I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

But Aldrich hadn’t come alone.

Just as The Scalpel shifted his weight, his foot hovering between movement and stillness, it happened. Several blobs of thick, yellow pus shot out, reeking of rot and plague. They splattered right where he needed to go, blocking his retreat.

The pus hissed on impact, bubbling into acidic white smoke.

Blighted Hand Wilbur’s fist, bloated and covered in poison glands and bony spikes, closed the distance with a dull whistle of displaced air. The wind of it carried a thick, nauseating stench.

The Scalpel’s eyes didn’t flinch. They were like a frozen lake. Calm.

He didn’t retreat. He stamped forward half a step.

With Wilbur’s fist in his face, his right hand came up. He raised the sleek, streamlined pistol until the muzzle was practically touching Wilbur’s knuckle, and fired.

Bang!

The muzzle flash bloomed and died in the gloom.

At that range, not even Wilbur could tank it. He was forced to yank his fist back, twisting his body to dodge.

But in doing so, The Scalpel had lost his chance to create distance.

In a flash,

Aldrich used the opening Wilbur had bought and lunged.

Mid-air, he retracted the two scarlet spider-legs, charging them with power.

Now, they were like two red, barbed sickles, scything through the air with a piercing shriek, crossing in a deadly X to shear The Scalpel from two nasty angles.

The tips were inches from tearing him apart.

But a core member of Echo Quarry had more than just guns in his toolkit.

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He’d always told his newbies: Marksmanship is part of the equation. Not the whole damn thing.

Facing the kill-zone, he didn’t hesitate. His hands flashed to his ribs.

Clang! Clang!

Two sharp sounds of metal on metal rang out.

A pair of daggers with pale, bone-white blades appeared in his hands. Their edges were impossibly thin, almost invisible in the gloom.

Clang! Clang-Clang-Clang—! 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

A storm of steel-on-steel erupted in the rain and fog!

The Scalpel’s hands blurred. The two pale daggers carved cold, precise arcs through the air. With blinding speed, they met and parried Aldrich’s crimson spider-legs in a high-speed exchange.

Sparks sprayed in the mist.

Each impact sent a jolt up his arms, numbing them. But his footwork was perfect. He deflected the immense force, turning it aside with every block.

After a brief, brutal exchange, The Scalpel saw a hole in Aldrich’s rhythm. He flicked a dagger up in a counter, aiming from a weird, impossible angle right for Aldrich’s neck. The strike was a viper’s tongue.

Aldrich’s pupils shrank. He was forced to take a step back, twisting his head away from the blade.

Seeing the opening, Wilbur moved in again, trying to flank The Scalpel and give Aldrich room to breathe.

But while The Scalpel wasn’t the pure melee fighter Aldrich was, he was still a Veteran Third-Rank.

More importantly, he stood inside the Ritual his team had laid throughout the Garden.

An invisible field, a steady current of power only those with the sense could feel, was flooding him.

Bathed in his home-field advantage, his strength in a head-on fight was easily a match for Aldrich’s, a fellow Third-Rank with no such buff. In some ways, he had the edge. It was only with Wilbur’s help that Aldrich’s side could even contend.

A cold, analytical light gleamed in The Scalpel’s eyes. The endless power from the Ritual made him sharp, fast, tireless.

Facing two Third-Ranks, he felt no fear.

If the Ritual held… he could win this.

Thoughts raced, but his body was faster.

He opened his mouth.

Bang!

A crisp, wet pop—nothing like a gunshot—erupted from his throat.

A thumb-thick “Insect Bullet,” its surface spiraled and metallic, wasn’t fired from a gun. It was launched from deep in his throat by high-pressure air.

A little slower than a real bullet, but at this range, with such a bizarre delivery, it caught Aldrich completely off guard as he finished his dodge.

Aldrich’s pupils shrank!

One of his spider-legs, already buried deep in a nearby tree trunk, bent violently.

Using the reaction force, he wrenched his body mid-air, twisting into an agonizing, joint-straining position.

Thunk—!

A dull thud.

The strange Insect Bullet hit Aldrich.

But only in his outer left shoulder.

The hard, spiraled head tore through his clothes and skin, burying itself in the muscle. Dark blood welled up.

The Scalpel’s assault didn’t stop.

Almost at the same moment the bullet hit,

the pair of pale daggers, whistling, were closing in on Aldrich again.

Aiming straight for his heart.