I Am The Game's Villain Chapter 757: [Final Event] [Blood Moon Festival] [39] Amael VS Anox

"Sin of Wrath: Tegmen."

The phrase resonated through my very skeleton.

The surrounding Wrath tightened, flowing into those etched lines. Agony burst forth—piercing, precise, slicing right through sinews and skeleton; my molars clenched tight, jaw quivering. Then, as if a dagger sheathed smoothly, the torment focused into one icy strand tracing my backbone.

My frame grew less heavy.

Not mended.

Merely cleared of excess sensations—agony demoted to faint echoes, weariness buried beneath. Each inhale still labored, yet it held no importance. My sight grew keen, revealing every falling crimson drop, every speck of pale grit underfoot, every fine fissure in Sirius’s plating with eerie precision.

He struck first.

-BOOOOM!!

The earth beneath his prior position erupted. He streaked forward, a blur of ebony and gold spanning the gap to me. His blade descended in a straight slash, dark ichor raging around it like a horde of ravenous predators.

Trinity Nihil rose swiftly to block it.

The clash jarred clear to my shoulders, yet my limbs endured. Wrath specks densified along the edge, concentrating where they met. Dark ichor flooded over his weapon, attempting to creep onto mine, to taint, to gnaw upward toward my grip.

Wrath responded as famished parasites.

They devoured it.

The dark ichor brushing my blade simply... dissolved. It failed to ignite. It failed to burst. It fragmented into oblivion, crumbling to powder the instant it met the solid ring of Wrath gripping Trinity Nihil. Sirius’s plated visor shifted slightly.

I thrust him away.

His bulky form skidded back one pace, boots gouging tracks in the gore-covered rock. I refused to pause. Tegmen propelled my form ahead before the idea even solidified; I darted after him, limbs protesting, injuries pulling, disregarded. My edge arced in a compact, savage sweep targeting his throat.

He twisted aside.

-BAM!!

His forearm—sheathed in that roiling dark plating—crashed against Trinity Nihil, deflecting the blow. The jolt deadened my digits; the grip dug into my palm deep enough to tear flesh. Fresh crimson dripped along the shaft.

He retaliated with a sweeping backslash that appeared from thin air, the ebony blade tracing a curve of ruin toward my side. Wrath whirled, specks darting like a swarm of feral minnows; I crouched swiftly, the edge whistling above my crown, the atmosphere itself shriveling in its wake.

I spotted golden glow igniting then.

Dozens of armaments appeared within reach.

I rotated Trinity Nihil, tilting the broad side toward a split chunk of glossy rock partially embedded near my boots.

"Anathemas Fire."

A focused surge of violet blaze erupted from the weapon and struck the fragment. Its face gleamed—sleek, reflective as a mirror for a moment.

And I disappeared.

Reality warped laterally. My gut churned as my form dissolved into a streak of violet radiance and slipped into the gleam with blinding speed, quicker than usual.

Sirius’s golden armaments unleashed.

-BOOOOOM!! -BOOOOOM!! -BOOOOOM!!

The area I’d occupied moments before became a tempest of golden debris and crushed masonry. Dark ichor sprayed upward as the armaments ripped gaps in his own surging tide. The blast wave sliced the atmosphere, scorching and keen.

I emerged from a fractured storefront pane behind him.

I positioned myself hundreds of meters distant, the site already in shambles.

Shattered glass shouldn’t serve as a portal, especially in such devastation—but Anathemas Fire lingered on Trinity Nihil, and any path it traced turned faces reflective enough for my passage. My form glided from the pane like darkness detaching from existence.

Wrath already wound around my limb.

-BAM!!

My knuckles smashed against his visor’s flank.

Bone-resembling dark plating fractured. The blow sent a lance of torment up my damaged wrist, but Sirius’s cranium jerked laterally, his footing adjusting a touch. Wrath specks near my fist bored into the plating, carving tiny voids, expanding splits.

He countered swiftly.

A surge of dark ichor burst from his rear like appendages, each quill a razor-tipped barb. They launched at me tip-forward.

"...!"

Pale grit exploded from under my soles, fine as powder and luminous as celestial glow. In a flash, I vanished—just trails of faint particles gliding with his assault’s trajectory, weaving through the slim spaces amid spears of dark ichor. They howled by, riddling the structure behind my prior spot, stuffing it with a thicket of impalers.

I reassembled overhead in pale grit after invoking Fate.

Wind clawed at my gashes; my flank seared with blinding heat. I hauled Trinity Nihil upward using both grips.

"Come!" Sirius bellowed with a broad grin.

"Sin of Wrath."

Wrath specks gathered along the edge, so packed that no pale showed on the weapon or grip. Beneath, Sirius hoisted his blade, dark ichor twisting upward like a vortex.

-BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!

The blast wave rent the heavens once more.

Violet ruin and dark ichor clashed, neither fully blaze nor fluid. Where Wrath met dark ichor, it consumed the rim, peeling strata, diluting it; where dark ichor drove further, it halted the relentless erosion of my specks, stifling them, quieting their craving.

"...Ugrghh!!!"

My limbs howled.

Tegmen blunted the torment, but it couldn’t remove the burden. Skeleton hummed. Ligaments scorched. My digits seemed ready to pop from their joints just to maintain grasp on Trinity Nihil’s handle.

We slammed into the earth forcefully, still entwined.

The terrain hollowed beneath our soles, rock ground to powder across a thirty-meter span. Bystanders trapped in the enchantment plunged into the hollow, rolling near us like shattered playthings. Some collided with my rear, my limbs; I sensed skeletons snap under my soles as I pressed on, treating their forms as steps, as support.

Sirius answered with raw power.

Dark ichor welled from the hollow’s rims, shaping huge vines that lashed at my flank and neck. Golden armaments rematerialized, now piercing the vines themselves, embedded like jagged quills, granting them stabbing ends.

They assaulted from either flank.

I yanked Trinity Nihil loose and allowed my form to topple rearward, back arching.

Anathemas Fire flared from my spare hand, splattering over a splintered column segment sunk in the debris. Its face shimmered violet-silver sheen—and my form faded into it precisely as the vines hammered where I’d stood. The collision demolished the terrain, ebony and gold gouging furrows across the expanse.

I spilled from another reflection moments after—this time, a gore-coated pool that momentarily mirrored the distorted firmament as my blaze spread over it. My gut protested sharply; my flank ignited with fresh torment, both searing and chilling. This novel mirror method tugged at an inner core, a fiber nearing rupture.

Yet I lacked time to ponder it.

I materialized directly at Sirius’s left side, Trinity Nihil already swinging.

The initial slice severed his limb at the joint.

-SPURT!!

Plating ruptured. Dark ichor jetted in a forceful stream—but the Wrath on my edge cleaved the fluid as well, forging a neat trail that wouldn’t seal. His lower arm whirled off, weapon clutched, digits rigid on the handle.

The follow-up aimed at his throat.

He evaded.

The dark plating on his visor nicked the edge. Wrath specks swarmed, corroding it like caustic without warmth. Pieces sloughed off, exposing an orb glowing with near-mad glee amid the chaos.

One of his golden lances impaled my thigh.

-Spurt!

"Ughhh—!"

The tip protruded from my leg’s rear, scorching jolt converting all below the joint to haze. My respiration halted. Briefly, existence shrank to that invading shaft, its scrape on skeleton, the heat of crimson streaming down my shank.

I rammed my brow into his features.

-BAM!!

His cranium whipped rearward. Skeleton grated—his, not mine. Wrath shimmered around my dome, softening the harshest jolt.

The lance in my limb wrenched, seeking a broader tear. I seized the pole with one grasp, Wrath igniting around my digits; the golden form fractured, then crumbled, the bits consumed aloft as the specks tore it asunder.

Torment chased the instant the point withdrew.

My limb gave way. Tegmen steadied me anew, quelling the impulse to cry out into a dense torpor. The tissue still twitched, and each stride would grate with suffering, but motion remained possible.

Damn it...

That sufficed.

Overhead, the final dark spire throbbed, denser and murkier than prior ones, nourishing the quaking vestiges of the barrier. Filaments of taint flowed from it into Sirius’s plating, mending fissures, sealing gashes as rapidly as I inflicted them.

That needed destruction.

Sirius grasped my intent a heartbeat after I surged.

I propelled toward the spire’s foundation, hauling my injured limb like ballast. Each landing jarred another surge through my thigh, but Wrath preserved my gait from total failure. Sirius’s lone limb lashed out. Dark ichor reared as a barrier, a deluge surging to block me.

I refused to halt.

"Anathemas Fire."

Violet blazes thundered from Trinity Nihil, not a broad eruption now, but a slim, honed ray. It bored directly into the advancing barrier, boring a void straight through. The blaze adhered to the passage’s interior, converting it into a fiery maw of violet.

I plunged through it.

Scorch assailed my hide. My mantle’s borders blackened, wilted, and flaked to cinders. My injuries wailed as perspiration and crimson simmered against them. The odor of my searing tissue assailed my thoughts.

I suppressed it and burst from the far end.

The spire loomed ahead, its face pulsing and surging. Near, I discerned visages within—partly shaped, contorted, emerging and submerging into the ebony mire. Orifices gaped and shut in muted cries. Limbs protruded, digits spread, then melted back into the bulk.

I halted briefly.

Perhaps a vision, uncertain, I merely stared as though awareness fled for an instant.

That might stem from fatigue too.

Sirius struck me from the rear precisely then.

-BAM!!

The charge expelled breath from my chest. His plated shoulder rammed between my scapulae, propelling me onward. I collided with the spire using my torso first, the blow snapping something within; a crisp, moist snap echoed through my frame, and briefly the world slanted.

Dark ichor ascended around us, clenching like a grasp.

It sought to engulf me, to affix me to the spire and pulverize me betwixt shifting flanks. The squeeze came immediate, choking, striving to force into my nostrils, my lips, my orbs.

I yearned to shut my lids eternally but...

Ephera’s visage flickered in my mind, a recollection unknown before.

"ARGHHH!!!"

My specks erupted wildly, no longer a cover but a barbed aura. Anywhere they contacted the advancing dark ichor, transforming from dense, smothering fluid into subtle, innocuous powder that dispersed on an unseen gust.

Sirius’s plating warped where we mashed. Wrath gnawed the segments at my rear, consuming them stratum by stratum until I sensed his mass unfiltered, the warmth of his exhalation, the cadence of whatever mimicked a pulse in that casing.

I spun about.

My wounded limb protested as I compelled it to turn, employing the spire for support. Sirius’s drive persisted; I channeled it.

Pale grit erupted from under my soles in a compact whirl, amplifying the rotation. It shaped no firm form, merely a spinning flow permitting me to glide around his balance point. And merged with Amunet’s grasp...

Our stances inverted instantly.

Now his rear met the spire.

"AGHHH!!" He rasped.

-BOOOOOOM!!

The whole edifice quaked.

Fissures spidered along its height, irregular pale streaks dashing toward the shuddering canopy above. Dark ichor jetted every which way, flung by the collision, only to be consumed aloft where it grazed Wrath humming from my dermis.

I denied him recovery time.

Both grips seized Trinity Nihil.

The violet sigils spanning my form throbbed together, channeling all remaining into the edge—Wrath compacting until the weapon’s rim vanished wholly beneath a churning layer of ruinous specks. My limbs felt vacant, as if detached, as though I observed them from afar.

"Sin of Wrath..."

I drew the edge rearward.

The spire before us spasmed, visages howling mutely.

"...Tegmen Break."

I swung Trinity Nihil downward.

-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

The Wrath failed to blast outward. It collapsed inward. The moment the rim contacted the spire, the specks tunneled within, propagating through the full framework swifter than cognition, consuming every vein of force, every fiber of ichor, from heart outward. The shaft didn’t fracture—it vaporized.

One instant, a monolith of ebony taint overshadowed us.

The next, mere powder.

The crimson canopy above wailed. A lattice of breaks shattered over its face, then it crumbled wholly, shredding into scraps of oozing radiance that scattered on a breeze absent before.

The recoil ensnared Sirius.

With the spire absent, nothing tethered the torrent of dark ichor still fused to his plating. Wrath flooded it from within. His plating exploded in multiple spots simultaneously; jets of high-pressure taint vented like burst veins.

-BAM!!

The thrust flung him from me.

-BOOOOOOM!!!

"...UGHHKk!"

He hurtled over the terrain like a hurled stone, dragging dark ichor and fragments of his plating. His frame impacted the ground with force enough to etch a furrow through the leftover rock, sliding, rebounding, kicking up a gale of grit and gore before halting amid the wreckage of a fallen vault.

My limbs dangled senseless at my flanks.

Each respiration felt like a dagger anew. The torpid veil of Tegmen around my form wavered; torment leaked through breaches in the barrier, flooding back into perception. My sight hazed, then sharpened in erratic throbs as I compelled my chest to persist.

Not finished.

Not quite.

I shoved off the earth.

Violet specks ignited along my limbs, imparting each pace a fierce, spasmodic boost. The surroundings smeared. In one pulse, the span to him was a scarred warzone. In the next, I hovered over him, Trinity Nihil lifted aloft in shaking grips.

Dark ichor slithered upward from the hollow encircling his form, acting by reflex. It ascended into a vault, stacking into a shield, layer over layer, a plated cocoon betwixt my falling edge and his torso.

"Sin of Wrath."

The phrase ripped from my abraded throat.

Wrath thundered along Trinity Nihil’s span in response, amassing at the tip.

I thrust the weapon downward.

-CRAAAAASH!!!

The point struck the ichor shield initially.

For a split instant, it withstood. Dark fluid solidified, strata squeezing, striving to form an indestructible bulwark.

Then the specks sank teeth.

Wrath eroded the shield as if it were decayed parchment. The outer layer evaporated. The next pursued. The third endeavored to endure, to bulk up, to bolster with further tainted ichor, but each added droplet merely fueled the ruin.

The vault folded inward.

Trinity Nihil breached through.

The leftover strata curled back around the edge, devoured even as they sought to seal. I encountered scant opposition when the weapon at last reached tissue beyond.

It pierced his torso.

"....UUUGHH!!!!"

A sodden, ponderous noise resounded in the devastated area as metal and Wrath delved through plating, through skeleton, through whatever served as Sirius’s core. Dark ichor gushed around the gash, attempting to drown it, to expel the edge—but the specks were embedded, burrowing further, etching voids of emptiness within him.

I grunted, steady, my grips firm on the handle, joints oozing.

"Stay down," I murmured.

And shoved Trinity Nihil fully through.

"...!"

Sirius’s orbs flew open.

"AGHHHHH!!!"

His cry echoed sharply about.

I wrenched the weapon deeper.

His entire frame convulsed wildly. His digits clawed into my limb—nails raking my hide, frantic, quaking—but I remained unmoved. My visage held icy, my golden orbs locked on him without the faintest waver of doubt.

His hold slackened.

Then at last, his limb fell slack to his flank.

"Ghh—!" He hacked up more crimson, soiling the edge and his garb. Only then did the dark ichor eddying around him start to fade and drop inert to the ground.

A prolonged, weighty quiet enveloped us.

"Are you done now?" I queried, my tone stripped of any trace of kindness.

Sirius raised his cranium gradually. His locks reverted to their true golden hue, and the dark rims of his orbs withdrew, normalizing. He appeared oddly mortal once more—vulnerable, nearly.

He rasped, struggling for air, then offered a weak, fractured grin.

"A—Agh..." He attempted words, but they flowed with difficulty. His gullet grated like it held splintered crystal.

I left the weapon embedded.

Not yet.

Not until utter certainty of his demise.

I wouldn’t echo the error with Cyril.

"Let me ask you something," I stated softly.

His dimming stare rose to meet mine, irises gradually dimming.

"Was any of it real?"

It posed a straightforward query. Yet he understood precisely my intent.

All he’d enacted.

All he’d revealed to me, to all.

The