Chapter 121: 121 – Clash of Wills

The Sister swiped her sword to follow. Zel jumped over it and grabbed hold of her left arm by one of the red plates that protected her elbow. Pain shot through her leg when the Sister’s vice-grip tightened around it, the Locust Noble letting out a chattering cackle as if she’d already won.

Before the Sister could make another move, Zel dug her fingers in and yanked at the plate, exhaling and forcing her arm to pull back in spite of the pain. The Sister’s cackle became an angered cry and she let go, trying to shake her off with a wild swipe of her arm.

Zel’s grip on the limb was nowhere near solid enough to hold on and she slipped off, a grin on her face and a bright-red chitin plate in hand. She was back up the moment she hit the ground, jumping to her feet with a handspring just in time to avoid a downward stab with a backstep. The war-knife made things more awkward than she liked, but she wasn’t willing to get rid of it. Not yet.

Aggressively striding forwards, the Sister took her sword in both hands and began swiping it in a criss-crossing diagonal pattern, trying to exploit range and sheer mass. It was a good tactic - against crowds, that is. Moreover it was consistent, rhythmic.

Predictable.

After barely jumping out of the way four times in a row, Zelsys decided to take the risk on a return-to-sender. She wasn’t confident in her ability to time it correctly on reaction alone, but that didn’t matter. One more dodge to make sure the next strike came from her right, then all it took was to feign preparation for another dodge.

Gritting her teeth into a truly bestial snarl, Zel raised her right arm and forced her right lung to contract without exhaling so much as a wisp of Fog. If she failed to deflect it even by a fraction of a second, she knew it had the momentum to cleave her in twain. The silver lines snaking across her forearm came alive at the exact moment the Sister’s black blade made contact.

There issues a blinding flash of light, the black stone greatsword sent flying out of the Sister’s hand with the full force of her swing. Even with an ironclad grip such as hers, the only choices were to either let her weapon slip free or risk the momentum throwing her off-balance or even dislocating something. Zel’s right lung was now empty, but the left was full, full enough to hold out until the right could be refilled. 

Given her subsequent actions the Sister clearly didn’t know that, despite the opportunity to infer it from Zel’s breathing pattern.

She recovered from the confusion almost immediately, and Zel could read her shifting expression as clear as day. The Locust Noble thought such an ostentatious display of Fog-breathing must’ve depleted her reserves, that Zelsys would have to take another breath before she could do anything of similar intensity.

Lashing out with a left-handed punch, she tried to knock the wind out of Zelsys. Her fist was too large, too fast to dodge, but Zel saw it coming. The brief wind-up, the shifting of the air.

Just as her right lung filled up, she had to empty the left again. 

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Right as the chitin-plated fist touched her abs, she once more forced Fog out through her skin. The impact sent her sliding a good few inches back, ache surging through her abdomen, but the Sister was no better for wear. Even if the timing was off, it was close enough to send most of the force right back into her arm, exoskeleton cracking and blood seeping from said cracks.

The Sister stared at her arm, cautiously bending her elbow and her fingers to make sure everything still worked, then shot a mixed glare at Zelsys. 

Surprise. Confusion. Fascination. Sheer, seething hatred.

“Rebound Pulse,” the beast-slayer grinned, taking a moment to readjust her breathing, trying to see if she could breathe faster and still take full breaths. She could - by mere milliseconds, but an improvement was an improvement.

“Kinetic redirection, twice in a single breath no less,” the Locust Noble laughed in exasperation. The wings on her back unfolded and she flew backwards, picking her weapon back up and approaching on foot. “Serves me right to underestimate you.”

In an instant, the Sister redoubled her onslaught. Jump. Roll. Jump. Step. Duck. Roll. She mixed wild, aimless swings with precise and controlled ones, stabbing at Zel’s legs whenever the opportunity arose. More than once did Zelsys struggle for footing as the black blade ricocheted off her leg-plates, even though the Sister aimed for her upper legs.

With each swing she dodged, the Locust Noble’s murderous gaze became more focused, more calculating. She couldn’t keep this up forever, not for lack of stamina, but out of sheer statistical inevitability - eventually, the Sister would get a lucky hit in. She could use that pillar in the middle of the arena for cover, but that just felt like a bad idea. Then again, perhaps ducking behind it would buy her enough time.

Zel had just moved to execute her plan, now dodging mostly to the right to try and move towards that pillar. Whether the Locust Noble noticed or simply tired of being unable to land a hit, she managed to feint an overhead slash by stepping forward and using the forward foot as a pivot to instead deliver an entirely unexpected side kick. Even with her superhuman reaction time, Zelsys barely managed to raise her left hand in reflexive defense.

With all that body mass behind it, even without armored boots or a special technique it was easily forceful enough to send Zelsys flying - or rather, it sent her flying when the kinetic dispersion harness evenly distributed its force across her entire body mass. Thankfully, the arena was large enough that she didn’t slam into a wall. 

Standing to her feet, the beast-slayer couldn’t help chuckling to herself, “Ni-hi-hice.”

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