God-Tier Extraction Talent: Reincarnated in a Game-like World!

Chapter 430: A Brutal Close Range Combat

Dominic’s eyes narrowed for the first time, pulling more blood from the ground, from nearby corpses, and even briefly drawing from the ring above, forming a dense rotating wall meant to meet the arcs head on.

The two forces collided with a heavy impact that shook broken rubble and made nearby fighters stumble, and for a moment it became a standoff, not because either side lacked power, but because both were forcing their will forward at the same time.

Gabriel pushed mana through his greatsword, his muscles tensing, his jaw clenched, and his expression remained disturbingly focused, as if he had narrowed his world down to a single problem that needed to be solved.

Dominic fed more blood into his defence, his hands trembling slightly from the strain, and the blood ring above pulsed unevenly, flickering in a way that told everyone watching that the storm was not as stable as it looked.

He was being forced to choose between holding the ring and holding the wall.

The standoff lasted only a few seconds, but those seconds felt longer because the entire battlefield was waiting for the first crack, and then it came.

Gabriel’s crimson arcs surged forward another step, as if they had found a weak point in the defence, and Dominic’s wall buckled in the centre, splitting apart like cloth under pressure.

He tried to reinforce it, but he was half a breath too late, and Gabriel’s arcs shattered through fully, cutting through the remaining blood defence and hitting him squarely in the chest.

"Dammit!" Dominic cursed as his body flew backward, slamming into the broken base of the tower with a heavy bang, his feet scraping a trench into the dirt before he tumbled and barely caught himself on one knee.

Blood spilled from his mouth, and the sight made several eastern camp soldiers flinch, because it felt wrong watching the man who controlled blood lose control of his own.

However, they did not feel any compassion for him. If anything, some of his own men were glad that he had finally gotten a taste of his own medicine.

Above them, the blood ring trembled.

It flickered once, then cracked. The patterns broke apart across its surface, and the rain that had been falling with such precision lost cohesion. Some drops fell harmlessly, others evaporated into thin mist, and the pressure that had been sitting on people’s chests lifted partially, enough for survivors to gasp as if they had been allowed to breathe again.

Both the eastern camp and Broken Dawn warriors exhaled in relief. In the last minutes they had been forced to constantly move, exerting themselves and draining their stamina.

Sophie almost collapsed where she stood, Cassie holding her steady as both of them stared upward in disbelief, because the storm had actually weakened, and the battlefield finally looked survivable again.

Gabriel did not waste a single moment after seeing that crack, because he knew this window would not last long, and Dominic would not stand there forever.

Even though the attack had just now chipped off his already depleted HP, he shrugged off the weakness as he covered the remaining distance, greatsword held ready. Dominic forced himself up, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, his calm expression now replaced by irritation that looked almost personal.

"I don’t need that to get rid of you," Dominic sneered.

Gabriel answered while closing in. "Then come at me."

The fight turned brutal the moment they reached close range, because Dominic stopped trying to keep distance and instead formed blood into short blade shapes around his forearms like gauntlets.

Shing! Shing!

Gabriel swung in controlled heavy strikes meant to break guard and break bones, and Dominic blocked with the blood gauntlets, each impact sending red droplets across the ground. Dominic countered by driving a blood blade toward Gabriel’s ribs, but Iron Skin reduced it to a deep cut instead of a fatal thrust, and Gabriel answered with a shoulder slam that forced his opponent back half a step.

Dominic tried to regain rhythm by sending a burst of thin blood needles toward Gabriel’s face and throat, but Gabriel turned his head just enough, taking two across the cheek and neck that would have ended most fighters, then drove his knee into Dominic’s stomach with a solid hit that made him cough blood again.

After that, Gabriel followed with a short sword strike that clipped Dominic’s shoulder, not cutting it off, but digging deep enough to force him to retreat another step.

Dominic clicked his tongue and rolled his shoulder once, blood flowing back over the wound like living cloth, sealing it halfway. The regeneration was not perfect, but it was fast enough to keep him moving.

"Tch... you’re stubborn," Dominic muttered.

Gabriel did not respond, his eyes glued to Dominic’s arm, which was now healing.

’First blood skills and now regeneration. It cannot be a coincidence.’

Gabriel’s eyes flashed sharply. He stepped in again. His greatsword came down in a heavy diagonal cut aimed at Dominic’s collarbone.

Swish!

Dominic crossed his forearms, blood hardening instantly into a dense shield. The impact sent a shock through both of them, cracking the ground beneath their feet and forcing nearby fighters to stumble away. Dominic slid back another meter, heels carving shallow lines through the dirt.

Before Dominic could stabilize, Gabriel rotated his wrists and reversed the blade, swinging upward in an arc meant to split his guard.

Dominic twisted sideways, the edge grazing his ribs instead of cleaving through them, but the force still sent him spinning half a turn.

He planted his hand on the ground, used it to pivot, and launched a blood coated kick toward Gabriel’s knee.

BANG!

Despite Iron Skin, Gabriel felt his leg dip slightly under the impact. While he was recovering, Dominic was upon him again, forming a blood spear in his palm and thrusting it toward Gabriel’s throat.

Gabriel tilted his head, letting it scrape across his jaw instead of piercing clean through. With blood trailing down his cheeks, he then drove his forehead into Dominic’s face.

BANG!

The collision made Dominic reel back in shock and confusion.

Even before he could recover, Gabriel followed with a brutal sequence. One slash to force Dominic’s guard wide, a knee into his midsection, then a backhand strike with the flat of the blade that sent him stumbling sideways.

"For someone who talks a lot, I expected better from you," Gabriel said, stepping forward into the enemy’s range.