“You’re not far from your death‑day.”

The river of blood erupted like a breaking dam, and a black silhouette blew out of it like smoke torn by wind. She stood unbothered, as if the cuts were drizzle on stone.

Violet rode the blood‑current and reappeared far off, a red moon facing a black sun. She raised the Demonic Spears again, every line of her body set to strike.

But in that tiny, telltale place, the arm holding the spear trembled like a leaf in cold rain.

“Keh‑heh‑heh, what a vast life force,” the shadow cooed, like a night crow savoring carrion. “What a pity… why’s it thinning?”

She lifted a pinch of the blood river with a claw, careless as a child with candy. It touched what passed for her lips, and she smacked her mouth like a drunk tasting vintage wine.

Violet’s face darkened like a cloud over a sea. Her aura dipped, as if the words had struck bone. Even the raging blood river slowed to a crawl, and the beasts it had roused withered back into chalk‑white bone.

The tone flipped like a blade. The shadow dove, a hawk stooping on a hare. Black talons clamped Violet’s arm, and her voice drew out a taunt like a knife across silk.

Her answer was simple: the Demonic Spears, dark‑crimson and cold as winter iron.

Gun‑shadows hissed in, a storm of thrusts. The black shape flowed through them with lazy grace, as a fog takes no wound. The twisted talons never left Violet’s arm.

The Demonic Spears pressed in. The reply was one brutal rake of those claws, a mountain falling.

“Kh!”

The dark‑red figure in midair pinwheeled like a broken comet, sent flying by sheer force. The blow shattered Violet’s crimson armor like pottery under a hammer. The black shape wouldn’t waste ripe fruit; a huge tentacle punched up through the blood river and smashed down for the falling girl.

A thread‑thin blood filament yanked tight like a bowstring. A hulking beast sprang from scarlet foam and slammed Violet sideways, just beating the tentacle that cratered where she’d been. She tried to rise, blade up—yet the shadow was already upon her, a night tide breaking the shore.

Black claws punched through her armor. The arm that had pinned Violet split like rotten wood. She became pure monster—no restraint, no mercy. Even the Demonic Spears were hewn in one sweep, a cut Violet hadn’t seen coming.

Half mist, half flesh, that body looked wrong as a nightmare under moonlight. The broken Demonic Spears lodged in it like barbs. Violet hauled, but the embedded weapon didn’t budge a hair.

“Ah‑la, the blood from the source tastes better,” she crooned, voice syrupy and sour. “I wonder if your flesh is as… delicious.”

Another claw budded from that warped body like fungus after rain. It speared Violet’s lung. Fire raced her ribs; breath became smoke. The shadow luxuriated, and stirred a little inside Violet’s chest as if tasting stew.

Words turned to knives. The arm punching through Violet’s belly split into slick tentacles, shameless and greedy. They drank and drank, like leeches at a spring. Everything Violet had done a moment ago? A joke. In a blink, the board flipped to checkmate.

“Humans… no matter the age, you’re always the top delicacy!”

A tentacle tore off a mouthful of her muscle like wet silk. The shadow tasted and went wild, a wolf howling under a red moon. The tendrils chewed at the wound, widening it, swallowing blood with a miser’s joy.

Pain knifed up from Violet’s pierced belly. She hissed in a breath like winter air. She didn’t rage; she smiled, blood beading at the corner of her lips like wine on porcelain. Her hand snapped back, gripping the creature’s arm. Scarlet mist fountained, and a dense lattice of arrays sank over the black form like a net of thorns.

“Blood… Blood Arts.”

She struggled to chant, her voice slurred as if drowning. Scarlet Runes coalesced midair like stars in a storm. Pain surged again, a tidal wave. The newborn Runes shattered like frost in sunlight.

The shadow didn’t care. She grabbed Violet’s wine‑red hair, lifted her like a puppet, drew her close like a lover, and spoke in a sing‑song mockery that curdled the ears.

“Still resisting? Your blood‑driving trick is a tonic to me. Even if I don’t touch you, what can you do?”

Ah… so this ghoul thing looks like this?

Through the fog in her mind, Violet saw the face. Human, and not. A field of pupils bloomed along that twisted cheek like fungus, and thin tentacles wriggled from the face, writhing like worms in rain.

Yes. Struggle seemed pointless, like swimming upriver in flood.

For no reason, a thousand scenes flashed through Violet’s head like lanterns in wind. All of them were days with Aphelia. A boy’s thin back, sword raised before her like a sapling in a gale. A decisive figure, shoving her out of a ring of steel like a wave breaking a net. And now, silver armor again, stepping between her and the night like the moon behind cloud.

“Hey, you’re dying. At a time like this, still playing tough? Hand me the body. This kind of trash isn’t worth a wrinkle.”

Deep in Violet’s mind‑sea, a voice like her own sounded, older and steadier, like a bell under water. To the foe that had cornered Violet, it showed only contempt.

“Even if I lend you the body, then what? Besides, we have an agreement.”

She could already taste how furious that voice would get, like iron on the tongue.

“Agreement, agreement—do you get you’re dying? If you die, I die with you, you useless—”

“So what?”

Violet’s sudden question hit the voice like a slap, and it choked on anger, words catching like thorns.

“You’re already dead. Stop dreaming of revival. Even if you seize me again, I can lock the Arcane Power and the mind‑sea. You’ll still die to the thing outside… ah. Time runs slow here, but we won’t last many lines.”

She spoke as if wagering with her own life were placing a chip, calm as night water. She even hummed, a thread of tune like wind through reeds.

Silence stretched like dusk. Then the voice wrestled itself, and roared like thunder behind mountains.

“Fine, fine! Same deal. I fight. You keep the Arcane Power and mind‑sea steady, nothing breaks!”

“Happy cooperation.”

Satisfied, Violet let out a light laugh, like chimes in a red wind. Her world went black, and blood‑red flooded her sight like dawn behind lids.

“Blood Arts!”

Violet drank a breath like fire. The claw through her lung felt like nothing but shadow. She clenched the talon skewering her belly, and her voice went cold as iron in snow.

The enemy’s aura stiffened, like a beast scenting a trap. She moved to kill, but now it was too late.

Countless blood spears rose from the river like a field of thorns, lancing in. So close to the river, the shadow couldn’t dance away. She didn’t need to. Her set flesh loosened to black mist again, all but the part caged in Violet’s body that had to stay real.

No matter. That kind of stab can’t touch me…

The thought flickered—and Violet, pinned to the earth, smiled, a winter crescent. In a heartbeat, her chant finished. Scarlet Runes threaded together like constellations, floating and fixed.

“Crimson Confluence!”

The body that had been turning to mist drank the thick blood‑mist like dry soil in rain. In an instant, the black silhouette turned red as a bleeding star. It didn’t stop there. The claws running through Violet lost control and unraveled into scarlet fog, strand by strand.

“How is that possible!”

This time, the shadow truly sounded shaken, like ice cracking on a lake.

Violet, no longer nailed in place, didn’t spare her a glance. Crimson armor flowed back over her like scales. A clean spinning kick—wind over grass—and space opened between them.

“Tch.”

The blood spears closed like a hunting pack. The shadow ignored the riot inside her body and the slipping prize. A huge tentacle blasted from her solid core, a whip to sweep the spears from the sky.

Her body staggered, a puppet with a cut string. The great tentacle missed its arc, slammed into the river with a geyser of red. The onrushing Demonic Spears were already at her throat.

A crisp snap rang, sharp as frost splitting bark. On the Demonic Spears, countless tiny arrays unfolded like petals, interlocking like gears. In the space of a breath, a vast formation seemed to bloom from thin air.

“Blood Arts—”

A cool chant sounded at the shadow’s back, a blade of sound. She whipped around to strike—and met a teasing smile, a fox’s curve at the mouth.

“Iron Maiden.”

Violet stood behind her, proud as a spear planted on a ridge. Her eyes burned crimson, and something demonic flickered there like a lantern in fog.

A scarlet spear pinned the part that hadn’t become mist, and a massive dark‑red Iron Maiden rose from the void like a tomb opening. A weeping Madonna, stained with blood, looked blasphemously beautiful.

There was no time to resist. The Iron Maiden dropped over her like nightfall, and the heavy halves slammed shut like thunder.

A shrill wail clawed out from within, a winter wind through dead pines. Violet frowned, unsatisfied, and tapped her toe to earth. The slowed blood river surged again like spring melt, pouring toward the Iron Maiden in a roaring tide.

“Honestly… you don’t even treasure your own body. What if I break it?”

“Then you fix it, won’t you, my little demon in the deep?”

Their voices rose again within the mind‑sea, two echoes in a crimson cavern. This time, Violet herself stood inside the scarlet waters. There was no doubt—the one steering her body now, striking back like fire through night, was the consciousness from before.

Freed from the fight, Violet lounged in her own depths like a cat on a warm sill, teasing, light as a ribbon in wind.