"Kyle, run!" Aleriana shouted, drawing her blade in one fluid motion.
'!'
"Kurgh!" The impact sent the heavy furniture—and Kyle—skidding across the marble floor with a screech, barely escaping the lethal strike.
Her sword gleamed under the distorted light filtering through the crimson fog as she swung it diagonally at the incoming stream of blood.
But Mialthara's body was no longer solid.
The moment the blade passed through, her form unraveled into a serpentine rope of blood, coiling mid-air like a living whip and wrapping tightly around Aleriana's torso.
"Ugh!"
Crimson tendrils slithered and constricted, pinning Aleriana's arms.
Then came the spikes.
With a grotesque ripple, the blood rope bristled like a demonic porcupine, hundreds of crimson thorns erupting outward, aiming to skewer her flesh from all angles.
But Aleriana vanished.
The spikes struck only air.
A flicker of displaced shadow signaled her reappearance directly beside Olea.
