A screech tore through the Demonfire estate, echoing off its grand walls like a scream from the underworld.
One of the Reapers, skin stretched unnaturally tight, veins bulging black beneath gray, half-rotted flesh, lunged forward, landing beside Slacovich with a thud that cracked the marble.
Slacovich barely had time to register the movement before he was flung across the hall, crashing into a stone pillar with enough force to leave a crater.
The others immediately sprang into action.
Tyler moved fast, drawing his twin silver daggers and slashing across the Reaper's chest with a practiced cross-cut.
Hiss.
Blood spilled. But the Reaper didn't stop. It didn't even blink.
"Silver's not working," Tyler shouted, ducking low as the creature swung a jagged limb at his head. "It bleeds but doesn't feel pain!"
Diego, from the opposite side, fired his silver-lined bullets in rapid succession. One embedded in the Reaper's neck, another pierced through its thigh, but the result was the same. No reaction. No hesitation. Only movement. Forward.
"They've deadened their nervous system," Li muttered, eyes narrowing. "This isn't a fight, they're machines wrapped in meat."
The second Reaper barreled toward Sofie. She spun to meet it, flipping backward and drawing her twin curved blades. The grace in her movement contrasted the brute force of her opponent, but each cut she delivered was met with nothing more than a dull spray of blood and an empty stare.
"They've turned themselves into husks," Diego growled. "That's what Blu meant by Reapers."
"Then we stop holding back," Slacovich said darkly, already pulling himself from the rubble. His voice shook, not from pain, but fury barely kept in check.
Li stepped beside him, blades humming in her palms. "Full shift?"
Slacovich gave a single nod.
In a flash, the air thickened with power.
Their eyes flared, burning crimson.
Veins darkened beneath their skin.
The Demonfire clan let go of their restraints, slipping fully into their vampire forms. Sofie's silhouette shimmered with ancient power, Tyler's form snapped into a feral edge, Diego's body tensed like a coiled storm.
Slacovich, towering and wrathful, stared down the Reaper who had dared lay a hand on his family. The weight of his presence alone made the air feel heavier.
"This is what you wanted?" he growled low. "You've got it."
The Reapers said nothing. They couldn't. Their mouths twitched grotesquely, stretched and cracked, but no words came.
Just a snarl.
And then, they charged.
The estate exploded into chaos.
Now that their vampire forms had been unleashed, the estate was no longer a battleground, it was a warzone owned by monsters unchained.
Muscles expanded beneath clothes torn from transformation, eyes glowed in unnatural hues, fangs glistened under moonlight, and the air trembled with power too wild to contain.
No more testing.
No more caution.
They were ready to fight seriously.
Slacovich didn't wait for the dust to settle. His eyes locked on the first Reaper, and with a deep, guttural growl, he lunged forward, Tyler following close behind, flames licking up his arms like wild serpents. Together, they slammed into the creature with the force of a thunderclap, their combined momentum shaking the earth beneath them.
Slacovich's fists drove into the Reaper's torso, aiming to crush bone and disrupt its already-mutated form, while Tyler circled in bursts of fire, slashing through with searing silver blades that left glowing trails in the air.
But the Reaper didn't falter. It absorbed every strike, as if feeding off the violence, retaliating with brutal swipes of its jagged arms, swings so forceful they split nearby trees.
Above them, the second Reaper howled, its twisted face stretching unnaturally as it charged upward, leaping to meet the airborne trio.
Li moved first.
Wings extended from her back, metallic, engineered, yet flowing with her vampire blood. She streaked through the sky like a sleek missile, hurling electrified daggers into the Reaper's path. It tried to swipe at her, but she twisted midair, spun behind it, and slashed through the tendons of its neck with a blade shaped like a crescent moon.
Diego joined next, his fists glowing red-hot, the air around him cracking with heat. He smashed both arms into the Reaper's spine from above, sending it crashing into the lawn below, only for Sofie to appear in a flash, her blade glowing silver and purple, plunging it deep into the Reaper's chest before leaping away.
"Stay grounded," Sofie warned, voice calm despite the chaos, "and it'll tear through the halls like a storm."
"And up here," Li muttered, circling back, "we clip its wings before it learns to fly."
The Reaper, while slower in the air, adapted quickly. Its limbs extended grotesquely, forming wings that looked more like skin stretched across bone. It lashed out in multiple directions, one strike grazing Diego's shoulder, another narrowly missing Sofie.
Back on the ground, the other Reaper roared in frustration, swinging a massive slab of debris it tore from the estate's wall. Slacovich ducked low, sliding beneath the blow, then uppercut the Reaper so hard its jaw snapped sideways. Tyler spun around behind it, blades ignited, and drove them both into the back of its knees.
Even then, it stood.
It fought.
Without hesitation. Without pain. Without fear.
"Damn it!" Tyler cursed, landing beside Slacovich. "They don't feel anything!"
"They're not meant to," Slacovich growled, blood dripping from his lip. "They're reapers. Just like Blu warned."
His eyes darted up to the sky where the others fought, the second Reaper screaming in rage as Li drove it back midair, Diego kept it off-balance with red-hot strikes, and Sofie swept in like a wraith.
Below, Slacovich's fists clenched tighter.
Ara's name throbbed in his chest.
The sight of these monsters, this corrupted evolution of vampirism, was everything she fought to stop.
He would not let her death be meaningless.
"Tyler," he said, voice trembling not with fear, but fury. "No holding back. Not anymore."
Tyler gave him a sharp nod.
Together, they lunged again.
Fangs bared. Hearts burning.
War had come home.
And they were ready to finish it.
The battle was reaching its crescendo.
Slacovich's fist collided with the Reaper's deformed chest, bones shattered with the sound of splintering stone, sending shockwaves into the earth. Tyler followed with a sweep of his flaming blades, severing the monster's arm at the elbow. It flew backward, crashing into the remains of the fountain, stone and water spraying like blood.
Up above, the second Reaper shrieked as Li pierced both its shoulders mid-dive with her jagged-edged daggers. Sofie intercepted it midair with a spinning kick that sent it spiraling. Diego dropped from above like a meteor, both fists punching it through the glass dome of the greenhouse, which exploded beneath its weight.
They were winning.
And they knew it.
The Demonfire Clan, in full force, began to close in.
One of Li's drones caught a perfect angle as Slacovich stepped over the writhing creature, Tyler beside him, both ready to end it. Li hovered just above her target, the high-voltage blades in her hands set to slice straight through its skull. Sofie steadied her sword with both hands, breathing in as Diego roared behind her, blood-slicked and smiling.
"End it!" Slacovich barked.
But that's when they made their move.
A sound, like bones grinding against steel, filled the air.
The two Reapers began to change.
Their bodies twitched violently, veins bulging, eyes rolling back into their sockets. The flesh on their skin cracked open like a shell from within, spilling a thick, blackened ooze as something pushed out, coiling, expanding, reshaping.
They were shedding.
They were mutating.
This was no retreat.
This was desperation weaponized.
Silver erupted across their bodies, not melted into weapons, but fused with their flesh. Armor made from pure silver, jagged and pulsing with toxic energy, coated every inch of them. The scent of burned undead flesh filled the air, silver poisoning them from the inside out. Yet, they embraced it, endured it, used it.
Pain meant nothing now.
The final form of the Reapers was a walking contradiction, beautiful in horror, hideous in purpose.
"No-----" Slacovich stepped back, eyes widening. "Stacy... she did this."
"Silver-wrapped," Li whispered, mouth drawn tight. "Poisoning themselves to become lethal to us."
And then they moved.
Faster than before.
Too fast.
The first Reaper leapt, blades of silver growing straight from its forearms, and plunged them into Tyler's shoulder, sending him skidding through the shattered earth. Blood burst from the wound, sizzling from the silver's venomous touch. He hissed in agony, trying to cauterize it mid-air with flame.
The second came from above.
It collided mid-flight with Diego and Sofie. Diego took the brunt of the strike, his arm shredded with one swipe. He howled, crashing into the estate wall, rubble burying him.
Sofie twisted just in time, her blade intercepting a killing blow, but the force flung her through the treetops.
Li tried to dive down to catch her, only to be struck by a barrage of silver quills fired from the Reaper's back. She dropped hard, sparks from her wings fizzling as she rolled into the dirt.
Blood hit the ground like rain.
Slacovich roared.
He ran at the first Reaper again, claws out, eyes glowing with fury. He ducked the next silver strike and drove his elbow into its face, breaking what little of its skull was still intact.
"You think this'll stop us?" he hissed through gritted teeth.
The Reaper shrieked in return, lifting both bladed arms to strike down, just as Slacovich slammed both palms into its chest, shoving it backward, dragging it into the remnants of Ara's garden.
"You took her. You took all of them," Slacovich snarled. "But I'll be the one to tear your sins out."
The Reaper slashed again, one arm grazing his ribcage, tearing flesh open.
Slacovich didn't flinch.
He grabbed the blade still buried in his side and snapped it clean off.
The pain was nothing.
The rage was everything.
Across the field, Tyler stumbled up, flaming blood hissing from his wound, eyes dimming but resolve solid.
Li rose next, limping, reloading her drones, gaze burning.
Diego's hand burst from the rubble, face bloodied, growling like an animal as he rose again.
And Sofie, oh, Sofie, emerged from the treetops with her sword in flames, her jacket torn, eyes shining with unshed fury.
They were wounded.
But they were still standing.
Because the Demonfire Clan didn't fall easily.
And as the Reapers lunged once more, primal and twisted, silver blades gleaming----
---the real fight had just begun.