Chapter 142: 142 – Tower of Meat

It was exceedingly bulky and long, easily large enough to at the very least smash her organs to pulp on impact, were she so lucky as to take a hit without it cleaving through her armor. But to him, it was as proportional as her own sword was to her. So it was that the Inquisitor pulled her own blade free in turn, acting as if she were going to duel the giant bugman honorably. She wasn’t that stupid or arrogant, but he didn’t know that.

The Black Swordsman slammed his shield on the ground and took up a surprisingly sensical battle-stance with his sword held up ready to strike down on her. It was a stance that evoked shield-wall tactics used long ago, merely adjusted for a disproportionately smaller single opponent. Of course, she didn’t engage him head-on. 

Alcerys simply walked around him trying to keep her distance, waiting until he lashed out. She hadn’t even completed a half-circle before he swung down on her, stomping his right foot and exposing himself - just barely, but given his size, it was a huge gap. Sure, the swordsman was unreasonably fast for his size, but said size was still a disadvantage in this case. She had no issue simply exhaling some fog to propel herself out of the way with a quick sideways jump, and after that, she quickly took aim at his head and pulled both her guns’s triggers, bracing for the recoil.

Fog-breathing or not, firing both barrels without the aid of a Fog tendril hurt. It also sent two spears of hot lead into the bugman’s face, spaced just a little more tightly than his eyes, but that didn’t matter. The bullets were still snugly guided into the cavities that his eyes once resided in, and from there it was just a matter of penetrating one of the weakest points on the human skull. Either the Black Swordsman’s skull had been seriously reinforced or he simply didn’t need the front half of his brain, because after the giant finished reeling from the impact, his blinded self sprung right back into action with a savage rage that outstripped even what he had displayed up until now. 

Geysers of blood and pulped brain matter gushed from where his eyes once were to the rhythm of a frantic heartbeat, as the giant of a man whipped his head about and swung his weapon madly in an attempt to strike her. Alcerys knew better than to make so much as a noise, even as that veritable railroad track of a blade barreled only inches in front of her face. Instead, she quietly sheathed her sword and turned her gun’s barrel in sync with the swordsman’s own stomping, cocking its hammers as she aimed at his face again. 

It quickly became clear that this time, she wouldn’t get a clean hit. He was thrashing about too much. So it was that she cautiously reached into her coat, reaching into the satchel of lead balls that she used for reloading and pulling one out. She tossed it as hard as she could into one of the corners of the chamber, waiting to see if it drew the swordsman’s attention. When his head whipped around at the noise, Alcerys used the opportunity to get behind him and aim her gun right at the control parasite on the nape of his neck, the horrible pulsating sack of red chitin that it was. 

The swordsman stomped in the corner, slammed his sword down, screamed unintelligible slurs only vaguely distinguishable as Ikesio-Grekurian, but all that mattered was that he was standing still enough for her to get a good shot. It certainly helped that his control parasite was absolutely huge and bulging. Both triggers pulled at once, a violent recoil impulse, a mess of noise and smoke. Then, the crack of shattered chitin followed by a revolting noise only comparable to an entire barrel of organic slurry being dumped into the tank of a distiller in a Viriditas factory. Even though the control parasite was disproportionately well-armored, her gunshot still ruptured it and mulched most of its insides, leaving a gaping hole that would have certainly exposed the Black Swordsman’s ravaged insides, were it not plugged by what was left of the bug’s own parasitic appendages.

The Swordsman didn’t reel at getting shot, or spring into action - he froze, stone-still, then slowly turned around to face Alcerys, even though he was blind. He raised his blade and brought it down on his own left arm to sever the shield, murmuring all along, “Itchy… So itchy… Make it stop…”

Not a noise of complaint or a grunt of pain came from him at the horrid crunch and squelch of his own chitin, flesh, and bone, even as the massive shield slammed onto the ground and a deluge of distinctly red, still-human blood poured from the stump. He let his sword clatter to the ground as well, then stepped forward… And broke down.

The giant of a man fell to his knees, weeping and screaming like a small child about how everything itched, how he was a monster, how he just wanted it all to stop. Quickly enough, he even transitioned to the fetal position, simply lying on the ground and shuddering as he wept bloody tears from his shot-out eye sockets. Alcerys had seen many things in her time - she’d rendered herself numb to horrors such as this, but unwilling monsters forced to face their own nature like this always got to her. 

With a heavy sigh into her mask, the Inquisitor stashed her gun into its rightful place inside her coat and pulled her flaming sword free of its sheath, approaching what was left of the Black Swordsman. A quick, two handed chop, and his head came clean off. 

Just to make sure they wouldn’t repurpose the body, she decided to render it unusable. Who knew what they were capable of - preserving and repurposing a corpse wasn’t out of the question.

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