Alesha coughed, a small mouthful of her blood leaking from her lips. Being stabbed through her chest from behind was not a wound she could afford to ignore, even if such a thing wouldn't kill her.
However, the murderous intent Zorhellian had planted in her refused to acknowledge the wound when her prey was so close. Her need to kill her opponent was, at present, much greater than her desire to allow her wound to heal.
Alesha changed tactics, yanking the spear out of Collin's chest while still pinning him to the ground with her knees. From there, she intended to stab him again, but this time in a lethal spot.
As soon as she removed the spear, however, he reverted to a swarm of bats and flew a fair distance away.
[So the mithril in the spear blocks his transformation, does it?] Rogork commented.
"Looks like it," Alesha replied under her breath. This was going to be tricky.
She yanked the blood spear out of her chest, heedless of the way its sharp edges sliced her hand as she did so.
Another kind of thirst began to grow in her, as she realized how strong her opponent was; however, she paid it no mind. At present, all that mattered was the fight.
Collin came at her in a blur, first appearing as moving, semi-transparent blue-green images that depicted what he was about to do. Alesha swung at these images instead of at the man himself, instinctively taking full advantage of her ability to see slightly into the future during combat.
She kept her eyes wide open, observing everything she could about her opponent and their surroundings as they clashed.
Blood blades materialized in the path of her spear, blocking its deadly swipe. More blood blades came at her from behind, but expecting this tactic, Alesha had already ducked their path.
She spun around, spotting her opponent like a ballerina in a turn, keeping her sight trained on him until the last moment when she spun her head around the other way to meet up with him. This kept him in her sight as much as possible even during her rotation. Doing so allowed her to spot where he was and where he was going based off the visual input of her Battle Foresight skill.
By this point, her wounds from the earlier blood spear were half-healed. Her hand had sealed up and the hole in her back was mostly closed.
Collin snarled and split into a swarm of bats, coming at her all at once.
The complex visual input created by the swarming bats, both present and future, momentarily overwhelmed Alesha's senses, allowing him to latch onto her and suck her blood in several places.
That was when Alesha dropped to the sand and began rolling around to get the bats off, realizing it was ineffective to try and swing a spear at them.
Several boisterous laughs came from the audience, but went unnoticed by the Participants.
Having been shaken loose by Alesha's rolling in the sand, the bats quickly rejoined with each other, forming up into Collin, who materialized above Alesha and came down with a pair of blood blades, striking at her neck.
Mid-roll, Alesha instinctively brought her arms up to cover her neck like when protecting one's neck during a bear attack. This meant that Collin's daggers, which had been about to sever her head with one on each side, got lodged in her arms.
At that point, Collin landed on her, stopping her roll.
Like a beast, Alesha thrust her arms outwards, causing the blood blades to dislodge themselves from both her arms and Collin's hands, then surged upwards, biting at Collin's exposed bicep.
Collin, in turn, lunged forward, biting into her neck and beginning to suck her blood.
Alesha tore into his flesh, biting and swallowing a chunk of his arm.
Collin greedily drank her blood.
Then Alesha's spear came thrusting upwards, starting at Collin's diaphragm, aiming towards the vampire's heart. She'd somehow managed to keep track of her weapon during the frantic roll and was now making use of its apparently anti-vampire properties -- his insides began to boil as soon as they came in contact with her weapon.
Collin's teeth came off her neck with the force of her spear thrust, and he ended up skewered (again) on the end of her spear. This time, he was on the proper end of the spear, which meant a lot more damage had been done to him.
As he squirmed, trying to get off, his hands gripping the spear shaft started to sizzle.
Roars of approval came from the stands, which were ignored by both Participants.
Alesha stood, gasping for breath, pale and dizzy from loss of blood.
Just because she had Troll's Regeneration didn't mean she had infinite blood on demand.
Staggering forward, she used the end of the spear to pin Collin to the sand again.
This time, instead of removing the spear, she twisted it around, gruesomely carving a path through as many vital areas as she could reach. Of course, this was only possible because her spear was incredibly sharp and able to cut through both flesh and armor as if they were butter.
Collin squirmed, lucidity appearing in his eyes for the first time since the will to fight had been installed.
"Looks like you won," Collin coughed.
Then, paler than ever, his breaths gradually slowed.
At that point, Alesha's growing thirst suddenly spiked, and she instinctively lunged forward, tossing her spear aside. A clawed hand tore into Collin's chest and she ripped out his severed and charred heart.
Greedily, she bit into the heart, devouring it like a starved beast.
The cavity in which his heart had been slowly filled with red, lumpy growths.
Moments later, drenched in blood from both her wounds and Collin's, Alesha's sanity returned.
"Wha- what just happened?" She asked numbly, even though she was sure she knew.
She'd won.
Then, her Mistress's Monstrous Reproduction skill had activated, turning her into a feral beast that ate his heart.
Spotting the red, lumpy growths in Collin's chest cavity, Alesha knew exactly what had happened.
And just like Cecilia had been before, she found herself strangely fond and protective of those growths.
She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.
It was only then that Collin actually died, as evidenced by the purple System screen that appeared moments later:
[Progenitor Vampire Collin Killed! +5000 XP!]
[Level Up!] x6
[Evolution will now commence!]
[Error! Evolution unavailable, polymorph is in effect! Evolution temporarily put on hold.]