Betrayal (III)

I rapidly gathered most of my blood spilled nearby in the palm of my right hand. I was preparing my next move when suddenly a strange man appeared in front of me.

Huh? A proper warrior? Why so suddenly?

I rapidly closed my fist, squeezing the fluids out until I managed to summon my gladius once more.

The soldier that had just appeared in front of me tackled me. In the blink of an eye, we were both outside the area of the effect of the Banner of Immortality.

 So he knew about this as well? While it's true that I'm immortal so long that I stay within the area of effect of the banner, it seems they don't quite understand how it works, all the better for me.

I was able to stab him just before my body melted into a steamy puddle of flesh, and almost instantly regenerated back in front of the banner.

I didn't think you could even find these kinds of abilities anymore. I thought we had found all the teleporting demons. I guess I was wrong.

I wrapped the bandages floating around me on my left arm as the soldiers were trying their best to stop me by launching bombs at me and shooting me with everything they had.

 Your teleportation ability looks interesting enough. I hope you won't mind if I get it for myself. Right now, I need it far more than you.

I pulled the bandages forward with all my might, slamming the body of the guy with the teleportation ability against the ground. The gladius was still stuck to his back and the cursed bandages were preventing him from using his abilities.

I gathered blood around my right fist, raised my fist ready to punch a hole through his skull, then a bunch of large maggots emerged from the ground forming a large wall in between him and I.

"It's useless. You're only delaying the inevitable." I shouted. 

I punched through the wall of maggots, then I conjured all of my blood on the knuckles, making a spike emerged from my fist. It pierced the body of the warrior on the ground, wrapped the blood around the handle of my gladius and retrieved it from his body.

After I extracted the sword from his body, the bandages began drilling into his body, wrapping themselves around a bunch of small marbles left inside.

The bandages then wrapped around my arms, forcefully injecting those marbles into my flesh.

Time to kill to the man with the black mask.

The strings puppeteering the dead rapidly descended from the skies to wrap themselves around the body of the warrior I had just killed.

The man in a trench coat, then took off his coat revealing a pretty muscular build underneath, wearing a skintight black shirt and black sweatpants. He immediately charged forward and I in response blowed the whistle as hard as I could, but nothing changed.

A blade emerged out of the right hand of the corpse lying before me, piercing my right inner thigh. The strings connected to the corpse made it violently spin, splitting open my leg, and even managed to harm my right eye.

If you think I'll let you get away with this, you're dead wrong.

In the meantime, I tried to use the fluids gathered so far to obliterate the remaining soldiers, but the same powerful sniper shot blocked my attack and vaporized the water gathered.

How annoying. If that masked guy has remained unaffected by the whistle, it means that it's not a demonic tool. The only one suffering from it is Glaive over there.

The masked man grabbed my right wrist as he pulled me closer. I made my wrist explode, using my blood to create sharp blades piercing his hand. I made them spin, cutting off my mine and his hand.

He distanced himself before I could swing the gladius at him, only to then fall into the mouth of the gigantic snake made of fluids.

After being swallowed and crushed, his body turned into wood.

"Tsk! How annoying."

Glaive had a bunch of tree branches violently emerging from his body, tearing his flesh apart as they merged together to create a lance for him. A weapon filled with maggots and oozing a strange liquid off the tip of the weapon.

Out of the many branches, many more mannequins were formed, taking the same aspect of the man that I had just killed.

"Xavier! Be careful, he doesn't fight in a conventional way. Try to stay as further away from him as possible! Remember that he doesn't feel any pain. Use that to your advantage, but remember, that's also one of his biggest strengths." The muscular bodyguards shouted as one.

Xavier? Who the hell is Xavier? Wait? What does this mean? Who talked to who just now?

I made blood burst out of my throat. It was a neat trick to restore the fluids lost. Since I was immortal, I could extract as much blood as I wanted. It would've all regenerated within a few seconds.

I used the blood to create a spear in my left hand and waited for the sniper to attack me. I wanted to block it this time to figure its position, but I couldn't block this time the attack came from above.

Damn it! How is he… How does that weapon work? Does he have to set it up? It has been striking me at irregular intervals. There is no repeating pattern here. How am I supposed to…

The power of the first attack wasn't strong enough to break the armor. The second time, it was strong enough to blow up my head without me feeling any pain, but the third time was weaker than the previous three strikes.

As annoying as it is, I can't deal with whoever that is unless… No, even then, I don't have enough people to expand the range. Well, attempting won't hurt.

As soon as my body, along with my clothes, finished regenerating, I grasped the banner that was granting me immortality, and further dug it underground.

Flesh tendrils came out of it in response, reaching out for the many corpses lying all around us. They reached for the many moving corpses and rapidly pulled them away from the control of the many strings.

Using the blood under my control, I retrieved my weapon once more, then I expanded the blood in order to cover the whole area under the effect of the banner.

He summoned his celestial armor, a white, holy-looking armor equipped with a blue mantle.

It had a large golden cross on the shoulder pads, a halo made out of golden feathers hovering over his head, blue flames coming out of his elbows, sides and heels. His body was still spilling maggots wherever he stood who rapidly died if separated from him for too long.

He rushed towards me, pointing the large lance at me, but our weapons never clashed. Before he could even get within twenty meters of me, a couple of spears emerged from the ground, piercing both his sides and then pinning his body to the ground.

Many maggots poured out of his wounds, gathering around the base of the spears pinning him down, feasting on the fluids currently pinning him down.

The flames coming out Glaive body rapidly set those maggots on fire, causing them to explode, releasing green flames.

What is this?.

"Any last words?" He asked me.

"Go fuck yourself." I answered.

"Alright, you asked for this."

I tried to manifest the teleportation ability, but all I achieved was splitting my vision in two. I was seeing multiple scenarios of the same battlefield unfold before, and I controlling both bodies was headache inducing.

What? how does this work?

I tried to make the other copy walk towards my left side while I rushed towards the opposite side, then a kick from Glaive's bodyguard hit the copy. The blow pulled my consciousness back into my injured body, and the other body disappeared.

How? the other copy wasn't visible, it didn't really exist… no, taking it was a trap, and I fell for it.

I noticed a dark hole in the palms of the bodyguard's hands. Poking out of it was a small silver key.

This is troublesome. Guess I've got to get rid of the fakes and find the real one as soon—-

A sudden wall of flames crashed onto me. Glaive successfully freed himself.

All the flames concentrated themselves around me and got more intense with each passing second.

Now or never!

I cut to pieces my body and spread it apart, then while regenerating my body in a safe position, I covered the gladius with blood and substituted it with a fake, hiding the real weapon underground.

I need to master this ability if I want to have the slightest chance of defeating those guys.

I once again, activated the teleportation ability, splitting my mind in two once more. This time, I focused on suppressing one of the two bodyguards.

One copy of me leaped upward, the other simply gathered its own blood to shoot an empowered projectile.

This time, the copy on the ground was shot by the sniper, interrupting the ability.

Suddenly, in front and behind me, there were two massive opened gates, from which many tentacles emerged attempting to subdue me.

I jumped to escape, only to then get hit by a fireball.

Glaive rushed towards me, with a sword in his hand, covered in maggots.

"No, you won't!" I said, making spears erupt from my chest, clashing with his sword and pushing it away from me.

The blood spears then quickly turned into chains. I wanted to stab him with my sword, but I was pushed away by his bodyguard. He pushed me to the ground with a kick coming from my left side.

I got back up and immediately created a wall in front of me to block the following attack, a large burst of flames.

Behind me was the other bodyguard who tried to put on the suppressant cuffs on me. As soon as he put on the cuffs on my right hand, I cut off the right arm, then I impaled him using the blood coming out of the injured shoulder.

Fuck, at this rate I might even lose. I need a plan. How can I even deal with this?

Most other soldiers were dead by now, the few remaining alive were too shocked to even hold a weapon properly, it was only a matter of time before eventual support would come to help Glaive and if by then I didn't manage to kill him, it would've been disastrous for me.