419 Crimson Catastrophe

[POV: Alice]

The sky dimmed without warning.

Alice lifted her gaze as the sun was devoured by shadow, an eclipse spreading across the heavens with slow, inexorable grace. It was beautiful in the way endings often were, solemn and vast, like a curtain falling on the world. For a fleeting moment, she understood why so many civilizations had mistaken such sights for divine judgment.

She cherished humanity. Not merely the species, but the fragile persistence of choice, the quiet stubbornness with which people continued to live, to hope. She cherished this world as well, the one Da Wei had claimed, protected, and burdened himself with.

When she looked back down, David's hand was still extended toward her.

For an instant, temptation stirred. Not for power, nor for promises, but for the simplicity of surrender. Then she felt the weight of everything she had lost, and everything she still refused to abandon.

Alice struck his hand aside.

The cursed weapons answered her will, crashing toward David in a converging storm. He met them head-on, blackened gauntlets flashing as he deflected the blows with practiced ease. He laughed, the sound light, and almost indulgent.

"So persistent," he said.

Alice's expression hardened. Blood magic surged, coiling around each weapon as layers of curses stacked upon one another. The air grew heavy with malice. David moved, no longer casual, weaving between the attacks as he drew a longsword from his pocket dimension. The blade sang as it cut through the air, parrying each cursed strike with precision.

Alice vanished.

She reappeared at his flank, only for his sword to already be sweeping toward her. She vanished again, Blink carrying her to his opposite side. Before she could strike, chaotic tendrils erupted from her armor, lashing toward him in a writhing mass.

David took the blow head-on.

The tendrils shattered, and with them her armor ruptured, collapsing into fragments of shadow and blood. She staggered, bare flesh exposed to the cold air, just as his sword descended, wreathed in radiant force.

The impact landed squarely.

Alice raised her hand and invoked Shield Drain. The Divine Smite crashed into her palm, its brilliance siphoned away, converted into raw vitality that flooded her veins. The shattered armor flowed back over her body, reforming seamlessly, pulsing as though alive.

David watched, eyes narrowing slightly.

"I grow weary of this," he said. "Let us end it."

Alice drew a slow breath. Her voice was steady when she answered. "So do I."

The world seemed to recoil as she released her will.

"Immortal Art," she said. "Crimson Crown of Catastrophe."

Blood surged upward from her body, coalescing into a floating crown of liquid crimson above her head. The sky responded, clouds churning as a rain of blood began to fall, heavy and relentless, each drop laden with ruin.

David retreated at once, Flash Step carrying him across the battlefield as the blood rain struck the ground, hissing where it landed. Alice's eyes glowed as she forced blood magic into them, her vision fracturing into countless overlapping truths.

Thousands of Davids appeared before her, each one an afterimage.

She lifted a finger.

Bloody spears manifested in an instant, lancing outward to impale every afterimage. All but one dissolved. The real David parried the final spear, skidding backward under the force.

Alice's armor continued to change, veins of living blood crawling across its surface, deepening into a vivid, violent crimson. She extended her hand.

The cursed weapons screamed as they converged.

They struck David from every direction, empowered by the Immortal Art, piercing armor and flesh alike, driving him into the earth and pinning him there in a cruciform of steel, curse, and blood.

Alice stepped forward, rain falling around her like a curtain of judgment. She looked down at him, her expression cold, resolute.

"Do you have any last words?"

David smiled, the expression strained, almost tender.

"I really do like you," he said.

Alice did not answer.

She brought her hand down.

The rain answered her will. From the falling blood, a hundred crimson dragons tore themselves into existence, coiling through the storm with thunderous roars. They spiraled around David, their bodies shedding curses and blood qi that twisted the wind into a howling vortex. The storm thickened, pressure mounting as the dragons closed in, claws and fangs bared, eager to rend him apart.

David did not retreat.

He lowered his voice and spoke calmly, almost reverently. "Final Adjudication."

An enormous dark scale manifested behind him, etched with sigils that pulsed in time with a distant hymn. Space fractured around it, cracks spreading like broken glass. From those fissures, crimson chains erupted, lashing outward with terrifying force.

They slammed into the dragons.

One by one, the blood dragons were bound, crushed, and reduced to drifting ash. The cursed weapons followed, shattered and erased as though they had never existed. When the storm thinned, David stood untouched, his armor pristine, and his body unmarred.

The stench of blood around him deepened, no longer masked by the rain. It was dense, oppressive, and old.

David smiled wider, teeth flashing.

"I lied," he said lightly. "There was an Alice and a Joan in my world."

Alice's eyes hardened.

"I killed them," David continued. "For the experience."

He gestured casually, summoning something from his pocket dimension.

A woman stepped out.

She had blond hair and wore silver robes, but her eyes were dull, emptied of will. Alice recognized her instantly.

"Joan," she whispered.

David's hand rested briefly on the woman's shoulder. "Feeding time."

Joan vanished.

Alice barely had time to raise her arm before a kick smashed toward her head with monstrous force. The impact cracked the air. Alice blocked, but the force snapped Joan's leg clean off. Bone and flesh tore apart in a spray of blood.

Joan did not cry out.

She landed, murmured a spell, and her severed limb regenerated explosively. The newly formed foot drove forward, slamming into Alice's face.

Alice was flung backward, skidding across the ground, boots carving trenches as she forced herself to remain upright.

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David appeared above her, looking down with cold amusement. "Two against one," he said. "I will make it quick."

His foot descended, blazing with Searing Smite, aimed to sever her head.

Alice's body burst apart into a spray of blood.

David's strike passed through empty space.

From within a lunging blood dragon, Alice emerged, her form reconstituting in midair. Dark magic and blood magic intertwined in her grasp, forging a massive scythe that hummed with lethal intent. She swung it toward Joan in a wide arc.

Joan responded instantly.

Barriers flared into existence around her, layers of holy light snapping into place. Several shattered under the scythe's edge, but not all. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the battlefield as the two collided.

David laughed softly. "Naughty."

One of the crimson chains shifted, snapping onto Alice without warning. It pierced her defenses and seized her soul directly, ripping at it with merciless precision, intent on burning her down beneath the weight of her own karma.

Alice screamed silently as her Immortal Art flared. Her body dissolved into blood, flowing apart just enough for the chain to tear through empty space.

Joan did not relent.

She conjured a spear of condensed Holy Spirit energy and lunged. Alice met her head-on, scythe clashing against spear as sparks of divine light and blood magic exploded between them. They fought at close range, movements brutal and precise, neither yielding ground.

Above them, the blood rain continued to fall, birthing more crimson dragons that surged forward, only to be torn apart by the looming dark scale and its relentless chains.

The battlefield had become a convergence of ruin, and at its heart, Alice fought on, eyes locked on her enemies, refusing to yield.

Alice never forgot that she was alone.

Even as she fought, her awareness never left David, who stood at a distance, watching with unsettling calm. Joan stayed on her, relentless. The woman before her no longer resembled the priestess Alice remembered. This Joan moved like a predator, wielding holy magic through a vampiric body, reinforced by an unfamiliar close-combat discipline. It was efficient. It was wrong.

This was never Joan's way.

Alice adjusted. She read the rhythm of Joan's movements, the timing of her strikes, the hesitation born from borrowed instincts. She disrupted that rhythm with a cursed chain, the link biting into Joan's flow of power. Before Joan could recover, Alice closed the distance.

"Enough."

Malevolent Grasp seized hold, crushing space itself. Wretched Effigy followed, the greater curse blooming within Joan's body. In the same breath, Alice's scythe flashed.

Joan's head fell.

Her body collapsed without ceremony, striking the ground in silence. Alice waited, breath steady, expecting regeneration, defiance, or the stubborn refusal to die that had always defined the priestess.

Nothing came.

Joan's body began to crumble, flesh and bone turning to fine ash that scattered in the blood-soaked wind.

David clapped once, slow and deliberate. "Good execution," he said lightly. "She was a prototype. I wanted to see how far vampiric refinement could go when paired with a Priest or Paladin Legacy. Turns out, conflicting properties just need better tuning."

Alice turned on him, fury burning through her composure. "Is everything a joke to you?" she demanded. "Why boast about this? Do you want my acknowledgement? What do you actually want?"

David tilted his head, brows knitting together in mild irritation. "I told you already. I feel alone."

He exhaled, then smiled again. "You must be going deaf."

David lifted his gaze, expression softening. "But that is fine. I do not need to be alone anymore."

He spoke again, his voice resonating with authority. "Immortal Art: Crimson Crown of Catastrophe."

Alice froze.

The power was torn from her.

The rain obeyed him.

The blood that had answered her will shifted, flowing away as though severed at the source. The crimson crown above her head shattered into motes of light and reformed above David, settling there as if it had always belonged to him.

Alice staggered. "How?"

David chuckled, as if amused by the question. "The Alice in my world used it too," he said. "I took it from her. Same as now."

The ground began to tremble.

Alice felt it through her boots, through the bones of the mountain itself. She clenched her teeth. "What are you doing?"

David spread his arms, hymns rolling from his qi like a funeral chant. "I am bringing a crimson catastrophe."

The dark scale vanished, its purpose fulfilled. Alice surged forward, scythe flashing, intent on stopping him before the ritual could complete. Her blade cut cleanly through him.

Blood dispersed.

A clone.

David appeared behind her, his timing immaculate. He brought his arms down, quintessence tearing into existence as the Immortal Art answered his will. Behind him, an enormous pillar of blood erupted from the earth, surging skyward in a single colossal column.

It was so vast that its shadow swallowed Mount Qingshi and the surrounding forest whole.

Thunder rumbled overhead. The bloody rain intensified.

David glanced back at Alice, his eyes bright, almost curious.

"Tell me," he asked calmly, "what do you think happens when I let all of that blood go?"

What would happen if a pillar of blood large enough to scrape the clouds were to fall?

It would drown the world.

Alice screamed, her voice tearing itself raw as she reached for the Immortal Art, clawing at it with will and soul alike. She tried to rip it back, to reclaim the authority that had been stolen from her.

She was too late.

David released it.

The pillar collapsed outward, not downward, exploding into a tide without end. A crimson deluge swallowed the mountain, the forest, the ruins, and the sky itself. Alice vanished beneath it, her scream torn apart by the roaring flood.

"David!"

Rage filled her lungs as blood crushed in from all sides.

Something answered.

With a cry that echoed from her soul, her bicorn tore itself into existence, forcibly summoned, its ethereal body blazing as it rammed through the blood. Alice seized it by the throat, fingers digging in, and the creature surged upward.

They burst free of the flood.

Alice and the bicorn ascended, then stopped, hovering high above the devastation. Blood churned below like an ocean born in an instant. The pillar still stood at the center, rupturing at its base, tearing a massive wound into the earth as new waves poured forth with relentless force.

The land was gone.

Alice stared, numb, as the scale of ruin settled into her bones.

David stood far away, untouched, his silhouette framed by blood and shadow.

Only then did futility truly reach her.

She had thought she understood unreasonable strength. She had been wrong.

David turned toward her slowly. His smile was strained, almost sorrowful.

"Have you finally lost hope?" he asked. "Have you given yourself to despair?"

Alice knew the answer he wanted. She felt it pressing against her throat, begging to be spoken.

Her pride refused.

She said nothing.

David shrugged, as if mildly disappointed. "Then die."

"Heavenly Punishment."

The sky responded.

The clouds had turned crimson, the eclipse still looming like an unblinking eye. From the heavens, a silver ray pierced downward, condensing as it fell, reshaping itself into an enormous golden sword, radiant and absolute.

Alice felt the absence within herself. The Divine Spark was gone. Da Wei was gone.

Still, memory remained.

She remembered the spell. The one she had taught him. The one he had once used in desperation, burning himself nearly to death just to win.

Her teeth clenched.

Time was gone.

"Exalted Renewal."

Her soul ignited.

Power did not come from divinity. It did not come from immortality. It came from the soul, the origin from which all things were fed.

Alice felt herself breaking apart as her soul burst open, pouring everything it had into existence. She knew her body could endure it for three seconds.

No more.

So she would make them count.

Time dilated.

Every fraction of a second fed Alice power at a terrifying rate. Three seconds were nothing, yet they were all she had.

At the first pulse of Exalted Renewal, blood answered her will.

In less than a heartbeat, a longsword formed in her grasp, forged entirely from condensed crimson essence. Its edge shimmered with malice and resolve alike. A breath later, she reached inward and seized the bicorn's life force without hesitation. The sacred beast screamed soundlessly as its vitality was stripped away, flooding Alice's soul with raw strength.

She vanished.

Alice reappeared directly before David and brought the blade down with everything she had. For the first time since their clash began, David's eyes widened. The surprise was fleeting, but it was real.

Alice pressed on.

She reached deeper, clawing back what was hers. The Immortal Art tore at itself. Above her head, the Crimson Crown reformed, incomplete and fractured, half of its liquid blood still clinging stubbornly to David. Even broken, it answered her call.

Her sword feinted.

The blade thinned impossibly, transforming into a razor thread of blood that lashed toward David's throat. He retreated at once, moving faster than her, but the blood pursued him like a living thing, hardening mid-flight.

Steel met blood.

David parried, scattering crimson droplets through the air. For an instant, his vision blurred. Alice took that instant and tore it open. Bloody wings erupted from her back as she surged forward, her speed climbing beyond reason.

Power continued to swell inside her. The renewal burned her soul from within, but she embraced it.

Claws extended from her fingers as she invoked Blood Frenzy, threading it with Great Curse. She raked across David's armor, leaving deep, cursed scars that hissed and smoked.

Searing light answered her assault. David unleashed smite after smite, but Alice twisted through them, her movements sharpening with every passing fragment of time.

Then the backlash came.

Accumulated Reflect detonated outward from David. Alice was hurled away, her body tearing apart under the force. Even as death claimed her, she acted.

A single finger flew free and landed behind David.

From that fragment, she regenerated to her bare flesh.

Alice reformed in an instant, seized David by the head and shoulder, and sank her fangs into his neck. She drank deeply. His blood was searing, violent, and filled with madness and power. She welcomed it.

David stiffened.

The heavens reacted, but the Heavenly Punishment dissolved as her fangs disrupted the flow of divine authority. The clouds churned uselessly above.

Alice felt his panic, disbelief, and the thrill cut through her exhaustion.

With everything she had left, she tore.

Her hands ripped at his throat and chest, claws sinking deep as she held him in place. Blood sprayed as his armor split and his body gave way. Then her strength failed as three seconds soon passed by. Her limbs shattered into light. Her form unraveled, scattering into the ether. She was flung backward, already fading.

David turned slowly.

Half his face was ruined, bone exposed beneath torn flesh. A gaping hole burned through his chest. Blood dripped freely from wounds that refused to close.

Alice's dissolving form hovered before him, smiling despite herself.

"You bleed," she said softly. "And if I can hurt you like this, then others will too."

Her voice faded with her body.

Alice vanished into the ether, leaving only silence, blood-soaked ruin, and a wounded god standing beneath a crimson sky.