The gharzoth had come to a resolution for whatever internal conflict it was having. Symon suspected it had been unwilling to climb the building he was standing on and risk damaging the roses itself — the roses that Symon had now killed with his proximity. Without anything to stay its anger, it advanced a single step.

  When he'd first seen his opponent, he'd been so focused on the animalistic savagery and hulking form that he'd missed the smaller details. Looking at it now as it slowly advanced on him, still carefully stepping over the roses Symon had crushed in his mad dash for safety... it looked pathetic.

  It was tall, but not crazily so. Atabek had it beat there. It was bulkier, sure, but its large body was scored with dozens upon dozens of small wounds. Individually, none of them affected it. But when added together, the result was noticeable. Something was wrong with a knee, leaving it unbalanced, which it compensated for by holding its tail off to one side. He hadn't even noticed that it had a tail until he'd gotten onto the roof and been able to take his time observing it. In his defence, he'd had bigger things on his mind at the time.

  Like everything else, its tail was large and covered in old wounds. The appendage didn't seem particularly threatening, and yet he knew the massive muscle could easily crack his ribs if he allowed it to.

  The moment his thread lashed out and connected to the gharzoth, its growls lowered in pitch. It could feel it, somehow, even without Symon empowering the draining. He did so immediately after, wanting to get as much of an advantage from the relative safety of the rooftop before he was forced to fight.

  The vitality he felt being pulled through his threads was powerful but also tar-like in more ways than one. His magic still worked, but the stolen life force seemed to partially resist him. If he thought of the thread as a pipe that vitality could flow through — which was accurate, if a bit simplistic — then the stolen vitality was clinging to the walls, necessitating the use of more force to pull it through. Keelgrave had more control over his own vitality too, so it could have been due to their undead nature.

  Where they differed was the flavour of the vitality. The spirit's had been powerful, but otherwise indistinguishable from a living being. In contrast, the gharzoth's thick, sludgelike vitality felt dirty to him, like grease clogging a drain. Even his usually ravenous magic seemed to only begrudgingly work, like a child being forced to take their medicine.

  Regardless of the feeling, Symon forced his way through it. The resistance wasn't enough to overcome his Willpower and nearly evolved Seize.

   Keelgrave complained, but Symon ignored it. He needed to focus on the fight. The first round had been him fleeing, but the second would be different. He'd put the creature out of its misery.

  The low, groaning growl continued to deepen in pitch until its anger had built up enough. Like a dam finally buckling under pressure, it took one step, then another, before falling into a sprint towards Symon. He was perched on the low roof, but he doubted the creature would have any trouble simply jumping up.

  Sword at the ready, the gharzoth finally reached him. Its powerful legs bunched up, ready to launch its large frame through the air, but that wasn't what happened. With a roar, it slammed right into the wall, crashing through the old bricks and entering the building through the new hole in it. Symon lost track of it for only a brief moment before it barrelled out through the opposite wall in a spray of dust and pulverized bricks.

  It skidded to a halt just outside of his range, before turning back around and repeating its charging move straight through the building. All the while, it continued the same low growl. Naturally, his thread snapped back on every time, which elicited another wave of complaints from Keelgrave. Naturally, he ignored them.

  He could admit that the feeling of vitality flooding into his vessel and body was somewhat intoxicating. More than once, he'd done things in the heat of combat that, in retrospect, was not something his normally analytical mind encouraged. He'd charged after the razor stalker when it had attempted to flee, ignoring his injured friends in favour of proving his superiority and taking the powerful source of vitality for his own. Just recently, he'd been a little overzealous in taking down the emberwolves, taking injuries he might have been able to avoid just because it was the quickest path to victory. Sure, his healing got rid of the consequences, but he hadn't been thinking about that in the moment. He'd just been angry, and wanted to win.

  That was to say that, while he felt he was getting better, his beginner combat instincts were still often overwhelmed by the influence of the stolen vitality. In this case, the corrupting influence of the gharzoth's undead lifeforce wasn't whipping him into a rabid frenzy, but it was doing... something.

  The thick sludgelike vitality was pooling in his vessel. It was being purified, he could already tell that, but the process was slow. He was confident he wasn't about to have a repeat of the Keelgrave situation — two voices in his head was quite enough — but it still didn't feel great. Judging by Keelgrave's continued complaints, he wasn't enjoying the process either.

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  He'd been content to let the gharzoth wear itself out and give his draining time to work, but this opportunity was about to end. The continual damage to the walls of the shed as his opponent charged back and forth through them had reached a tipping point, and it wasn't safe for him to stay on the roof any longer. If he risked it, he'd be liable to get stuck under the collapsed roof, leaving him at the mercy of the hulking lizardman.

  And he didn't exactly seem in the mood to sort out their differences over some tea.

  The next time the gharzoth charged through the wall, Symon leapt off and landed in the area his opponent had just been standing. It had only been a few metres, meaning he easily rolled with the landing and came out of it unharmed. The low height had also enabled the thread to reach his target easily — his foot had only been a little higher than the gharzoth's head.

  He turned back to face the shed, sword at the ready. Remembering the spray of dust and chunks of bricks with every crash through the wall, he backpedalled a few steps. Getting knocked out by a giant lizard running through walls Kool-Aid man style would be embarrassing.

   Keelgrave complained.

  "It's fine, the vessel is cleaning it somehow. Just be patient and quit distracting me," Symon said. Generally, Keelgrave kept quiet during fighting for that very reason, so it must have been pretty bad for him to speak up. He supposed that Keelgrave was being coated in the stuff, while in Symon's case, it was contained within the thread and vessel.

  Pushing all distractions from his mind, Symon refocused on the shredded wall in front of him. The thread had detached after the range had gotten too far, so he no longer knew the revenant's exact location, but it was enough to know it would be breaking through the wall in a second.

  He wasn't sure if the revenant had noticed him leaving the roof, but either way, it smashed back out his way just as predicted. Its head quickly swivelled before locking on to Symon.

  The chunks of brick blown out in the abrupt creation of a new doorway skittered across the ground, harmlessly stopping in front of Symon. Right behind it came the gharzoth, continuing its charge as soon as it spotted him and closing the distance in a flash.

  Symon was ready, though, flicking his sword out one way while dodging in the opposite direction. The blow was weaker than it would have been with the full force of his body behind it, but his opponent's momentum still meant the sharp edge slashed a line through its shoulder.

  Both opponents twirled to face one another, the revenant taking a slightly longer time to do so. The wound was minor, barely breaking through the tough scales and exposing the grey meat beneath it, but it was added to the collection of dozens of old, unhealed injuries. Coupled with the stolen vitality, Symon was confident that he was more agile, although he'd still get caught if he ran in a straight line.

  Even with Keelgrave's ability to sense life, they could only vaguely estimate the revenant's reserves as 'a lot'. Considering it took around a minute to drain an emberwolf to the point of collapse, he couldn't rely on it alone for the much larger and more powerful gharzoth.

  Predictably, the gharzoth did the two things it was good at. It made angry noises, then it charged at him in a straight line. Seeing no need to change up a strategy that was working, he once more dodged to the side at the last second. His Running passive was awkward to use in this manner — it made him better at running, not reacting and dodging — but it was still helpful.

  He stepped to the side, his blade swept out, and his opponent collected a new wound. This time, he'd aimed for the knee. It had landed a little high, but that was fine. He wasn't in a rush.

  This continued several times, the gharzoth's blind rage preventing it from trying something new. By now, it was stumbling drunkenly, its much-abused legs finally showing true signs of damage. Although the adrenaline of combat made his heart hammer in his chest, he didn't change things up until, finally, his next attack sent it stumbling to its knees.

  Breathing heavily, he approached his downed opponent. It was kneeling, glaring up at him with hate-filled eyes, but that changed as he approached. The revenant almost seemed to relax.

  If it had died when Lady Renske did, then it must have been out here for two decades, all alone as it cared for the field of roses. It was unlikely it had even fought with any intruders, considering Symon doubted a random villager could make it through the mists.

  It didn't struggle to its feet, instead staring at Symon with large, watery eyes. Another growl escaped from its mouth, but it sounded plaintive instead of angry. Even as he approached, it made no move to attack him.

  "Do you have a name?" Symon asked. It was clear to him this was only going to end one way, but he thought he should at least know the gharzoth's name. Even as a zombie, it wasn't just some dumb animal. It deserved that much.

  "Just... Groundskeeper..." it rumbled. It stared straight into his eyes, easily in range of a claw swipe, but continued to sit still. This close, the scent of rot was almost overpowering, making his eyes water.

  "Be at peace then, Groundskeeper," Symon said solemnly. After a moment of hesitation, he continued, "the roses are beautiful."

  "Lady's... favourite..." it said, rotted lips pulled back in what was only vaguely recognisable as a smile. Slowly, its eyes clouded over once more, the mouth closing into a hissing growl, but Symon ended things before it could escalate.

  Pulling back like he was swinging a baseball bat, the well-honed edge of his sword cut deep into the Groundskeeper's neck. Wrenching the sword free of the dense flesh and tough scales, he repeated the process once more, sending its head and body toppling to the ground in two separate directions.

  Symon let out a deep sigh. "Damn, poor guy. I can't imagine dying and living in purgatory for twenty years like he must have been..." He looked down at the severed head, gazing blankly at the sky. Neither it nor the body had twitched a muscle. It was truly dead.

  "I hope your soul went somewhere nicer than mine."