Chapter 740: Vs Thepes

More fighters came through. Vesa held the passage open behind the defenders while Dorian sent each group toward the attackers circling Alex’s fire.

"Keep them off the Sovereigns!"

Alex could leave that side to him.

A red-eyed vampire broke through the first clash. Its shoulder had been cut open, but it ignored the wound and leaped toward Selene.

BAM!!!

She caught the attack on her weapon and drove it away from the ice.

Two soldiers struck from either side before it could attack her again.

Mingyue stepped back, giving them space.

"Be careful," Alex told Dorian. "The bodies attacking you are already dead. Wounding them won’t be enough. Make sure you destroy them completely."

Dorian’s jaw tightened as he looked at the red-eyed bodies.

"Those things won’t reach them, King."

Alex left the soldiers to hold the line behind his runes and turned his full attention to Thepes.

Runes spread across the hammer in Alex’s hand as Mingyue moved beside him with her twin swords raised.

Thepes looked from one to the other. Blood gathered around his arms, thickening into blades.

"You brought more of them."

"They will make sure to destroy your armies," Mingyue said.

SWOOSH!!!!

Thepes struck before she finished stepping forward.

A red blade swept toward her neck. Mingyue leaned out of its path and brought both swords across his arm, one catching the blade while the other cut beneath it.

The edge cut into his wrist. Thepes pulled back.

Blood covered the wound almost as soon as it opened, and his other arm came toward her chest.

Alex hit it with his hammer.

BAM!

The blow knocked Thepes sideways. His feet broke the edge of the platform before he stopped himself.

Thepes glanced at his damaged arm as the bone pressed back into place beneath his skin.

Then he looked at Alex’s weapon, and the blood in his hand began to take the same shape.

Alex didn’t wait for him to finish shaping it. He crossed the distance and swung toward Thepes’s ribs.

Thepes finished shaping the hammer just in time to meet the blow.

BOOM!

The impact broke the section of platform beneath the two men. Alex landed on the lower floor with his knees bent.

Thepes hit beside him, his heel sliding across the blood until he caught himself with one hand.

He was still pushing himself upright when Mingyue reached his left side, her blades carrying purple ice.

Thepes brought his hammer around, but her first sword cut through the weapon near his hand.

The second opened a wound from his ribs toward his back, but he caught her wrist before she could withdraw the blade.

The strength in his fingers made Mingyue’s arm tense.

Her free sword turned toward his throat, forcing him to choose between holding her and protecting himself.

Thepes released her and leaned away from the sword, straight into the path of Alex’s hammer.

The blow drove him across the floor and into the base of a broken platform. Stone collapsed over his shoulder.

Mingyue stepped back beside Alex. She flexed the hand he had caught, then raised her sword again.

"He’s fast," she said.

"He knows how to fight, but he isn’t used to the body yet."

Thepes knew where to move.

He knew where to attack and block.

But his body was still sluggish. It didn’t react as fast as he wanted.

Alex suspected Thepes had inherited that knowledge from those sacrificed to make him.

The longer the fight went on, the more dangerous he would become.

They needed to defeat him before he adjusted.

Thepes pushed the fallen stone off himself. The cut in his side narrowed as he stood.

"You think two of you are enough to stop me?"

Mingyue’s expression stayed cold. "Come and find out."

He charged at her.

This time, his blood hammer changed before reaching her blade. The head broke into spikes, spreading around the sword instead of meeting it directly.

Mingyue stepped through a purple line in the air. The spikes struck the space where she had been and tore into the floor.

Thepes turned toward her new position.

Alex raised his hand.

Runes formed around the scattered spikes, and green fire ran along them toward Thepes’s grip.

Thepes released the blood weapon before the flames reached his arm.

He was reacting to the fire sooner now.

His next attack went past Alex.

A thick blood spear shot toward the upper platform where Selene was protecting the wounded.

Alex moved to intercept it, but Thepes struck at him before he could fully turn.

Mingyue caught Thepes’s strike on her swords and forced him back. Alex sent a rune after the spear, striking its side and deflecting it away from the survivors.

BANG!

The spear struck the platform’s edge. Stone broke beneath the defenders’ feet.

"Back from that side!" Dorian ordered.

The vampire fighters gave ground together instead of crowding into one area.

Selene caught the nearest soldier by his collar and hauled him clear of the crumbling edge, keeping her guard between the attackers and Marcell.

The red-eyed vampires followed the retreat, but Dorian turned his people against the first ones through. They held the narrower position.

Alex returned his attention to Thepes.

Thepes was watching his face.

His gaze shifted toward the wounded again.

Of course he would keep targeting them.

Alex knew Thepes saw them as nothing more than a burden now. But for Alex, that created an opportunity.

It allowed him to predict Thepes’s attacks more easily because he already knew who he would target.

Mingyue drove a sword toward his eye, forcing his attention back to her.

"Face us," she said.

Thepes stepped out of the cut. Ice lotuses opened behind him.

Their petals rose from the floor, freezing the space between him and the defenders on the upper platform.

He tried to force his way through the lotuses rather than let her choose where he could move.

The first lotus shattered beneath his foot. He reached the second before it fully opened and crushed it as well.

The third caught his ankle.

Thepes stopped and looked down. He poured power through his leg, but the ice only cracked.

This lotus held where the first two had shattered.