Marcus…
An unusual sensation passed through him as he felt some of his spiritual energy become drained from his body and added to Julian’s own before being split evenly between the both of them.
He immediately focused his attention on the ring on Julian’s finger as the cause of their energy being divided but was simply amused.
“The fuck are you smiling for?!” Julian demanded as he charged at him, swinging Sceawere at his neck only for it to be deflected with little effort.
“I just think its funny that you have to rely on other people’s strength because you are too weak to fight on your own. You were too weak and spineless to kill me yourself back on Terra, and you’re still too weak now,” Marcus said as he stopped time for a split second and kicked him in the ribs with enough force to shatter his rib cage.
When time restarted, Julian crashed to the ground and started clawing at his chest, struggling to breath as the Bloodletter’s magic worked to repair the damage.
“Look at you...pathetic. Its a wonder that you’ve managed to last as long as you did. If I had let you fight Fayebel, then you would have certainly lost to her, of that I have no doubt. In fact, I bet Heimdall let you win against him, because I can hardly imagine such an insignificant piece of trash like yourself actually managing to win against a god,” Marcus mocked him.
“Shut up!” Julian shouted as he gathered a mass of spiritual energy in his sword and swung it full force at Marcus’s chest.
Without bothering to use his sword, he covered his left hand in dense Dragon Glass armor and caught it in between his fingers.
“Now I may not be a master swordsman like some of those who have fought in this tournament, but I doubt I even need my sword to crush you,” Marcus said as he stabbed Light Taker in the ground to further emphasize his point.
Seeing this, Julian tightened his grip on the sword and Marcus felt a strange shift in the environment around them.
He could tell that Julian had swapped out with some kind of copy version of himself while remaining hidden from view somehow.
But with all the various ways Marcus had to detect him, the attempt to hide was meaningless as he snapped his fingers and his revolver appeared in his right hand. In less than a second, he had already aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger.
Julian’s head exploded as Seventh Sinner’s fire power reduced it to a fine mist.
The copied version of Julian that swung Sceawere at him vanished along with the sword itself as his actual body fell back to the ground.
“COME ON! I KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!” Marcus shouted at him as he waited for him to get back up.
As Julian, again, healed from having his head destroyed, he sat up and started looking for his sword.
“Nope. I’m taking that,” Marcus said as he reached out his right hand and Sceawere flew off the ground before Julian could grab it in time and landed in his right hand.
He watched as red lighting sparked across Marcus’s fingers as he gripped the blade firmly with both hands and snapped it in two.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Julian swore as he tried to lunge at him only to get kicked in the face.
“Don’t insult my mother like that,” Marcus said, not allowing him any time to recover as he grabbed him by his face and raised him off the ground before tossing him into the air.
He soared into the sky many times faster than sound and Marcus tugged on a chain he made as he ascended upwards.
“Railgun-,” he said as he brought Julian back down through the length of the chain.
“-Deadbolt,” he finished as he wrapped his hand around Julian’s throat the instant he reappeared in the vice grip of his right hand and his body exploded as the momentum was strong enough that his body from the neck down ripped itself apart and burst upon the ground.
Only his head remained in one piece as Marcus held it in his right hand and stared down at him in disgust.
“I will keep butchering you until you no longer have the strength to stand. No matter how much power you try to take from me, you will exhaust yourself trying to remain standing when faced with my overwhelming strength. Now...get up,” Marcus said as he snapped the fingers of his left hand and rewound the time flowing through Julian’s remains as he put him back together.
He gasped and flailed around wildly in fear as Marcus held him off the ground, choking him the instant he opened his eyes.
“As a matter of fact...why don’t we test the limits of how much power you can bear without exploding,” Marcus mused as he tossed him back to the ground.
“W-What…? What are you talking about?” Julian asked as he scrambled away from him.
“You haven’t noticed yet? I haven’t even released my limiters yet since this fight started. Everything I’ve thrown at you, I’ve done with the bare minimum strength I have. Lets see if you can bear the full weight of my soul,” Marcus said as he released all 100% of his limiters.
As he did, he had the feeling that the output of his soul had increased exponentially compared to before he had died and spent that time in Hell.
Within seconds, he could feel the spiritual energy being drained from his body and divided between them once again.
This time was different though as Julian’s body started to glow as the blood within his body began to boil from the inside out. His muscles began to tear from the slightest of movements, and his bones were crushed trying to contain the strength flowing through him.
His skin caught fire and he began screaming in agony, all the while the Bloodletter’s magic was pushed to its limits trying to keep him alive.
The ring on Julian’s finger began glowing red hot as the sheer amount of energy was becoming too much for it to withstand until it started turning into molten metal.
Unable to take it any longer, Julian struggled as he clawed at his ring finger and tossed it away.
The moment the ring left him, the mass of energy was converted into the Bloodletter’s magic as an ocean of blood exploded from Julian’s body.
Marcus stood firm, watching the grotesque display as the red tsunami parted around him.
With so much of the blood being released all at once, much of it was too hot to remain as a liquid and turned into a cloud of blood steam and mist.
There was so much of it that Marcus whistled, mildly impressed as it covered the battlefield for as far as his eyes could see and even beyond that.
With as much of the blood that was present, it likely could have drowned entire continents in its sheer volume.
When the ‘ocean level’ started to lower back down to a reasonable level and the ground was more visible to see once again, he found Julian coughing and groaning in pain, yet barely managing to contain the energy that the ring had given him.
Interesting…
Seems like the Bloodletter forced his body to evolve to handle my strength. Maybe now he’ll actually be able to fight back.
“So you could handle Heimdall’s soul but not mine? I wasn’t expecting such a difference in power between the two of us…,” he pondered as he waited for Julian to stand up again.
His clothes had been burnt to ashes and now he was drenched head to toe in a thick coat of blood.
He stared back at Marcus with fury in his eyes as he clenched his hand and a shard of the Bloodletter formed in his right hand.
“What do you intend to do with that?” Marcus asked him in a mocking tone.
“I’m going to kill you!” Julian answered.
“Are you now…? Well come on! Lets see it!” Marcus instigated him as he flicked his right wrist and Light Taker, which had been washed away in the tsunami of blood, fell from the sky and landed in his hand once again.
Seeing this, Julian let out a roar as he gathered a mass of blood from all around him, focusing it on the Bloodletter shard, and formed a full length blade with it.
He continued to gather more and more blood, taking it into himself, forming armor around his body with it, and compressing the blood around the sword until it had enough cutting power to cleave a moon in half.
As he watched this play out, Marcus changed the form of his sword from a longsword into a katana, made a sheath of Dragon Glass, and slid the blade into it, taking an Iai style sword stance.
While holding that stance, he called on Malthael to gather Arcanence into the blade, compressing it, and charged Light Taker with Death Lightning as he waited for Julian to make the first move.
“Lets settle this with one blow and see who comes out of this alive,” Marcus said, baiting him to attack.
“I’LL RIP YOU APART!” Julian shouted as he ran towards him with both hands clasped around the handle of his sword.
As the tip of his blade grazed the ground beneath him, a shockwave pulsated across the battlefield.
He then swung the sword through the air, releasing an arc of blood as he tried to slash Marcus apart.
Marcus ducked under the arc of blood, easily evading and maintaining his stance as Julian continued to charge towards him, raising his sword high above his head to bring it down upon him.
When Julian was within striking range, he swung down his blade with all his might only for Marcus to unsheathe Light Taker at the last second and parry it effortlessly.
Julian’s blade shattered and both of his arms were flung back from the recoil as he was left staggered from the impact. The blood and energy that he had gathered in the blade was absorbed into Marcus the moment it was destroyed.
In the very next instant, Marcus turned his wrist so that Light Taker’s bladed edge faced towards Julian as he cut him down.
He swung his katana down, shattering his armor and tearing through his flesh, leaving a scar that stretched from his left shoulder to the right side of his waist.
Julian’s eyes widened as he could feel that something was wrong with the magic that Marcus had used in that moment to cut him down.
He fell to his knees, his face went pale, and his hands shook as he looked down at his chest.
He then looked up in fear as thick tendrils of Deathroot suddenly burst from his skin, tearing through his body and ripping him apart from the inside out.
He had charged his sword with enough Death Lightning to incapacitate him, but not enough to turn him into a Draugr, or even a wraith.
If he did that, then the battlefield’s effects wouldn’t be enough to turn him back to normal and he would stay dead.
In fact, the Bloodletter had helped with that by forcing his body to evolve to withstand the trauma that his body was going through.
Otherwise, he might have actually killed him with that last attack.
“This fight is over,” Marcus said as he sheathed Light Taker and stood over Julian’s mangled body as the Death Root was still tearing him apart.
Having heard that, Julian’s eyes narrowed in anger as he growled and fought through the pain. He struggled to move, but managed to grip the tendrils of Death Root as he ripped it out of him.
“THIS WILL NEVER BE OVER!” he shouted as more Death Root grew out of him, but the more he ripped out, the slower it started to grow back.
“No. It is over. You have failed,” Marcus said firmly as he stood over him.
“NO! I will never stop! I won’t stop coming after you for what you did! For EVERYTHING you did to my family! My father! My mother! My sister!”
“What of it?” Marcus said dismissively.
Having ripped away the worst of the Death Root in his chest, he started ripping out what started growing in his arms and legs. What little remained of the Bloodletter shard’s power struggled to heal his body yet still he persisted off willpower and anger alone.
“YOU KILLED MY FATHER! YOU FORCED MY MOTHER AND SISTER INTO HIDING! EVERYONE I EVER KNEW, EVERY MEMBER OF MY FAMILY, GONE! TOO AFRAID FOR THEIR LIVES!”
Hearing this, Marcus’s eyes widened as he realized that in all the time that Julian had spent in the hospital after being shot in the head, and then later in hiding trying in vain to keep what little remained of Romano’s men, he completely misunderstood what had really happened to his family.
And Marcus couldn’t help himself but laugh.
He found Julian’s misunderstanding of the situation so hilarious that even Ender started laughing along with him as both of their voices became layered on top of one another, much to Julian’s confusion and horror.
“Wait...hold on…,” Marcus said as he struggled to contain himself.
Once he had managed to calm down, and Ender as well stopped laughing so that he could speak, he asked, “Do you...actually believe that the reason you never found your mother and sister, or any of your extended family was because they went into hiding? Like witness protection or some shit like that?”
“W-What…?” Julian stammered as he went still from fear.
“Here...let me show you the truth,” Marcus said as he wrapped his hands around Julian’s head and forced him to bear witness to the truth of what really happened that day, when he tore down everything Romano had built.