Scarlet

Immediately after activating the skills, the regular orb of blood and lines in the sky begin to appear for the Blood of Ruins skill, except with the glowing signs of the Red Plague mixed in with the ruined blood. And in addition to that, my own blood begins to shoot out like bullets, firing at everything nearby.

Unfortunately though, there aren’t any monsters nearby to drain blood from for use in the skills. Other than the dragon, that is.

Out of nowhere, the dragon’s eyes flash with a brighter black light, surprising me as we continue our pulse attacks on each other.

Then the entire dragon is set ablaze with black hellflames. And it’s not just the dragon either. Quite literally everything around us that can be burned starts burning, only to be put out by my Bloodborne Apocalypse. Including my own body, making me grimace as my regeneration fights off against the hellfire. And my Red Plague blood fights off against any damage to my own reality.

On the other hand, the dragon finds itself barraged on all sides by both my Bloodborne Apocalypse and the Blood of Ruin slamming Red Plague and other plagues into it in a chaotic and ugly mix.

Both the dragon and I roar out in pain, somehow forcing out even more Red Plague and hellfire from our mouths to add to the chaos around us. And ever so slowly, the hellfire begin to burn away at the edges of my reality. But it’s not just me. I can sense that the dragon’s own reality is slowly starting to get devoured finally, with its scales finally dissolving into red ash and letting the Red Plague past it.

The Red Plague that misses both of us ends up tearing apart and devouring as much of the arena as possible, even devouring the hellflames that aren’t near us in the process.

Right when it’s looking like I’m going to be coming out on top of this though, the dragon’s entire body stiffens up and all of the glowing red lines across the dragon’s body begin to converge into one point before turning a bright, glowing black. Then a strange black orb can be seen making its way out of the creature’s body before flashing once.

My eyes narrow at the orb, but I can’t lower my head to look at it otherwise the dragon’s pulse attack will hit me.

An instant later I wish it did hit me when the orb suddenly glows brighter and flashes once more, sending a wave of hellfire outwards that burns absolutely everything near us including myself, the Red Plague, and even the damned dragon.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I can’t even scream as the fire burns through my reality.

All I feel is pain for longer than I can keep track of. And when the pain begins to grow progressively worse, I latch onto sheer instinct, grabbing hold of all of the Red Plague near me. All of the Red Plague in my body, in our surroundings that is currently fighting the hellflames, and even all of the just blood in the arena outside of some familiar sources, not being Red Plague in their cases.

Then I yank it all towards me, ignoring the System Messages about killing a bunch of things as I draw all of the blood in the arena towards me. Not even caring as I kill other competitors since I’m not using the Red Plague and I know everyone in this tournament has the anti-death clause active.

Throughout the process I hear several dinging sounds akin to System Notifications, but I ignore them too.

Even as I feel a strange sense of control just instinctively shoot out of me to cover the arena, I still ignore it, unable to see a thing through the hellflames.

Instead, I just direct absolutely all of the blood, Red Plague and otherwise, straight at the hellfire explosion I’m at the center of.

My Red Plague and the regular blood fight against the hellfire for ages, just slowly pushing back against it until I can finally breath again, feeling myself collapsing to the ground with more System Messages in my head. But I still raise my head to look in front of me, just to find the damned dragon still alive.

Although the thing is pretty much just bare exposed and burnt and devoured flesh without any scales left, or much fight left in its eyes. And it’s lying on the ground with very little strength left by the looks of it, with that strange core from earlier having been wedged inside of its chest again.

I look down to realize that I’m naked and back in my lycan form, so I quickly rush to put Red Plague clothes back on with however little strength I have. Before the Red Plague and hellfire clear enough for others to see.

Since I really don’t want to be seen naked across the entirety of Tartarus and Earth.

I look up again, still barely able to move as I realize the Red Plague and hellfire covering us still isn’t clearing. I also notice a strange red tint to the air.

That’s… weird.

But the dragon is still alive. And it’s starting to push itself to its feet as well, even if it’s weak right now.

So I do the same, left in nothing but a single cloak since it’s all I can manage right now.

My mana is almost empty. I’m damn near anemic from the blood I used. And I swear I see the air itself starting to crack. Albeit very slowly.

Guess the hellflames and Red Plague are finally getting to be too much for the reality itself.

Not that it matters at this point.

I use up some of my last remaining mana to transform my arm back into that of a werewolf while covering my claws with some remaining Red Plague.

The dragon, panting in exhaustion itself, covers both its fangs and foreclaws with some embers of hellflame.

And for the last time in this fight, we rush at each other.