"Hahahaha!"
Faith's laughter echoed through the crumbling cathedral, wild and unhinged.
Soren's silver bullets once again tore through his chest, but this time, the wounds sealed almost instantly. Not a drop of blood was left behind.
"That's… new."
Blade, standing to the side with a grim expression. "He's regenerating faster than anything I've seen."
"The legends say the Blood God is immortal."
He turned toward Soren. "You don't understand, I've hunted vampires for years. This… this thing? It shouldn't even exist."
Soren glanced at Blade, unimpressed. "Immortal?" A faint smirk curved his lips.
"Even the cosmic gods bleed. Your Blood God is no exception."
Without another word, Soren's silver sphere spun violently in his hand, reshaping mid-air.
Under the precise command of his Psychokinesis, the metal morphed into a silver blade, then into a spear, then into a halberd, each form deadlier than the last.
The next moment~ slash!
Faith's triumphant grin twisted into a shriek of agony as the silver blade cleaved him clean in two at the waist.
His upper body crashed to the floor, writhing. But even then, he didn't fall unconscious.
Instead, a vapor of red energy, thick, pulsing with power, surged between his severed halves.
In seconds, his body reconnected.
"Rrrrgh…!" Faith snarled, his blood-red eyes blazing with hate. "You can't kill me!"
"It's that blood I gave him." Blade muttered.
"He used it as the catalyst. Along with the essence of twelve pure-bloods… he's in a limbo, not alive, not dead."
But Faith himself looked shaken. Even as he reassembled, he could feel it, each time he was torn apart, something inside him faded.
His strength, once godlike, was slipping. This power… wasn't eternal.
"Damn it…"
"How long can I hold this form?"
With a furious snarl, Faith twisted aside, dodging another silver slash by inches.
In a blur, he launched himself toward Soren, his severed left arm already regenerated mid-flight.
"You DIE FIRST!" Faith roared.
He didn't just want to kill Soren, he needed to. In the back of his jealous heart, he still remembered how Lorelai spoke of Soren.
Too fondly. It made his blood boil.
"Lorelai will be mine!" Faith screamed, his claws extending into gleaming razors. "You won't get between us again!"
He descended with monstrous speed, claws arcing toward Soren's head. The killing intent was overwhelming.
Blade's eyes widened in horror. "SOREN!"
But it was too late. There was no time to intercept.
Faith's claws slashed downward, only to halt inches from Soren's face.
A shimmering barrier of silver light hovered in the air, rippling like water. Faith's claws bounced off it with a metallic clang.
"…What?" Faith gasped.
He looked up at Faith, expression calm… with a glint of mocking amusement in his eyes.
"Oh," Soren said softly. "Were you expecting me to stand there and die?"
"Let me return the favor."
Bang!
A dull shockwave cracked through the air.
Faith didn't even see it coming.
A brutal force slammed into his lower abdomen, launching him backwards like a ragdoll caught in a storm.
He crashed through mist and debris, bones snapping audibly as his body twisted mid-air. The sound was sickening, ribs, spine, arm, all breaking in rapid succession.
"ARRRRGHH!"
Faith howled in rage and pain. His vision blurred as he tumbled through the ruins of the cathedral.
"…"
What… what just happened?
A moment ago, victory had seemed inevitable. He'd launched the killing blow!
But that man had treated it like a child's tantrum.
Faith lay crumpled against a broken pillar, wheezing.
His regeneration flickered, faltering. His eyes locked onto Soren, who now walked toward him with calm indifference.
"You thought you were fast?"
"Compared to Quicksilver, you're a snail. Compared to me… you're irrelevant."
Faith's fists trembled as he tried to push himself up. Bones popped back into place with agonizing slowness.
"Damn… you…!"
Before Faith could speak another word, Freyja's voice cut through the gloom.
"Lorelai's gone." She said, scanning the air with narrowed eyes. "I can feel her aura fading. She's getting farther by the second."
"Of course she ran." He exhaled sharply.
"She's clever, I'll give her that. The second things turned south, she didn't hesitate to slip away."
His eyes fell back on Faith.
"You were the distraction."
"A sacrificial pawn."
Faith's eyes widened for a second, just before invisible force seized him.
Crack!
Faith was suspended midair, his limbs stiff, locked by Soren's spatial grip.
Blood-red energy swirled around him weakly, his body trembling under the strain.
"You turned yourself into a 'blood god'… and for what?" Soren said coldly, stepping closer.
"You're nothing more than a test subject. And you failed."
Faith snarled, struggling violently, but he couldn't move.
The energy inside him, once immense, had begun to leak away with every injury. His pseudo-immortality was slipping.
"Tell me where Lorelai went."
"Give me that… and I might let you die with your spine intact."
Faith barked a harsh, manic laugh. "Lorelai is my queen! Do you really think I'd betray her for you?!"
"You already have." Soren said simply. "She left you behind."
"I serve her!" Faith roared, eyes wild. "I belong to her! Even if she kills me, I'll still die loving her!"
"You've already died." Soren replied.
"You just haven't stopped moving yet."
A ripple of energy surged outward as Soren raised his hand.
"Spatial Lockdown."
A tremor ran through the ground. Every shadow in the cathedral froze. Every vampire, those lurking, those trying to flee, was caught in an invisible web.
A cold wind stirred through the air, thick with the scent of blood and ozone.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Vampires across the church began to panic, clawing at invisible barriers, screaming, all to no effect.