Dropping down on all fours, Sand let Vlad’s palm-strike sail over his head, the breeze from the force of the blow ruffling his hair. Just as he was about to leap up and take advantage of the Blood Thrall’s overextension, an invisible force slammed down on him smashing his chest into the ground and driving the air out of his lungs.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as his instincts screamed of danger. Gritting his teeth, Sand forced his wobbly muscles to push him into a sideways roll, barely avoiding the foot that slammed down where his head had been just moments ago. The stomp fissured the ground, raising a ring of dust, The same invisible force battered him with the force of a charging bull, sending his diminutive form flopping through the air. Slamming down onto the ground, his body drew a shallow furrow in the dirt before coming limply to a stop.

Coughing blood and seeing double, Sand scrambled to his knees and threw himself hastily out of the way of Vlad’s follow-up charge. Despite the decent separation between their forms; as the hulking Thrall barrelled past him, Sand was clipped by the imperceptible force field, sending him tumbling to the dirt. Ignoring his aching body by sheer force of will, Sand climbed to his feet, swaying drunkenly as his concussion messed with his balance.

Raising his hand, he wiped his hand across his face. Twin groups of emerald flames blazed to life around his eyes and the world became vibrant in his sight. Brightly coloured phantoms peeked out of everything, turning the world into a version of itself straight out of an impressionist’s canvas. With the aid of this new perspective Sand saw what that invisible force truly was.

A flesh-coloured Aura surrounded Vlad, encasing him in a smooth, transparent shell that extended the outline of his massive body on all sides. Without Aura Sight active, Sand hadn't been able to take the extended reach provided by the Aura into account. It appeared that other than training his close combat skills, this exercise was meant to help him master Aura Sight – especially its application in combat. The prospect of getting pummelled by the hulking Thrall was a powerful motivator for swift progress. Taking a deep breath and pushing his mana towards his head to speed up the elimination of his concussion, Sand settled into a low stance, preparing himself for the next stage of the confrontation.

Straightening up from where he had stopped his failed charge, Vlad turned slowly to face Sand. In the altered view of Aura Sight, his eyes, his only features visible from within the depths of his cowl, glowed a dark red. Cocking his fist back, Vlad struck a pose and punched, sending a phantom fist made of Aura shooting towards Sand. His eyes widening, Sand dived swiftly to the side to avoid the phantom fist. It slammed onto the ground, raising a cloud of dust as cracks spidered outwards from the point of impact.

Turning the dive into a roll, Sand got to his feet and dashed towards the Thrall in a sinuous curve, dodging the barrage of fists shooting at him. The phantom constructs slammed into the ground, dissipating into Aura and raising clouds of white dust behind him. Illusory green flames wrapped his right arm as he closed the distance. With a hoarse battle-cry, Sand ducked within the Thrall’s guard and concentrating the aura flames on his fingertip, thrust his index finger out, throwing the entire weight of his body behind the attack.

His reinforced bones kept his finger from snapping under the pressure and it pierced into the protective coating of Aura surrounding Vlad. Sand pumped his mana into his right hand causing the illusory flames there to blaze brighter, corroding the flesh-coloured Aura encapsulating the Thrall. It felt like trying to penetrate jelly. The deeper he went, the denser it was and the harder it was to corrode. Finally, half-way through, the Netherfire aura on his hand guttered and extinguished. He tried to pull back but his hand was stuck. It was as though Vlad’s Aura was clamping down on his arm, refusing to let him withdraw it.

Sand remembered fighting an orc in his previous life who had majored in Strength. In the course of the battle, he had managed to plunge a sword in his opponent’s stomach, only for his opponent to clamp down on it with his abdominal muscles, successfully disarming him. That’s exactly what his hand trapped in the Aura felt like. He realized now the nature of the Aura possessed by Vlad: ‘Strength.’

That was his last thought before a large hand clapped down on the back of his head, sending him into the embrace of oblivion.

Standing beside the barrel filled with blood, up to his elbows in the liquid, Sand wondered whether his frequent bouts of unconsciousness was making him dull-witted. It had been three whole days since the Princess had assigned him the task – at least, if one were to go by the alternation of dark and light in Bloodskull. Telling time was an iffy subject when it came to Dungeons. There was no telling whether one diurnal cycle in the Dungeon corresponded to a day in the external world.

Frankly speaking, his progress in Aura manipulation had been disappointing. With his experience in manipulating mana within his body, he had expected Aura manipulation to be an external analogue of the process. All he had to do, he had thought, was to think of Aura as mana that existed outside his body and he would be able to discard his current status as Vlad’s favourite sandbag. Seeing that he was still struggling to form even a single thread of Netherfire Aura after three days, his optimism had obviously been unfounded.

Absentmindedly, Sand scratched the back of his left hand with his right index finger. A particular spot on it to be precise. The only spot on his body the Vampire princess had no control over. He didn’t know exactly how the defect came to be, but he could make an educated guess. When the vampire venom had coursed through him, transforming him, enthralling him... it had seeped into his bones, merging with the Undead Marrow shard to thoroughly transform his skeleton. It was the nature of the shard to absorb the strongest venom it encountered, overwriting and transforming any weaker venom used to feed it into the stronger one.

As a higher Tier venom, the Thrall Toxin had overpowered the Shadow Venom he had used to transform the bones of his left forearm, assimilating it thoroughly. Or so he had thought. But when Lirael had taken control of his blood and bones in a demonstration of her authority over him, he had become aware of the flaw. Somehow, a small area – no larger than a coin – had escaped the fate of transformation. And as long as there was a flaw, there was hope.

The sound of heavy footsteps broke his contemplation and he looked up to see the massive figure of the Thrall approaching with a large cloth package slung over his shoulder. With every step, the pack bounced on his back, causing its contents to struggle, making the package bulge outwards. Blood had soaked through the cloth and a trail of red – particularly conspicuous against the bone-white soil – could be seen extending from Vlad towards the nearest blood river.

The bag contained fish. A Blood Carp to be exact. A hapless relative of the troublesome fellow Sand had been trying, and failing, to ensnare for these past few days. It was going to be dinner. Withdrawing his hands from the barrel, Sand swung them sharply to flick off the blood, leaving two red crescents spattered on the ground. With a burst of Netherfire Aura, the last of the blood caked off his arms in the form of soot. At the very least, his training hadn't been in vain – he could now coat any part of his body with Aura as and when he desired it.

Sand walked up to the campfire just as Vlad put the bag and its struggling contents down. They had been subsisting on a diet of blood, fish and willow marrow for these days – Vlad and him. Being Mages didn’t make them any less reliant on food, just more efficient in digesting what they ate, and Sand had finally been able to take his old profession up again. After the first day where he had regained consciousness after his beatdown by Vlad to find half of a charred and blackened carp cooling on a wooden plate beside him, Sand had taken up the culinary duties.

Apparently, none of them could cook. While Lirael could make do with blood alone, the Thralls – Vlad and Igor – had been keeping themselves fed with raw fish. As bodyguards, cooking hadn't been on the agenda when their trainers had drawn up their schedules. Learning to fight and gain a basic proficiency in the common tongue had taken up all their time. After all, post transformation they were like blank slates, having to relearn everything from scratch.

After tasting Sand’s craftsmanship, Vlad hadn't said anything. Not that the Thrall had spoken a single word to him even before that – the uncommunicative lump preferring to do all his talking with his fists apart from the occasional grunt or nod. It could have just been his misconception but in their next bout, the bruises he had ended up with, had seemed lighter. Sand could understand. After nothing but raw or horribly charred fish for weeks, the taste of a properly cooked meal could mellow the hardest of men.

Igor, the other Thrall, had joined them for their next meal and Sand had decided to up the ante. This time, instead of simply spit-roasting the fish above the campfire, he had decided to experiment with whatever edible materials they had on hand, deeming the experiment a success when, other than a black eye, he had emerged unscathed from his training session with Vlad.

Sand believed that the best way to anyone’s heart, irrespective of gender or race, was through their stomachs. By exposing his proficiency in the culinary arts, he was stringing out bait for the big fish – and this night, it had decided to bite. The Princess would be joining them at the table.

Sand had asked Vlad to catch a larger fish than usual and the Thrall hadn't disappointed. The Carp that emerged from the gunnysack was a magnificent specimen – over a meter and a half from head to tail and easily weighing upwards of fifteen kilograms. As it flopped about on the ground desperately, its lustrous red scales glimmered yellow and orange in the firelight creating a beautiful contrast with its milky white underbelly and the patches of black scales that patterned its back and formed a diamond on its forehead. Its eyes rolled about, its long white whiskers twitching and its gills opening and closing in desperation as it flopped about on the ground, struggling to breathe out of water.

Reaching down, Vlad grabbed onto its tail, hefting its considerable weight with ease. Swinging the struggling carp over his head in a broad arc, he brought its head slamming down onto a boulder nearby with a resounding ‘crack’. Bringing the stunned fish around, he did it again. The third time, the crunch of a shattering skull accompanied the thwacking of flesh against stone. The carp was still.

Receiving the fish from the Thrall, Sand looked into its lifeless eye and, as was his custom, thanked its departed spirit for providing its flesh for their consumption. Its death didn’t stem from enmity, neither did it serve a higher purpose. They were predators and it was prey. Despite the copious amount of blood on his hands, Sand had always tried to respect life.

A memory floated up in his mind –

“Why do you join your hands before every meal?” asked Sand curiously as he studied his friend across the table.

Taking his time to complete his prayers, Book opened his eyes and replied with a smile, “I thank them, for they were born into this world just as I was, and had as much right to life as I.”

Blinking away the memory, Sand ended his prayer and walked up to the fire with a glint in his eye. He had a fish to fry - or maybe, roast.