Chapter 290 - Day CMLXXXII, Part III

The blood from her wounds flew through the air in form of those small drops, and it all immediately assembled around the knives, and turned into those crimson shards, forming two jagged, crazy-looking double swords.

I don't know about you, but for me, that was an obvious red flag.

She rushed at me with incredible speed, but I shadow walked out of her trajectory, and appeared behind in midswing, just to be blocked by more blood, assembling right before my weapon, and turning in a big crystal, that actually extended its sharp peaks, that were pointing in every direction. There was this strange glassy sound when it happened.

I was forced to retreat, and then shadow walked to gain even more distance, as she leaped into the air when I was busy looking at her creation, and almost landed on top of me, jamming her blades in my body.

- Fuck - escaped my mouth.

I was clearly weaker than her, but I still didn't give it my all. I used 'Empowered body', 'Shadow fusion', 'Void domain' and strengthened myself with Ki.

The black smoke started coming out of the ground, and I immediately felt way more powerful. She leaped again, simultaneously moving the jagged crystal ball to ram me with it from the side, but unfortunately for her, with all the new power surging through my body, dodging was not a problem. I avoided both of the attacks with incredible speed and launched my own barrage of slashes.

She parried every single one of them thanks to her ability to transform her weapons and the durability of those blood shards. I couldn't cut through them, I couldn't shatter them. This was an amazing advantage for her defensive capabilities.

She was struggling to keep up with my speed even with such powerful skills. Then something unlucky happened. I injured my hand while swinging heavily at her, by scratching it on one of the sharp edges.

She noticed, and then my hand exploded from the inside with hundreds of small red needles, that emerges from my own forearm.

The pain was so bad, that I stumbled, and had to retreat using shadow walk again. This allowed her to catch her breath.

My right hand was in such a bad shape, it was completely useless in the fight. I dumped all the heals I had into it, but that barely did anything. And that's what was wrong only on a surface level. There was another problem I could feel. The blood in my hand was starting to behave weirdly.

I grabbed my weapon with the left one. With how high my dexterity was, there was barely any difference to which one I was using. I was basically ambidextrous. But what was more important, I was on the clock with this fight.

I charged at her, shadow walking few times to change the directions to disorientate her, and finally aimed low, at her legs. This time I managed to reach her, and the blade had no resistance while cutting off the whole limb. 

The blood poured down, turning into the shards, switched direction, and burst straight at me. I had to evacuate again, this time in splits of a second. I gained more distance because the situation actually looked very bad.

Now, although one-legged, she had enough shards to protect herself almost completely. The big formation split into hundreds, forming a fleet of needles, that went after me. I ran around a  bit, but it quickly became obvious to me that this is not the way.

I needed to get her again, this time for good.

I shadow walked few more times to make more space between me and her swarm. Whatever she did to my arm was spreading. I could feel my blood behaving strangely in my veins. My whole body was gradually more and more in pain.

I ran around some more, trying to formulate a plan of attack. My options were limited. I couldn't compete with her at the distance, and up-close her defense was almost unpenetrable for my attacks. 'Eyes of Duelist' were notifying me that I just need to land one hit in her current state, because she won't even be able to dodge or parry it properly, but the flying shards were the problem.

She kept a bunch of them close to herself, while the rest was chasing me. There was also the big shard, which she for sure could turn into another swarm. With that much blood, she could protect herself from every direction, and she wasn't losing any more of it through the wounds.

It took me a couple of minutes, but I found a way. Risky, but with the state of my body, I had no other choice. I circled around her and charged when the angle became right, and shadow walked to shorten the distance. Ther shard protection immediately burst straight at my face, as I was swinging my weapon.

It was plainly obvious the hit wasn't gonna land with co much material to block it, and then I used 'Shadow reach' to make the blade pop ut from a blind spot, and sink into her neck, just as the needles dug into my body. They vanished alongside the boss's body, leaving tiny marks all over me.

The strange pain in my veins vanished. It was a surprisingly close fight. Maybe if I had a better idea of what I will be dealing with, it wouldn't go this way, but since I didn't, I made so many crucial mistakes, that It almost cost me my life.

I sighed heavily, picked the stone, and started to walk towards Ki'rai. I wished that I had some more healing in me, to fix myself a bit, but I didn't.

When I finally returned to her, she didn't even ask me about the fight, although I was sure she wanted to know the details. I saw it in the way she was looking at me. Fighting was something that excited her. 

- You need to rest - she said.

I nodded, then collected all the backpacks from my shadows, and returned to my room. From there I summoned them again, to help me with transporting the score to the device, as my little lizard remained in the room.

I earned 1 597 200 in total, and immediately spend 11k on healing. I also looked through the classes and now I could become a 'Blood initiate'. It was a pretty tempting option, after witnessing what it would allow me to do, but I didn't have enough points, so there was no reason to even think about that properly.

I bought some food, new pair of clothes, and returned to my room to feed Ki'rai. Then I went to take a bath since I was literally covered in blood. My own. After I swung by the cafeteria, to eat something proper, and went back.

If I was to continue farming class points there, I needed to get stronger. I had some points to spend but decided to do it the next morning. I also needed to find one more spot, and work on my efficiency. 

The day came to an end with 26 061 870 points remaining on my account, and one class point.