The pain came immediately and from everywhere. My head throbbed like it was about to explode, like someone had stabbed me through the back. My eyes stung fiercely. I felt something warm and wet trickle down my cheek.
It then spread, to each and every one of the magic circuits throughout my body. All three-hundred-and-thirty-seven of them. They took the brunt of it even, barely holding on as they focused entirely on supporting my brain during the sudden influx of information.
With not a regard for my health, my eyes processed a thousand-year-old mystery down to the subatomic level when they never should have even registered it. Mystery was not magical energy. I just wanted to analyze his power, and nothing else.
But, instead, I was forced to take-in everything that Bloodlight was. How he ticked. His structure. What held him up. What made him.
This was not a vampire at all.
It wasn't human. It was something like that daemon I faced so long ago. An alien being. A different species entirely, born from something not of our world. They fed on blood because they were constantly dying, because their existence was breaking down at all times.
But, in that, I also saw my salvation. A permanent solution to the problem that stopped me from using my eyes all the time.
When Vespaio mumbled something and hit him with a glowing fist, the vampire was injured. The next moment, he was not.
The Curse of Vamprisim. The Curse of Restoration.
His body had immediately regressed to a point in time where he wasn't injured using his blood as the baseline for what he was supposed to be before.
Gritting my teeth, I latched onto that process. Like that daemon before, I rewrote that to fit my own rules. Just when it seemed I'd be safe however, blood covered my vision. My mind was starting to break down because of my own eyes.
The sensory overload was threatened to make me from the Honoured One to the braindead one.
But of course, my girl came in clutch. I heard one of her precious stones shatter. For a moment, my burden was lessened, and my analysis of the curse was complete. I immediately threw my shades back on and collapsed to my knees.
"Fucking hell. I thought I'd die for a second there."
Luvia stood beside me, arms crossed, "As if I'd ever let that happen while I draw breath. Don't you feel bad for worrying me?"
"Yeah… I'll be more careful next time."
"Lies don't suit you."
"You know you love it."
Vespaio crashed near us, a chunk of his guts was missing. The Executor ignored us, still locked on to the vampire choking out the ginger nun with a grin. She flailed her arms around, trying to cut at him, but he was too big, too tall, and what blade did touch him failed to even pierce his skin.
Again, his body shimmered.
He was getting stronger every time they hit him when he was already so powerful that they couldn't keep up with him at all to begin with. Vespaio could only buy me time because the arrogant shithead was playing with his food like a cliché vampire.
But, alright, that worked to my advantage.
The damage I sustained analyzing his power and healing was already restored. I'd given myself the same curse… except I didn't need to really turn into a vampire for it. My blood stored the information. The Curse used that information to return my body accordingly by expending my own Od.
For that, even my brain's operation wasn't necessary, so long as there was blood pumping through my veins and magical energy stored within me, all damage would be healed instantly.
Consequently, my eyes gained free reign… it still hurt though, just that was all it did. Hurt. Nothing else. Totally worth it, in my opinion.
'Bloodlight' eyed me curiously, "Did you try to fucking kill yourself knowing the situation was hopeless?"
"Bloodlight is such a stupid name." I answered, wiping the blood from my eyes.
"I agree. The Church hands these out. We don't even have names. Like usual, they think it's their bloody right to force their views down everybody's throat."
Fair enough.
He tossed the nun aside. "So, what is it, brat? Finally done?"
"I was done from the start. I just wanted that healing of yours for my eyes." I raised my head ever so slightly, "You're an easy kill."
"Oh, am I now?"
He shot my way. I flicked my thumb.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, his arm fell off.
Then, the hill behind him slid down against another. Trees and soil crumbled apart in a sudden landslide.
"Oops, miscalculated the range." I shamelessly scratched the back of my head. "Need to work on finer control but it's nice to see it works."
The vampire silently looked at his severed arm, then back at me.
"…How?"
"It's a hard counter, right? No impact. Greater mystery. Nothing for you or me to see or absorb either."
Any JJK fan would immediately come to a conclusion about what I did, and they would be completely wrong in their assumption. Yes, it looked like Dismantle and worked like Dismantle, but it wasn't really dismantle.
Actually, if that particular terminology were to be used, it was a form of Limitless if anything. The one I designed and refined, to be specific.
"Do you know what my barrier is?" I asked rhetorically. No one knew. Not even Luvia, but that was mostly because she'd never asked. "It's thin films of severed space, overlaid with the imaginary numbers space. So that an object has to pass through virtually infinite distance to reach me. But, essentially, each film is its own world if you think about it. It severs the space between me and everything else. And things only pass even slightly because I let them."
"That's… absurd."
As old and ancient as he was, even the Dead Apostle had his breath hitch and his eyes widen.
"Coincidentally, there's nothing to stop me from making these films for the express purpose of throwing them at someone... or closing off the space within them."
Nothing else needed to be said. A thin film that severed space. If used as a barrier, it became an impregnable defense. If thinned further till it was barely a string, it became something that detached two sides of the real world by becoming a separate space in between.
What little area it took up was a part of the imaginary numbers space and no longer a part of the real world. Once closed off, it could cut. Yet, terms like sharpness or strength or force or impact simply didn't apply to the very nature of its function.
It severed without exception.
Of course, greater mystery was an easy counter… but good luck finding mystery that surpassed the Imaginary Numbers Space, a place modern science couldn't even hope to touch yet. Hell, they didn't know it even existed.
Bloodlight understood this the moment I finished. Doubt washed over his face as he seemingly debated the truth of my explanation. I didn't blame him. It was absurd. No modern magus should have been able to do this.
"That's bullshit-! …I've never come across a magus that could possibly do that. It's a grand ritual. You'd need preparation. It can't possibly be fast enough."
He hurled himself at me. I didn't block him. I even let him tear out my throat. Then, when he backed away with trembling eyes as my flesh and blood restored itself much like his, I enjoyed his reaction terribly. I loved that expression. It scratched all my itches.
"You're one of-… No, you're not. Then, ho-?"
"All you old codgers are like this. The moment things don't go your way. You start moaning."
"It shouldn't be fucking possible!"
"You talk too much."
I flicked my index finger. His head fell off. Blood gushed freely, dyeing the grass under us a deep red as it seeped into the cracked earth.
Yet, he wasn't dead. There was only one way to destroy a vampire such that the 'curse' I too held wouldn't bring them back.
I flicked my middle finger. His beating heart was torn from his body.
I tossed it in the air and snapped my fingers. The beating heart was finely minced, as though some expert chef had prepared it for a fine meal.
Touko Aozaki had triumphed against the one of the greatest of their kind. One who was older than the very calendar we used. There was no way a mere thousand year old bloodsucker stood any chance against me.
He lived as long as I wanted. He died when he lost his use.
If it were just me, I'd probably have let him be like many enemies before, so that he could come back and I could have even more fun next time against whatever he cooked up. But now, for my family's sake, I wasn't going to be taking any more chances with mass murderers and heartless monsters.
"Luvia, you don't look very surprised."
"My future h-…" She flushed. "You'd never lose."
She was totally about to say husband.
I snorted, eying the two remaining executors. The ginger was unconscious. Vespaio was clutching his bleeding guts.
"You can…tamper with… my memory, apostate." He bit out. "In exchange…"
I knelt next to him, "Alright, and you can take the credit for this vampire hunt."
"Help… her. Help Lucia."
"I planned on it."
Wait before that, who the hell was Lucia?
The older Executor noticed my confusion, and nudged his bald head towards the insane nun lying unconscious to the side.
"Well, let's get to it, Luvia. Do you know any memory tampering spells?" I looked back at her.
"How do you not know any? You've graduated from Mystile (General Fundamentals)."
Yeah, but I'd slept through most of the lectures.
"You slept through them, didn't you?" My wifey deadpanned.
Woah.
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Hope you enjoyed.
You can find 7 chapters ahead at patre0n.com/Bleap
Even if the chapters are long, I'll be increasing this to ten over the course of this week.