A fresh wave of shells smashed into the ground around Axel, throwing up clods of dirt, mud, and debris.

"Shit!"

Leaping from side to side to avoid the flying shrapnel, the Dhampyre tried his best to run through the cloud of annihilation. But no matter how hard he jumped and dodged, he always found bits of scrap raining down on him.

Blood Art [Gore Mail]

At a focused mental push, Axel's blood became sluggish and sticky in his veins. This reduced his speed, but the complex web of interlocking vessels clogged with coagulated blood made a sort of chain-mail worn under Axel's skin, protecting his vitals and body from the small pieces of death.

Better.

Under Jorge's suggestion, Axel had tried experimenting with Blood Arts, widening and expanding his knowledge of his budding but formidable powers. He had found out a couple of things. One, Blood Arts were no different from spells cast by mages in terms of state of mind. Two, using them too much had the same drawbacks as over-casting had for a mage: exhaustion, loss of vision, even death. While training, Axel had gained many powers, most of them new, all of them deadly. He was no longer the greenhorn that Jorge fought with. Sometimes he felt sad that he had been able to take Delphurg by surprise. He would have been so much more entertaining to fight at this level.

"Help..."

Axel turned to see a woman trapped underneath a burning beam. Walking over slowly, he stared at her.

"Take the baby...take it...hurry!"

The mother imploringly thrust a bundle of cloth at Axel.

"Quick!" The woman screamed as the fire reached her. She thrashed and screamed as the flaming beast slowly consumed her, the screaming baby falling from her twitching fingertips. Axel stared. He wanted to feel anguish. Wanted to be shocked by this scene of extreme cruelty. Wanted to be angry. Sad.

Anything but this empty nothing that filled him as he watched a mother burn in front of her wailing child.

"The vampires... they did this."

Axel did not feel rage. Nor was he ironically grieved by this loss of emotion. He simply wanted revenge. To hurt something. To bring it down lower than him. To make it pay for any number of supposed crimes. Delphurg was in Axel more than he would admit.

And if he wanted revenge, it was revenge he would damn well get.

He strode off, leaving the infant behind. It was not a priority. He wanted to get to the airship.

Blood Art [Metamorph]

Axel stopped and stood still. Slowly his face started to crack, crumbling and falling away. Each tiny piece wriggled with obscene magic and changed, sprouting filmy red wings that stretched and flexed. Soon enough, all of Axel had turned into a swarm of the insects.

As a cloud of crimson moths, the Dhampyre took to the sky.

-----

"The bombardment is complete and the sixth wave is ready, sir.

"Hold it. Send the troops into the city. The Archon wants him dead."

-----

Jorge was slicing through beams with his chalcite sword, trying to free a trapped boy, when Axel came. The swarm of bugs descended and coalesced into the Dhampyre's familiar shape, which aroused much confusion.

"What is the vampire doing in our ranks, sir?" A young Hunter strode out to Axel, blade unsheathed. "Shall I kill him?" He seemed eager, wanting to deal death. Axel decided ignore him. "He's with us," Jorge assured.

"What's the situation, old man?"

The young Hunter bristled. "You will not refer to His Excellency in this fashion!"

On top of ignoring him, Axel also decided to dislike the young upstart.

"Not much going on. Try and run around, see what you can save..."

As suddenly as the bombardment started, it ceased.

"Is it over?" Axel could not pinpoint the source of the hopeful question.

In the hellish flames of the burning city of Gertford, orange light was cast, flickering in the steel hulls of the Kruzeres. Axel could easily see chains being flung over the sides of the airships, figures clambering down with almost spider-like ease.

"Troops. They're sending soldiers in. Vampires most probably."

Axel expected Jorge to be scared, frustrated at least, but was surprised to find a grim smile on the Circle's face.

"You can't slice the heads off of heavy artillery, but these bastards... They're what we're trained to kill. All Hunters on me!" Jorge set off at a sprint towards the place where the shadows were dropping. Axel followed him, eager to kill vampires too.

Emerging onto a street from an alley, Axel found vampires pouring into Gertford from the skies.

"They're here."

As the black shapes hit the ground, they darted forward with inhuman speed, smashing into the ranks of the Hunters. Cries of pain and terror went up as many new recruits were rent to shreds by the unbelievable ferocity of the blood-drinkers. Axel raised both his hands.

[Crimson Blade]

The blood swords shot out from his palms, sharp and pointed. Axel charged forward with a warcry on his lips, rapidly closing distance with the Zornoi.

Swish

Slash

Crack

In a few moments several vampires lay on the floor. "If I'd fought these a month earlier," Axel remarked, "I'd be dead." Returning his attention to the fight, Axel called forth some more of his fell magics, enhancing his twilight nature to the full.

[Blood Strengthening][Red Sight][ Blood Crystallisation: Armor]

Axel's blood corded into muscle-like tissue, further increasing his formidable strength. His eyes flared red, their capacity increased three-fold, allowing him to easily distinguish the blurry shapes of the fast-moving vampires. Finally, sanguinous spikes burst from his shoulders, reminiscent of his nascent powers during his time in the torture room under the Black City. The crystallised blood flowed around his torso, forming a red chestplate that wrapped tightly around his upper body, providing protection and mobility.

The Dhampyre charged forth, utilising his abilities in synchrony, stabbing and hacking as his hands gave voice to a rage that he could not feel. Cruore spattered his face but he kept on going, executing the kin of his tormentors in creative and excruciating ways. A bisection from the groin. The removal of a nose. His prodigious speed and strength, combined with the usage of the dark arts used in the conception of the blood-drinkers, killed many vampires with the same, if not greater, efficiency than a silver blade. This bloodbath was not to last, however.

As Axel maniacally culled the twilight creatures, a huge cloud of black smoke issued forth from the Metzger. Growing in size until it blotted out the moon, the unnatural mist descended onto the city of Gertford, easily one tenth of its size. Uneasy cries from the Hunters rose as insane cackles issued forth from the vampires as the lunar light was blacked out, leaving a thick darkness. In Axel's night vision, he could see some Hunters, unused to such pitch-black conditions, stumble around, only to be slaughtered by their nocturnal foes.

Swirling into a funnel, the cloud sliced through the night air and landed in the street, its onyx, impenetrable surface reflecting the crimson light from the roaring fires all around. Not a single coruscation, however, pierced its dark surface. Axel stopped fighting abruptly and took a few steps back. There was something perverse, something wrong about that cloud. It was tangible in form, but ethereal, almost gossamer-like in its movements. The abnormality it radiated was palpable, and all the Hunters felt it. Even Jorge cautiously eyed it while continuing his battle. Many men, overwhelmed by the aberrant nature of this thing, faltered in their resolve and were quickly cut down.

The cloud condensed into a small swarm of blackness, swirling and writhing obscenely. Close up Axel could see that it was no cloud. Its surface pulsed with miniscule mouths, black tongues dripping and twisting, like a disgusting sea creature hauled up some inky, forsaken depths.

The pillar twisted and thrashed, the mouths on it merging and growing in size. Stopping and hovering over the fray, the fell creature struck out with a slimy appendage, dashing a Hunter into the ground, where his head struck stone and cracked open with the sound like a muffled melon being hacked in two. A collective cry of revulsion and fear rose from the Hunters. Even the vampires stopped their slaughter to watch that terrible creature. It pulsed horribly, then, with different voices, the mouths all spoke at once, some rank and shrill, some rasping and guttural.

"Where is the boy?" the thing asked. "Where is Axel Roengel?"