Dragon Gods Reign

[Above the battlefield]

Coming to a stop and hovering a few meters away from Lucius, Darganth waited for the vampire lord's reaction.

“I hadn't expected the troublemakers to show themselves here, but that's my luck.” The former said after scanning Darganth for a few seconds.

“Really? Because as good of a fight I expect you to be, it shouldn't be as difficult as it would have been a few weeks ago.” Darganth replied, ignoring the veiled insult in the form of Lucius's disregard for him.

“Ah, mortal hubris. You should already be honored by getting to fight me personally so don't even entertain the notion that you could win.”

Initially raising an eyebrow at the stuck-up behavior, Darganth suddenly started smiling. Lifting his arm and pointing to his right in a quick motion, he shot a silvery beam toward his right.

A moment later a partial sphere of blood emerged from what seemed like empty air and blocked said beam, shortly followed by Lucius emerging behind it. The Lucius with who Darganth had previously conversed dissolved a moment later, turning into a stream of blood that flowed back to the real one.

“How did you know?” Lucius asked, annoyed that his planned ambush was foiled.

“How couldn't I? As good as that clone of yours was, letting it act this arrogantly made me suspicious. No vampire that acts like that would live long, not to mention rising to become the leader of his kind.”

“Till now it worked.” Lucius said with a sigh of resignation.

Chuckling at this answer, Darganth shook his head in disappointment.

“Then you better stop treating me like those fools you normally come into contact with. Because thinking that those blessings of your creators would distract me is a mistake. And not just me, anyone who knows enough about gods would know that they rarely give out blessings without reason, then it is just a question of guessing what the reason was in your case.”

Darganth's words momentarily surprised Lucius. Though this was quickly overshadowed by the anger they caused in him.

Snarling at Darganth, he was met with an amused chuckle from the former.

“Oh, are you annoyed by the reminder of what your kind truly is?” Darganth asked in a mocking tone.

“Watch your mouth mortal or I will tear out your throat and make you.” Lucius threatened.

“A mere glorified monster that looks like a vampire? I don't think so.” Darganth answered, pausing for a moment before adding, “And don't think that throwing around the word mortal somehow elevates your existence. All it does is show you lack of knowledge regarding my true nature.”

His words caused Lucius to finally fall into a full-blown rage. Launching off of the blood disc he was standing on, he advanced toward Darganth with a snarl. Forming multiple such platforms along the way, he closed the distance as fast as he could.

Laughing lightly at the success of his provocations, Darganth flared up his aura and punched out toward the approaching Lucius.

Dodging out of the way of the resulting fireball that came flying at him, Lucius nonetheless managed to quickly close the distance. Bringing down his right hand with only brute force, his strike was blocked when Darganth brought up his left arm so that their wrists collided.

Surprised by the fact that his strike was blocked, Lucius realized that he still had underestimated Darganth. Nonetheless mounting a short attempt to push through but finding their strength to be evenly matched, he stopped and hastily retreated back a few meters.

But right as he did this, Darganth made a twisting motion with his wrist that caused the space around the two to warp. This led to Lucius missing his intended destination and instead moving a few meters to his left.

Having known this beforehand, Darganth was already dashing there. Thrusting his arm forward, it became covered in searing flames right before it reached Lucius.

But despite being caught by surprise, the latter managed to react to this thanks to his superior speed. Twisting to the side and letting the strike pass by him, he didn't hesitate and managed to land a punch to Darganth's chest.

This forced Darganth to retreat before Lucius could capitalize on his momentum, something he did by teleporting a few meters.

As soon as he arrived at his target, he made a crushing motion with his fist and caused the space near Lucius to implode. Before he even confirmed whether Lucius was caught by this, Darganth's other arm shot forward and let loose a wide stream of flames.

Only keeping this up for a few seconds, Darganth lowered his arm. Slightly winded from the exchange, he looked on as a blood cocoon emerged from the fading flames.

With it splitting open to reveal an unharmed Lucius, Darganth got ready for the second round.

“Hoo, that was closer than expected.” Lucius commented with an over-dramatic sigh.

Rolling his eyes in response, Darganth didn't let down his guard due to his carefree attitude.

“Not that it matters, soon this will be over.”

Closing his right hand into a fist and placing it before his chest, Lucius's presence became far more overbearing as rivers of blood emerged from his arm and coalesced into a thin sword in his hand.

Reopening his eyes, he held the weapon vertically before him for a few seconds before bringing it to his side in an overblown circular motion. With one hand behind his back and the weapon outstretched towards his right, he looked at Darganth with arrogance.

In response, Darganth stretched out his arm to the right before calling on his connection to the void.

Within the second, the sky above him quickly darkened as the swirl of space and time energies congregated into the portal towards it.

Its appearance prompted Lucius to look up with a fearful look, one that only sank further as Darganth's spear shout out of the portal. Smoothly landing in its owner's hand, his presence also shot up.

Letting his gaze rest on Darganth's unmoving form, Lucius took a few seconds before he realized that the void was helping the former recover his mana.

Forced into action by this, Lucius rushed towards Darganth. Slicing through the air with his sword and sending a slash of blood ahead of him, he followed closely behind it.

In response, Darganth calmly took a stance with his spear and waited for just the right moment. Just before the slash came into his range, he shot forward with his spear ahead of him.

Clad in red energy, his dash ripped apart the blood slash and he continued on towards Lucius near unimpeded.

Shocked by the speed and power of this, the vampire lord's reaction was delayed by a short moment. Thus, despite him bringing up his sword in an effort to block Darganth's thrust, the spear lodged itself into his shoulder.

Before Lucius could recover from the sudden impact on his shoulder, Darganth ripped out the spear and brought it around for a wide slash.

Putting as much force behind it as he could, Darganth's strike was met with Lucius's blood blade. But contrary to their earlier clashes, this time Darganth quickly started to overwhelm his opponent in their contest of strength.

As soon as Lucius noticed that, he hastily broke the contact and retreated.

Following after him, Darganth smiled wildly as he fell into a rhythm of strikes that continuously pushed Lucius back.

“Haha, where did your confidence go?” He asked amidst his wild laughter.

Grimacing, Lucius kept silent as he defended against the onslaught. With Darganth's strikes carrying a far greater strength than he had, they regularly forced him off balance.

Occasionally he would try to relieve some of the pressure by counterattacking with his blood control, but Darganth could often simply shrug off these weak attacks. Even when Lucius would manage to form a stronger one, these would just be met with different elemental shields.

Over the minutes Lucius was slowly getting desperate, until he was pushed far enough to take a monumental risk.

Moving his sword out of the way of Darganth's next strike, he gritted his teeth as the spear tore through his abdomen. At the same time, he jumped back in the hopes of creating some distance.

When Darganth noticed this he frowned and attempted to change the direction of his attack. And while he managed to push the tip of the spear a bit deeper and angle it further up, the effect on the wound he caused Lucius was marginal.

Not giving up despite this, he already started gathering mana at the tip of the spear during his swing. Stopping its momentum as soon as he could, he thrust the spear forward and sent out a beam of bluish-white energy at Lucius.

Having seemingly expected this, the vampire was already prepared to switch direction during his retreat. Doing so on the second blood disc he jumped off from, he directly went back to a straight path.

Ending his fly spell, Darganth used space itself as a platform for his feet to land on. Pressing off it, he rushed after Lucius.

Augmenting his speed with air aura and a time acceleration, he pushed off one ethereal platform after another.

But despite these efforts, Lucius quickly started increasing the distance between them. As a result, Darganth soon realized the futility of this chase, prompting him to come to an abrupt stop.

When Lucius noticed this, he started grinning. Continuing for two more jumps, he came to a stop a bit over a hundred meters away from Darganth.

Carefully eying each other, both were hesitant to directly restart the fight. Instead, they used the opportunity to get a better gauge of the other's current strength.

This lull continued for a minute or so, at which point Lucius dashed forward. Forming his steps ahead of time, he moved far faster than before and reached Darganth in the blink of an eye.

Bringing down his sword, Lucius interrupted his attack and jumped back when Darganth lifted his spear to block. Instead of rushing past him on the left, he started moving circles around Darganth.

Having formed a half-sphere with only a hole below Darganth, Lucius could now move freely in the immediate vicinity.

So instead of confronting Darganth directly, he took advantage of his greater speed to constantly strike the formers blind spots. And though this initially didn't show any results as the blunt side of Darganth's spear was equally as good to block, Lucius didn't stop.

Slowly getting increasingly annoyed by this, Darganth growled slightly. Pushing away the blood sword for who knows how often, he tried to find a pattern in the attacks.

But when after a few minutes of this his annoyance reached the breaking point, he acted direct and decisively. Striking away Lucius's swing, he spun around as he struck out with the flat side of his spear.

Landing a hit on the vampire lord's arm, he tried to use his opponent's broken balance to get a full swing with his spear in. But to his surprise, Lucius simply dissolved into a mass of blood that quickly dripped down, only to reemerge out of the blood bowl right behind him.

Acting on instinct, Darganth didn't turn back around and instead moved forward.

Nonetheless feeling the blood blade cutting across his back, he knew that this was the right choice.

Ignoring this, he quickly spun around only to see Lucius having closed the gap enough that his spear was too long to be used effectively.

Rethinking, Darganth deflected Lucius's follow-up strike and struck him with the shaft of the spear. Drawing it back in an attempt to let the blade run across the vampire's skin, he was forced to stop and sidestep as Lucius tried to drive his sword through his heart.

Frowning as it still managed to pierce through his sides, Darganth swung his spear in retaliation only for Lucius to duck out of its way. In the same motion, he also performed another attack with his sword, drawing a bloody line across Darganth's upper arm.

Lashing out in response, Darganth swung his backhand at the vampire lord. Seeing Lucius rush in right after, Darganth finally snapped.

“ENOUGH!” He roared.

Along with this, a shock wave exploded out from him, pushing Lucius back and causing momentary ripples across the sphere of blood.

Using the moment while Lucius was stunned by the sudden impact, Darganth returned to his true form. Growing larger until he reached his full size, he barely continued to fit into the blood arena.

Though this wouldn't matter much longer anyway, as when his transformation finished, Darganth's presence alone was heavy enough to cause physical damage. Unfurling it to its fullest with a roar, it shattered Lucius's blood constructs as it spread out.

With the arena and the discs both destroyed, the vampire lord started helplessly plummeting to the ground. Following his fall, Darganth saw that he would land close to where Alicia, Jennia, and Allaire were currently fighting against the seats and some other high order individuals, prompting him to also dive down.