Arlott took his stance and moved.

**Silford Sword Craft: First Form — Flashstep Slash.**

Wind element burst through his legs; he closed the distance in an instant, the cut fast and precise.

Veth met it; the blood gauntlet caught the blade with a sharp metallic ring and he answered immediately, driving his armored fist straight at Arlott’s chest.

Arlott stepped aside, redirected the momentum and came back with a horizontal slash.

Veth ducked under it.

They separated.

Both of them landing several feet apart; neither had given anything meaningful away.

Veth rolled his neck slowly.

"Let me show you the vampire’s secret art," he said pleasantly. He raised one hand.

The blood rose.

Not his own; Arlott’s eyes moved across the battlefield immediately and something in his chest tightened. The blood of the fallen monsters scattered across the entire field, hundreds of bodies worth, droplets peeling off the ground and lifting into the air like gravity had quietly changed its mind.

’If he can manipulate blood...’

The implications weren’t good.

Every wound on every fighter around them was suddenly a vulnerability.

The droplets twisted and compressed mid air; sharpening into dozens of blood red spikes that hung suspended for exactly one second.

Then launched.

Arlott moved.

He cut through the first cluster, flame along the blade vaporizing what the edge didn’t catch. Stepped left, let three pass his ear, rolled under the next wave, came up already slashing.

Two caught his forearm; his mana barrier absorbed them but he felt the force behind them regardless.

They kept coming.

Relentless; adjusting, following every movement like they had eyes of their own, because they did, Veth’s eyes, reading every dodge and feeding the next volley into the gap before Arlott had finished clearing the last one.

He retreated, still cutting, still blocking, the ground around him cratering with impact points of spikes that had missed by a fraction.

’He hasn’t moved once,’ Arlott realized.

Veth stood exactly where he’d landed, one hand raised, watching with that same amused expression; like this was a performance he’d already seen the ending of.

’This is a problem,’ Arlott thought grimly.

He needed to get close.

Arlott reset his footing and moved.

**Silford Sword Craft: First Form — Flashstep Slash.**

Wind element burst through his legs; he closed the distance before the blood spikes could adjust to the sudden shift in direction. Veth’s eyes widened slightly; the first genuine reaction he’d shown since the fight started.

He raised his arm to block.

Too slow.

**Silford Sword Craft: Second Form — Piercing Fang.**

Wind element compressed into the tip of the blade; it punched clean through the blood gauntlet without slowing.

Veth’s arm came off at the shoulder.

Arlott retreated immediately, putting distance between them.

Something was wrong.

Veth wasn’t screaming; wasn’t staggering, he wasn’t doing anything a person does when they’ve just lost an arm.

[A/N: Well he’s not human]

He looked down at the stump with the detached curiosity of someone examining something mildly interesting on the ground.

Then the blood moved.

Every droplet in the surrounding area pulled inward toward the wound simultaneously; the spikes still hanging mid air, the blood soaking into the earth, all of it gathering and compressing around the stump.

Flesh followed.

Slowly, unmistakably, a new arm grew.

’Regeneration.’

Arlott stared at it.

He wouldn’t get anywhere with conventional damage; every opening he created would close before he could exploit it. The math wasn’t in his favor and Veth’s expression said he knew it too.

Veth flexed his new fingers.

Looked up.

"I suppose I should return your greeting properly," he said. "Don’t you think?"

He grinned.

The blood rose again; more of it this time, pulling from further across the entire battlefield, the sheer volume of it considerably larger than the first wave. It organized faster too, spikes forming and launching before they’d fully solidified.

More speed. More volume.

Arlott moved on instinct; his sword trailing wind and flame as he cut through clusters mid air, the fire vaporizing what the edge caught, the wind element in his footwork keeping him moving faster than the spikes could properly track.

He worked his way back toward close range.

Found his opening.

Set his feet.

Took his stance.

Before he could execute, a concentrated blood blast fired directly at him; too fast and too close.

He got his sword up.

The blast shattered against the blade; flame along the steel evaporating most of it, but blood splattered across his left arm in a wide spray.

He felt it immediately.

His jaw tightened.

"Blood Bomb."

Veth said it almost casually.

The blood on Arlott’s left arm glowed red.

Then it detonated.

It was small; the first one. Arlott’s mana barrier absorbed most of it, his body reinforced, his footing held.

Veth’s grin widened.

"Blood Bomb."

Boom.

"Blood Bomb."

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Each one hit harder than the last; not because they were getting stronger but because his barrier was getting weaker, each detonation chipping away at the mana reinforcing his body, each one landing closer to something that mattered.

Arlott gritted his teeth and held his ground.

He was human.

That was the simple ugly truth of it; he could reinforce his body with mana, could push past limits that would break lesser men, could fight at a level that made most of the continent look at him with something close to reverence.

But he couldn’t regenerate.

The last detonation took his left arm with it.

Not cleanly; it still hung there, attached, but the bones had shattered completely, the muscles torn beyond anything mana reinforcement could stabilize in the middle of a fight. It swung uselessly at his side, a dead weight.

He dropped to one knee.

Stayed there for a moment; breathing, calculating, staring at the ground in front of him.

He had lost.

He knew it. Veth knew it.

Veth’s laughter rang out across the battlefield; loud, unrestrained, the particular kind of laughter that comes from someone who has thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Afterall, he did enjoyed himself.

"Hahaha!" He looked down at Arlott with something between amusement and contempt. "Humans really are weak."