Exhaustingly yes

When Marius developed his plan, the Vampire wasted no time in continuing her ranged, magical ****. Not even being bothered by the energy needed to cast these spells thanks to whatever blessing she stole from the girl, she just flung spell after spell. Their power seemed to be greater than the spells from before. Was the Vampire emboldened? Or was she getting frustrated?

Whatever the case, it didn’t bold well for the Rune Blade as he was the one that had to deflect these spells. He struggled to keep up but managed to get most of them. A few managed to land on his body; ghostly claws rending his armor, acidic bolts burning his flesh, mysterious forces leeching his energy. His armor, runes, and enchantments dulled then greatly, but they were having their toll on his capabilities. However, adrenaline, determination, experience, and the bits of magic on and in him gave Marius the push he needed to accomplish his task.

Not every deflection went the way he wanted, but the ones he did deflect to the ceiling worked as intended, if not more so thanks to the Vampire’s empowered spellcasting. Chunks of the ceiling were ripped and blown apart and melting away. The Vampire seemed too intent on finishing off Marius to even notice his scheme. She probably was too overconfident and didn’t think him that big of a threat, or maybe she was underestimating her own power and didn’t think he could claw his way to the surface?

However, the Rune Blade could already see it, just what he was looking for. Behind the Vampire he could see them, the rays of the sun! Just a few more deflections, and a handful more hits to his body, and the plan will work!

The Vampire raised both her arms and swung both as she sent another powerful strike of ghostly claws at Marius. The Rune Blade gritted his teeth as he deflected the spells. He heard the crunch of bones as they struggled to put enough **** behind the move as the blasts went straight to the ceiling. The ceiling was now collapsing all around them and the chamber became bathed in divine, judging light.

The Vampire hissed as she felt the sun on her skin and already started to smoke. It seemed whatever blessing she stole was slowing the purification process as she didn’t instantly burn. She began howling:

“No! Nooo! I am not ready yet! I still need more time before I can face the sun!”

With that, she tried to get into whatever shadows she could get to. Prepared for this, Marius pulled out a particular tool of his. It was a steel-woven rope with a silver-coated iron hook at the end of it. Spinning it around quick, Marius threw it at the Vampire and it began wrapping around her midsection before the hook latched onto her barely boiling flesh.

The Vampire snarled at him as she tried to fight against his resistance. Cursing, Marius braced himself by overcharging the runes that increased his strength. The stress from the extra strength was taking its toll as he coughed up blood, his body still being human and not used to this much strength while injured.

He was still being dragged as the Vampire was barely winning the competition of strength. Gritting his teeth, Marius tried shuffling his way to a rock formation and wrapped the rope around it. Using it as leverage, he tried to pull on the rope hand-over-hand to drag the Vampire back, and it was working. Both parties were weakening due to their injuries, but the Vampire’s burning body was losing strength faster than Marius’s barely broken, yet magically kept together, body.

The strain was like hell on earth, but eventually the screams of the Vampire were rising in octaves as her body began to catch alight and to ash the monster went.

When the rope gave way due to holding on to nothing, the tired and broken Rune Blade collapsed backwards and let out a yell of surprise and pain.

Then, everything went black...