{Ability — Mosquito Bite: Activated}

A brilliant red beam erupted from Akhil. His hair shot upward, eyes blazing crimson.

His body bleached white, black markings spreading across his skin. Two thin wings unfurled from his back as his eyes turned pitch black, and two short antennae emerged from his forehead. He had assumed his true form—the prime Genus.

Blood coalesced in the air, forming a thick array that pulsed with suffocating pressure. Tendrils writhed from the formation, moving with eerie intelligence, as if something lurked within.

The shift was immediate. A subtle yet deadly presence filled the field, an aura so intense it raised the hair on everyone's skin.

Akhil stood atop the array, eyes dark and empty, positioned between the two titans.

The spectators watched in stunned silence—but only for a moment. Langdon's cannon split open with a mechanical whir.

"Just die already," Langdon hissed.

A devastating energy beam tore through the air toward Akhil, so powerful it made the atmosphere tremble.

The onlookers held their breath, frozen in terror. That beam—the same attack that had slaughtered countless adventurers—was about to connect.

But it never did.

The energy blast disintegrated mere feet from Akhil, unraveling like thread pulled from a tapestry. The blood array beneath him pulsed with hunger, tendrils reaching up to devour the incoming energy, absorbing it completely.

Gasps rippled through the crowd as understanding dawned. The array wasn't just defensive—it was feeding. Consuming everything that touched it.

Langdon's eyes widened, his confident sneer faltering for the first time. The cannon hummed, charging for another shot, but hesitation flickered across his face.

Akhil remained motionless atop the array, his black eyes fixed on the titan before him. The tendrils writhed more aggressively now, as if awakened by their first taste of power.

The suffocating pressure intensified, spreading outward in waves. Several spectators stumbled backward, instinctively retreating from the oppressive aura.

"What... what is that thing?" someone whispered from the crowd, Akhil looked like a God that descended from the heavens.

The Titan of Wrath didn't hesitate.

The moment it saw Langdon's attack dissolve into nothingness, something primal ignited within it. The glowing patterns etched across its massive body flared violently, pulsing with furious energy. Its muscles coiled and bulged grotesquely as power surged through its limbs.

Then it moved.

In a booming blur, the Titan tore forward at a terrifying speed, its immense size doing nothing to diminish its velocity. The patterns blazed like molten veins carved by divine fire, feeding power directly into its momentum. The ground cracked and splintered beneath each thunderous step.

The air itself seemed to scream as the creature closed the distance in less than a heartbeat.

Its red eyes burned with all-consuming rage, locked onto Akhil with murderous intent. The Titan's fist drew back, muscles tightening like coiled springs. The patterns across its arm intensified, blazing with unbearable heat as energy concentrated into a single devastating point.

Like an arrow loosed from a god's bow, its fist shot forward.

The air stilled for a fraction of a second before detonating violently. Heat and raw power erupted outward in a destructive shockwave as the punch tore straight toward Akhil's head, promising absolute annihilation.

But the moment the Titan crossed into the array's domain, everything changed.

The blood tendrils exploded into motion.

They struck with the speed and precision of vipers, dozens of them lashing out simultaneously. They wrapped around the Titan's arm mid-punch, coiling tight around its legs, its torso, its throat—binding the massive creature in an instant.

The Titan's roar of rage transformed into one of shock.

Before it could react, the tendrils yanked violently downward. The creature's immense body was slammed into the ground with bone-shattering force. The impact sent tremors rippling across the battlefield, cracks spider-webbing outward from where the Titan crashed.

The audience gasped in collective horror.

The tendrils didn't stop. They lifted the Titan's massive form effortlessly and slammed it down again. And again. Each impact more brutal than the last, the sound of cracking bone and splitting earth echoing across the field like thunder.

Blood sprayed across the scorched ground.

Then the tendrils began to pierce.

Sharp tips hardened like spears, punching through the Titan's thick hide with sickening ease. The creature's skin—which had withstood countless blows in battle—tore like parchment. Blood gushed from dozens of puncture wounds as the tendrils burrowed deeper, seeking what lay beneath.

The Titan thrashed desperately, its immense strength suddenly meaningless against the array's merciless grip. Its roars grew weaker, more frantic, as the glowing patterns across its body flickered and died.

The tendrils weren't just draining its energy—they were drinking its blood.

The crimson liquid flowed through the tendrils like water through roots, drawn toward the array with terrible efficiency. The Titan's struggles grew sluggish, its movements losing coordination as its lifeforce was systematically extracted.

Someone in the crowd retched. Others turned away, unable to watch.

The Titan tried one last time to tear free, summoning every remaining ounce of will. Its muscles bulged, veins standing out starkly against pale skin that was growing paler by the second. But the tendrils only tightened, constricting like constrictors around prey.

With a final, desperate lunge, the creature managed to wrench itself partially free. It crawled—actually crawled—away from Akhil, dragging its massive body across the ground in a pathetic attempt at escape.

It made it three feet before its legs gave out completely.

The energy that had powered its devastating speed, its overwhelming strength, was gone. The blood that had fueled its rage had been drained almost entirely. The Titan collapsed face-first into the scorched earth, chest heaving with shallow, labored breaths.

Its body trembled once. Twice.

Then went still.

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the wind seemed afraid to make a sound.

Akhil stood motionless atop the array, his black eyes empty and cold as he gazed down at the fallen titan. Blood dripped slowly from the tendrils, pattering softly against the ground.

Then he felt it—a notification flickering at the edge of his consciousness.

{Blood Essence: Depleted}

{Warning: Insufficient Blood Essence to maintain body activity}

His vision blurred for a moment. The world tilted slightly as exhaustion crashed over him like a wave. His body felt impossibly heavy, as though gravity had suddenly doubled.

'No. Not yet.'

He couldn't absorb blood in his current state—the transformation prevented it. The arrays beneath him pulsed weakly, their glow dimming as they began to destabilize without the energy needed to sustain them.

'I have to last long enough to deal with the two of them,' Akhil thought, gritting his teeth against the crushing weight pressing down on his consciousness.

Even the prime Genus form couldn't save him from his current predicament. He could only maintain it for so long, but that wasn't the only problem.

The arrays were the real issue. He had to remain conscious to control them, to keep them stable and contained. If he lost consciousness now, they would spiral out of control, consuming everything indiscriminately—friend and foe alike.

His black eyes fixed on Langdon, who had taken an involuntary step backward, his confident sneer completely gone. The cannon trembled slightly in his grip.

Akhil's gaze flickered downward to the blood array beneath him, and for the briefest moment—just a fraction of a second—he caught sight of something else.

The blood monarch.

It appeared within the array's depths, its form writhing in the shadows between the tendrils. Those eyes—ancient, hungry, patient—locked onto his.

Then it vanished.

But the message was clear.

A cold dread settled into Akhil's chest, cutting through even the exhaustion. His jaw tightened, resolve hardening despite the heaviness dragging at his eyelids.

'I have to end this. Now.'

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.