Vlad clenched his fist, “It’s been over a thousand years since someone brute forced himself through by blood magic,” He smiled, “How are you doing it?” CRACK! In the blink of an eye, he punched Arad in the stomach, sending him flying toward the forest with a blast. He stood with his smoking fist extended forward, “But can you fight effectively like that?”

“Arad!” Eris screamed.

CRACKLE! CRACKLE! From the forest, Arad walked out with a hole in his torso, unbothered in the slightest, “That was a nice punch,” His stomach healed like it was nothing. “And it’s my turn,”

ZON! Arad teleported toward Vlad, swinging a fist and smacking his face. BAM! BAM! Vlad’s body flew back, busting through the city wall and several buildings before stopping.

“HAHAHA!” Vlad started to laugh, his twisted face healing, “I see, it’s a fight of immortals. You’re as big of a monster as me,” He stood, shifting into mist and teleporting to stand before Arad. “Let’s play,” He lifted his hand, firing a blood blade that slicked a wound across Arad’s torso.

Arad’s body bent backward from the impact, but he quickly stared back toward Vlad, roaring. BAM! In the blink of an eye, he jumped forward, swinging a fist at Vlad’s shoulder.

Vlad jumped back with a flip, letting Arad’s fist rip a chunk of the ground as it swung all the way to the dirt.

Getting out of his flip, Vlad waved his hand, sending a blood slash toward Arad, cutting his left arm.

ZON! Arad teleported toward Vlad, swinging his severed arm. As it healed, the fist smacked Vlad, sending him flying through the wall and into the city, ripping several buildings apart before landing on the wall of the capital’s wizard tower, which was extremely sturdy due to magic.

“Two holes in the wall? Don’t you care about collateral damage?” Vlad shouted with a smile, but his eyes quickly burst open, seeing Arad running through the city, breaking buildings as he swung at Vlad.

Vlad turned around, running upward the tower’s wall.

Arad looked up with his fist plunged into the stone, pulled it out, and swung the other one, digging upward through the wall. As Vlad looked back, he could swear Arad was swimming through the wall of the tower at a horrifying speed.

It didn’t take Vlad long to reach the roof, and Arad was right behind him, swinging two fists down and smacking him on the head, sending him bursting through the tower’s layer all the way to the base.

CRACK! Vlad landed on his legs, ^This tower used to have thousands of layers maintained by magic, but now that the wizard was long dead, it returned to being on twenty floors.^ He looked up, seeing Arad falling after him and landing beside him.

“You’re a problem,” Vlad touched Arad’s chest and unleashed tens of blood blades at point blank, blasting Arad out of the tower. “But you aren’t using magic. Is that how you’re resisting my blood magic?” He flew after Arad, conjuring a scythe and swinging at his neck.

Arad bent forward and swung his fist, deflecting Vlad’s scythe as blood gushed from his wounds.

Vlad waved his hand, and Arad’s blood that spilled turned into spikes and stabbed him.

“You aren’t using your magic, and I can control your blood once it gets out of your body,” Vlad stood there, staring at Arad with a passive face, “I also never saw someone so hot. Your blood is hotter than that of red dragons. What are you doing?”

CLACK! Arad’s wounds healed as he stared at Vlad with a smile, purple light sparking in his eyes.

“You’re doing something,” Vlad swung his arm, sending a slash of blood that blasted Arad across the city, and he flew after him, “Then show me how long you can last,”

^I can wound him, but his bones are tough. Cutting them with blood slashes alone is difficult,^ Vlad thought as he waved his hand, compressing spears of blood.

“I guess you have high resistance to bludgeoning damage, mid for slashing, and weak for piercing.” Vlad fired the spears at Arad. Most were dodged, but one pierced Arad’s chest, leaving a gaping hole where his heart should be.

“I’m right,” Vlad stood on a building, watching as Arad’s chest healed, “If I wanted to damage you as much as I can do with my fist by only using blood. I’ll have to resort to piercing attacks,” He smiled, “But, where are your organs? Only a few vampires can regenerate their heart without flinching,”

As Arad’s wound healed, a white light emerged in his chest for a brief moment, flashing out as steam started gushing out of Arad’s back.

“Here, it happened again,” Vlad pointed at Arad, “The reason I can’t control the blood in your body,”

Arad’s eyes flashed green as he glared at Vlad.

Vlad gasped, feeling his heartbeat as his hand itched. He looked down, seeing his palm turning into stone.

“Petrefication curse?” He growled, cutting his wrist and flying back, “Do you think no one had tried petrifying me before?”

ZON! Arad teleported behind Vlad and swung a fist.

Vlad turned and blocked it with his palm, swinging at Arad’s face.

Arad blocked the punch and swung back at Vlad. For a minute, the two exchanged fists at a blinding speed, each trying to knock the other out by shattering their skull.

With a grin on his face, Vlad started mixing piercing and blood slashes between his attacks, cutting Arad’s body bit by bit.

The building around them crumbled as Vlad’s blood attacks ripped everything to shreds. .𝒎.𝒎

CRACK! Arad managed to land a punch on Vlad’s face due to his defense growing weaker from mixing blood magic into his attacks.

Vlad’s face caved in as he flew through several buildings like they were nothing and landed in the capital’s plaza.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Vlad started to laugh as his body levitated, staring at Arad as his face healed, “Surprise, I won’t get knocked out even if you evaporated my whole body,”

Arad walked through the destroyed building, his legs pushing the rubble aside as he healed with a bunch of steam gushing out of his wounds.

“We aren’t getting anywhere fighting like this,” Arad finally spoke, staring at Vlad with a passive face.

“Really? I don’t think so,” Vlad replied, “You’ll run out of blood to heal with before me.”

Arad cracked his neck, “I’m getting used to the heat and refilling. So it’s time to try and use some spells,”

Arad had kept pondering how Vlad’s blood control worked since he got hit in Riverside. Magic does exist, but it’s all spells that affect the world in specific ways to change it.

It required him to get to the bottom of blood, the true existence of vampirism beneath the curse magic holding it together. He didn’t understand it that well but got deep enough to figure few things.

Vampirism acts more like a disease than anything else, and so does Vlad’s blood control. It infects the blood of the living and forces them to obey orders.

Since blood vessels spread across the whole body, Vlad can easily control people like dolls by moving the blood in their body like a second skeleton.

That had meant two facts that Arad realized. Just like how fever makes it harder for diseases to operate in someone’s body, Vlad’s control seems to wane the hotter Arad’s body temperature gets. This seemed useless at first as Vlad could even control red dragons whose internal temperature can melt steel, but he’s a void dragon.

Arad had all of his organs stored in a safe space in his void while he raised the temperature of his body by igniting matter inside his chest. Now, he’s keeping a small Ho-white Nova burning inside as a heat source. That also proved to him that Vlad’s control can’t cross the layers of his void, meaning his organs can get blood supply without needing to heat that blood.

Heating his blood to that degree caused it to start getting damaged rapidly, which also disrupted Vlad’s control. And now that Arad’s bones have evolved, they’ve been resupplying him with tens of liters of blood to replace what was burned or lost. They won’t stop as long as he has food, which his stomach and the ground beneath his feet have plenty of.

But, there was a severe downside. Since he’s effectively fighting what would be a deadly fever, letting the boiling blood reach his brain could fry his nerves and cripple him.

Arad couldn’t hide his brain inside his void as that would induce enough latency in his moves for Vlad to beat him into minced meat. Arad was also using his void to isolate the Ho-white nova inside his chest, transfer the heat, and get rid of the damaged blood. All of this wouldn’t be possible without his innate void control, so hiding his brain was a no-go. It’s a critical organ for this fight.

He had to get creative with a plan to deal with that. He started forcing the blood that went into his brain to circulate on his back, colling off first before getting into his spine and up to his head He also decreased the amount of blood reaching his brain so it could be cooled easier and faster. That was the reason steam periodically gushed out of his back.

For this entire fight, Arad wasn’t trying to fight Vlad, but he was instead focusing on optimizing his cooling system to provide more cold blood to his brain.

PUSSSHHHHH! A gust of steam gushed out of Arad’s back as his sweat gland released water vapor as the blood cooled. He stared at Vlad with a grin taking a step forward.

.