Almost in the same heartbeat, two Vanguards shed the dark like waterfowl bursting from a lake, leaping out of ground-shadow left and right to box Cerise in.
"What!?" Cerise gasped, her pulse thudding like a struck gong.
She didn’t know what those two shapes were, rushing in like wolves from brush, but the tang of blood on them told her enough—Shelika’s blood‑bound servitors, and a prickle of doom crawled up her spine; those things likely hit to kill.
Reflex snapped cold through her, and she chose without hesitation, wrapping herself in an all‑angle ward like dawn mist closing around a mountain.
Level‑5 ward: flash‑energy shield.
Crackle—at the same instant the shield bloomed like glassy ice, both Vanguards began to rake fire.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh, whoosh whoosh whoosh—
The streaming spell barrage drummed her flash‑energy shield, a rainstorm tapping a pane of glass.
Patter, patter, patter—
Focused on defense, she had no hand left to feed her vines, and the green ropes binding Shelika withered like frost‑bitten reeds.
Shelika twitched once, and the dead vines slid off like shed snakeskin.
In that sliver of time, both Vanguards ran dry and ended their strafing, like barrels coughing their last sparks.
An elder of the Blood Clan to the bone, Cerise read their firing cycle in a glance, a hawk catching the wind.
As they angled to fly back to Shelika like pups to heel, she struck, a bolt of lightning swatting both Vanguards out of the air.
Thus ended the first exchange, blade to shield like tide to shore, with no clear winner.
“Storing mana in a minion, then letting it deliver the killing bite—neat tactics,” Cerise laughed, a bell in winter air. “I almost forgot you had that much in you.”
“Heh.” Shelika had no interest in trading words mid‑kill, and in the breath her foe spent posturing, she conjured two more Vanguards like steel fish rising from black water.
“You really don’t know how to enjoy a moment,” Cerise drawled, her smile a pale crescent. “Fine, I’ll admit it—tactically, you’ve got the edge. So what? Intel says you’ve lost the Earth Mother’s grace. I serve Margaret, the Blood Goddess. I’m God’s Chosen—what gives you the right to stand against me?”
“Try me and find out.” The words were cool as night wind, and Shelika kept working, hands quick as swallows.
She birthed two more Vanguards, plus a Shooter, hard metal glinting like a shoal, and a portable riot shield that sat in her grip like a slab of midnight.
In the few heartbeats her foe spent showboating, Shelika armored up, storm‑ready from crown to heel.
With firepower and cover at this level, she was sure even two Earth Rank Knights would break like waves on rock.
But just as her foe had warned, she still misjudged the power of a God’s Chosen, a mountain hidden in cloud.
Cerise, favored by the divine, lifted her voice in a short, lilting chant: “Blood Goddess, let Your power appear.”
After that brief song, space itself breathed out pale red‑gold, like dawn seeping through fog, and it settled upon Cerise.
Margaret, the Blood Goddess, works miracles that wake the bloodline of the Dark Blood Clan, a furnace stoked in the bones.
The instant that light washed Cerise, her strength surged like a river in flood.
Mana doubled like kindling catching, and her body and recovery leapt skyward like a stag startled to sprint.
Divine favor wrapped her; power pooled in her limbs like warm wine.
She opened her hands like an ice lily blooming. “Hehehe… this is the gift my great Blood Goddess granted me.”
Shelika took it all in, and even at fifteen meters, the pressure off Cerise rolled like a storm front across her skin.
She couldn’t place that force—no way to pin it to a knight’s rank or a mage’s tier, a mist that hid the mountain’s height.
That unknowable edge was the mark of divine favor, a wind that blows above mortal roofs.
“So what?” Shelika mocked, voice sharp as a drawn edge, and she sent two Vanguards forward like hounds unleashed.
The twin Vanguard drones spun up the 9mm spell cannons in their bays, closing in while their rotary fire stitched the air like a loom.
“Don’t think your old tricks will work,” Cerise smiled, a blade‑thin curve.
She showed no trace of earlier panic as the weird servitors buzzed closer, guns chattering like sleet.
She lifted her hand and turned her palm forward, as if bracing a wall, and a wall it was—the invisible kind, hammered up in a heartbeat.
The spell rounds that should’ve drilled the stainless maiden froze in the air before her, caught like flies in amber.
The sight jolted Shelika, a lightning snap in her chest, but she didn’t slow the rhythm of attack.
“Then try this!” she called, letting the strike carry her.
No drones this time—she gripped True Crimson Whirl and charged like a knight, a red comet cutting straight in.
“Foolish.” Cerise’s laugh was frost on porcelain.
She dropped her scepter toward the ground, and the earth ahead went bog‑soft, a marsh opening its mouth.
“Hah.” Shelika’s boots were about to sink—then the Dark Blood Clan’s talent flared; at the first give underfoot, she flung her wings wide with thunderous grace.
She dove hard and rose harder, a hawk punching air, and took the sky again in a flurry of black silk.
From midair, bird‑swift, she flew and worked True Crimson Whirl, sending a storm‑bright sword dance down at Cerise.
“You—!” Cerise’s eyes widened like lanterns in sudden wind.
Under that ferocious rain, she swept her scepter close, a shield for the body, and let divine‑awakened reflexes spark; frantic, yet exact, she shed each cut like leaves shedding rain.
Even so, the blows didn’t stop; the storm kept beating the eaves.
Dragged into a white‑blade duel she didn’t favor, even under divine boon, Cerise began to feel the weight, a swimmer meeting undertow.
“Where did you learn that swordwork?” she demanded, springing back a long step, breath misting like winter.
In her memory, Shelika never attacked like this—reckless to the eye, but every form threaded with craft, a net that tightened the more you fought it.
Without divine backing, Cerise would’ve been bleeding in lines already, a scroll written in red.
“This lady has no obligation to answer!” Shelika cried, voice bright as a bell.
Her bird‑light footwork flowed again, and from midair she spun up a savage Whirling Slash with True Crimson Whirl, a whirlwind edged in crimson.
Cerise blocked again, but her foe wielded a chain‑sword; in the spin, inertia pulled the blade long like a comet’s tail.
Her scepter caught the first length, but the trailing segment curved around like a serpent, relentless.
The razor tip flicked—hiss—and tore Cerise’s sacred robe, carving a deep line along the arm beneath, bright blood beading like rubies in snow.
The drum‑tight, relentless exchange had run this far, and at last Cerise was blooded.
“Tch!” She frowned, pain biting like cold iron.
Shelika, who had been dancing sky to ground like a swallow, finished her pattern and landed, dust breathing around her boots.
She leveled True Crimson Whirl at Cerise, and declared, wind steady in her lungs, “Even without any god’s power, I can deal with you.”
It should’ve sounded imposing, a banner snapping in wind; in Cerise’s ears, it rang like a joke shouted into a temple.
“Hehehe… you really are naive,” she said, smile sharp as ice.
She tugged at the torn edge of her robe, baring the arm that had just been cut, holding it up like a proof offered to the moon.
Shelika looked—and froze.
The wound that had nearly kissed bone a breath ago had sealed completely, smooth as new bark.
Shelika knew the Dark Blood Clan could knit themselves, but not like this—not a grave cut, healed in an instant like night erased by dawn.
