Mora grabbed her bow, and Eyshan gripped her sword tightly with her remaining single hand. Just as it was said, the time to settle a hundred-year-old score was exactly now.
Ceasing her rain of arrows, Mora began firing single, yet impossibly fast shots. Eyshan managed to parry some with her blade, but was forced to dodge the vast majority.
"Is this all the power you've gained by whoring yourself out? Are you going to stand against me by sucking the residual life force of a few measly corpses?"
Mora was ruthless, wounding her enemy with both her strikes and her words. Thanks to Nafız's meticulously conditioned body, she executed her will with ease.
On the other side, Eyshan, whose talents lay in fire energy, had hit a dead end. Even though the attacks she managed to launch in her brief windows of opportunity reached their target, they were far from inflicting any real damage.
"A hundred years have passed, yet nothing has changed. You are condemned to always remain in my shadow!"
Mora spat on the ground right after a blood arrow pierced the arm Eyshan used to hold her sword, leaving her defenseless.
"Enough, enough, enough! You come from some lowly sect; I am of the Hellish Royal Family. You will kneel before me!"
The long-faced woman screamed at the top of her lungs, beginning to draw symbols in the air with her single free hand. She was so fast that she finished her incantation right before her dropped sword even hit the dirt.
"Apostles, grant me your power!"
The glowing diagram shattered, splitting into pieces that tore through the air in two different directions. One half shot toward the Orc Group, while the other homed in on the Holy Blood Sect faction; their targets were the lifeless corpses of the two Apostles.
"Number One, don't let her!"
Alyon figured out what was happening and barked his order to the Elite Ten's Number One. The giant totem blasted a beam of green light, and the corpse of the Apostle with the plant-controlling ability vanished. The fragments of the diagram didn't stop; they redirected toward the Elite Ten's Number One, only to find someone they completely didn't expect blocking their path.
"Scatter, you bastards!"
Though the frail voice was heart-wrenching, the violent air current generated by the colossal axe dispersed the fragments in mere seconds. The Orc Front didn't give up the Apostle's corpse, but things didn't play out the same way on the other side. Eyshan successfully siphoned the energy of the male Apostle, whose head and body lay in separate places.
"My Lady!"
By the time Jashua woke up, it was already over. To redeem himself, the Young Count bolted toward the area where the two women were clashing.
"Stay exactly where you are! This fight is between the two of us; no one has the right to interfere until it's over!"
Mora didn't want any help. Even if Eyshan had managed to leech the Apostle's energy, she was going to face her alone. At that same moment, the long-faced woman's severed arm and shoulder were regenerating; the newly formed limb looked much thicker and grotesque than before.
"The Apostle's power is now mine. Even if all of you attacked me at once, I could escape, but first, I'm going to settle my score with you!"
"Bring it on, you thief! Let's see what you can actually do by stealing the power of others!"
Mora drew her daggers, and Eyshan recalled her fallen sword to her hand. Two old friends, two eternal enemies, clashing for the very last time.
Mora was arrogant, and she absolutely deserved to be. She manipulated the speed, trajectory, and size of the blood daggers shooting from her bracers with such mastery that every time they clashed against the flame-wreathed sword, she carved another wound into her foe.
"It doesn't matter how much you slice me! I will come back stronger every single time!"
Eyshan shrieked like a maniac, and judging by the impossible speed at which her gashes were knitting back together, she was right. Her combat prowess was surging. While Mora had the upper hand in the initial exchanges, Eyshan began to overpower her as she soaked up more damage.
"Nafız, it's time to repay my favors. I'm going to rough up this body you've trained for six hundred years just a bit!"
Mora muttered as the orc body she inhabited morphed, coating itself in a thick layer of dense blood energy.
"No matter how much you get cut, you'll just keep getting stronger, right? Well, what happens if I take your fucking head!"
"Blood Techniques: Beast Transformation!"
Two wings erupted from Mora's back. They grew and grew, only stopping when they reached the wingspan of two grown men. The tips of the densely feathered wings were so razor-sharp that they gleamed brightly despite the dead of night.
"You're going to defeat me with this? With some pathetic technique a miserable orc came up with?"
"Yes, this is exactly what I'll defeat you with!"
The wings spread wide. Inside Nafız's body, Mora looked as majestic as a Blood Eagle. The wings violently snapped shut, and thousands of feather-shaped blood constructs swarmed Eyshan like a storm.
"Hit me! Strike me, and make me even stronger!"
She didn't run, nor did she hide; she tanked the incoming onslaught head-on. A feather would punch clean through her body, and the gaping hole would heal completely before the next one even arrived. Her regenerative ability defied all logic; her physical size had swelled to three times her original proportions.
"I'm taking your limbs!"
Using the blood energy that had formed into a beak right in front of her face, Mora ascended higher and higher, then suddenly went into a steep dive. Two breaths later, Eyshan's right arm was ripped off, but the instantly regenerating limb snatched her sword out of the air before it could even hit the ground.
"Futile efforts, you are going to die!"
Eyshan brought her sword down in a merciless arc at Mora, who was trying to pull away. It wasn't the fire energy coating the blade, but the raw, monstrous brute force of the long-faced woman that sent Mora flying backward.
"The unstoppable power and indestructible body of the Eighth Apostle are now mine. I've changed my mind; I'm going to kill you first, and then slaughter everyone else here!"
Eyshan was drunk on pleasure; her newly acquired might was completely clouding her judgment. Mora didn't say a word. She went into another dive, her speed accelerating far beyond what the naked eye could track.
Eyshan's lower half was completely severed from her torso, her internal organs spilling out across the dirt in a gory mess. But a few breaths later, they knitted back together as if absolutely nothing had happened, and her sword violently slammed into Mora's body.
"Attack! Attack!"
Growing stronger with every single strike she absorbed, Eyshan screamed in pure ecstasy, utterly thrilled that Mora was rapidly feeding her power.
"This is the end!"
Exhausted by the vicious retaliations of Eyshan, who had taken over twenty of her blows, Mora muttered to herself and ripped the enemy's right leg clean out of its socket.
"The years you spent dead have rotted your brain, too. Now, it's time for you to die for good!"
Aiming for Mora's head while she was momentarily defenseless after her strike, the long-faced woman raised her arm—but less than a heartbeat later, her gaze froze. She couldn't lower the arm she had raised. Her body had mutated and bloated so grotesquely after absorbing all those blows that performing the simplest movement was physically impossible.
Even though the severed foot regenerated, Eyshan had almost zero mobility left. Mora watched her from ten paces away, slowly wiping the blood oozing from the corner of her mouth.
"You were a moron, you are a moron, and that's exactly how you'll die. How could you ever think a power belonging to someone else would perfectly fit your body? When even the original owner of this power didn't dare to tank every single hit like you did, what is this arrogance?"
Even if it had cost her a few wounds, Mora had closely watched the battle of the Two Apostles and already understood the male one's power. Unlike Eyshan, she had actually analyzed that power and found its fatal flaw. If the effect that strengthened the body with every hit stacked up too much, it would utterly obliterate the user's mobility.
She formulated a hypothesis, tested it, and proved herself right. Her enemy stood before her as a bloated, massive monstrosity; she couldn't even move an arm or a leg. After sending two blood daggers just to test it one final time, Mora plastered a bloodcurdling smile across her face.
"How do you want me to take that head carrying your ugly face?"