Chapter 141: 141 – Re:Swordsman

After she killed a few locusts, she decidedly knew it would take her longer than twenty seconds to deal with the remaining locusts, so she just made her way to the hive and leapt atop it with a lungful of Fog so she could dismiss her Fog tendrils one by one, catching each gun in turn and stowing it into her armored coat. Then, it was back to the extermination.

Warrior after warrior, drone after drone, the Inquisitor wiped out the rest of this rabble. The greatest discomfort she felt all throughout was not from her foes, but the negligible exertion of killing them. It almost felt like the stench of their viscera managed to seep through her gas mask, but she knew it was just in her mind - if her mask hadn’t been sealing properly, Fog would have been escaping it, and it wasn’t.

With all of the grunts done, it was onto the Doormen, who had by now closed up the doorways. The flaming sword took some time burning through their arm-shields, but it managed so handily. A standard fuel cell would’ve sputtered and struggled to stay lit when continually submerged in fluid, whereas the blue flame just spat even more violently in reaction to the Doorman’s vile hemolymph. Soon enough she had enough room to cut through the creature’s arms and topple its own arm-shields on top of it before she drove her sword into its head to kill it. 

The body took a few more swings of her blazing blade to be rendered down enough that she could actually enter the hive, but after that, there was no more notable resistance.

Sure, there were a few engorged drones, quicker and more savage than normal, but they were not even worthy of being called a threat. She cut them down without paying them mind, before she executed the remaining Doormen and made her way out the other side of the hive, sheathing her sword to preserve fuel.

A long hallway sprawled out before her, a towering figure stood in the chamber that it led to, staring her down. It was… The black-armored Locust Noble from before? Only, he didn’t quite look the part.

The dopey, childlike slowness was gone from him. What little of his human face had been visible now fully mutated into an insectoid visage - where he once had a helm that covered his head, there was now a mandibled jaw and beady, black eyes, antennae protruding from his forehead and whipping about. His armor had been changed, many of the plates over vital areas replaced by bright red ones clearly styled after the Red Mantis. 

She couldn’t see what weapon sat on his back, but she could make out that it was smaller than his previous ultra-greatsword. Not just that, but the part of his left arm that Zelsys had destroyed had also been replaced by a huge, bright red tower shield, its front styled into a snarling grimace. It even had bright red lightgems set into the eyeholes - how quaint. 

Though the direction of his gaze could no longer be ascertained - not to mention that it wouldn’t be possible from this far away even if he didn't have bug eyes - Alcerys could palpably feel the seething, mindless rage that the Black Swordsman directed towards her with his gaze. That bulging, engorged control parasite on the nape of his neck was obviously riling him up so that he would splatter her all across the floor the moment she set foot in that triangular arena. 

Alcerys wasn’t willing to take the risk of agitating him more than she needed to, so she ducked back into the hive and sat down in the least disgusting corner of it, pulling her mask just far up enough to chug down all the mead elixir she had left. Afterwards, she took the time to reload the Stars of Calamity, pulling the “bottomless” powder horn and a pouch of lead balls from the hidden pockets of her armored coat. Of course, the powder horn was just enchanted to hold far more powder than its external dimensions would suggest, which was why it was wrapped with arcane seals written in Aqua-infused blue ink, to ensure that its Ignis-rich contents wouldn’t turn unstable.

By the time she got through the fourth gun, she started to hear loud stomping and feel the tremors that it produced, which were strong enough to just barely reach her all the way over here. When she was halfway done with the last gun, the Black Swordsman turned to screaming insults in, to her surprise, Grekurian. Not just any Grekurian, but one of the very distinctive Ikesio-Grekurian border dialects that first arose from mixing of the two languages only a century or so prior. Alcerys knew because it was her own native dialect, though she had been forced to learn to use the clean, unaccented versions of both its parent languages.

“Hnrrr… Coward!” he howled. “Come out here and face me!”

It was a few more seconds before she loaded the two remaining barrels and rammed the bullets down after which she did as he demanded, keeping this last pistol in hand and cocking both its hammers. Alcerys was perfectly happy getting out of the hive, with how full of musky, heavy stench the air within it was.

The moment she stepped into his line of sight, the Black Swordsman came to a stop in his furious pacing and whipped his head around, locking eyes. As she made her way towards him, she felt a tangible sense of bloodlust emanate from the Locust Noble, even though he became outwardly more calm. He went from pacing, stomping, and screaming, to calmly standing in the middle of his arena. Waiting. Poised. Eager to kill.

With her crossing of the arena’s precipice the abnormally shaped door slammed shut behind her, completing the triangle. Alcerys only had a short moment before the giant reached up and pulled his weapon free of the vestigial arms that held it affixed to his back, revealing it to be a rather new-looking sword hewn of the dungeon’s black stone.

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