Corrupted blood lord

Teclos stood in the middle of the ruined forest as the wyvern circled above him.

The black wings on his back shifted with every inhale. Made of darkness and blood-tinted mana, they were unstable and powerful.

The blood orb had already been absorbed into him, and the result was immediate.

Power flooded through his body faster than his circles could comfortably handle, filling his veins, muscles, bones, and mana pathways until he felt like he was holding back a storm with nothing but his will.

The wyvern was hesitant to attack because of that.

It stayed out of reach just in case, while its cruel blue eyes narrowed at the vampire below it. It only observed and tried to gauge his power.

Teclos just smiled. It was supposed to be a smart beast, yet it let Teclos slowly gain control of this new power.

Admittedly, he would soon have to attack, as he could not contain it fully.

Even with his new fifteenth circle, even with the improved balance between Mind, Heart, and Core, the power inside him was too much to hold for long. The blood orb contained everything he had gathered over the past week, and now all of it was rushing through him at once.

If he tried to keep it inside, he would tear himself apart.

So he thought of something reckless.

He would refine all three circle cores at the same time while also unleashing all hell upon the wyvern. That should, in theory, keep him from imploding.

The circles spun within him, each one pulling at the flood of mana and grinding it into something usable. Pain tore through him almost immediately, though it was still far from overwhelming.

Even so, his body reacted. His muscles stiffened, his fingers twitched around the hilt of his sword, and black-red mana leaked from his skin like smoke.

The wyvern growled from above. If this continued, that vampire’s strength would surpass her own. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Teclos always kept the wyvern within sight, just in case he had to defend himself while he was not ready yet.

"Come on then."

And the wyvern obliged.

It folded its wings and dropped from the sky like a hawk.

The air screamed around its body, while thick ice gathered in its jaws, then exploded downward in a stream of freezing cold. The attack struck the ground where Teclos had been standing and turned the entire area into a jagged field of ice.

But Teclos was already gone.

He reappeared beneath the wyvern, stepping out of its own shadow in the air.

His sword flashed upward.

The wyvern twisted in the air at the last moment, faster than something that size should have been able to. The blade of darkness missed its underbelly, but it carved across the scales of its left hind leg, cutting away a thin strip of its white scale armor and drawing the first spray of blood.

The wyvern screeched in pain, and Teclos vanished again as its tail came whipping down.

It shattered the sound barrier where it struck.

The wyvern then flew higher, turning sharply and releasing another breath of ice while wrapping itself in a raging blizzard. Snow and frozen wind spun around its body, hiding it, protecting it, and spreading its senses through every flake of frost in the air.

The wound on its leg froze over. It was sealed beneath a layer of ice armor now.

Teclos stepped from another shadow, trying to repeat the same trick.

But this time, the wyvern was ready.

Its jaws snapped toward him before he could even raise his sword.

Teclos twisted aside, the beast’s teeth missing him by a hair’s breadth. He planted a foot against its jaw and kicked off hard, using the impact to launch himself backward and out of reach. His black wings snapped open behind him, catching the air and steadying his retreat.

"So you’re not falling for the same trick twice?"

The wyvern answered with another angry screech, though Teclos was not bothered and only thought about how to end it.

He would have liked to do more damage with the first strike, which was a shame, but the hunt had just begun.

He raised one hand, and black curtains rose around the wyvern’s eyes, trying to blind it. The creature did not panic. With its blizzard spread through the air, it could sense him just fine.

Teclos also sent shadow bindings toward its wings, making the darkness wrap around them. For a moment, it worked, and the wyvern dipped.

Then ice crawled over the bindings, freezing his mana in place. With one powerful beat of its wings, the wyvern shattered them and flew unobstructed again.

Teclos tried again, this time aiming for its legs, trying to pull it down.

The result was the same.

Frozen and broken, his shadow bindings were rendered useless against the extreme cold.

"Annoying," Teclos muttered.

But he never grew frustrated. He simply kept attacking.

Teclos vanished and reappeared around the wyvern again and again, sending dark slashes tearing through the air from every angle. Each one carried enough force to split trees and carve through stone, but the wyvern was fast. It twisted between most of them, wings folding and snapping open as it slipped through the storm of blades.

Still, not all of them missed.

Thin cuts began to appear across its wings, legs, and flanks, black wounds spreading little by little across its frozen hide.

In return, the wyvern filled the sky with frozen death.

Ice spears rained down in clusters. Walls of ice erupted to block Teclos’s movement. Blizzards crashed into him from every angle.

Twice, he had to wrap himself in a hard black shell of condensed mana to survive a direct breath attack. Once, even that was not enough, and he had to teleport away before the shell shattered completely.

They were evenly matched.

At least for now.

The wyvern had better control over its element and complete mastery of the sky.

Teclos had the speed, teleportation, and blood magic. Every time he cut it and made the wyvern bleed, he stole power from it.

The wyvern’s blood did not fall, but instead bent toward Teclos, pulled by thin crimson threads, and flew into his mouth before the creature could freeze all of it shut. With every stolen drop, the wyvern weakened a little.

That was what made vampires such a nightmare to the living.

Against them, even a single wound could become a death sentence. A shallow cut, something harmless against any other enemy, could quickly spiral into disaster.

The wyvern understood that quickly and, in turn, became more aggressive.

It stopped waiting for Teclos to come to it.

The wyvern began taking risks, diving low through the air, snapping at him with its jaws and raking out with its claws whenever he came too close. Its tail lashed behind it like a massive whip, tearing through the sky.

Teclos answered with the same aggression.

He appeared near its blind spots and struck at its joints before vanishing again. Dark hands reached for its wings in midair, pulling and twisting, trying to tear off the beast’s wings or at least knock it off balance, even for a moment.

Together, they tore across the forest and lower slopes like a storm.

Each clash sent shockwaves rolling through the forest. Trees were uprooted and boulders were cracked. The frozen ground split beneath their clashes. Their mana collided again and again until the whole battlefield became a mess of ice, darkness, blood, and shattered stone.

Teclos’s power continued to rise with every mouthful of blood he took.

The mana inside him ran rampant, surging through his body in violent waves. Every now and then, the pressure became too much, and his veins burst open beneath his skin, sending fresh pain tearing through him. It was becoming almost unbearable.

But the exchange was worth it.

His strength had nearly doubled. His speed, power, and mana had all climbed beyond their limits, and by now, he had begun to surpass even the wyvern.

Was it reckless?

Yes.

Was it stupid?

Maybe... but it was working.

Teclos kept pressing the wyvern back, forcing it to give ground again and again until the balance finally tipped in his favor.

The wyvern felt the shift, and its attacks grew desperate.

It was still strong, still terrifying, still capable of killing him the moment he made a mistake, but its wounds were beginning to pile up. Blood leaked from its body and vanished into Teclos’s mouth before it could fall. Its movements slowed, its reactions dulled, and the savage aggression it had shown before began to fade.

Teclos was almost certain of his victory now.

Then the wyvern suddenly stopped.

For one brief second, it hovered in place, its wings spread wide and its wounded body trembling in the air. Then it beat its wings with every bit of strength it had left and shot higher into the sky.

It climbed above the battlefield, rising over the forest and broken slopes as the blizzard gathered around it like a frozen crown. The air around its body began to crystallize. Ice crawled over its scales, thickening into a second layer of armor, while the temperature plunged so low that even the falling snow hardened into sharp, glittering shards.

It was gathering everything it had left.

One final attempt to kill the bastard who had invaded its territory.

Teclos looked up and understood.

The wyvern was putting everything into this last attack. Its pride, its rage, its remaining strength—all of it gathered above him in the storm.

In response, Teclos lifted his sword above his head.

Darkness gathered around the blade, thick and heavy, until the steel vanished beneath the pure black mana. The weapon pulsed once, then stretched, the edge elongating by at least two meters as condensed darkness flowed freely from it.

Black haze rolled off Teclos’s body.

The ice near him was erased by the aura surrounding him. The ground beneath his feet cracked. The air trembled. His circles spun faster, all fifteen of them resonating together as he drew every bit of power the blood orb had given him into one strike.

The wyvern folded its wings and descended.

Its jaws opened, and a beam of absolute frost poured down from the sky.

Simultaneously, Teclos swung his sword in a downward slash.

Then the world split open.

Darkness tore through the wyvern’s breath, cutting through the frozen beam like a sharp blade through soft flesh. The two powers crashed together above the battlefield, and the entire mountain seemed to shake from the impact.

The shockwave tore through the sky and scattered the surrounding clouds.

Some of the frost still broke through and reached Teclos.

Ice swallowed the entire left side of his body, locking his arm, shoulder, and ribs beneath a frozen shell. A burning pain erupted through every cell on that side, sharp enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

But the wyvern was worse off.

The black blade of mana tore through its chest, ripped across its spine, and carved through one of its wings before continuing past the beast.

Then it struck the mountain behind it.

For one moment, everything went still.

Then the wyvern split apart.

Frozen blood burst into the air, raining down in a red mist as the two halves of the massive creature fell from the sky.

Behind it, the mountain had been cracked open. A deep black line carved across its side, stretching through a few hundred meters.

The wyvern had not gone down easily, as half of Teclos’s body was frozen solid.

He coughed out blood and dropped his sword to the ground.

But he was still alive, though barely, with his ruptured veins and frozen body.

Teclos dropped to one knee.

The ice covering him cracked as he forced his body to move. He had to reach the wyvern’s body to quickly secure its heart and replenish his blood.

He was in pain, cold, and exhausted... but victorious.

The hunt was over.