Chapter 164: Chapter 164: The Father’s Blade I
A/N I just realised that the power scaling for the monster has been crazy and it dawned on me like wtf it shouldnt be this high so please forgive me as i made some changes. My editor is currently editing previous Chapter but soon she will get to those Chapters and edit where the mistakes were.
thank you for understanding.
________
Marcus stepped through the hole in the wall, and dust came down around him in a slow grey curtain.
Behind him, in the portrait hall, Finn coughed on one knee. The support was already moving, hands lighting, calling something to the shield fighter that Marcus did not turn to hear.
He did not look back.
His sword hung low in his right hand. Blood ran from the knuckles of his left, the one he had used to put Vespera through the wall, and he did not wipe it. He walked into the broken chamber with the dust still falling and his eyes already on the shape lying in the rubble ahead of him.
[VESPERA — BRIDE OF POSSESSION] [LEVEL: 98] [HP: 37,800 / 58,000]
[MARCUS HALE — LEVEL 76] [HP: 16,800 / 16,800]
He did not check his own wounds. He did not look back toward the hall.
Vespera pushed herself up out of the rubble.
The punch had hurt her badly. It had not broken her.
Her silver hair hung across half her face, matted dark at the temple. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth and dripped off her chin onto the broken stone. One wing was bent wrong at the joint, the membrane torn, dragging behind her instead of folding. Her dress hung in a ruined strip down one side.
She wiped the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand and straightened, slow, testing her own balance before she trusted it.
Then she looked at him properly.
The last hit had crossed the room faster than her eyes could follow it. She had not seen him move. She was looking at him now the way a person looks at a problem they had badly underestimated.
She noticed he had not turned back to check on Finn once since stepping through the wall.
Red thread crawled up under the skin of the ruined wing, fine as hair, pulling the bent joint half a degree back toward its proper shape while Marcus closed the distance between them step by step.
"You hit hard for something so small," Vespera said. Her voice still had the same low, pleasant pitch, but the smile under it had gone thin at the edges. "I assumed the boy was the one worth keeping."
Marcus did not answer her.
He attacked before the thread finished its work on her wing.
He closed the last of the distance in one stride and the sword came around low to high, fast, the same combat style that had made him the strongest name in the country — pressure, speed, no wasted motion.
[MARCUS HALE — SKILL: SWORD ART — LEVEL BREAK] [DAMAGE: 3,700]
[VESPERA — HP: 37,800 / 58,000 → 34,100 / 58,000]
Vespera brought the damaged wing up to block.
He did not let the wing absorb it cleanly. He shifted the angle a hand’s width at the last instant, away from the membrane and into the joint at the base, the same place the punch had already broken.
CRACK.
The wing buckled. She staggered a half-step sideways from the force of holding her own guard up against him.
Marcus did not press through the opening yet. He reset his stance and watched her recover, patient, the same way he had watched everything else in the chamber since stepping through the wall.
Vespera did not stay on the back foot.
Her good wing snapped around in a wide arc, the leading edge sharp as a blade, and Marcus turned his body but not fast enough to clear it entirely.
[VESPERA — WING BLADE]
[MARCUS HALE — HP: 16,800/16,800 → 13,900/16,800]
The cut opened across his ribs and blood hit the floor in a thin line. He did not look down at it. He planted his back boot to stop his own retreat and that was the mistake she had been waiting for — her tail came around low and fast and hooked behind his ankle, and the floor went out from under him.
[VESPERA — TAIL HOOK]
[MARCUS HALE — HP: 13,900/16,800 → 12,200/16,800]
CRASH.
He hit the chamber wall hard enough to crack the stone behind him.
She had expected him to give ground after the wing cut. He had stopped himself instead, and the tail had caught him for it, and for one second she allowed herself to enjoy that.
Then he came off the wall and came forward again before the blood from his ribs had finished spreading down his side.
Back in the portrait hall, the support had both hands pressed flat against the burned mark under Finn’s jaw.
[SUPPORT HEAL APPLIED]
[FINN HALE — HP STABILIZED]
[POSSESSION TAX — STILL ACTIVE]
The throat damage closed. The mark did not.
The support’s eyes narrowed on the red lines still running under Finn’s skin, and his hands changed shape around a different casting.
"This isn’t a wound." He pressed his palms back down, harder. "Hold still."
[SUPPORT SKILL ACTIVATED: PURIFYING FIELD]
[BRIDAL CURSE INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[CURSE ANCHOR BREAKING]
White light pushed into the mark and the red lines at the edge of it began to peel back from Finn’s skin like thread held too close to a flame, curling and lifting away one strand at a time.
Finn gripped the support’s wrist with one hand, not to stop him. Just to have something to hold while it burned.
Vespera felt it.
Somewhere under the bond she’d left in Finn’s skin, the anchor strained, and her head turned half toward the broken hall behind her.
Red threads tore loose from her own hand and shot toward the gap in the wall, fast and thin, reaching for the boy on the other side before the cleansing finished.
Marcus did not turn around.
His sword moved once.
[MARCUS HALE — CONTINUOUS STRIKE]
[POSSESSION THREADS SEVERED]
Then twice.
Every thread fell in pieces on the stone before it crossed the gap.
Vespera’s eyes came back to him, and something in them had changed. He had not looked. He had not needed to. He understood exactly where the threads would go and had put his blade there before they arrived.
She stopped trying to be careful with herself.
Vespera opened her mouth and the red thread came out of it this time, pouring up out of her throat and wrapping around her own wounds, around the broken wing, around the torn dress at her side.
[VESPERA — HEART OFFERING: FINAL PHASE]
[REGENERATION ACTIVE]
[AGILITY INCREASED]
[POSSESSION THREAD OUTPUT DOUBLED]
[VESPERA — HP: 34,100/58,000 → 40,000/58,000]
The wing bone snapped back into its proper shape with a wet crack she did not flinch at, the thread stitching the membrane closed behind it. Her smile came back, and it was not the smile from the portrait hall. There was nothing amused left in it.
"That’s better," she said.
Comments