"Let's say that your training is still superior to mine, Nyka. Yet I should have at least opened another eye, developed a new type of flames, or at least discovered a unique bloodline ability. Lith and I had started our training with Faluel at the same time.
"Yet while he keeps growing stronger and stronger, I'm still a wimp!" Tista hurled a river of Origin Flames created by igniting the world energy with one spark of life force from each of her beast sides and another from the human side.
Yet the blue flames remained blue and she started to cough out of exertion. Tista had trained hard to replicate Lith's Void Flames and she had even learned how to activate individually each of her life forces, hoping to trigger a new bloodline ability.
The only thing she had obtained was to triple the toll that the Origin Flames took on her body and nothing else.
"While he relaxed in the Desert, I practiced every day against Phoenixes. They taught me all about their bloodline abilities in the hope that I shared at least a few with them, but it turned out that I have nothing in common with Phoenixes aside from the physical appearance!"
Tista slammed her fist against the floor in frustration as she stood up, opening huge cracks that the arrays of the training center started to repair. As her fury grew, her Dragon and Phoenix life forces started to spin around each other faster and faster.
Their respective Origin Flames reinforced each other until they burst out as one. Yet instead of traveling through her throat, the mystical fire spread throughout her body, setting every one of her scales alight.
Tista looked at her hands in surprise as the boundary between matter and energy disappeared. She was still alive and she could still think, but she could also see through her own hands.
She pushed them against the rock floor, discovering that they phased through, leaving only a charred mark behind.
"Neat!" Nyka performed a series of quick jabs that hit the Red Demon's head and chest with so much strength that the air pressure they produced was enough to split the flames open.
The Vampire suffered no damage and neither did Tista whose flaming body quickly rearranged itself back into its original shape before reverting into flesh and blood.
"Neat my ass." Tista said amid pants. "Your hits didn't hurt, but filling the empty spots cost me one breath of Origin Flames each."
"Buzzkill." Nyka shrugged. "We just got you a bloodline ability and the proof that your efforts weren't for naught yet you still find something to complain about.
"I think that your development is slow because even though you and your brother learned the same techniques, Lith was the only one who put them into practice over and over, even when his life was on the line.
"Your weakness isn't due to a lack of talent or potential but comes from having had a peaceful life. I, instead, have been so lonely that fighting and magic were my only distractions when Mom disappeared in her lab for her experiments.
"Once I moved to Lightkeep, things didn't change until Uncle Vladion drilled into me all the basic techniques of Awakened Vampires and taught me how to use our bloodline abilities to their full potential.
"If not for Auntie Scar attaching the secret of the Eternal Dusk array inside the Eyes of Menadion as a parting gift for me, I wouldn't have had a single moment of free time." The Vampire referred to Scarlett's personal array that drained the surrounding light element, keeping Nyka from falling into a comatose state during the day.
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