Michael lay on the ground, pale and exhausted.
His skin, which had always been fair enough to draw comparisons to a maiden's complexion, now looked dried out and faintly sickly.
"…As expected," he muttered. "I needed more material."
For the Drakeblood specifically, the scale of what was required had been in a different category entirely. Three bowls, each three times the size of the one he had used for the Rank 4 demonic supernatural.
Michael had known going in that reviving something of that caliber would not be cheap. He had prepared himself mentally for the cost.
And yet.
Michael turned his head slightly and looked at the empty bowls beside him.
As one grew stronger, many things stopped making conventional sense. He understood that. But watching his own blood flow like a continuous river without stopping, filling bowl after bowl, was a new experience even for him. There was something deeply strange about watching your body produce that volume without dying from it.
