Blood and Frustration

The first sign of the crash was the smoke. Thick and black, it curled into the sky like a signal flare, twisting in the wind above the jagged ruins. Isaiah skidded to a stop atop a shattered overpass, eyes narrowing as he surveyed the chaos below. The transport lay on its side, hull crumpled against a fallen column. Its rear doors hung open, metal twisted from the impact.

Hundreds of the creatures swarmed like ants over a corpse. Pale, wiry bodies glinted in the sunlight, their twitching movements erratic but purposeful. They hissed and snapped at each other in their frenzy, climbing over the bodies of their fallen in search of fresh meat. Five Rabdos loomed behind them, their hulking forms towering over the swarm, spines clicking as they watched the feast begin.

Brother Darius commanded his brothers well. The Legion had been piled up as a barricade, shot by the soldiers of the transport. They would only be able to hold out for so long but had done impressively well in Isaiah's eyes.

"Well, this looks fun." Isaiah said, drawing his sword from his back.

Augustine slid to a stop beside him, adjusting the grip on his spear. "Think the sister's still alive?"

"Darius is with them. They're fine." Isaiah seemed to ignore Augustine singling out Sister Angelique.

Josiah checked the scope on his rifle. "Transport's power core is intact. If it blew, we'd know. Someone's holding the interior."

"Time to get to work." Isaiah smiled as he rolled his shoulders. He glanced at Josiah. "Think you can make it to that rooftop?"

"The vantage is better, but it'd take too long." Josiah snorted.

"Nah, you're good. You've got me." Isaiah said mischievously.

Before Josiah could protest, Isaiah grabbed him by the back of the coat and hurled him skyward. The sniper twisted midair, his rifle unfolding and extending as he landed with catlike precision atop a half-standing building. A second later, the crack of his first shot rang out, clean and lethal.

Without another word, he leapt from the overpass. The wind screamed past him as he fell, landing with a sickening crunch atop the nearest Legion. The creature exploded under his boots. He stood slowly, tapping his sword on the shoulder he was resting it on. The Legion took notice, stopping momentarily.

"Come on." Isaiah gestured to the creatures with his left hand. "Let's play!"

The Legion charged, working in sheer numbers over power or strategy. Isaiah pushed forward, running his hand along the blade of his sword, turning it red. A wide arc of blood-soaked steel carved through the first wave, his sacrifice extending his slashes far beyond the blade's physical reach, cleaving through bodies like paper.

His Martyr’s Blessing may have seemed like mere blood control to those who saw it. The true power was in sacrifice. An ideal carved from his own body, paid for in pain and permanence. The blade grew because he willed it to, because he surrendered a piece of himself to make it reality. Blood was just the most convenient price. The more he paid, the more powerful the effect. The more he paid, the longer it lasted.

With his right to Holy Resurrection, he had turned the odds in his favor many times, even dying to see his enemies slain. The enemies before him now, however, only deserved a few drops of blood. That was enough.

"Brothers!" Isaiah roared, voice echoing over the battlefield. "We do the Lord's work! Deliver death to the demons before us!"

Augustine landed moments later, his spear a blur as he drove it through two Legion in one clean thrust, pivoting with fluid grace to block another with the haft. Josiah stayed above, his rifle booming with precise, rhythmic shots that burst skulls from hundreds of meters away.

The Rabdos noticed them, staying on guard; unusual for this particular creature. These brutes didn't play well with others, attacking anything not Rabdos on sight, even other Malthisans. One cocked its head to the side, let out a low, guttural growl, and charged. Its claws dragged behind, scraping sparks from the concrete as it barreled straight toward Isaiah.

"Make it a good one!" Isaiah grinned.

He met the beast head-on, ducking beneath its swipe and knocking it off balance with a slash blunted against its hide. Blood sprayed, hissing as it hit the ground, but the Rabdos didn’t die easily. It shrieked, backhanding him across the road, his body slamming into a half-buried vehicle.

Pain exploded in his ribs, but he laughed anyway. Augustine vaulted over him, planting both feet into the Rabdos' chest to shove it back before pinning it with his spear.

"You done already!?" Augustine asked playfully. "Do I have a chance at winning today?"

"Dream on." Isaiah rose. He wiped the blood from his mouth, wispily trailing it through the air. "I sacrificed my ability to stop that attack. Let's see what this blood does now."

The blood whipped back and forth as he swirled it in the air. He pulled back his arm, throwing the blood forward as it changed into a bladed spiral, flying through most of the Legion surrounding the crash, cutting each one fatally. The blood traveled the area before spinning gracefully around Isaiah, awaiting another command.

Angelique crouched beside Darius, breath shallow as she tried to steady her trembling hands. She had suffered a mild concussion during the crash. The Legion had stopped attacking as a whirling red object flew past. A low, rumbling growl rolled through the battlefield as the Rabdos shifted. The towering beasts, previously watching from the sidelines, began to advance.

"Looks like Isaiah came to pick you up." Darius said, holding his sword in front of him. "Excited?"

Angelique scoffed, rubbing her head as she scanned the area. Her gaze darted over the chaos, searching for the man she had been assigned. He was unmistakable, not just for his reckless abandon, but for the way the enemy recoiled at his presence, as if even the mindless could recognize a predator among them.

Isaiah didn’t just fight—he tore through the battlefield like a force of nature. He ripped Legion apart with his bare hands when they got too close, snapping necks and crushing skulls. He drove his sword through one Rabdos’ mouth and out the back of its skull, twisting as he yanked it free in a spray of viscera. Another Rabdos lunged, but Isaiah sidestepped, sacrificing the feeling in his left arm to let the sword carve through its throat with unnatural speed. His Martyr’s Blessing wasn’t just power—it was control, honed to a razor’s edge by experience and sheer, unrelenting will.

Josiah’s rifle cracked again, and another Rabdos went down, its skull shattered. "Two left!"

Isaiah nodded, already moving. He used one of the Rabdos corpses as a springboard, vaulting into the air before bringing his sword down, wedging it in its thick skull, calling the spiral of blood to hammer the blade down with enough force to cleave it in half. The spiral continued to flit around Isaiah before shuddering slightly.

The final Rabdos lunged through the barricade of Legion corpses, strewing them about. The brothers opened fire, their bullets rolling off the hide and bone to land in the dirt. Darius unholstered his sidearm, an intricate pistol that shared design elements with Augustine's spear and Josiah's rifle. Darius placed one foot back, planting himself before aiming, bright red light shining from the barrel. The shot rang out as a burst of energy flew through the air.

The Rabdos cocked his head slightly, kneeling beneath the shot as it passed, carving a path through its shoulder. Darius would have hit it in the head; it would have been a kill. Rabdos never dodge, relying on their armor. Why did this one?

It came. Darius could dodge, but Angelique was behind him. He held his sword, bracing it against his arm to take the blow. Suddenly a red spiral flew before Darius. It expanded and flattened into a wall as the Rabdos fist screamed forward, stopping just short of Darius' defense. The wall expanded through the arm and upper chest of the Rabdos, halting it.

The wall shattered as Isaiah jumped to the back of the Rabdos. The shards of blood fell to the ground, rising up like shards of glass as he kicked it down, impaling it. The last Rabdos was finished.

Isaiah looked to Darius. Darius smiled as he fell to his butt, exhausted.

Isaiah's gaze flicked down to Angelique, her wide eyes locked onto him. Angelique could see glowing red rings within his steel gray eyes. Unreadable for a moment, Isaiah finally huffed out a sharp breath.

"Your appearance inspires thoughts of..." Isaiah sighed heavily, inhaling before finishing his sentence. "Frustration."

"What!?" Angelique growled.