WebNovels

Chapter 8 - Bradley vs Nurse (3)

[So, are you gonna get up or not?] Spirit Bradley asked, his voice a low, resonant echo inside Bradley's head.

Bradley groaned, the sound raw and low in his throat, and slowly pushed himself upright. "Of course," he said. Dark spirit energy, cold and concentrated like compressed night, gathered around his chest, visibly sealing the wound and knitting the broken ribs back together.

"Oh, are you ready for round two?" The nurse smiled, her gaze sharpening to a predatory gleam as she walked slowly towards him. The sharp click of her heels against the corridor floor was the only sound in the tense silence.

Bradley cracked his neck. "Yeah." He didn't wait. His form vanished from his spot, a sudden, dark acceleration that launched him toward her like a fired projectile.

The nurse responded instantly, dashing forward, leaving a faint streak of pulsing red energy in her wake.

They met at the middle of the corridor, the space between them erupting with kinetic force.

Boom!

The floor beneath their feet fractured violently, the impact of their spiritual energies causing the concrete to cave.

The one who recoiled back from the clash was the nurse.

She skidded through the corridor, scraping her heels across the floor, stopping her momentum only by stabbing her hardened claws into the stone, leaving deep, white scars.

Red blood dripped from her mouth. She spat the fluid onto the floor and wiped her lips clean.

"Not bad," she praised, a hint of respect in her voice.

Bradley was already on top of her, his blade descending in a heavy, cleaving arc.

Her claws shot up to meet the attack—the impact producing a shower of bright, white sparks. The floor below her instantly crushed inward, creating a small crater from the sheer, focused weight of the blow.

His knee was already driving upward to smash her face, but she blocked the strike with her palm. Bradley used the point of contact, stepped onto her shoulder, jumped back with a fluid backflip, and simultaneously threw a handful of dark, sharp shurikens at her.

She dodged the projectiles in a dizzying zigzag motion.

The moment Bradley landed on the floor—he moved again, speed compressed into a single, closing burst. The nurse's eyes widened, registering the impossible velocity.

The tips of his fingers stopped just one inch from her stomach.

Sensing a terminal threat, the nurse slashed down with her claws, intending to shred his entire torso.

"One inch punch." Bradley's voice was a low whisper as a large, compressed quantity of spiritual energy exploded from his hand and slammed into her stomach.

Before her claws could connect—she was launched backward like a bullet, hitting the wall hard with a deafening BOOM!

She fell to her knees, clutching her abdomen, which was now noticeably caved inward by the strike. She coughed up a pool of thick, bright blood.

"Fuck, this brat actually made me bleed..." she gasped, coughing out more blood.

And then she started giggling, the sound high and erratic.

"Heheheheheh, it wouldn't be fun if you weren't able to fight back... I like my preys to struggle, after all." The nurse slowly stood up, steadying herself.

"You didn't even fuse with your spirit, and you're still able to hold your ground... not bad," she said, before her form blurred and disappeared from her spot.

Bradley's eyes moved rapidly, searching for any flicker of movement or spike in spiritual energy, but the signature was gone.

The fuck?! Her spiritual energy just disappeared!

[On your left!] Spirit Bradley warned him, the warning arriving too late.

The nurse appeared on his left flank.

"However... if you don't fuse now—you will die." She delivered a crushing punch to the left side of his ribs.

Crack.

Bradley gritted his teeth, holding back the gush of blood, and swung his katana to the left in a desperate counter. He missed. She sidestepped the blade and followed through with a vicious uppercut, lifting him up into the air.

Thwack! The echoing sound of the punch filled the corridors.

Bradley's vision blurred, his thoughts scattering like dust. The blood he had been holding back finally erupted from his mouth, creating a brief, dark fountain above him.

The nurse, tracking his trajectory, punched him again on his already broken ribs, doubling the agony.

He was sent flying, a helpless ragdoll, crashing through the corridor wall and disappearing into the adjacent room in a shower of plaster and dust.

BOOM!

The nurse looked down at the blood stain he left on the floor and crouched.

She touched it with her fingers and brought the warm fluid to her mouth.

The moment she tasted his blood, her eyes went wide. She licked her fingers slowly, passionately, a flush of color rising to her cheeks.

"Ahhhhhhhh, your blood tastes so gooood," she said with a seductive voice, a low purr.

"Who would've thought your blood was so rich with spiritual energy."

"I'm pretty sure you know that evil spirits grow stronger by feeding on the souls of the living, right?" She looked at the hole in the wall, receiving no reply.

She continued. "However, that's not the only way. There's another way, which is cannibalism... feeding on other spirits' spiritual energy in order to grow strong. Consuming humans to grow strong would take a while since you need a large number of them."

"But for spirits? It just takes for you to consume one strong evil spirit, and you'll skyrocket in power! Isn't that amazing, Bradley?!" She touched her face with both hands, blushing faintly.

"It is prohibited to consume your own kind, but why should I care if I'm strong enough to go above that rule? That's why I'm going to eat you and your spirit so I can rise in ranks!" She laughed, spreading her arms wide in a triumphant, T-pose.

Meanwhile, inside the ruined room where Bradley crashed.

He was laying on the floor, soaked in blood, his hair messed up, his lower body covered with rubble and broken furniture.

Spirit Bradley materialized and crouched next to him, smacking his face sharply.

Smack!

[Wake up, you bastard.] he urged.

He kept smacking him until Bradley shifted, his cheeks throbbing, and opened his eyes.

"You can stop smacking me..." He groaned weakly.

Spirit Bradley ignored him and administered one more, final smack.

"H-hey! I said stop!" Bradley covered his cheeks with both hands.

[You're finally awake.]

"I've been awake for a long time, but you kept smacking me!" Bradley struggled to speak through the pain.

[Yeah right. You see? I told you not to style your hair, and now it's all messed up.]

"Shut up—argh!" Bradley groaned, trying to sit up. His ribs felt shattered, and his chin was painfully misaligned.

[You look like shit. Imagine getting beat by a woman. Couldn't be me.]

Bradley simply showed him the middle finger, then, with a choked scream of pain, reattached his dislocated jaw.

[Now that you got your ass beat up in your human form, let's fuse.] Spirit Bradley said, the playful tone gone.

"Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to test how I'd do in my normal form, but now let's beat her ass." Bradley managed a bloody, defiant smile.

"Beat who~?" A feminine voice whispered into his ear, sending a deep chill down his spine.

He snatched his katana and instantly slashed backward toward the voice—but cut only the empty air.

The nurse had dodged and stepped back ten meters.

"What a creepy woman..." Bradley cursed.

"Aww, how offensive," she said.

She disappeared and reappeared in front of him, kicking him hard in the chest.

He crashed violently against a stack of desks.

"Fuck, let's fuse, Brad!" he choked out to his spirit.

Spirit Bradley tried to phase towards him but was grabbed by the neck by an unseen force.

[W-what? How is this possible?!] he demanded in utter disbelief.

The nurse smiled mischievously. "Did you think I'd just let you fuse right in front of me?

If you thought that I couldn't touch you—a spirit—you were wrong. I am a higher-rank spirit just like you. However, you don't fight like one!" She slammed him onto the floor, the impact cracking the stone beneath.

Spirit Bradley groaned as her hand, now visibly gripping his spectral neck, tightened.

"You see, earlier today, I felt a malevolent energy, one that even I, a higher-ranked spirit, felt chills from. Then, my connection with my subordinate disappeared; it was most likely you who killed him. I was first scared to fight you guys because of that energy, but now that I've fought you—despite you being a higher-rank spirit—you are weak and have no experience."

She pointed her other hand towards Bradley. Red spiritual energy, thick and oily, gathered in her palm.

"Since you guys don't know much about higher-ranked spirits, let me teach you."

"Lower-rank spirits are able to haunt people and feed on their souls, but they can't directly attack or touch a living being—unless that being has a will far weaker than them, which is almost impossible because you humans have some powerful will for some reason, almost as if an external force protects you guys."

Spirit Bradley thrashed, pinned in place.

"Now, we, the higher-ranked, are able to attack humans directly with no interference. Because we have a stronger will, and the world resists our presence less. What makes us different than the others—Special Abilities."

Special abilities? Bradley thought, his mind struggling to process the information.

She smiled at their confusion. "Special abilities are powers you gain after you reach a higher rank; it is what separates you from other spirits. My special ability is Blood Bending. I can manipulate my own blood and my victim's blood."

Bradley's eyes widened in sudden, agonizing realization. He remembered his coat had caught some of the blood of the dead students back at the cafeteria, and his own blood was now slick on the floor.

He tried to push the desks away, tried to remove his blood-soaked coat—

"Too late," she whispered. She closed her hand into a tight fist.

Spurt!

A dozen blood-red spikes, hardened and sharp, erupted from Bradley's back, piercing his body and lifting him up like a macabre skewer.

A fountain of warm, dark red blood poured from his mouth.

[Bradley!] Spirit Bradley screamed, thrashing uselessly in the nurse's unrelenting grip.

Ah, is this it? Bradley thought, consciousness rapidly fading. Quite a pathetic death. I didn't even do much damage to her...

She was too strong... Still useless until the end, huh...? He looked at his other self, screaming something he couldn't hear.

His body went limp on the spikes as he finally lost consciousness.

More Chapters