A/n: I was having some depression lately, sorry for the bad schedule.
It hasn't answered the call of its master since it was laid to rest in Jon's personal gallery. However, the red ebony sword could bear the wait no longer and took matters to its own.
When Jon left Skyrim to exile, he left Bloodskal hanging above Winterhold with magic and told it to descend and protect his family when they needed to. They rarely needed such help but from time to time, Bloodskal acted as a reminder of Jon's presence in the land.
After Jon arrived, Bloodskal didn't see much action until today.
"Old Friend!" Jon called the sword and with a whistling sound, it rested in Jon's hand.
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[ Bloodskal ] < Ebonblood Longsword >
- Aura Attacks
- Sword Ego
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With such a sword in hand, Jon felt like missing the old days, and with a smile that couldn't hide his excitement for battle, his red and black Aura was slowly rising around him.
The Tyrant Aura, it was kept suppressed for a long time since Jon was only getting stronger as of late and if he was honest with himself, he would admit that he is a bit worried about what sort of damage his Aura will do when it is in full display.
This night and for some reason, Jon's worries were thrown out of the window and he focused on his enemy, the Nightmarshal.
"I have one request." Jon then spoke as he approached his foe, the Nightmarshal in his Vampire Lord form.
"…" As usual, the Nightmarshal wasn't one to use many words.
"Don't die too soon." Jon spoke his piece and aimed his sword and the Nightmarshal.
With a vicious sneer, the Nightmarshal raised up the arm that was cut and as if ash was starting to form on it, it was being rapidly restored to what it was before it got cut.
"Come!" And the Nightmarshal spoke.
He didn't need to finish his words before he saw something beyond understanding. Jon was a fair distance away just now and as soon as he was told to come, his knee was already meeting with the face of the Nightmarshal.
A tit for tat, the Nightmarshal was sent in a beeline through the open gate of Saarthal and crashed outside the city at a burning house in the shanty town.
"I was being serious." Jon's voice didn't come from far away or from outside the crumbled burning house.
It was there with him when the Nightmarshal regained his balance.
Before he could even react, an uppercut arrived at the chin of the Nightmarshal and the world around him fell down… or was he the one going up?
It was almost difficult to tell with all that concussion he was subjected to.
"ENOUGH!"
A blood aura exploded as the Nightmarshal and he suddenly disappeared from view in a form of mist.
On the ground, Jon walked slowly toward the plaza of the shanty town and stood while watching the sky waiting for whatever comes next. But in a moment of heightened senses, Jon immediately waved his sword behind him and a clank of metal was heard yet in the same instant, a sword stabbed his left side.
"ARGH!"
The pain of metal and bone clashing against each other made him almost want to jump away but he held the blade that stabbed him with his free hand and stopped it.
The mist around the Nightmarshal dissipated and as he appeared in front of Jon, he was holding two shortswords, one pushing against Jon's Bloodskal and the other stabbing him.
"I'll feast on your blood!" The Nightmarshal finally made a statement full of rage and malice.
"So you're the one that Edgy boy is taking after." Jon smiled despite the pain he was experiencing.
"DIE!"
The Nightmarshal wasn't laughing around and pushed against Jon with his mighty Vampiric Aura. Jon's Aura didn't waver down one bit but he still retreated away from the Nightmarshal while healing his wound.
"Hehehe!"
The Nightmarshal, however, laughed viciously while seeing Jon trying to heal himself.
The wound wasn't healing and of course, the bleeding wasn't stopping.
Jon looked at the Nightmarshal's swords and realized that the moment he was stabbed, he was subjected to its bleeding effect. Moreover, the Nightmarshal was absorbing Jon's vitality with these swords.
Vampire Weapons, vicious little things.
"Fine!" Jon's smile didn't grow any thinner and he only had to utter a few names, "Sheogorath! Shor!"
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[ Blessing of Sheogorath ] <Power>
- Mad Champion: 2500% Vitality Regen for 60 seconds at the expense of sanity.
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[ Blessing of Shor ] <Power>
- Heartbreaker: Against any non-Nord, gain more power the more prolonged the fight gets. However, you lose all momentum once you are stopped.
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With the two blessings in his arsenal of abilities, the Aura around Jon gets more violent and tyrannical. His legs darted him ahead like a loose arrow towards the Nightmarshal with nothing in mind but to bring disaster on the vampire.
"TAKE THIS!"
With the sword falling at the Nightmarshal, the vampire didn't dare to be lax while confronting this version of Jon with the suffocating feeling he emitted and suddenly spun around with his sword to dodge the attack which split the ground.
Jon's eyes were fixed on the Nightmarshal's movements and before the Nightmarshal would dodge completely, Jon extended his free hand to grab the vampire's arm.
It was almost impossible for the Nightmarshal to move without Jon's permission at this point and with just one swing, Jon tossed the Nightmarshal a league to the north.
Would he stop at this rate? No. Jon was already chasing after the vampire he tossed and waved his sword in thin air to produce an Aura Blade that chased after the Nightmarshal.
Against such a dangerous Aura strike and not being able to gain a foothold in his current state, the Nightmarshal spun around himself again but this time, he wasn't dodging anything and he didn't do just one spin. He spun so rapidly like a spiral and let off many storms of flying blades.
The flying blades were spinning as fast as the Nightmarshal and flew in strange patterns and even multiplied like a dread illusion all while aiming at Jon's Aura attack and even Jon himself.
It took seven flying blades to stop Jon's Aura attack and the rest were already trying to put distance between Jon and the Nightmarshal. Still, Jon was waving his sword with all his senses focused and on the brink of letting loose.
The Nightmarshal realized the danger of facing Jon in close-quarter combat at this point in the fight and decided to let the distance between them grow. Jon was unstoppable but just like a raging bull, he'd be distracted by whatever was in his vision. That's when the Nightmarshal decided to go with the big spells.
He immediately discarded the swords and on his hands appeared two spheres of blood magic that were charged with his vampiric essence. They enlarged into the size of a medium rock and he cast them at Jon.
Jon immediately dodged the first by rolling sideways and with his sword, he cut the second in half only to find that there was no essence to the power of the spell. While not taking risks, he avoided the byproduct of the spell which was a storm of batlike blades that kept whirling around the blood energy spheres and chased after him. Even the one that he dodged before homed back at him and gave him a chase.
"Cunning!"
Jon felt the pressure from the two spells and noticed that the Nightmarshal had managed to regain a foothold and started to control the two spells to pressure him more. Feeling as if he was about to be pushed back, Jon pulled out another card.
"Boethiah!"
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[Blessing of Boethiah] <Power>
- Berserk: Take less damage and deal more damage in a feral state of mind. The damage dealt and taken depends on how far you rage.
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With this wild card, Jon discarded all forms of protection and let the fight climax get to his head. He swung his blade and its Aura was launched not only in one blade but multiple.
He turned to the blood sphere that was flanking him from the back and punched it beforehand to dispel it while the Nightmarshal lost his concentration to dodge the Aura Blades.
Jon didn't give him room to breathe and leaped high with his fist radiating in red and his eyes turning black. The Chaos Infection ran itself loose in his mystic tattoos and its patterns come to life as he punched down a Chaotic Aura Punch.
The Nightmarshal sensed something horrible approached him and had to dodge it no matter what. He discarded all his pride and pushed himself with both his physical and magical powers to keep away from the coming menace.
*BOOM*
Like a meteor, the fist landed off-mark and the land shook over Winterhold. As for the intended target, he rolled away a few times after landing near the northern shores.
The dust settled and the vampire looked up to see that Jon leveled the area with his attack and still stood tall looking for a fight. However, this time he wasn't just a mortal, he was like a mortal threat to the entire vampire kind.
"The Demi-Princes of Oblivion wouldn't fight like that." The Nightmarshal spoke his longest sentence for the night.
While expecting Jon to reply, it was clear that this sort of luxury wouldn't be provided this easily. Still, Jon seemed like he was about to say something.
"Wuld…"
The Nightmarshal didn't seem to understand the meaning of that word but by the next second, he wished he knew what it meant.
"NAH KEST!"
The Thu'um that Jon shouted launched him in a straight beeline towards the Nightmarshal and caught him in a melee. This was the worst-case scenario for the Nightmarshal who wanted to avoid Jon's brute strength at all costs.
But still, this was an Elder Vampire, one that has gone through many wars and fought with creatures from Oblivion and beyond. He wouldn't lose this easily or this soon.
Jon slashed once, twice, and thrice, the Nightmarshal would barry the sword strikes and deflect them using his insanely strong and sharp claws but at the fourth slash, two fingers were cut off.
Jon was aiming to dismember the vampire limb from limb but the latter seemed wary of that scenario and tried to evade it at all costs. What he couldn't evade, however, was Jon's kick to his guts.
Willing to finish his foe, Jon raised his sword with his two hands and attempted to perform a downward slash with an enormous amount of Aura. No matter how the Nightmarshal tries to dodge, this one is undodgeable. The only way to survive this, however, is to stop it before it comes.
The Nightmarshal jumped ahead and held Jon's forearms before he would perform his finishing move. It was a game of power and the Nightmarshal couldn't find a leeway from a frontal confrontation.
Jon tried to slice the Nightmarshal in half but the Nightmarshal actually put up a decent amount of power to disable Jon's attack. At this moment, it was the two of them just pushing against each other.
"Haha! This is more like it."
Jon discarded his sword too and pushed back against the Nightmarshal with maddened laughter. He pushed and pushed and finally, they were pushing against one another properly hand in hand.
Their hands were locked together and they were even headbutting one another. No matter how thick Jon's skull is, there were five horns on the head of the Nightmarshal to headbang at. However, what concerned them more was their foothold and the two kept digging their feet firmly into the rocky ground as they pushed one against the other.
"You'll die! You'll die and every vampire in your ranks shall be slaughtered by my hands." Jon shouted and laughed.
"Annoying!" The Nightmarshal barely expressed his annoyance.
The two of them kept pushing ahead against the other one with more power and vigor. Their physical force was almost equal but as Jon was using his Aura to gain more power, the Nightmarshal was burning the blood inside him as fast as a car on its last gear.
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
Jon shouted and pushed with even more power but this time…
*Crack* *CRAck* *CRACK*
The land beneath them started to crack and a fissure formed diagonally.
Just with all that might, the two managed to split the Nirn while pushing against one another.
"HAHAHAHA!"
Jon was in battle ecstasy and started to overwhelm the Nightmarshal at last. He was even squeezing his hands to shatter them to pieces.
Just at that moment, two figures came out from the mist behind Jon and attacked him.
"Master!" "Lord!"
The Houndmaster and the Bloodscreamer, who seemed to have retreated from their fights, decided to come and give aid to the Nightmarshal. The method they thought they would do it was by digging their fangs into the neck of Jon Dare.
Jon wasn't even phased by them but his grip around the Nightmarshal loosened and the latter jumped a fair distance backward in order to stay away from the madman. As for the Houndmaster and the Bloodscreamer, Jon spread his arms and held them together in his embrace.
While his actions were weird and not sane, the Nightmarshal was 100% sure that common sense can never be applied to that human… if he can be even called that.
What followed that was the sight of the Houndmaster and the Bloodscreamer squirming and trying to get away from Jon. On the other hand, Jon didn't let them loose, he even didn't allow them to take their fangs off his neck.
The Chaos Infection was pumping through and from him to them.
They weren't meant for that kind of power.
They withered to black ash between his arms and disintegrated.
Seeing that, the Nightmarshal pulled out and vanished into the mist form with one word rumbling in his mind.
"Monster!"
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A/n: Help me reach my Goal on P4treon & Join Discord! ➡️ https://linktr.ee/donovel ⬅️