Reversion!

John felt the [Ray of Light] slam into him from the sky, parting the throng of dark winter clouds overhead with a rumble and a bright burst of light, temporarily lighting up the dark of night with a sliver of the brightness of day.

All the physical damage John had suffered healed up, his raw flesh knitting over with repaired scales and skin. He felt relief wash over him as the warmth of the sun infused into his being, and he felt it seep into his every cell, nourishing them with solar energy.

Physically, he felt great.

The same could not be said of the vampire.

Severus unleashed a guttural, echoing scream as light raged around him. His black armor started to line with cracks glowing gold before shattering entirely, baring his pale, grey flesh directly to the light. His golden visor broke apart, shooting out shards of its sun-reflective material every which way. He took his hand off of John's neck and began to claw at his face in pain.

John immediately pushed away from the vampire and made some distance to observe the vampire's end properly.

"No! No!" Severus was melting. His skin first burnt up, charring, then it started to liquefy in a red-hot molten form that rippled down his body.

He knelt down to the ground, and it looked almost like he was halfway from sinking into the earth entirely as a pool of burning flesh.

"Now that's gross," said John, his voice surprisingly calm. He had seen plenty of gore in his day and grown used to it, though melting men was a definite first.

The light faded, leaving Severus continuing to melt and burn away in the dark, sinking further and further into the dirt.

It was impressive even that the vampire could survive a hit from the [Ray of Light], though it seemed he had sustained too much solar damage to the point where it would inevitably burn him up.

"You're more puddle than vampire at this point," said John. "Give up and let the light take over. There will be less pain that way."

John prepped another Solar Beam, light starting to trickle out of his teeth.

"Not…yet!" said Severus, his voice now garbled and distorted to near incoherence because his vocal chords were half-melted.

Red mana raged around Severus, and the atmosphere immediately shifted.

Then Severus…changed.

Severus's face was a featureless blob of slime and burnt chunks by now, but even then, John could sense that there was nothing but pure and unadulterated hunger in there.

The hunger was not new, but it was its intensity and ferocity that made it jarringly different.

Before, Severus's hunger was mixed in with pride and desire for power and ambition.

This hunger, several times stronger in magnitude than before, was just pure, raw, animalistic desire to devour.

Then, the seemingly impossible: Severus started to get back up.

The vampire began to reform, fibers of muscle bursting out from his melted skin and wrapped around himself in thick layers until he was completely encased like a mummy. Layer after layer of fibers wrapped around him, and his form distorted and shuddered, moving in erratic jitters like he was possessed.

John fired the solar beam at him, but though it burned the muscle fibers, it did not do so nearly at the same rate as before.

Bones cracked and reformed as the vampire started to transform into something else, something far, far more horrible.

His half-melted legs fused into a serpentine tail of raw red musculature and networks of bulging, visible veins surging with steaming hot blood. His face morphed into what looked like a disgusting mess of veiny, bulbous tumors clumped together. Exposed and inverted jaws baring sharp teeth emerged from the heads of each raw and red tumor, writhing and squirming and hungry to feed.

The grotesque thing's many visible blue and black veins popped in chaotic intervals, sending out highly pressurized bursts of steaming hot, superheated blood that immediately set trees on fire all around it.

Severus, no, this…monster, roared at John with a deafening screech that made his ears ring and the branches around him shake.

[That is Reversion!] said Mel. [The vampire has died, but not before activating the Reversion process before his end. He has allowed his corpse to animate, yet, that form cannot last.

Flee, my child, and soon, the Reversion will end, and the creature will fade away on its own without a proper life to sustain it]

John immediately turned tail and started to run, but the Reverted vampire was fast enough to reach out and grab his tail. The monster was insanely strong, and just by gripping his tail, it crushed John's scales and muscles painfully together.

"[Drokynthis!]" shouted John, using his one last charge of the Arcana.

But how the hell was he going to survive ten more seconds!?

John felt himself getting pulled back, and he pushed through the initial dizziness of casting his Arcana to turn his head back and fire a Solar Beam to try and burn his way out.

The golden ray of light struck the Reverted vampire head on, and though it hit bare flesh and made it burn and sizzle, it did not nearly do enough damage to stop it.

John was pulled back straight to the Reverted vampire's tumor heads and their snapping jaws, and he immediately resisted by thrusting his front legs into them, clawing at them and trying to push them away.

He was much stronger than before because the [Ray of Light] had temporarily infused his sun with solar energy, activating his [Hours of Glory] skill, but not enough to the point where he could use the [Zenith].

And every passing moment, the solar energy inside of him faded away.

Slowly but surely, John started to yield ground.

One of his arms got swallowed up in a tumor jaw, and he felt like he was getting drained through a straw, slowly sucked in further and further into oblivion. He felt weaker, his blood draining, his vison starting to faintly blur.

[Reverted vampires are far more resistant to sunlight] said Mel. [I…I do not see a proper way out of this]

'Mel…if this is the end, just know I've always appreciated what you've done for me. Understood when you had to hold back too,' said John as he fired another desperate Solar Beam, trying to melt off the tumor head latched onto his front leg to little avail, for as it was draining blood, its regeneration matched the rate of damage it took.

[My child - this…this will incur my execution for interfering to this degree, but I will use up the seven days of power still remaining within this shard of mine to aid you.]

'What? Your execution!?' John was about to say something, but he did not.

For this was Mel's choice to make, not his.

But not one that John would have her make if he could help it.

What could he do, though?

John was struggling with all his enhanced might, but the Reverted vampire was much stronger than he was before.

All of a sudden, a flash of blue light smashed into the vampire's tumor-filled head, encasing it in a block of ice.

John pulled his front leg free, shattering the tumor head that grabbed it, but he could not properly pull free for the vampire still held a solid grip on his tail with its clawed, overly muscled hand.

"What the-," John turned to the location of the light. He knew where this ice came from, but at the moment, he could not believe it.

Hemet was there, his gauntlet aimed up. He still could not use his invisibility Arcana, that much was evident from the bulging black veins in his right arm that indicated he still needed time for his body to recover before he could use the cursed bone to draw on the Arcana again.

That meant the imp was now fully risking his life to save John, out in the open without any means to escape.

Hemet fired shot after shot from his gauntlet, trying to freeze the arm that gripped John's tail, but the sheer amount of heat emanating from the vampire's main body made the flash freezing difficult.

As soon as the ice froze over, it started to melt rapidly.

"Get out of here, Hemet!" said John as he breathed heavily, savagely biting down into the exposed muscles of the vampire's arm with [Mana Blade] infused teeth and solar energy to try and tear himself off. "I thought I told you to leave!"

"You risk your life for me, I risk mine for yours. Besides, it would be a shame to lose the first being I have talked to in forty years." Hemet readied his gauntlet and stared straight ahead with determination. "And I told you: I am done running and hiding."

The Reverted vampire gargled in annoyance and fired off arcs of pressurized, superheated blood at Hemet.

Hemet's eyes widened and he tried to dodge, but to no avail. They were simply too fast, and Hemet, without invisibility or access to his Arcanas, was completely outclassed.

One of them seared through his right arm, completely severing it, and another punched right through his heart with a sizzling impact.

Hemet grew still, smiled at John, then slumped backwards.

"Damn it!" John redoubled his efforts to escape, and he finally did, slipping out of the Reverted vampire's clutches after tearing off enough muscle fibers to weaken it. He crashed heavily into the ground, weak from having his blood drained through his front leg.

Hemet had bought some time, a few precious seconds, but was that truly worth his life? Was that enough to save John?

No, John had to win. Now, more than ever. There was still a chance for John to save Hemet. His solar breath could heal-

The Reverted vampire raised itself high up on its tail, its great shadow casting over John against the moonlight. Its form rippled and shuddered, chunks of its body starting to separate from it while its blood vessels ruptured, scattering searing blood everywhere.

The thing was on its way to breaking apart on its own, but it still had enough energy to kill John.

No, John had to kill this damned abomination first before he could patch up Hemet. There was no life in that meat shell anymore, just a corpse driven by hunger. It was only right to end this thing's miserable existence.

Just a few more seconds.

That was all he needed.

As soon as John processed that thought, a searing heat formed atop his head.