There were only a handful of Swarm Guards left behind after the death of their queen, and Harry made quick work of them. Finally, he felt his level on the very verge of breaking through, and the last Guard was all he needed to reach level 50. It was like sneezing after holding it in for a long time. He was overcome with pure satisfaction as he felt the telltale surge of energy empowering him.

As Harry tore his axe from the armoured skull of his final enemy, he cast his gaze over toward the gargantuan chasm that now spanned into the distance. Or more accurately, the place where Fon was over studying the energies she had told him were there. She’d been doing it since Brock had been taken away to save his sister.

The boy spared a glance for the sombre town in the distance – death weighing on its citizens - and walked over to her.

She was crouched down next to the very edge, delicately running her fingers through some ethereal substance Harry couldn’t perceive. He wasn’t really surprised by the notion that invisible energies permeated every aspect of life. It was much like oxygen in that regard, the so-called gas he’d learned about in science. It was always there, and it always affected you, yet it was never seen.

Fon, who must have heard Harry’s careless footsteps, glanced at him over her shoulder, “It’s remarkable. There’s all four different kinds of energies just smouldering at the edges of this place.”

Judging by the smile on her face, Harry knew she was pretty excited about all this. Or happy. Or maybe just both. Either way, he didn’t really care too much about it all, but he nodded like he understood anyway.

His friend - he thought he knew her well enough to call her that – remained silent afterwards, intent on watching the ways the energy interacted or something. He didn’t really know what she was trying to achieve here. Harry fiddled with his fingers in his pockets, which for the most part, were torn to oblivion.

“You think he’ll be ok?” He finally said, his voice strangely quiet.

This time, Fon stopped what she was doing fully and turned around, regarding Harry with a light smile, “You mean Brock? I think he will.”

Harry’s lips pressed into a line, “Still…”

“Hey,” Fon met his eyes seriously, “We both know that guy. He’ll be fine. Trust me.”

**

Brock groaned as his eyelids cranked themselves open. His body hurt and stung and burned all at once, and a quick feel was all he needed to realise it was due to the myriad of gashes and scraps across his body. The sparkling stars above shone down on him, and he favoured the full moon with a glance.

His enhanced eyesight finally adjusted and he found himself surrounded by empty plains, purely just grasses and the occasional rock and stone. Well, empty might be a bit of a stretch considering the globs of blood and flesh littered in every which direction. In fact, Brock was covered in so much of the former that he had no idea which was his and which wasn’t.

Hissing out a breath as his ribs screamed in agony once again, Brock helped himself to his feet, stumbling slightly as he maintained his balance. There was a massive hole not too far from where he was, probably around several meters in diameter, and it revealed the fleshy interior of where he’d just been before. The hole quickly branched off into dozens of smaller ones.

Actually, what even happened?

He didn’t know, all he knew was that he was hit by a surge of something and now he was up here. It was a relief in a way, as he really didn’t like it down in the flesh tunnels. It was like the world’s worst horror experience. Idly, Brock wondered if he’d be able to turn it into an attraction if he defeated Ryan.

Not if. When.

They were all thoughts for another time, he assumed. The psychopath in question was nowhere to be seen, and Brock couldn’t detect his or the Skin Walker’s aura signatures around him either, though he wouldn’t count on his own accuracy. He did catch sight of a triad of women over to his right, however, and immediately he rushed over.

He licked his lips. Was it some sort of blood explosion? They were caught in it too…

Mio wasn’t looking much better than him, although her armour had caught the brunt of it all. The bulky metal plates were twisted and in some cases ripped off entirely. In a few areas, her suit material underneath was torn and there was a grisly gash across her abdomen. Nothing was life-threatening, so Brock thought she’d be fine.

As she regained consciousness, Brock helped her up to her feet and regarded the other two. Honestly… he couldn’t tell if they’d been injured by whatever had happened. They still had a myriad of wounds, and all the old ones seemed to have opened up due to the happening. Fortunately, though, Carrie was stirring and her eyelids flickering.

His sister was still out cold.

A few light slaps from Mio was all the blonde-haired beauty needed to come to, and together they got her to her feet as she drunkenly computed what was happening, “…Mio? Brock?”

The man in question gave her a thumb up, although he had a feeling her glazed eyes didn’t see it, “It’s a long story.”

Carrie looked him up and down sluggishly, and he was surprised to see tears begin to fall from the corners of her eyes as her lip quivered, “This… is a… dream right? You… you’re dead. I saw…”

“Um, I don’t think s-” Brock spun around and deflected an icicle of crystallised blood as it shot towards him, having heard the wind hiss as it flew. It skittered off, scoring a gash across his other shoulder and smashing into the earth a short distance away.

Gritting his teeth, he spared one glance for the sobbing Carrie and begrudgingly turned to face Ryan as he rose up out of the hole in the ground upon a pillar of wet blood. An armoury’s worth of blood spikes floated listlessly behind his back. From the sheer energy contained within the blood, Brock could tell where the Skin Walkers went. Or more accurately, what they became.

Brock waved behind him, “Mio. You guys gotta g-”

“I can’t.”

He glanced over his shoulder, “What do you mea…”

Finally, as he followed Mio’s gaze, he noticed the wound he’d missed. It wasn’t very visible, but a section of her tibia had appeared to have shattered and splintered through the flesh of her shin. It was clear to see the woman was placing all the weight onto her other leg just to remain standing.

“Oh.”

He felt at her aura and found it not much better than his own. She can’t teleport either.

Brock barely had the time to look back to his foe and steel his resolve to protect everyone before an utter volley of spikes were loosed his way. He was a blur as he lashed out with his blade while dodging them simultaneously, deflecting and avoiding. Behind him, he heard a pair of thumps as Mio dived and took Carrie to the ground to avoid getting hit.

Ryan cackled as he stepped off his pillar and onto the earth below. The crystalline knife was still jabbed into his neck, but no blood was oozing out, “I’m immortal. Unkillable. I am blessed, don’t you understand?”

He controls blood, so he can’t bleed out…

Growling as he spun around the final spike, Brock flexed the muscles in his legs and exploded forward, appearing before Ryan in a mere moment. It seemed the man was expecting him, however, and the ground suddenly erupted in a valley of crimson blades. Brock merely leapt over them in response, and his leg lashed out and scored Ryan across the cheek.

Ryan stumbled to the side as his arm whipped outward and snagged Brock by his leg. The next second the world was spinning around the knife user as he was swung upward. Then it all abruptly came crashing down as he impacted the earth. He felt vomit threatening to creep out, but he held on as Ryan mounted him and returned the favour for his earlier slight.

Brock could barely think as he was assaulted by fist after fist, his guard ineffective with only a single arm. He could feel his nose and face being pulped and the skin breaking as each blow rocked his brain itself. In the end, he dropped his guard and took the beating while his hand roamed the land beside him.

Slowly, he felt his skull being beaten into a new shape.

After what seemed like an eternity as his consciousness frayed at the edges and his face became numb, the fingers of his hand grasped onto a stone and he immediately whipped his limb up towards his opponent. The rock smashed him in the side of the head and knocked him off to the side. Brock followed up with another smack from the rock to his head before tossing it aside and stumbling over to him, his blade already out and ready.

Ryan caught him by surprise, however, as a spike of blood shot out from the earth and gored him straight through his midsection. Blood spurted from Brock’s mouth and dribbled down his chin, and he watched in horror as Ryan grabbed his blade between two fingers and effortlessly snapped it in half with his incredible Strength.

It was clear to him, judging by the fact he wasn’t dead, that Ryan was pulling his punches to make him suffer more. Shit.

Fortunately, Ryan didn’t seem too keen on finishing the job just yet and he stumbled backward, cradling his head as it oozed some blood from the rock wound. Quickly, the flow stopped and he sneered, “for a human so pathetic, you sure are a nuisance.”

Aside from the fact the guy’s speech seemed to be less and less from a human as time passed, Brock also realized that the blood in his veins began to move uncomfortably, like they were no longer flowing in the correct direction. It made him feel incredibly ill, and as the veins began to bulge, he knew it wasn’t just a feeling.

Ryan was attempting to control his blood directly.

It didn’t take much aura sense for him to realise that his own blood had been infused with the man's aura, and Brock countered with what he could muster of his own. It seemed to be enough, and the flow resumed to normal, although Ryan did seem to be left quite shocked by it.

Brock met his eyes and snorted as he slowly pulled himself off the spike, “Yeah. Fuck you.”

His foe didn’t respond, only smirk as a stream of blood began to flow around his arm and coalesce into a hammer. His other hand tossed the broken blade beside him, as if to mock Brock, and he grasped the long handle with two hands as he brought it high overhead. Brock looked up at the crystal weapon looming above the man’s head.

…Ah, fuck.

It instantly blurred downward, and Brock heard the entirety of his spine crack savagely as the hammer impacted him right between the shoulders. Brock didn’t even have time to lament on the sudden numbness of anything below that as the spike tore deeper into him and he smacked against the earth. A tide of blood – and this time vomit – surged out from his mouth and splattered across the dirt.

“It’s people like you that are slaughtered out in the Multiverse,” Ryan began, shifting his hammer into a cruel-looking dagger as he crouched down beside Brock, who was sputtering for air, “There’s so many of you out there, yet not one of you is unique; you’re no exception.”

Brock coughed a glob of blood out on Ryan’s toes deliberately just to piss him off, although he didn’t seem to care too much, “…Well… at least you’re uniquely stupid.”

Ryan grabbed him by his hair and stood, pulling him up from the spike and rewarding the earth with a fresh gush of crimson, “What did you say?”

Brock ignored him and looked to the looming shadow behind his foe as it twisted itself into a spike. Mio was sitting up a distance away, her hand outstretched and sweat dripping down her forehead. Brock shakily gave Ryan the finger, and the spike rammed through his chest.

“Yeah,” Brock winced as Ryan let go of him and he fell back down on the spike, “Fuck you.”

It was immensely satisfying to see the man collapse to his knees in shock as he felt for the spike. Unluckily for him, it dissipated to shadow stuff rapidly and left him with a gaping hole in his chest. It seemed the wound was too large to patch up with his abilities, as blood freely gushed out and down his chest, staining his clothes red despite his efforts to stem the flow.

Ryan seemed shaken by the sudden development, “But… how? I… it promised me. IT PROMISED ME!”

Rapidly, the spike Brock was skewered upon liquified, as did all the other blood weapons that had been made around the place, and a growing storm of blood began to swirl in the sky as Ryan prepared his final gambit. Brock smacked to the ground with a thump as the final remains of his spike melted away, and he reached out and gripped the broken blade of his weapon tightly.

It was probably the most difficult thing he’d ever done considering the wretched state of his body, but Brock forced himself to his feet. Carrie was still weak, Jane was unconscious, and Mio seemed to have completely depleted her aura in that last attack just to save him. None of them would be able to escape unless he did something.

Unless he killed this man once and for all.

Ryan seemed oblivious to his surroundings as blood freely flowed from his glazed-over eyes, rising up to join the maelstrom overhead. Both of Brock’s feet halted before him, and he lifted the blade above him, his expression grim.

“Sorry it had to be like this Ryan.” Brock’s arm streaked down with all the power he could muster.

He closed his eyes as the tip impacted skull and pierced right into Ryan’s brain, ending his life within the second. Brock's fingers were sliced by the sharp edges, and fresh blood filled his palm as Ryan’s corpse slumped and collapsed to the side. A surge of blood fell to the ground and washed over everything nearby in its sickly tide, coating Brock and his incapacitated companions.

Gazing down at the corpse he had made, at the first person he had killed, all he could do was fall to his knees and sigh.