I turned my attention back to the two children in front of us. While I hadn’t known them that long, I felt a strange kinship with them. Maybe it was some weird side effect of my trip inside their memories, but I felt they needed to be protected. What we were about to do, while it did feel like it would protect them in the long run, it didn’t feel that way at this moment. What if something went wrong? What if they couldn’t maintain speed for an hour?

My mind was swimming with nothing but fear and doubt. It must have been pretty visible on my face because without my noticing, Viktor had walked towards me and placed his hand on my shoulder. I shook away from my thoughts and looked up at him. He smiled, but there was worry hidden in his expression.

“I know you’re going to ask, but yes, I am fine,” I replied before he could ask.

“I figured, but you were kinda spacing out there and we need to sorta get things moving soon or we’re going to miss our opportunity. I’m pretty sure they want to be out of here as much as we do.”

I nodded and returned my attention to the barrier. I really didn’t like the idea of letting them loose, but with what was about to go down here, it was better that they weren’t here. The first thing we needed to do was find Damien and make sure of his position. My essence supply was doing pretty good, so I’d probably be able to keep up the use of my eye the entire time until we got to Damien and still have enough left to fight him.

“I’m going to find him first. Then, we can send them off and make our way to him to take him out,” I said as I turned towards Viktor.

He nodded and then turned towards the kids. “You hear that, Sage?”

She nodded and began to relay the message to Thyme who seemed to understand just fine.

With all of that sorted and out of the way, I flicked a finger over my eye and concentrated my vision on to just blood auras, making sure to block out the essence flowing off of the massive seal around us. Thankfully, or unfortunately, Damien wasn’t very far away. I pointed towards him and called back, “He’s that way. Due west around a quarter mile. Shouldn’t take us anytime at all. You ready?”

Viktor smirked as he pressed a hand to his face and I watched as his other eye lit up. “Let’s get this damn blood puppeteer.”

I gave the kids a little salute for them to head out. Without a second thought, they bolted out of the circle, blue lightning and crimson blood trailing behind them.

I was about to begin running off when I thought of something. “You know, we might want to actually go and knock out those darkness apprentices before we take out Damien. I should be able to lower the air pressure around them to knock them unconscious really easily.”

Viktor thought for a moment before responding. “That’s probably a good idea, but I can make some plants that will knock them out just as easy. I should probably do it so that you don’t waste any of your essence.”

I was going to argue, but we were already wasting enough time as is. “Fine, you can do it, but be careful. I’ll be right there backing you up if you need it.”

Not wanting to lose sight of Damien’s aura at any point during this detour, I decided to instead find the other apprentices by using life energy. I closed my eyes and focused. While I still wasn’t amazing at controlling my own life energy, sensing it was something I found came very easy. After a few seconds of searching all around us, I felt something that was very clearly a darkness energy. The life energy emitted by it was unmistakable. There was something off about it though. It felt extremely faint. It shouldn’t have been so surprising given how far away it was, but even still, I had a bad feeling about it.

Regardless, we knew where it was now. I motioned for Viktor to follow me. I took off towards the spot. Once I knew that Viktor was following right behind, I picked up the pace. Within just a few moments, we were there, but just as I had felt, something was wrong.

“Oh Sengario…” Viktor whispered as he stopped next to me.

Floating above the ground ahead of us were two dark purple soul fragments. The bodies of the apprentices had since faded, but it was clear by the surroundings that what had happened was serious. There were fallen trees and smoking ground all around us. The fragments cast an eerie light all around us. The trees in the forest were relatively well packed, so there wasn’t much moonlight here.

I made my way forward toward the fragments, kneeling down in front of them. I knew that we had to get moving. I knew these people didn’t deserve the kind of compassion I would give them, but that didn’t mean that they deserved to die to that monster.

Unsurprisingly, as I examined the ground around us further, there wasn’t a single drop of blood from either party. We had learned, through our many interactions with him that Damien kept tons of different samples of blood within a seemingly endless vial that he kept inside of his lab coat. It was disgusting to think how many people’s live might be held within that one small container.

I held my hand up to the fragments, imparting my sadness that I felt for the unfortunate circumstances that had befallen them. They deserved that much. I didn’t know if my thoughts and feelings would reach them, one could only hope that they would.

I stood up an began walking away, passing by Viktor who had taken a seat outside of the clearing of trees. My hands were shaking. Not for the apprentices who had fallen here, but for the many more innocent that had before them. I just looked at Viktor. The look in my eyes seemed to be enough and he just nodded.

He rose to his feet. As he did so, I heard an awful sound. It was almost like the roar of a wild beast, but far louder and it had a hint of human voice to it. I immediately flew to the top of the trees, scanning around for where I’d heard the sound come from.

Unsurprisingly, when I looked in that direction, I found a very familiar multi-color aura. Just as Viktor joined me on top of the trees, another bloodcurdling roar resonated throughout the entire forest, shaking the trees underneath and around us. There was a brief pause before I saw a blinding flash of red light explode from the point where Damien was. I watched as his aura surged for a moment, but just as soon as it came, it was gone and the light faded.

However, the blood from the ring around us began floating upwards in to the sky, forming a much more obvious wall around us. One thing was clear though, it was closing in. Hopefully, he would put all his energy in to us and Sage and Thyme would be fine, but I feared we wouldn’t be that lucky.

I turned to Viktor. “We have to go end this. Now.”

Without saying anything, we took off in to the forest towards him. I could feel every bit of blood pumping through my veins as I deactivated my observer’s eye. I wouldn’t need it anymore.

“Are you going to want either of us to tag in during this?” Sylak called.

“No. I have this handled.”

“Stay safe,” they replied.

I wanted to say I would, but I knew for a fact that I wouldn’t be. And they knew that too.

We were drawing nearer to Damien and I could feel the malice from him already. His aura was so powerful, I could feel it almost anywhere. It was this looming presence of anger and death. I could feel my fist tighten with every inch I moved towards him.

We finally came upon the clearing where Damien was. He was standing right in the middle of it, a cloud of blood looming around him and his eyes darting around frantically, waiting for us.

I slowed my vision as much as I could as we entered, pushing my speed to the max as I barreled towards the psychotic blood apprentice. He hadn’t noticed either of us yet and that was perfect. Even if he had, he would have only been able to slow me down. Once I was within a few feet of him, I saw him very slowly beginning to turn. At this speed, even Viktor was in slow motion. Unfortunately, maintaining my vision like this was extremely taxing even in such a short burst. I reeled my leg back and slammed it directly in to Damien’s side, my vision returning to normal with the impact.

Reality returned to its normal speed as I landed in the clearing and Damien was sent flying through several trees, destroying another section off of the clearing. I knew it wouldn’t do much, but it felt damn good to land that hit. I knew from now on, I wouldn’t be able to do that though.

I slipped my swords out from their sheaths, gripping the hilts firmly as we waited. Viktor began to form a seal on the ground, sending essence in to it for some unknown purpose at the moment. He wasn’t able to finish it though. Both our bodies went stiff as Damien emerged from the forest, his hand up, a glowing red seal in front of his palm.

Usually, I wouldn’t have gotten angry and panicked, but I knew that wouldn’t help right now. I closed my eyes and focused on the life energy surging all throughout my body. It was everywhere and right now, it was the only thing that was important.

My concentration was shattered by a shooting pain all throughout my body. It was immense and it was everywhere, especially my heart. It felt like it was about to burst. If I had been standing of my own will, I would have collapsed by now.

“I’ve had enough of this game of cat and mouse that we’ve been playing. So we’re not going to play it anymore. I had my fun, but now I’m not. You little flies have been buzzing around for far too long and now is the time to swat you for good. Now… give me your blood!” His voice seemed to change for a moment with that last line, halfway between his normal voice and a roar.

I thought I was going to pass out. I could barely focus. My vision was going blurry. Was this it? It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t allow it. I focused all my will on my left eye, forming a seal over it and watching as my vision was tugged back inside my mind. I didn’t know which of the two of them would take over, but right now, it didn’t matter.

I fell back in my green chair. Even inside my mind, the pain didn’t cease and my vision didn’t improve much. But, it did begin to get better as I saw a flash of purple in the window of vision before something streaked across it, impacting with what I could only assume to be Damien.

When my vision had cleared up enough, I realized that it was Viktor that had collided with Damien. My momentary distraction from switching bodies and the ensuing wind and lightning had given Viktor enough time to get a solid hit on Damien.

I leapt back up to my feet shouting, “Sylak! Switch back!” at the window of vision, prompting them to remove the seal on my eye.

I was sucked back in to my body. I took a moment to quickly make sure I was focusing on my life energy and had enough control to be able to keep my focus and my blood.

Damien was quickly returning to his feet, forming his seal once more and trying again to force the blood out from our bodies. Thankfully, we both had it staying in place. He scowled, dropping the seal, our bodies becoming slightly more relaxed.

“I see you’ve learned to control life energy on your own. Bravo. But if you honestly think that means you’ve beaten me… you are dead wrong!”

I heard a noise surging around us and before we knew it, the source was on top of us, a massive tidal wave of blood closing in from all sides, presumably the blood from the ring.

I dashed over to Viktor, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him in to the sky and on to the trees. “Viktor we need ground, now!”

He nodded and formed a green seal on his palm, bending the trees around us to form underneath us. He formed a massive pit underneath the clearing, causing the blood to all fall down in to it. That didn’t last too long as Damien raised his hands and surged above the trees on top of a churning spire of blood.

I charged him, rage welling up inside me. Tendrils of blood shot forth from the spire, spikes on their tips. I dodged around them, a few grazing me and drawing blood as well as tearing my clothing, but I didn’t care. I continued towards him, only now realizing I was without a weapon. Both my swords had fallen to the ground earlier and they were now currently somewhere in the massive wave of blood underneath us.

I coated my hand in wind construct magic, thrusting it towards Damien’s face as hard as I could. He smiled as my fist impacted and two spikes pierced my body through my arm and leg. Damien was once again sent flying, but I wasn’t just letting him get back up this time. I flew towards him, the adrenaline blinding me to my injuries.

I landed in the destroyed section of forest where Damien had landed. He was bleeding quite heavily from a few places. I flicked my wrist, a wind construct sword forming in my hand.

“Oh, are you going to kill me?” Damien asked as I walked towards him.

“Honestly, I don’t know what else I could possibly do to stop you at this point. And on top of that, you killed the mother of someone very close to me, so my mercy is starting to run pretty thin.”

Damien laughed, coughing up a bit of blood. “Kid, you have no idea how many people’s mothers I’ve killed. I’m more surprised than anything else. You don’t look like you have the stomach for murder.”

I rushed forward, hoisting him up by the collar of his shirt as I pressed my sword in to his throat, a small trickle of blood running down his throat. “You, personally, I don’t know if I would be okay with it, but I’m willing to find out.”

I was about to do it, but then I saw Damien’s eye shine. It was only his right eye, but it was noticeable. In that instant, his expression changed completely. From that of a cocky murderer calling my bluff to one of fear.

“Please… Help me… Stop him… Get me to… Malfuim,” he whispered before his expression returned to normal. He was scowling, as though he was annoyed at what had just happened. I wanted to continue where I’d left out, but my body wouldn’t move any further. My vision went black as I collapsed to the ground.