51.

  Alan Murtaugh stood there in the middle of the bloody battlefield with his eyes locked onto Santi’s. He stared at Santi with a fixed gaze to the exclusion of everything else when he was stabbed in the gut with a machete by one of the remaining cursed. Alan looked down, puzzled at first, then lightly slapped the cursed warrior and Santi saw the string of aura connecting Alan to the raider.

  Santi leapt back into the fight, his blade a blur as he tried desperately to pin Mercy down long enough to give Duncan a chance at killing her. She was a blur of violet red, her spear and armor constantly refreshing on the battlefield as she sayed a few inches away from the edge of his blade with every jerk of her body.

  It was frustrating to say the least, Santi couldn’t catch her as the boosts from her curse and the resonance of all the cursed energy in the air enhanced her further. Santi pushed harder, straining with all his might as he wove spells around the woman to keep her pinned down.

  He looked out of the corner of his eye as Alan Murtaugh became a whirlwind of energy, aura pulsing as his wounds healed as fast as they accumulated. The people with Alan fought much more disciplined than he did. They worked in teams, discipline trumping savagery. Until the termites hit their back ranks and ran right through them.

  Daniel and Hana dropped their cloaking, double teaming a wounded higher level cursed warrior as they knifed him in the back. The termites ran through the lines, breaking apart Alan’s group's discipline as they slammed into the scrum.

  Dozens of the low-Acolyte bugs wouldn’t have been a threat to Mercy’s core group before, but now they were caught in the pincers of three factions and they began to die, faster and faster. Santi had a brief pang of guilt for Alan’s group, but he hadn’t invited them to the party.

  Mercy flew up into the air again, blasting spears of blood into the termites, each spear obliterating a bug as the battle finally tilted against her. Her warriors were falling, the last core group of mid-level Acolytes finally overwhelmed by numbers and their own wounds. But Mercy was still going, power flowing through her from the battle, not a single wound on her.

  Santi aimed a series of [Wind Blades] at her, the crescent arcs of sharp winds slashing apart the air all around her as she dodged, finally lining up perfectly to the slightly darker shadow behind her. Santi could see her eyes widen as she felt something stir behind her, then Duncan was there.

  Now that he wasn’t blinded by his own bloodlust, Santi saw that the assassin had crafted himself a second arm out of mana, dark shadow compressed into a powerful simulacrum of a limb. Its fingers melded together into a long blade, slicing apart the blood armor without pause, bursting through her shoulder in a spray of blood. His second arm pumped a skill wreathed long knife into her kidney, over and over again, his face a blank mask.

  Each of the droplets of blood landed on the ground with the force of a grenade, cursed energy blackening the air as they shot out, spraying the curse like an infection over the termites and Alan’s small team. The termites twisted and chittered in anger, deep veins instantly appearing on their milky skin as the curse reached into their depths, plunging through their carapaces and infecting them with ease.

  Santi’s breath held for a moment, stunned by the virulence of the cursed anchor. It had taken the others open wounds to infect others, but Mercy’s very blood was infection itself. The termites shuddered, writhing across the muddy earth, easy prey to blades as most died before they were completely consumed.

  Some rose though, filled with bloodlust as they began to lash out about and around themselves at their hivemates, the cursed, and Alan’s people. Insanity gripped them, their cursed rage spreading and thickening the aura all around them as the miasma above the battlefield started to slowly swirl above, clouds forming as the air became charged with energy.

  Santi turned his gaze back towards Mercy, leaping at her as she tumbled through the sky. His blade lengthened and he slashed down the length of her quad, splitting her armor apart and cutting a deep wound. Mercy screamed in rage as her undulating armor erupted in a series of spikes that lanced out and toward him.

  Santi cursed as two [Air Shields] were popped in bursts of wild air, and then they all landed in the heart of the fight as more and more of the termites came flooding in, most in the high twenties or low thirties. Santi crushed a pair of them, turning his morph into a warhammer that splattered the bugs like a flyswatter did flies.

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  Duncan landed and disappeared in the clutter again as Mercy rose up, her armor reestablished as her wounds sealed over. She slashed about herself, bolts of energy and her razor sharp spear tearing apart bugs until there was a gap around her. Santi sent a [Gust] toward her, grimacing as she formed a shield of blood around herself that blocked the powerful wind.

  One of Alan’s people entered the space. A black woman of early-middle age, holding a longsword and shield as she walked directly into the gap without fear, her blade glowing as she crossed blades with Mercy. The blast of power radiated away from the two of them as the unknown woman proceeded to show the utmost level of skill Santi had ever seen.

  She turned, her face showing as she dodged a spear strike. Santi saw her face and recognized it, his stomach plummeting as he saw the second Apostate. Then she was consumed again by her duel, her experience and skill cutting the gap of levels between her and Mercy.

  Santi felt the flow of battle change. The fear in his gut, the storm brewing above him, the shield about to fall behind him. His neck prickled and he bent at the waist as a knife flashed by where his neck had been. He spun on his heel, blade slashing out at neck height as Duncan dodged.

  The plain-faced assassin was smiling as he sent a flurry of attacks at Santi, each blow aimed at pulling Santi’s blade further and further away from his body. Santi countered by sending [Wind Blades] at the man, forcing him to bend and twist away from the attacks and away from Santi.

  “You bring her here? Couldn’t finish the job yourself?” Santi taunted, anger burning his veins, mingling with the roaring bloodlust that assaulted his iron will.

  “This is pure providence. A sign that your opposition against our lord is doomed to failure,” Duncan said with a smile. The man let his physical blade dance between his fingers as the battle began to end all around them, the last of the heavyweight cursed falling to blades and biting jaws.

  Alan was fighting a cluster of the termites off to the side, his aura so thick that it hurt to look at, as every one of his blows blew apart a termite. The other Acolyte had all of Mercy’s attention, locking her up but not overwhelming her, and Daniel and Hana on the other side of the battle, dealing with their own mix of nearly dead cursed warriors and infected bugs.

  Everyone’s attention was elsewhere, there was nobody to come to aid him.

  Santi smiled as he realized there was nobody to save Duncan. The curse surged through his veins again and it was only with the last iota of his willpower that he kept his sanity as he attacked without hesitation.

  Duncan stabbed him, the metal sliding into his guts below his ribs, but for allowing that blow, Santi got his fingers around the other man’s throat. The curse strengthened his grip, allowing him to dig into Duncan’s reinforced flesh, bypassing the man’s stronger durability as he felt the pounding beat of Duncan’s heart through his throat.

  Santi stabbed him, the two of them locked in a mortal embrace only inches from one another as Duncan panicked. Santi was grinning like a mad man, blood pumping out of him but his curse strengthened him to stay upright as the two kept stabbing. There was no skill or powers in this brutality, but just pure hatred.

  Santi never tore his eyes from Duncan’s, relishing as the man’s eyes began to widen as Santi didn’t die. The extra points to his physicality, along with the boost from the curse and his titles, kept him upright as the supremacy of stats began to show through. Duncan’s legs folded, but Santi kept him upright, still stabbing, never relenting as the murderer of hope died in his hands.

  Avatar of Shadows lvl. 64

  Duncan Glades

  Santi stared at the kill notification for a moment, almost stunned by the fact that he had killed the Apostate. He staggered back, suddenly weakened as he looked about the battlefield. The shield was down and Tank was running toward him as fast as he could as Santi’s knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

  Mercy was still standing tall as the Apostate she was fighting had several cuts leaking blood down her armor. Alan was only a few steps away from entering their private duel and he was a corona of energy from all the creatures he had killed. His first punch blew apart Mercy’s armor, the blood evaporating into a mist as the cursed anchor was thrown off her feet to roll across the field.

  It hardly dented the man’s accumulated power as he and the other Apostate crept closer to the downed cursed anchor. Santi looked up to the storm brewing above them, power swirling in a thick morass of ugly red and black energy.

  Tank’s hand landed on his shoulder and Santi could feel the healer’s power rolling through him, desperately trying to repair the damage he had taken. A potion was forced to his lips and he drank desperately. Mercy began to laugh, her hands raising up to the storm brewing above her as she was the last woman standing in her faction.

  “Thank you for this,” Mercy said as the storm began to funnel down toward her, crackling with energy as it reached down to unite her with the energy of hundreds of dead Acolytes corrupted by the power of her curse.

  “Yessi, now