The land around Felix and Lionel started to rumble. The Vampire began to step backward, cautious about whatever Astral Technique the human had just unleashed.

  However, behind him, two chains shot up, causing him to halt. More chains shot up until sixteen of the metal objects surrounded the two enemies in a circle. They reached up at least forty feet into the air. They intertwined at a single point in the centre of the air—electrical-like energy beams crackled between the gaps separating the chains, effectively preventing any form of escape.

  “Ahahahaha! So this is an Astral Technique!”

  Lionel stuck his arms out, gesturing to his newly awakened creation with a wicked and unhinged look on his face. His fingers twitched with barely contained excitement.

  “Maybe I should thank you, subhuman! Never have I felt the desire to put in so much effort to crush someone! This…this will be the start of my rise to the top! It's never too late to start after all!”

  “He’s drunk on his newfound power, gotta find the opening in this ability and take him down.”

  Felix was taken aback when yet another chain shot out from the ground, fast enough that he couldn't react to it! It collided with his knee, knocking the leg out from beneath him!

  Yet another came out from the earth, slapping his face in a whipping motion! He fell to his back before rolling up onto his feet. A light bruise was already beginning to swell on his cheek.

  His eyes fell to Lionel; the man’s weapons were still wrapped around his torso from when they snapped his bones back into place. There were two of them emerging from the ground, doing so, and they were clearly still anchoring his ability to stand to some degree.

  “He's only used two up until this point, but now he's maintaining twenty at once! Is the technique multiplying them down there?”

  Felix bobbed away from the two free chains which assailed him earlier, only for two more to emerge and ram him in the stomach!

  He coughed up blood as he was launched into the space between the chains maintaining the cage-like structure! The instant his back hit the energy barrier, he felt the shock of what resembled thousands of volts coursing through his body!

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Felix’s pained scream was met with a cackle from Lionel, who could barely contain the mad grin on his face.

  He commanded the chains to pull back, leaving Felix to stumble forward sluggishly. Then the human snapped his fingers, and the earlier set of iron objects pushed the Vampire into the energy once again!

  Lionel repeated this several times, giving Felix a break from the shocking pain before shoving him into it once more, until instead of stumbling away, he fell face down to the ground. Smoke emerged from the young man's form as he desperately tried to push himself up with his non-sword hand.

  “You will be a mere footnote in the soon-to-be renewed legacy of Lionel Dubois, all those new generation brats like Callum will finally respect…no…fear me! I'll kill hundreds of your kind every night! I'll be an Inquisitor! Even Biggs will have no choice but to acknowledge my greatness!”

  “You really are delusional…”

  “What?”

  Felix forced himself onto his feet, chest heaving with exertion. His coat still crackled with the energy which had run through his being, the Nethermorphic Fabric mitigating, but not removing some of the damage.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “If you think one Astral Technique will make up for your lack of work ethic, your cowardice, your uncreative mind, you have another thing coming to you.”

  Lionel gnashed his teeth.

  “What the fuck are you on about?! Has the beating damaged your brain that badly?”

  “See? You still haven't taken to heart what happened last time you uttered similar words. Last time I broke your back, this time I'll break your cage!”

  Felix flung the Fang forward, sailing perfectly between the four sets of metal that had been assaulting him up until a while ago!

  Lionel gasped before bringing up four new chains from the ground, which intercepted the sword by forming a metallic wall in front of him, the blade falling onto the ground harmlessly after the brief clash.

  “I'm delusional? Only a true fool would toss his- what?!”

  Lionel looked around desperately after his protective metal wall vacated the space in front of him. The Vampire had somehow disappeared completely from sight while his vision was obscured!

  “Impossible! There is no way to escape this bird cage, so how?”

  Lionel’s eyes finally noticed a positively tiny figure scampering towards him. It dawned on him what was occurring, and with a flustered scream, he sent a full barrage of eight chains at the rat racing towards him!

  Vampires had an innate ability to briefly transform into any human world creature from which they had drained blood. Traditionally, this was considered useless for battle's sake, but Felix’s unique combat tactics would use every advantage he could muster, no matter how small.

  “He’s only used those chains as blunt weapons since he activated his Astral Technique, which must mean he can only use his primary chains, which are wrapped around himself now to ensnare things; all these others don’t have the flexibility to do that!”

  Felix, in his rat form, dodged and weaved through each chain, which struggled to connect with such a small target. His destination was clear, the rodent jumping over one last desperate whipping chain and reverting to his humanoid form!

  Felix swept his sword back up from the ground and made a horizontal slash toward a slack-jawed Lionel!

  The sound of metal on metal rang out.

  Felix’s heart sank; one of the chains around Lionel's upper body had unwrapped itself and intercepted his attack, which he had given his all for. The human visibly struggled to remain upright with only one crutch to support him, but he let out a weak laugh.

  With a gesture of his finger, more metal bludgeons emerged and sent Felix skyward! Pushing him higher and higher until he rammed into the very top of the bird cage!

  Felix’s consciousness dimmed, his eyes closing, and he felt himself falling. Around him, every single chain Lionel had summoned began to converge on him from all sides for a last blow. This was it; he had nothing left to give.

  “Don't forget who's counting on you.”

  A voice unlike any Felix was familiar with rang out in his mind, and he felt a surge of energy greater than any he had before in his life. His mother, Emily, and Leo’s faces flashed in his mind, as did Mason’s, who had rescued him from danger and would currently be hoping for him to do the same.

  His eyes shot wide open.

  With supernatural grace, he avoided the nearest incoming attack and gripped the chain from beneath, flipping himself up onto the top of it and beginning to sprint down its length. Countless chains whizzed by his body, each of which he avoided by the skin of his teeth.

  Felix couldn't believe what he was doing; it was like his body was moving on perfect autopilot, every motion an instinctive reaction to the flurry of attacks raining down on him.

  It was during this that he pricked his own finger upon his sword, spreading his blood across both ends of The Fang. He couldn't say why he did so, only that it felt like his hand was guided by another into acting.

  “Astral Technique: Crimson Chainsaw!”

  The blood coagulated into serrated, tooth-like blades, which whirred rapidly and began rotating magically between both ends of the sword through the hilt.

  Felix swung his newly empowered weapon through a series of chains, cutting through them like they were made of paper! He continued descending downward, hopping between and cutting apart chains as necessary, while reapproaching the source of it all.

  “NO! I WON’T LET YOU! NOT WHEN I’VE JUST STARTED REALIZING MY POTENTIAL!!!!”

  Lionel let out an unholy sound of anger, something that would make many question whether he was truly the ‘human’ between the opponents if they had heard it.

  He manifested a wall of chains as a shield once more. When Felix’s blade collided with the chain barrier, a barrage of sparks erupted from sheer friction that the Astral Technique created. One by one, the metal lengths popped apart before the iron curtain hiding their master came undone completely!

  Felix swung one more time!

  The Astral Technique tore through Lionel, making a clean cut from his right shoulder down to his left hip, all the way from his front to the back!

  The ginger human was dead before his body, separated into two, hit the ground, blood pooling beneath the halves. For all his talk, he never had time for last words other than his final frenzied outburst.

  The bird cage surrounding Felix burst apart, the chains from up high falling around him as a metallic rain.

  As the monument to Lionel’s brief pinnacle came undone, Felix looked down at his own trembling hand. His first awakened Astral Technique was overshadowed by his many questions. What was that second wind? What was that voice?

  He buried these questions quickly as he recognized that he was now free from the confines of battling Lionel. He rushed forward through the collapsed trail of trees, desperately praying that Mason had held out against the other human.