Thepes pressed his torn palm against the blood beneath him. Fresh blood ran from the wound and spread through the pool.
Alex brought his hammer down before he could rise. Thepes rolled aside, leaving a strip of flesh on the broken stone as the blow struck the edge of the crater.
Blood shot through the cracks in the floor.
"Stop it from reaching the bodies," Alex said.
Mingyue's sword flashed.
Purple ice cut across the nearest stream, freezing it before it reached a dead vampire beside the pit.
Alex sent green fire after another.
Both streams broke apart, but more came from beneath the rubble.
Thepes had already filled the ground around him with blood.
The shallow crater made by Alex's last attack had opened cracks through the broken floor, and the blood spread through them before rising farther away.
Alex could burn some of them.
But he cannot keep it up fast enough to open a path to attack.
A corpse beside the far wall jerked. Its eyes opened red.
