Tom tore through the battlefield like a storm given flesh. His fists shimmered with spiral force, every punch creating invisible blades that shredded skeletons into dust and splattered vampires across the sand.
His eyes burned in crimson. Pure focus, pure rage. He ducked under claws, slammed a skull into the ground, twisted, and crushed another with his heel. Blood, bones, and smoke danced around him. A vampire lunged. Tom caught its jaw midair and ripped it in half. His movements weren't elegant; they were brutal, mechanical and unpredictable.
Every strike carried the weight of Arlong's death, every breath a promise of vengeance. Until the battlefield itself seemed to recoil from him. The Hunters nearby didn't see a man. They saw a monster born from grief.
Tom's boots sank into the cracked ground as the dust around him cleared. His both hands soaked in blood. A shadow stretched from behind him.
A tremor rippled through the battlefield.
Karma landed with elegance that mocked gravity, his long coat fluttering like smoke. His crimson eyes glowed beneath the shade of his hood. Every step he took corroded the ground.
Tom clenched his fists, spiral force twisting around his knuckles like faint blades of wind. He could feel it. This one wasn't like the others. Karma's aura was heavy, suffocating, like the world itself was working to make room for him.
"You must be the loudest one," Karma said calmly, tilting his head.
Tom's eyes narrowed. "I'm the one who will kill the reason this world's crying."
Karma chuckled softly, cruelly. "How noble. Do you even understand who you're standing in front of?"
Tom stepped forward. "Someone I'm about to shut up."
Karma raised a brow, almost amused. "You'll try, human."
Tom didn't wait. His spiral energy exploded and in an instant, he was in front of Karma. His punch cut the dust smoke clean in two. Karma moved aside slightly; the blow missed his face by a breath, splitting a line of sand into a perfect trench behind him.
"Fast," Karma whispered. "Unfortunately, slower enough to touch me."
Tom's second punch came before the first one finished. Then a third, then a fourth. Each blew a thunderclap. Karma dodged smoothly, his form fading and reappearing like a flicker of flame. He weaved between Tom's hits as if reality itself guided him.
"Your rage is loud," Karma said mid-dodge, catching Tom's fist in one hand. "Rage alone doesn't hurt gods."
Tom twisted, using the captured momentum to knee him in the ribs. The hit connected barely. Karma's expression sharpened, his smirk fading. Tom leapt back with locked eyes.
"So," Tom breathed, "you can feel pain."
Karma grinned. "Just enough to enjoy this."
He blurred our of the space. One heartbeat, and he was behind Tom. A palm strike connected, sending Tom flying through a wave of shattered skeletons. The ground cracked up. Tom coughed blood, rolled, and came up swinging, launching a spiral burst from his fist that tore the air open like a vortex.
Karma raised his arm, blocking the shockwave, his coat ripping from the force. "Better," he said. "Show me more, lad."
Tom charged again, faster than before, weaving attacks with spirals of invisible blades, slashing and punching in perfect combos. Karma countered, throwing energy arcs that split the sky.
They clashed fist to palm, force to force, wind to vacuum until the battlefield roared with immeasurable power.
After a moment,
Tom and Karma stood several feet apart, both breathing heavily. Smoke drifted from the scorched sand. Skeleton corpses dissolved into nothingness, the wind carrying ash like forgotten dust.
Tom's knuckles bled, his muscles trembling, but his eyes were fixed on Karma who was still standing, his expression oddly…. calm.
Karma's coat fluttered in the cold wind. His crimson eyes dimmed slightly, losing the sharpness of battle. "You know," he said quietly, almost like talking to himself, "I once had a dream."
Tom didn't respond, but his breathing slowed.
"I wanted to be a farmer," Karma said, staring at the ground. "To wake up to sunlight, to feed chickens, to plant things that grew, not.… things that kills."
His tone was flat, almost gentle. "Funny, isn't it? A vampire dreaming of daylight."
Tom's jaw tightened. "You're lying."
Karma smiled faintly. "That's the sad part, none believes."
He looked up at the dark sky. His expression changed; the calmness cracked for the first time. "My biggest mistake wasn't being a monster. It was dreaming of a simple life."
A long silence followed, only broken by distant thunder.
"Everything was fine once," Karma continued, his voice lowering. "We had a small house inside the empire walls. My mother would sing while cleaning. Sonia…. she'd chase fireflies with Fahren. Xamin and I would argue about everything. Books, blades, who was stronger. And my father…." Karma's words stumbled. "He used to tell us stories everynight."
Tom stayed still, listening.
"Then one day," Karma said, "my father stole something sacred. The 'Trojan Hook.' Said it would make us rich, that we'd never starve again. But what it brought was…. sorrow."
His crimson eyes reflected pain. Real and. heavily pain. "They found us. Dragged us into the square. Sonia was screaming. Fahren was only eight, he didn't even understand what was happening. They nailed our hands to wooden beams."
Karma paused. The next words came slowly, trembling. "They crucified us on flame."
The silence between them became suffocating.
"I can still hear her," he whispered. "My mother's lullaby, through the flames in our last moments of being human. It wasn't a song of fear, it was.… a song of peace. She kept singing, even when her feet touched the flames, even when her lungs were gone. I survived because of that necklace she gave me. A charm to protect me. It didn't save my body from burning, but it saved my life."
Karma raised his hand, looking at the faint mark around his neck where the necklace once hung. "When I came to, they were gone. Nothing was left except for ashes."
He gave a bitter chuckle. "I tried to hold on to who I was. But when you lose everything, you start to lose yourself too. I understood, staying alive like this would just make me feel to die more. So, I just gave my humanity to my mother, left her somewhere peaceful far after erasing her memories."
Tom's fists loosened, his anger shifting into something pity or understanding.
Karma looked at him again. "You saw that boy, Fahrenheit?" His voice softened. "He still laughs like a child. Still believes the world can be kind. He shouldn't have to live like this. Even though, he has a fully grown vampire body, his brain is still childish."
He looked down, eyes dim with centuries of exhaustion. "Sonia was his light. And one of you killed her, brought darkness in him." he stopped, voice breaking for the first time.
A gust of cold air swept between them, carrying the sound of distant screams. Karma stepped forward slowly.
"That's why I fight, Tom," he said, his tone heavy, sincere. "Not for blood or power…. but because if I stop, everything they died for becomes meaningless."
A drop of tear fell from Karma's eye. He was smiling exaggeratedly which was remarkable. "Why I fell so.... good...."
" Sorry, I would hug you, but the world won't let me. "
Tom stared back with his tempered rage. The world around them flickered with chaos again.