Huoi Zhao Feng watched, stunned, as Ji-Yeon's unconscious form slumped to the floor. The woman who had declawed him, who had held his immense power in check with a mere glance, had been felled by a simple tap. So, she wasn't so powerful after all, he thought, a flicker of annoyance running through him. This Ancient Dragon Wisdom… 90% accuracy is not 100%. Or perhaps I asked the wrong question… His momentary confusion was eclipsed by a grudging respect for the vampire before him.
"What did you do?" Huoi asked, his voice a low rumble, gesturing at the scorched, blackened coin now lying on the pavilion floor. "The lightning… it followed the coin."
Mihai sheathed his blood sword with a flourish, the crimson armor and cape swirling around him. "Lightning is a force of nature, Dragon," he explained, his tone that of a professor lecturing a particularly slow student. "You do not control it. You merely aim it. And physics… physics dictates that electricity will always follow the path of least resistance to ground itself. Your bolt simply preferred the conductive metal of my coin to the ambient air."
"Physics, you say?" Huoi repeated, the word sounding foreign on his tongue.
"Yes," Mihai said, a faint, condescending smile playing on his lips. "You are not particularly bright, are you?"
The insult, delivered so calmly, so aristocratically, struck Huoi harder than any physical blow. His jaw clenched, his golden eyes narrowing into slits of pure fury. "I was not blessed like you, vampire!" he roared, the latent power in his voice causing the koi in the pond to thrash wildly. "Born rich, born smart, born talented! You had everything from the moment you drew breath! I HAD NOTHING!"
"You are correct," Mihai said, his voice softening, but his words held the sharp edge of a scalpel. "I was born with everything. But that is the lesson of life, is it not? We cannot control the circumstances of our birth. We cannot control where we are born, whether we are beautiful or plain, whether our cells will one day betray us with cancer. The only thing in this vast, chaotic universe that we truly have control over is our own mind, our own will. I have always known this. It is why I have always put in the effort, why I have honed my mind as sharply as any blade. If you were in my position, would you indulge yourself as you have now?"
He took a step forward, his crimson eyes locking onto Huoi's. "Why do you act so almighty, when you, of all people, know what it is to have nothing? A true king does not flaunt his power. He wields it with purpose. You should have been more humble, Dragon."
"Tch," Huoi grunted, shaken by the raw, irrefutable truth of Mihai's words. "You have a way with words, vampire." He was done talking. He was done thinking. He would rely on the only thing that had ever truly mattered: power. A magnificent pair of golden, draconic wings, shimmering with an inner light, burst from his back. "Enough talk," he growled. "I will finish you now."
He was about to launch himself into the air, to rain down draconic fury from above. But Mihai was faster.
The blood sword in his hand dissolved and reformed in a fluid, impossible instant. It was no longer a sword, but a long, wicked lance, its tip sharpened to a needle point. He had been holding it by the sword's handle, but now his grip was at the very end of the lance's shaft, extending its reach by a full ten feet.
Huoi, who had anticipated a sword thrust that would have fallen short, saw the weapon transform and instinctively leaped back and up. The lance's tip, moving with the blurring speed of Mihai's enhanced stats, shot forward. It didn't pierce him, but it grazed his arm, leaving a long, shallow, crimson line on his golden, scaled skin.
A hiss of pain escaped Huoi's lips. It was the first time he had been physically injured since gaining his powers. The sensation was alien, shocking. And the wound… it burned. Mihai's blood, a supernatural, semi-sentient substance, was fighting against his own draconic healing factor, a sizzling, corrosive battle on a microscopic level. He poured more points into his regeneration, the wound slowly closing with a faint, golden light.
He hovered in the air above the pavilion, his heart hammering in his chest. Was this… fear? He, Huoi Zhao Feng, the Monarch of Dragons, was afraid. He was a man who had reached middle age with nothing, only to be granted the power of a god. He had never been challenged, never had to fight for his supremacy. He had feasted, he had indulged, he had ruled. He had no real fighting experience.
He looked down at the calm, crimson-clad figure below him, at the vampire who was both a philosopher and a warrior, and he knew. This would not be a simple execution. This would be a fight for his very existence.
A primal roar, the true roar of a dragon, tore from his throat. He would not lose. He would throw everything he had at this vampire. He would burn him from the sky, strike him down with thunder, and tear him apart with his bare hands if he had to. He would win. He had to.