The Bride He Hates-Chapter 78: Mercy Or Cruelty

The ritual combat began at sunset, according to the vampire tradition. The moment the last rays of sunlight vanished, horns rang out throughout the arena, indicating the match had been declared open.

Ravenna attacked first. She moved with ease, delivering probing strikes meant to test rather than kill. She studied Lyanna’s skills, reaction time, and defensive capabilities. She didn’t use her full power yet, she acted like a predator assessing new prey.

Lyanna was good but not perfect, intentionally hiding her true capabilities. She blocked some attacks she could have dodged and dodged strikes she could have countered. She wanted herself to look skilled enough to be interesting, but not so threatening that Ravenna would give her full attention.

"Is this all the famous Thornfield queen can manage?" Ravenna mocked. "Barely competent defense? I expected more from someone who supposedly defeated the Council of Light."

She attacked again, and Lyanna blocked it. But let the impact push her back a few steps.

"Azrael must be truly desperate to accept such a weak bride." Ravenna continued."I made him strong, powerful and worthy of respect. And he chose you, a turned human who can barely hold a blade. How disappointing."

The insults were meant to make Lyanna angry and sloppy, to trigger emotional reactions. This was standard psychological warfare, attack your opponent’s mind before coming for their body.

But Lyanna had spent months being psychologically tortured by Azrael himself. She had endured months of cruelty, humiliation, and attempts to break her spirit. Ravenna’s jabs were gentle in comparison.

Ravenna, convinced that Lyanna was no real threat, started using more power. She moved faster and struck harder. One of her strikes broke through Lyanna’s defense, hitting her ribs hard enough to crack a bone. Lyanna gasped and stumbled back.

Ravenna seized the opportunity, striking again immediately. Lyanna crashed into the stone wall twenty feet away and slid down to the ground.

The crowd murmured. Bets were being made. Vampires were agreeing this match was already over, wondering if the queen would survive even a minute longer. Azrael was horrified but felt helpless.

Then she stood up, her bones already healing with vampire regeneration, and raised her blade again.

Ravenna laughed.

"Resilient, at least. But resilience only delays the inevitable."

She attacked even faster now. Lyanna defended herself, but her body was being wounded faster than it could heal.

She wasn’t trying to match Ravenna’s power, she was analyzing it, studying her patterns. After centuries of fighting the same way, Ravenna had developed unconscious habits.

Ravenna always followed a high attack with a low one. She always spun clockwise when repositioning, and favoured her right side, leaving her left side slightly weaker.

Lyanna began timing her counters to those patterns, predicting where Ravenna would strike based on her previous moves.

Ravenna launched a high attack, and Lyanna prepared for the low follow up. She landed a hit that sliced across Ravenna’s arm, not deep enough to cause real damage, but it was unexpected.

Ravenna’s eyes widened slightly. Lyanna pressed forward, taking advantage of that surprise, attcked Ravenna’s left side. Ravenna actually took a step back, reassessing.

The tide began to shift. Lyanna used everything she had learned over three days of training. She remembered Azrael’s defensive techniques that prioritized survival over offense, Damien’s dirty fighting tactics that ancient vampires considered beneath them and Richard’s mental shielding against vampire magic.

When Ravenna used ancient vampire magic, dark power that manifested as shadowy tendrils trying to bind Lyanna’s limbs, Lyanna used her silver blade to cut through them. The magic dissipated upon coming in contact with silver.

"Clever." Ravenna acknowledged, her amusement turning into irritation. "Using silver to counter magic must be painful but it is effective. You’re more troublesome than I expected.

I’ll need to take this seriously now. No more playing and testing. Let’s see how long you survive against a thousand years of power unleashed."

The strike that followed was brutal, it was meant to kill her. Lyanna was fast, but Ravenna was faster. Lyanna was strong, but Ravenna was stronger.

Lyanna took serious hits within minutes. Her ribs cracked, her chest screamed with pain, and her left arm was nearly severed when Ravenna’s clawed hand tore through her muscle and tendon.

A crushing blow to her chest sent her flying backwards. She hit the ground hard, the silver blade slipped from her burned and damaged hand, skidding across the arena floor ten feet away.

Lyanna tried to get up but failed. Her legs couldn’t support her weight, they were too damaged from the continuous attacks. She collapsed again, her body broken, and bleeding from countless wounds.

Ravenna approached her slowly, savouring her victory. She stood over Lyanna, raising her clawed hand, preparing to deliver a killing blow that would rip out Lyanna’s heart and end everything.

"You fought better than expected." Ravenna said. "But ultimately, age and experience always win over youth and determination. Say goodbye to my progeny."

In the crowd, Azreal was screaming her name. She could see him trying to reach her across the distance, trying to somehow save her despite knowing he couldn’t.

Her empathic power, the ability she barely explored or understood, suddenly activated. She could feel his pain, fear, desperation, love and hope despite helplessness.

Using that connection, she pulled. She drew on the emotional weight of their memories, feelings, and love and channelled it into Ravenna’s mind.

She staggered. Her killing blow stopped mid-strike. She suddenly was in shock and pain. She stumbled back, disoriented, and clutching her head, temporarily stunned by the unexpected psychic attack she couldn’t defend against. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Lyanna used those crucial seconds. She lunged for her weapon despite the pain in her body, grabbed the silver blade, and drove it forward with every ounce of strength she had left.

The blade pierced Ravenna’s chest. Ravenna screamed in agony. The silver burned her vampire nature, searing through tissue that should have healed instantly but couldn’t.

She collapsed to her knees, clutching at the blade protruding from her chest, unable to remove it.

Lyanna stood over her. She gripped the silver blade again despite the pain and raised it for a final killing blow. The arena went absolutely silent.

Through the empathic bond, Lyanna felt Azrael’s complex emotions; relief that she was alive intertwined with fear about what would come next, and love, pride and a desperate hope that she’d finish this before Ravenna recovered.

Ravenna gasped through the pain.

"Finish it. By vampire law, you’ve won. You’ve defeated me in ritual combat. Kill me as I would have killed you. That’s how this works." She actually smiled despite the blade in her chest. "Do it. Prove you’re truly a vampire. Vampires kill their defeated enemies. That’s what separates us from humans."

Lyanna stood there with the blade raised, facing the choice of who she wanted to be.

She could kill Ravenna and end the threat permanently. She could prove to the watching Covenant that she was a true vampire, capable of the cruelty they respected.

Or she could show mercy and risk creating a future enemy. She could prove that vampires didn’t need cruelty, and that winning didn’t always mean killing.

Her choice would define not just this moment, but what kind of queen she was. What kind of vampire she wanted to be and what kind of world she and Azrael were trying to build.