled, shaken by spasms.

My blood still boiled, screaming in my veins as if the fight continued inside.

I looked up.

It... no longer moved.

Massive. Broken. Frozen in its fall.

A titan turned tomb.

That’s what I thought.

Until I saw it.

The parasite. Almost dead... but not quite.

It crawled. Slowly. Silently. A black trail behind it.

And it came toward me.

It crawled as if it still had a mission. An instinct of pure hatred, stripped of flesh, but not of intent.

That son of a bitch, I thought.

I had no strength left. Nothing more to give.

But I had... one last card.

I raised my hand.

Trembling. Bleeding.

And I pointed at it.

Silence.

A shadow slid across the stone.

From atop a rock, it fell.

A figure in free fall.

A comet. Death incarnate.

A hammer in hand.

And with a dry, crushing noise, it split the remains of the parasite.

One strike.

An explosion of flesh and soot.

Reduced to nothing.

A formless pulp, scattered between stone and scorched blood.

Ding!

You have defeated [Skin-Flayer (Predator) – Level 102]!

Your class [Blood Warrior] has reached level 89!

Then Lysara approached.

Not running.

Not screaming.

Just... step by step. Silently.

Bit by bit.

I stared at her, panting, unable to move.

This time... I wouldn’t be able to dodge her assault, I thought, half amused, half drained.

But when she leaned over me...

I saw something.

In her usually empty eyes.

A glimmer. A crack. Concern.

She slowly raised her hand to her mouth.

Bit the tip of her own finger.

The blood flowed.

Dark red. Pure.

And she let it drip into my mouth.

A metallic taste, warm. Alive.

I shivered. A familiar heat stirred in me, gentle and brutal at once.

Her blood hadn’t just healed me. It reminded me why I wanted to survive.

Aaah... I love that little one, I thought, a bloody smile at the corner of my lips.

I looked down.

A gaping hole in my belly. The wound on my side. The gashes, the tears, the burns...

They were closing. Slowly. But surely.

But the most shocking thing...

Was my arm.

It was regrowing.

The matter reformed from nothing. Flesh, nerves, bone... a slow, organic, impossible construction.

I had never been this hurt. Never.

And yet... I was healing.

For the first time, I saw the true power of vampires.

That regeneration... that immortality born of blood.

I let out a breath.

Worthy of a fantasy world, I thought, amused despite myself.

As my arm was reborn before my eyes, bright red, pulsing like a beating heart.

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