My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines-Chapter 34: Ethan Cross, our differences are resolved.

Victor advanced again without haste, but also without giving any real space for reaction, like a predator who had already decided that the prey would not escape and now only controlled the rhythm of death. The arena floor was already covered in blood, pieces of flesh, and deep impact marks, and yet Victor moved with absurd lightness, as if he were fighting in a clean field, as if the chaos around him had no effect on him. Ethan tried to get up, his body still regenerating parts that had been destroyed seconds before, but the regeneration no longer kept pace with the speed of the injuries, and this was the worst possible scenario for a vampire in direct combat.

He tried to force blood again, gathering everything he could around his own body, forming a dense red mass that began to mold into something larger, something more brutal, something that was clearly not refined, but was powerful. It was despair transformed into raw power. The blood constricted, hardened, and then exploded forward like a huge, wide, heavy blade, much more like an axe than a sword, descending toward Victor with enough force to split a man in two along with the ground.

Victor didn’t immediately dodge. He waited. He observed the trajectory. He observed Ethan’s posture. He observed the movement of his shoulders, his feet, his waist. As the blow descended, he simply stepped to the side and twisted his body, and the bloody blade grazed past him and struck the ground with a monstrous impact, opening a crater and raising a wave of dust and fragments of stone.

Before Ethan even finished the movement, Victor was already inside his guard.

The sword rose in a diagonal slash.

SHRAAAK.

Ethan’s chest opened again, deeper than before, piercing muscle, rib, and lung as if there were no real resistance. Ethan spat blood immediately, his body failing for a critical second, and that second was enough for Victor to continue. He twisted his body and slashed again, this time in the back, tearing open the entire muscle and causing Ethan to fall forward, to his knees, his body trembling as he struggled to remain functional.

The audience no longer roared as before.

Now it was silent.

Because it no longer looked like a fight.

It looked like a slow execution.

Ethan tried to get up again, his body regenerating unevenly, some parts closing quickly, others taking longer, which left his movements uncoordinated, crooked, unstable. He tried to take a step back to gain distance, but Victor simply kicked his knee sideways.

CRACK.

His leg bent the wrong way and Ethan fell again, his body hitting the ground hard, his face smeared with blood and dust. Before he could turn around, Victor’s sword descended and pierced his hand, pinning it to the ground. "Ethan screamed.

Victor just looked down at him, his hand still gripping the embedded sword.

"You still don’t understand," he said calmly, almost like Scarlett had spoken to him a week ago. "You still think this is a fight."

He pulled the sword up, ripping Ethan’s hand from the ground along with the blade, and then slashed horizontally, tearing the entire arm off. The limb spun in the air and fell a few meters away, still twitching slightly before stopping.

Ethan tried to roll away, desperate, trying to gain any distance, but Victor walked behind him without any hurry, as if he knew that no matter what Ethan did, it wouldn’t change the outcome.

Ethan then spurted blood around his own body again, but this time not to attack, but to push Victor back and finally gain space. He succeeded. For the first time in a long time, he managed to gain a few meters of distance. He was breathing heavily, his body trying to rebuild his arm, hand, internal organs, all at once, consuming energy absurdly.

Victor stopped and watched.

He didn’t attack immediately.

And that was worse.

Because it seemed like he was deliberately buying time.

Deliberately giving him hope.

Ethan finally managed to stand, one arm still regenerating, his body full of deep cuts that hadn’t yet completely healed. He looked at Victor with a mixture of hatred, fear, and despair.

"Why..." Ethan breathed with difficulty. "Why don’t you just end this already?!"

Victor tilted his head slightly.

And then he answered something that made Ethan’s blood run cold.

"Because I’m training."

The silence in the arena grew heavy, almost suffocating.

And before Ethan could react to that sentence, Victor disappeared again. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

This time Ethan didn’t even see the movement.

He only felt it.

An absurd pain shot through his body.

When he looked down, Victor’s sword had pierced his abdomen and exited through his back. Victor was behind him, holding the sword that had pierced his body as if it were nothing.

Victor pulled the sword out slowly.

Very slowly.

Blood trickled down the blade as Ethan fell to his knees again, his body no longer responding properly, the regeneration slow, failing, incomplete.

Victor then placed the sword on his shoulder and looked down at him again.

"I think it’s time to end this," he said as he walked towards Ethan, who was crawling, unable to regenerate all the damage to his body.

Victor walked slowly towards him, his sword resting on his shoulder, the sound of his footsteps echoing in the silent arena. There was no hurry, no anger, not even satisfaction on his face. It was just... a decision. And that was what truly made the fear begin to grow inside Ethan.

Until that moment, deep down, Ethan still believed it was a duel. Violent, brutal, but still a duel. That at some point someone would stop, that there would be a limit, that Victor wanted to prove something, to win, to humiliate, to show superiority.

But when he saw Victor’s look now... he understood.

There was no duel.

Victor was going to kill him.

Ethan tried to crawl backward, his hands slipping in his own blood, his body leaving a red trail on the arena floor. Regeneration was slow, failing, parts of his body still open, muscles exposed, bones showing in places. He tried to force energy once more, tried to draw blood to regenerate, but his body simply no longer responded as before.

Too much energy had been spent.

Too much damage had accumulated.

Victor stopped a few meters from him and watched silently as Ethan desperately tried to get away, like a wounded animal realizing that the predator had finally decided to end the hunt.

"W-wait...," Ethan said, his voice faltering, hoarse, lacking its former arrogance. "We can still—"

Victor continued walking.

Ethan swallowed hard and tried to change his tone, trying to return to his arrogance, trying to convince himself that he still had control of the situation.

"You think you can kill me and get away with it? Do you know what the Cross family will do to you? Do you know—"

Victor stopped in front of him.

And then, without warning, he kicked Ethan hard in the face.

CRACK.

Ethan’s body spun on the ground and came to rest on its side, his nose completely shattered, teeth scattered across the floor mixed with blood. He tried to get up, but Victor stepped on his head and pressed it against the ground, crushing his face against the stone.

"You talk too much," Victor said calmly.

Ethan tried to push his foot away, tried to pull his head away, but he had no strength. He had no strength left for anything. His arrogance began to crumble right there, at that moment, when he realized he couldn’t even get Victor’s foot off his own head.

Victor then bent down, grabbed Ethan by the hair, and forcibly lifted his head. Ethan’s face was unrecognizable, covered in blood, broken bones slowly rearranging themselves.

"Look at me," Victor said.

Ethan tried to look away.

Victor gripped his hair tighter.

"Look. At. Me."

Ethan looked.

And what he saw wasn’t anger.

It wasn’t hatred.

It wasn’t pleasure.

It was emptiness.

And that was much worse.

"Now you understand," Victor said softly. "Now you understand that you’re going to die."

Ethan’s body began to tremble. Not from pain. Vampires were used to pain.

It was fear.

Real fear.

"Victor... wait... we can solve this... it was the family... it wasn’t me... I just—"

Victor plunged the sword into his leg.

Ethan screamed, his body arching, the blade pinning his leg to the ground.

Victor leaned close to his ear and spoke softly, so only he could hear:

"If you beg... I’ll cut off your other leg first."

Ethan froze.

Despair completely overwhelmed him now. He began to breathe rapidly, trying to draw air even though he didn’t need it, his eyes darting fast, searching for someone, anyone, any help, any intervention.

The entire stands were silent.

No one moved.

No one spoke.

No one wanted to get involved.

Because now everyone had understood the same thing Ethan had just understood.

This was no longer a Blood Armageddon.

It was a public execution.

Victor pulled the sword from his leg, and before Ethan could react, he severed the other tendon in his leg with a swift blow.

SHHK.

Ethan screamed again and fell completely to the ground, unable to move his legs.

Victor then knelt in front of him, held his face by the chin, forcing him to look again.

"Where’s that arrogant Ethan Cross?" Victor asked in a low voice. "Where’s the genius? Where’s the prodigy swordsman? Where’s the guy who was going to kill me easily?"

Ethan didn’t answer.

He was trembling.

Victor moved even closer and spoke almost whispering:

"I like you better like this."

He released his face, slowly stood up, twirled the sword in his hand and took a deep breath.

"Now that’s more like it," he said. "Now it seems you understand that this... is the end of your life."

Victor stood there for a few seconds looking at Ethan on the ground, trembling, unable to move his legs, trying to drag himself along with what remained of his body. The silence in the arena was heavy, suffocating; no one spoke anymore, no one laughed anymore, no one bet anymore. Now everyone was just watching, because no one dared to look away, but at the same time no one really wanted to see what would happen next.

Victor then twirled his sword once in his hand, as if deciding where to begin.

Ethan tried to speak again, his voice faltering, his pride completely shattered.

"V-Victor... wait... I give up... I—"

The sword descended.

SHRAAAK.

The first cut came to the thigh, deep, piercing flesh and bone at once. The leg separated from the body and fell to the side, blood exploding like a dark fountain on the arena floor. Ethan screamed, a loud, desperate scream, nothing like the arrogant fighter from before. It was the scream of someone who finally understood there was no way out.

Victor didn’t stop.

Another blow.

SHRAAAK.

The second leg was torn off as well, Ethan’s body now just a violently bleeding torso, writhing on the ground, trying to crawl even though he couldn’t. The blood spread further and further, forming a huge pool around him.

His breathing was erratic, his eyes wide, full of panic.

"Please... please... stop...", he said, spitting blood, crying without realizing it.

Victor approached slowly again, stepped on his chest to stop him from moving, and then looked at his arms.

"You used this quite a bit to try and fight me," he said calmly.

He then grabbed Ethan’s right arm by the wrist.

And pulled.

It wasn’t a cut this time.

It was brute force.

The sound of the shoulder dislocating, muscles tearing, tendons bursting echoed through the arena as Victor simply ripped his arm from his body. Ethan screamed until his voice failed him, his body struggling uselessly.

The arm was thrown aside like trash.

Victor then picked up the other arm.

And did the same thing.

Another grotesque sound of tearing flesh.

Another desperate scream.

Another limb thrown to the ground.

Now Ethan was just a bleeding torso, writhing on the floor, trembling, trying to speak, but already without strength, without air, without any dignity. The prodigy of the Cross family now looked like just a piece of meat trying to stay alive.

Victor picked up one of the severed arms from the ground, grasped what remained of the forearm, and looked at Ethan.

Ethan began shaking his head in denial, even though he couldn’t speak properly.

"No... no... no...", he murmured.

Victor then shoved the arm stump into his mouth, forcing it open wider than it should. The sound of the jawbone dislocating was dry, horrible. The arm was stuck there, suffocating any attempt at a scream.

Ethan could only make muffled sounds now, his eyes wide open, tears mixed with blood streaming down his face.

Victor then looked at his chest.

And his nails began to grow.

Claws.

Long, dark, sharp.

He then plunged his claws into Ethan’s chest.

Straight down.

Sinking between the ribs.

And pulled.

The sound was one of the most horrific things anyone there had ever heard. Bones dislodging, flesh tearing, organs being displaced. Ethan writhed on the ground, making muffled sounds because his arm was jammed in his mouth, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets from pain and terror.

Victor pulled out an entire rib.

Then another.

Then another.

He opened Ethan’s chest as if opening a box, ripping out the ribs one by one, blood completely covering his arms, the ground, Ethan’s entire body.

The entire arena was in absolute silence.

Some people had already looked away.

Others were paralyzed.

Victor then looked at the bloodied ribs on the ground.

And began to move them.

The blood around them responded to his command, rising like liquid threads, connecting the ribs, molding, joining, hardening. Slowly, the ribs began to take shape.

A structure.

Two wings.

A head.

A beak.

An eagle.

An eagle made of bone and blood.

A blood eagle constructed from Ethan Cross’s ribs.

The structure was complete, and the creature spread its wings made of bloody bones, the blood moving like artificial muscles, holding everything together. The eagle stood beside Victor, motionless, like a grotesque work of art in the middle of the silent arena.

Victor then looked at what remained of Ethan, still alive, still conscious, just an open torso, without legs, without arms, with a destroyed chest.

He knelt close to his face and spoke softly:

"Now you’ve become something useful."

Victor remained kneeling for a moment before what remained of Ethan, observing that destroyed body that still trembled weakly, as if refusing to accept the end that had already arrived. The muffled sound of faltering breath escaped through his obstructed throat, his wide eyes no longer carrying arrogance or anger... only a pure, primal terror, that of someone who understands he is about to cease to exist.

The blood eagle beside Victor remained motionless, its wings spread, like a grotesque symbol of what had been done there.

Victor then reached for his sword once more.

Without haste.

Without emotion.

The blade reflected the red scattered across the arena.

Ethan tried to utter some final sound, something between a plea, a lament, or just instinct... but there was nothing more that could be done.

Victor said nothing.

The sword descended.

SHRAAAK.

Ethan’s head separated from his body in a single clean, precise blow, almost too elegant for the level of brutality that had occurred until then. The remaining body fell completely inert to the ground, finally without any movement.

Absolute silence.

No sound.

No immediate reaction.

Victor crouched down, grabbed the head by the hair, lifting it as if it were just another object. The face still carried the terror frozen in the last instant, the eyes open, empty.

He turned the body slightly.

He looked at the stands.

And then...

He kicked.

THUD.

The head flew through the air like a ball, spinning, leaving a trail of blood until it fell among the spectators. The impact made some recoil instinctively, others simply froze in place, staring at it without being able to process what they had just witnessed.

No one screamed.

No one spoke.

It was as if reality had frozen for a few seconds.

Victor remained in the center of the arena, completely covered in blood, breathing steadily, as if it had been nothing more than an exercise.

Then he raised his hand.

And waved.

A simple gesture.

Almost casual.

"Differences resolved," he said, his voice echoing through the silent arena.

A small smile appeared on his face.

"...until next time."

And then, without further ado, his body began to disintegrate.

First into particles.

Then into darkness.

And finally... a cloud of bats exploded around him, scattering through the air in a chaotic movement before disappearing completely from the scene.

The arena fell silent.