After the dust settled, Mammon appeared. Fragments of bone, imbued with red veins, burst from her open chest. The sea of blood on the ground responded to its mistress’s agony: it rose in dozens of tentacles that enveloped her before disappearing, healing all her wounds.

Mammon stood up nonetheless. Her smile widened from her lips to her ears, revealing rows of sharp teeth that no longer had anything human about them.

"You dare... injure this body?" she hissed in a voice that now overlapped with hundreds of others. "Then I will make you regret being born."

She snapped her fingers, and then the entire sea of blood exploded upward in a scarlet storm. Thousands of blades of solidified blood shot out in all directions.

< Dash > 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Teleporting repeatedly, Klein appeared and disappeared constantly but the blades were too numerous. Several hit him, barely wounding him thanks to his rapid dodges.

< Aura Repulsion >

A sphere of white and destructive energy formed around him, pulverizing the blood blades that approached him. The explosion pushed the storm back several meters, creating a temporary crater in the scarlet pool.

Mammon gave him no respite. She leaped, her nails now long claws, and slashed his torso in a cross motion.

Klein dodged the attack by violently leaning backward, performing a backflip that made his coat snap. Taking advantage of the inertia and his momentum, he used the strength of his legs to counterattack immediately. He delivered a powerful rising knee strike, concentrating all his aura at the point of impact.

The blow struck Mammon full force, right under the chin. The sound of the demon’s jaw shattering echoed like a dry branch breaking. Teeth flew through the air, lost in the blood, and the lower half of what had been Dyana’s face deformed at a grotesque and impossible angle. Mammon’s head snapped backward under the violence of the impact.

She raised both hands, and the ground trembled. Rusty iron chains surged from the sea of blood, wrapping around Klein’s legs and torso with monstrous strength. The links sank into his flesh. Klein’s blood mixed with that of the sea, and Mammon took the opportunity to drain his vital essence through the chains. The pain was atrocious, as if his soul was being torn away in shreds.

Klein roared. His eyes became entirely white.

< Dash >

He teleported directly behind her. His katana, enveloped in such a dense aura, sank into Mammon’s stomach up to the hilt. He twisted the blade inside, shredding organs and spine in a sound of crushed meat. Mammon coughed up a gush of black blood that splashed Klein’s face.

Mammon, whose entrails were literally chopped up by Klein’s steel, showed no weakness. On the contrary, her face still bore the deformed features from Klein’s blows.

Without warning, the demon released a point-blank demonic mana impulse. Instead of a simple energy discharge, she used the brute force of her arms to deliver a violent blow to Klein’s thorax while she was still impaled. The shock was terrible. Klein was torn from his grip, his katana sliding out of the demon’s body with a sickening sucking sound. The impact sent him flying across the blood arena, his body ricocheting on the scarlet surface before slamming full force into the basalt wall bordering the plateau.

The wall cracked for several meters, with debris of black stone raining on Klein’s shoulders as he collapsed to his knees, spitting out a gush of vermilion blood.

"Shit..." he cursed.

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence. With a whistle, Mammon propelled herself toward him. She reached him in a fraction of a second, her fist charged with demonic energy, aiming directly at Klein’s skull.

Quickly, Klein tilted his head to the right at the last moment. The demon’s fist struck the stone wall, right next to his ear. The impact was so powerful that it created a one-meter diameter crater in the tower’s structure.

Klein did not remain passive. Taking advantage of his opponent’s proximity, he formed a quick mudra with his left hand.

< Aura Repulsion >

A shockwave of energy exploded from his body. The force of the impulse was such that Mammon, despite her demonic constitution, was thrown backward. She retreated a few steps, her heels cleaving the sea of blood, trying to regain her balance. Klein gave her no chance to stabilize her guard. He stood up, ignoring the searing pain in his back, and raised his hand toward the sky.

< Mystic Art: Lightning Descent >

A lightning bolt struck with precision on Mammon’s position. The explosion of light was blinding. The demon was hit full force by the wave of lightning. A tearing, inhuman scream of pain rang out.

Taking this precious time for himself, Klein retreated a few steps. He took deep, ragged breaths.

Silence gradually returned, disturbed only by the crackling of residual electricity on the wet tiles. The blue smoke and sulfur vapors began to dissipate, revealing Mammon’s silhouette.

The sight was atrocious. The demon was standing, but her body was marked by severe injuries. Her skin was charred in several places, strips of black flesh hung from her arms, and Dyana’s left eye had literally melted under the impact of the lightning. She seemed on the verge of collapse, her breathing now only an agonized wheeze.

Yet, as she met Klein’s gaze, a carnivorous and insane smile stretched her burned lips.

Immediately, the sea of blood on the ground boiled again. The vital liquid rose in twisted columns. The blood did not just surround the demon; it began to actively infiltrate her wounds, penetrating under the charred skin and mixing with her own corrupted tissues.

Klein watched with growing horror as the wounds closed under the action of the scarlet fluid. The flesh regenerated at a speed that defied all laws. In a few seconds, the blood was completely absorbed, revealing a perfectly intact Mammon, her ebony skin shining with a new glow, as if the fight had never taken place.

She cracked her neck, looking at him with insulting superiority, while her aura began to saturate the air around her again.

"Fuck..." murmured Klein as he glanced at his katana whose blade was starting to crack.

He then realized the futility of a war of attrition. In this blood-saturated domain, Mammon was virtually immortal. As long as he did not find a way to sever the link that united her to the source of her power or to Dyana’s soul, this fight would never end.