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Michael's jaw clenched as he tensed up. He could tell he was severely outmatched. Speed was likely the only class he was superior in. Which was why he wasn't going to let them get the advantage of the first attack.
He sprinted toward them and fired off several arrays of light that burned holes through their body. Michael made sure that one even went through their heart. He was breathing fast, thinking he'd done it. For a second, he was hopeful as he witnessed the holes, but each hole quickly began to fill with blood and close as he observed.
"You regenerated your heart?" Michael looked bewildered as he stepped back slightly. "Your regeneration wasn't that strong before."
The individual laughed as they smoothed back their hair while the remnants of the holes finished closing completely.
"Thank you for having the good sense of being terrified," they spoke. "To answer your question: we are not Kaila nor Claeg. We are Kaeg. Puncture us all you want, but we are made of the infinite blood we generate. We will always he—"
Michael exhaled sharply as he used his severing slash to decapitate them. He could feel his heart rate increase until he could feel it pulsing in his ears. Was he scared? Was this where he'd die?
No, Michael shook his head clear. Stay focused.
The head on the ground turned to blood as it flowed back to Kaeg's shoulders and reformed back in place.
"That was rude..." Kaeg scowled.
Michael rushed them and performed Phoenix Talon Strike, the same move he'd used against Kaila. He even resorted to using the Anti-Life: Unruly Execution technique, where he constricted his threads so tightly they sliced through Kaeg in several small segments. Still, despite this, Kaeg rose from the ground and regenerated the damage.
"I'm sick of your threads," Kaeg stated, creating a new Blood World and a giant mass of circulating blood over them. They chipped away at some of the blood mass in various ways to send projectiles shooting at Michael. Most of them were in the form of blood bats with razor-sharp wings that assailed him.
Michael used Luminous Threads: Severing Slashes to rip through most of them, but there were far too many for him to handle or even outrun due to them surrounding him. He created a net of luminous threads that spun rapidly around him to fend off the swarm while his mind raced to figure out a way around Kaeg's invincibility.
Spirit enhancement doesn't help me damage them, so they must not use energy with the quality of blood but instead, literal, natural blood. I can burn them easily enough, but they replace the damaged blood with new blood cells. How do I bypass that?
He'd hoped he'd managed to slow Kaeg at least down, but Kaeg strolled through even as they were shredded.
"I may be made of blood, but I do still have nerves, and despite having Kaila's high tolerance for pain, being beheaded, diced, and repeatedly cut still hurts," Kaeg said, aggravated as he stood within Michael's violet vortex. His wounds quickly healed within seconds. "Here, let me show you."
Blood burst from their palms, forming a rotating, slashing vortex between their hands. When Kaeg pushed it toward Michael, it expanded rapidly. At such close range, all Michael could do was throw his guard up, but even with spirit enhancement, Kaeg's attack badly mutilated him. By taking a direct hit, Michael was immobilized long enough for Kaeg to slip closer and grab him. Then, in the next instant, Michael felt a sharp pain as their teeth pierced the skin on his neck.
They held him in place with their strength as Michael felt himself weaken to the point he reverted to his normal state just as he released a burst of energy that disrupted their form long enough to give him a chance to break free of their grip.
He leaped back several skips as he held his neck while blood leaked through his fingers.
"Hooo," Kaeg exhaled in ecstasy as they licked the blood that had spilled onto the back of their hand. "The taste of klevonian skin...the rich flow of life within your veins...it was everything we imagined....We need more. One's not enough...we need all of you."
They locked in with Michael. "But we can't have you disrupting our meal again, so we'll kill you and then devour you quickly so that we can eat the others too. I bet we can still enjoy Junichiro before his blood dries out."
Michael wobbled as he tried to step backward. His legs felt like lead, and he was too drained to reenter his hybrid form.
"But first, do you believe in an eye for an eye, Michael?" He heard Kaeg say as his vision blurred. He watched their bright red eyes grow closer with their silhouette before they jumped and aimed a kick at his head. "Because we do."
Michael blocked sluggishly with spirit enhancement applied to both arms, but the kick was still strong enough to shatter even his bones and sent him bouncing and carving across the ground until he stopped miles away. When Kaeg blurred over to stand over him, Michael was undoubtedly a bloody mess who could barely keep his eyes open. Every breath in and of itself was like fighting to live.
Then, as Kaeg towered over him, Michael saw the sky blacken with dark clouds, shrouding the area in an eerie veil.
"Looks like we better wrap things up," Kaeg grinned as he lunged forward to take a chunk of Michael's throat, but just then, Michael felt something brush past from beneath him, and Tymon stood, gripping Kaeg by the throat.
Tymon tossed Kaeg back several feet and stood between him and Kaeg.
Kaeg's smile grew larger which Michael found unnerving.
"Normally, we'd be furious about such a delicious meal being interrupted, but how can we be upset when an even better dish just served itself to us? Did you know that nothing's better than terror seeping into the blood and meat of a human who knows they're about to die horribly? We bet you taste like that times a thousand," they said, practically salivating.
Their gaze lowered to Tymon's right arm, where Michael saw he was missing his hand. There was no hiding the pure joy Kaeg clearly felt in that moment. Smug overconfidence would be an understatement for the expression they held.
Within the following sixty seconds, Kaeg threw everything they had at Tymon, likely in hopes of weakening him even further so that they could enjoy what would probably have been the best meal of their lives. But Tymon didn't move an inch. He stood firm as each of their blood-based attacks failed to leave even a scratch on Tymon.
Kaeg's expression morphed from shock to confusion, then regret as they faltered.
Tymon stepped forward.
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