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"Clearly, you're desperate. Enough of this pointless talking," Claeg said as he crushed a head-sized rock between his fingers, and his eyes glowed red. "Kaila, it's time we get serious."
"I couldn't agree more," she replied as the world was tinted red by a film of spirit energy released from her. Then, from her palms burst rapid streams of her blood that flowed continuously across the ground.
Michael levitated off the ground as the blood level rose higher like tides. He looked at the edges of the water and saw that the red veil of spirit energy served as a barrier to trap the blood inside. Kaila didn't stop producing blood until the area was filled with at least 20 feet of it.
"Welcome to my Blood World," Kaila spread her arms as she stood atop the fluids, and the blood began to move unnaturally, "and it's Red Sea."
Michael's eyes scanned the area. He noticed he couldn't see Claeg anywhere, and with so much of Kaila's spirit energy filling the place, he couldn't pinpoint Claeg's. Then he noticed a quick movement ripple within the blood.
Is he swimming in the blood? Michael thought in disgust as an eruption occurred from the bloody sea below him, and Claeg appeared before him.
Michael's eyes widened in shock, not from Claeg's sudden appearance but from his physical appearance. Claeg's muscles were much more prominent than before and were covered in thick veins. When he swung at Michael, Michael side maneuvered and gently used his hands to redirect the blow, but he could still feel the pressure generated from Claeg's swing alone as some of the blood sea parted.
Then, not wasting time, Kaila willed several Blood Whips from the red sea. Michael attempted to kick Claeg away, but it was like kicking against an immovable object, resulting in him being the one pushed away as the whips arrived where he'd just been.
When he looked back, Claeg was gone again.
Michael pivoted midair and charged back in. As he approached them, Kaila willed walls of blood to burst upwards from the surface of the blood sea, but he was quick enough to spin and readjust as he tucked in his wings like a falcon to make the tighter turns. When he was a few feet away, he quickly expanded his wings, coming to a sudden halt with his talons reaching out.
In his hand held an array of his concentrated spirit energy that he threw into the blood, then commanded, "Expand." The light burned a hole with a 20-foot radius into the flooded area, but it didn't reveal where the elusive cockroach had scampered off to. He'd ignore him and focus on the sister, but the last thing he needed was for that monstrosity to manage to get a hold of him.
With this in mind, he resorted to a more widespread approach. He used Brilliant Radiance to glow brightly and unleash an expansion of his power over the area, which burned most of the blood away, leaving just a marsh, revealing Claeg nearby with a puzzled expression as he fell to the ground.
"There you are," Michael said as he sped over to Claeg and used his threads to keep him pinned to the ground. "I'll deal with you momentarily."
He turned his attention back to Kaila and flew toward her. He figured since Kaila was a better fighter than her brother, could regenerate herself, and empower Claeg with her abilities; she was the one he needed to rid himself of first.
When he was a hundred feet away, he stopped midair.
"Don't bother wit—" Michael began before randomly being hit by a building-sized chunk of the earth that was shrouded in a red aura. Slightly dazed, Michael fell to the ground with the object on him.
How did he get free? He couldn't have broken my threads; he doesn't possess enough power for that...Then, a likely possibility occurred to him. He dug through the ground to free himself...I suppose I should have wrapped him completely. Cockroaches tend to wriggle free otherwise.
Before Michael could push the mass of land off him, he felt more weight be added as Claeg continued to pummel the vicinity with chunk after chunk until Michael was buried beneath a mini mountain.
Michael found it odd: surely he knew this wasn't nearly enough to hurt him. The only thing this accomplished was obscuring his vision...
The memory of Alissia's warning not to let them get too close to each other flashed in his mind.
No! he thought as he released a burst of energy that obliterated the rubble on top of him. In that instant, Claeg appeared with a toothy grin.
"Gotcha," he sneered as Michael focused as much impromptu spirit energy into spirit enhancement as he could just as Claeg's fist connected to his raised hands.
The weight behind the strike was unbelievably heavy, which Michael struggled to resist against. He could feel his spirit enhancement cracking as the ground shook from the force of Claeg's punch.
In terms of strength, he's undoubtedly even stronger than Za'Fia, Michael thought as he gritted his teeth in the effort. He was starting to see the potential threat Claeg posed should he keep getting stronger. He was already at the point where blunt attacks weren't effective, and neither were dull spiritual attacks.
Michael decided it was best to end things before the two's cooperation put him at an even greater disadvantage. Since Claeg was the closest...
Michael let strings of light seep from his fingertips as he was pushed deeper underground by Claeg's strength. Claeg must've sensed what was about to happen since he leaped and scaled out of the hole in the ground just as Michael's threads tore through everything around him.
Michael folded his wings tightly against his back and immediately flew up until he was above ground and could see Claeg and Kaila approaching one another. He used Luminous Thread: Severing Slash to generate a fast, powerful thread of light that could instantly cut through anything. He prepared to cut off their heads. This was the perfect moment to do so, but then Alissia's wish to refrain from killing came to mind. He knew she expected him to uphold her expectations, but these two didn't deserve such mercy.
Strangely, despite acknowledging this and being mentally prepared, something still prevented him from striking.
Why am I hesitating...? He questioned himself as he felt the internal resistance.
Not too long ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to end their lives—he knew he was willing to kill any threat to humanity. Even if that threat was a human. Yet now, something felt different. What was it? Was it losing his regeneration? Admittedly, something had changed since then. For the first time in his life, he'd begun to fear and ponder death like everyone else. To exist one minute and be gone the next....It was a terrifying concept that'd been weighing on him. Perhaps now that he knew what that felt like, he had to ask himself: was he truly prepared to snuff out someone's light? Did their nature justify erasing them from existence?
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