Born in Blood



Rin's eyes fell on the attacker opposite her. It didn't take long for her to find him, but they weren't particularly hiding their presence either.

Instinctively, she knew he wasn't a human. 

'He' was a slender looking youth, yet the cold look in his condescending crimson eyes made him look older. 

His skin was ghostly white, and a smirk covered on his dim-red lips.

His jet-black hair was spiked upward, paired with his loose, sleeveless black garment that covered him from shoulder to shin, revealing a muscly body.

A particular feature Rin noticed was his nails. They were pure black and razor-edged.

"You're fast, y'know? You have my compliments," he praised, but the condescending look didn't leave his face. "My name's Shirzx. You are?"

Rin remained silent, but understood him. 

Nessa and Gerald were hiding behind the base, with the former tending to the latter's wounds.

With her daggers still in hand, she was polite enough to flip him the middle finger, a smirk on her face.

Although it didn't look like he understood it, Shirzx instinctively knew that was not a friendly gesture. 

A scowl made its way onto his pale face.

"Filthy sun-bather. Your blood will taste well on my claws."

Shirzx smashed his palms together. 

A jet-like stream of hardened blood burst from his hands and blurred at Rin. 

Daggers blazing, she barely managed to deflect the piercing attack, responding with arcs of burning flames while closing the distance. 

The vampire grimaced at the fire's sight. 

With a powerful stomp, he jumped back, but a blazing ball of fire met his trajectory.

Shirzx cursed loudly in the vampiric tongue. He evaded, but as the fireball passed by, his skin sizzled with its ambers. 

Angrily, he slapped his hands again. This time, the hardened jetstream of blood was even faster.

Right as Rin attempted to cut it apart, it changed trajectory, turning into an unpredictable beeline. 

Rin's unblinking eyes tracked them all throughout. Just then, it made a direct line to shoot at her abdomen. 

She deflected it with ease, severing its sharp tip and turning the rest to a boiling liquid with her flames.

…Yet failed to realize that Shirzx had left his spot and reappeared behind her back.

A gnarly clawmark tore away Rin's back flesh as she dodged with a low yelp and shot another flurry of flaming arcs at the vampire's figure – he dodged with ease and re-adjusted his footing at a safe distance.

"Tasty… so tasty! I've never had such delicious blood before," Shirzx exclaimed, licking away the chunks of flesh and blood from his claws. He wheezed euphorically with his tongue out. 

Rin looked grave. Pissed, more like. Silent as ever, she took out a magical beast core from her ring… then crushed it between her molars!

Rin let out a long grunt of anguish that made her throat coarse, under the confused vampire's eyes. By the end of it, she opened her cold violet eyes with contrasting flames in them.

Nessa and Gerald had been watching from behind the base. Having tended to the boy's wounds, she instantly wanted to go and support Rin… but her limbs were trembling in fright.

'Damn this weakness!'

…Suddenly, Rin dropped her blades to her sides. Her face dark and indiscernible.

"What is she doing?" Gerald whisperingly shouted.

Rin's form blurred. 

The vampire looked confused for a split second, but fear gripped his Nexus like a snake constricting around prey.

Shirzx barely felt a soft gust of wind on his pale skin, then yanked his neck to look at the side where Rin slid past him.

Her cheeks were puffed with air, and her neck bulging with thick veins. As she opened her mouth, a lance of flames burst forth, like a dragon's breath.

///

Liam felt a lot more confident now that he had a grip on the situation. 

At one point, the wafer-thin threads even stopped multiplying. An incomplete blood-cocoon of sorts encased the two. 

[I hope you have a plan for this,] Nord relayed with a scowl. 

[When I say switch, change places with me,] Liam responded, wrapping his blades with Dark Chains.

Seeing that the cocoon didn't make the first move, four needles formed in Liam's right hand. 

He threw them at the areas where the strings were the strongest, watching as the smoke corroded their tensile strength.

That seemed to stir up a reaction. Instantly, the cocoon started to shoot strings at them from random directions, which Liam's darkness and Nord's wind started to split with relative ease. 

[Switch!] 

Liam shouted mentally as he spotted a particular crimson line that looked vastly stronger than the others.

Nord instantly sidestepped as Liam took his place, activating Cartilage Brace and splitting the horizontal line down the middle with his first and second form. 

The string stubbornly held on, but eventually snapped.

A dance of death followed. Strings relentlessly bombarded the two from every direction, but the strongest attacks were cleverly blended in between weaker ones.

"How! How do you know where they come from?!" the feminine voice shrieked, but sounded like it regretted it right after. 

A crooked smile appeared on Liam's face. He knew where she was.

[Switch!] 

[Switch!] 

[Switch!]

Blood drenched their figures completely. Their defense wasn't impregnable, and the pair had to sacrifice more than a few chunks of flesh to survive.

After the fifth and final switch, the cocoon was left with nothing but frail strings. 

With the last thread cut, Liam instantly ran to one of the village homes, bursting through the front door with a kick and hurling his swords at a pale-skinned girl hiding there.

She let out a long screech – the two swords pinning her bloodied arms to the wall – that Liam silenced with a powerful shin kick, shattering more than a few of her teeth.

The girl had silver hair and blood-red eyes. She was short, wearing a white garment that hid her figure. 

Despite the pain washing over his senses, Liam managed a crooked smile.