Severus had been gathering his strength to support Tristessa's weight and continue their escape. Toward the dark and unfamiliar path behind them, but upon hearing her say those words, he stared into her bright eyes, astonished.

"What did you say…?"

"She wants me. Save yourself," she said, feeling both her voice and her lower jaw begin to tremble. "S-save the Mercer-Archeos, they…"

"Shut your mouth, you idiot girl. I'm not leaving you in this godsforsaken sewer." An abrupt interruption from the blood elf, looking as furious as if Tristessa were a witch of the Coven, about to be executed by thaumaturgical electrocution. "Who the hell are you trying to fool with that lame attempt of martyrdom? You're so afraid of Death that you can't stop crying."

Indeed: the tears had begun to flow the moment the thought that she would die in that place had lodged itself in her mind and refused to fade away. She feared the sword the Dullahan carried, having already seen it with fresh blood staining its ethereal blade. And now it was skimming the surface of the waters as she closed the distance with them.

"You give up so quickly, without even trying to survive and save our friends?" he asked, so angry that the girl could feel his magical energy entering a state of excitement, heating the humid air around them. "Or do you want to die? Do you want that? Tell me!"

"No…"

"Then stop talking nonsense! You can only surrender when you die!"

With that, Severus pulled Tristessa off him and placed her back against the pillar. She was so weakened that she slid down in an instant, until her legs were partially covered by the water.

"W-what are you doing…?" she asked in fear, watching him stand between the two pillars and aim both his catalyst and his free hand at the Dullahan. "S-Severus…"

"We'll do things my way. If it doesn't work, then I'll die, and so will you. And if it does work, I'll let you kiss me in gratitude for saving your life." The daughter of the servants of Vel'Moran was a few feet away from him, the only obstacle between her and her target, and yet the elf still managed to joke and give Tristessa one of his charming smiles. "Just try not to fall in love with me in the meantime."

The blood elf could no longer hear Tristessa's desperate cries, imploring him not to attempt to confront the Dullahan. He had taken a small vial of phosphorescent blue liquid from one of his trousers pockets and emptied the contents in a single gulp.

"Now then... This is between you, me, and my thaumaturgy." With his magical energy recharged, Severus was glaring at the dark knightess, who had raised her sword and was pointing its tip in his direction, accepting the challenge. "Yes, forget that girl for a while and come after me. I'm handsome too, can't you see?"

The miasma of Discord had begun to emanate from the interstices of her armor. Her head was the most abundant source of darkness, which unleashed a shriek capable of driving those who heard it into madness.

"Not the singer kind of lady, aren't you?!" Severus resisted that ranged attack, bleeding from his ears nonstop. The pain radiated from within his head, but the elf was brimming with enough confidence to be intimidated. "Plasmos!"

Severus's catalyst crystal glowed the same color as his hair, and dozens of small glyphs of the same bright color appeared around his hand. Every orifice on his face began to spurt blood, which flew in snaking threads to the surrounding area of ​​the glyphs. From his already bleeding ears, from his nose, from around his eyes, from the inside of his mouth and even his opened mound on his arm. Dangerous amounts of blood formed five spheres that trapped some of the remaining light from the solar orb and glowed with eerie beauty.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Sev…" Through narrowed eyes, Tristessa realized that not a drop of blood had left her own body to cooperate with the elf. "You asshole…"

From his perspective, Severus saw that phantasm enemy as a soul reaper, a creature of the astral plane. Her cloak of darkness resisting the intensity of the glyph of light had begun to wane. The same was for the miasma of Discord emanating again from between the interstices of her armor. She was imposing, perhaps worthy of an Evil Dream event…

Now, he depended on the fury of his ancestors to prevail. His next spell would mean the difference between Life and Death.

"I don't like dancing with strange ladies… Much less ones who frighten me," Tristessa heard the elf say to the Dullahan, breathing heavily but not moving an inch from his protective position. "But I must emerge victorious in this fight if I am to save the only friends I have left in this cursed world. And if it's not too much to ask, I also want my chance to rip out the Shadow Queen's heart with my bare hands! What do you think of that, Dullahan?!"

Severus focused, running through all the calculations in his head and waving his hand, following a logical reasoning that caused a violent crimson aura to appear around his cane and beyond it, enveloping him. The air vibrated, the waters around his feet boiled, and the spheres of blood formed the points of an invisible pentagram in front of him.

Tristessa felt the hellish heat of that vengeful elf against her face, drying her eyeballs, lips, and every trace of tears that remained on her cheeks. She had to do her best to discern, amidst so much inhuman pain, those dark red spheres decomposing into lines that traced two concentric circles of elemental blood thaumaturgy, glowing with sinister intentions.

"Burn in the sea of boiling blood that my ancestors suffered!" the elf roared once he opened his eyes.

And, to complete the spell, he shouted with legendary rage:

"FIREON PLASMOSYS!"

The interior of the pentagram was filled with glyphs that supplanted the extinguished solar orb as the most powerful source of light, preventing darkness from once again dominating that reservoir. Glyphs that didn't last long on that plane of existence, their half-life short and long enough to activate the magic ring. To make it glow in a terrifying crimson, while the Dullahan raised her sword toward the ceiling and prepared to bring it down, slicing both the base of the spell and its caster in two.

Which didn't happen, as from one second to the next, the ring manifested a torrent of scorching blood that covered the dark knightess and made her scream in pain.

[Bloodflame]. Ignited, accursed blood; malevolent by nature and incompatible with Severus's luminous, [Grace]-filled soul. The rings of glyphs were a thaumaturgical flamethrower, expelling the bloodflame that devoured everything in its path. It evaporated water in an instant and melted the rock floor. And the sound of the air imploding in its path seemed like the gathering screams of tormented and furious souls, seeking to be appeased after centuries without respite.

Severus seemed to have no control over his own spell. His cane was cracking, his skin and muscles tearing from the uncontrollable, raw energy. The blood he vomited burned, without him flinching for a second, without blinking to avoid breaking eye contact.

His crimson hair glowed, absorbing the same relentless blood he expelled as his soul was squeezed to its very last, thanks to that demonstration of thaumaturgy he was unprepared to perform without near-fatal consequences.

Finally, the ring of glyphs went out and vanished in a burst of particles, just like the blood flames.

"Ah...uh..." Severus breathed, tired to the extreme, his right arm completely charred by the heat, covered in blisters, dead skin, and exposed flesh. Even his cane did not resist, falling to the floor broken into several pieces.

The floor of the cistern was incinerated, emitting phosphorescent radiation from the extreme heat to which it had been subjected, and little by little the surrounding waters were finding their way into that rustic depression.

Nothing would have survived such a magical attack... With one exception.

"It can't be... Are you serious?" Tristessa heard Severus whisper in between coughing blood clots, and she had to open her parched eyes almost completely again. Now, there was nothing to do but give in to despair. "Dammit..."

Her dark steel armor was intact but emitting a faint glow from the high temperatures. Once again, a veil of darkness and Discord manifested around her, declaring her the dominating force in the underground.

The Dullahan was still standing.

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