Air whizzed as Lidien streamed, sprinting and skidding amidst the bloodied floor... slashing whips of blood at the Matriarch--splattering it, not slicing it--in between dodging the hair-like tentacles now slowly thickening like fingers.

The destroyed flesh and organs that had scattered from Lidien's Blood Explosion slowly assembled back onto the Matriarch, forming her once again into her gigantic form.

"Old man! No matter what I do, I can't solidify the blood to form a weapon!" Lidien shouted over the onslaught of tentacles while deflecting most of them with blood control.

Then, instead of an answer, he heard the Monarch of Blood laugh in his mind.

'The Path of Blood only needs to learn a few things. To control one's own blood and that of others... and with it, you need to make your own ability to ascend toward becoming an Angel.'

Lidien flooded the blood he controlled with his verve, not to sharpen it, but to command it. He pulled, not with physical strength, but with pure will, squeezing the fluid inside her form until flesh tore under the pressure.

A chunk of her tentacle, mangled from the inside out, was ripped free with a wet tear, but the gap was already closing.

"If I can't cut it, then I'll rip it all!"

Yet, the pain in his mind remained from abusing the usage of his Incite of Blood and Blood Form, now that he had black-red wings that still needed to be properly used as one of his limbs, added to his non-stop thinking.

For a few minutes of dodging and thumping, Lidien even sacrificed his own limbs just to remove the tentacles that hit him, and regenerated them back again as if they had never been cut off.

Their fight was a cycle: Lidien would rip a part of the Matriarch, splashing blood everywhere... then the Matriarch would feed on Lidien's sacrificed parts to regenerate herself... while Lidien would regenerate using the blood that had splashed.

Then it paused when Lidien leaped back, panting as he screamed, pulling his own hair to alleviate the headache and nausea he was feeling while steadily watching the Matriarch's next move...

His consumption and usage of verve, activating every arsenal he had, took a toll on his body, yet he didn't dare to deactivate the Blood Form and the Incite of Blood.

"Damn it... is her Verve unlimited the same as mine!? That is impossible!"

Lidien took a small quantity of blood and splashed it towards the Matriarch, exploding it like sprinkling salt and pepper.

And amidst the agonizing pain and heavy burden, he smiled when he saw it. The wound didn't seal instantly. For a single, glorious heartbeat, the torn flesh remained open before sluggishly knitting together.

Gritting his teeth, Lidien lowered himself. With the help of his blood regeneration, he made his own claws as long as if they were daggers.

Thump!

As time seemed to slow down, his Incite of Blood exceeded its limit, the world resolving into a grid of trajectories and pressures, each one a potential death he had to calculate around. The mental pain was the price.

He rushed towards the Matriarch, his eyes zigzagging... dodging every tentacle with just a hair's breadth away from his face and body, and if it was impossible, he used a drop of blood to divert and deflect the attack with a focus that could make someone's head explode from too much information flooding his mind.

Despite the agonizing pain, Lidien had eased his mind, accepting the strain rather than fighting it.

Then...

This fragile peace was shattered as the Matriarch shrieked... as hundreds of faces simultaneously screamed, reverberating inside the Dark Wolf Palace. Sending Lidien flying towards the sturdy wooden wall, bouncing him off with splintered woods.

He coughed up blood, retching from the pain...

It took him ages to properly hear the muffled sounds when his own blood that seeped out of his ear healed his hearing.

Lidien watched the Matriarch writhe abnormally, his eyes were losing focus... he wasn't even sure if his plan was working to the Matriarch.

But he knew the end was near, and he just needed to push himself again to the limits.

Yet, his body was so weak he couldn't move. Even activating back to his Blood Form and using the Incite of Blood seemed too taxing for him.

'She's losing herself, child. It's either she becomes something we cannot stop... or something that will die on the spot.'

Lidien smiled faintly, hardly sitting against the wooden wall, watching the Matriarch wiggle and writhe uncontrollably.

"Master!"

Alva broke through the wooden wall and, with the help of his thousands of soldiers, they threw the corpses of the Dark Wolf Clan near the Matriarch.

Some of the soldiers accidentally died from the tentacles that writhed and wiggled non-stop, but the corpses of the beastfolk and slaves who had died alike were being fed to the Matriarch.

Now, with the help of Alva... Lidien fully healed, but his fatigue didn't... especially the strain in his mind and very being.

"Idiot Matriarch... even I couldn't control one memory from the Echoes of the Flesh without flinching, how much more absorbing thousands of it."

Lidien, with the help of his Whisper of Souls, saw the dead bodies ghost screaming and wailing, rotating towards the Matriarch, as if it was a curse of existence upon the abomination she had become.

Then, he raised his hands...

as his Coreflux flooded his body with Elemental Verve concentrating towards his right arm aimed at the Matriarch.

With his meditation technique and mantra, Lidien continuously flooded his right arm, making his Sparkline glow bright red and blue, contrasting every element he knew.

Then...

Boom!

A blinding and searing light erupted from Lidien's arm, destroying it in the process along with his other arm till his shoulder from the great force it took.

He sacrificed his own arms and exploded his sparkline to imitate the released power from his finger he accidentally made during his travel.

As the blinding white light slowly dimmed, Lidien laughed when he saw the Matriarch's upper half of the body destroyed, and stopped moving like a tree trunk.

He used the blood scattered around to regenerate both his arms and weakly walked towards the Matriarch, with the help of Alva...

and controlled its blood to explode it from within, deleting the Matriarch's existence along with the thousands of corpses who joined her in the afterlife.

Yet, the ghosts didn't stop from crying and wailing...

Activating his Absorption Vortex, the very air grew cold and still as a faint, swirling darkness bloomed before him. He smirked.

"Come, because I am the Afterlife."

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