Chapter 179: 179 – Tidebreaker

In perfect synch, the two-row firing line barked a wordless response and all hell broke loose; hundreds of quills flew down the corridor, loosed in such a tightly timed sequence as to create a continuous flow.

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By the time the robed locust barked his command, Zelsys had already begun engine breathing.

“Style: Beast!” she invoked when the locusts shouted their response, holding up the flat side of the Butcher’s blade in front of her head and torso as a shield. She also channeled Graze Pulse through the portions of her body that were most at risk of being hit; her arms and upper legs.

Well before even a single quill could strike, Zelsys heard an all-consuming, melodic, deep drone coming from behind her. It washed over her and proceeded onward, a noise so loud it shook black grains loose from the walls, yet one that left her unscathed. When the tide of quills collided with it they began to shudder and visibly slowed down, and she knew the reason behind it. Strolvath had his own method of anti-projectile defense after all.

The vast bulk of the quills struck the Butcher’s flat, shattering into splinters on impact with a barely-felt impulse. Most of the others struck at a shallow-enough angle to just slip off, their great velocity and surprising mass translated to the feeling of a rough branch brushing past her skin. Once was nothing, ten times it was a little irritating, but dozens and dozens of quills began to grind her skin raw. Her legs instead grew battered from constant impacts no matter how lessened they were, even if the Fog-infused fabric could knit itself back together faster than the quills could shred it apart.

Those that did manage to bite in, perhaps one in ten, caused shallow, rapidly-bleeding scratches. 

It didn’t matter. 

Every quill that brushed past her only served to grow the pressure behind her right eye, and the jet of stark-white Fog quickly grew to the length and width of an arm, whipping about with such violence that it shredded gashes even into the black-stone wall of pillars at her right side. 

It made her feel invincible. That pressure, that all-consuming static that pulled at her from the inside like the tension of an impending lightning bolt. Her spontaneous electric phenomena were no longer limited to semi-random discharges, her body now surrounded by a great many firefly-like sparks that flickered in and out of existence in the fractions of a second. The only thing she could think of was how much she wanted to set all that charge loose upon those who allowed her to build it in the first place.

Before she could do so, however, five glowing coins flew skyward in sequence, their singsong tones drowned out by the all-consuming pandemonium. Five anvil-ringing gunshots then resounded in the very same sequence, each striking a coin in turn and each ricocheting to a target in the firing line. The very first one annihilated the commander, its amplified kinetic energy causing the bullet to vaporize his head and split his torso halfway down the middle. The four that came after each punched a hole in the firing line, ripping through heads of the Quill-shielders in front at such angles that the bullets ricocheted off the floor and struck the Gunners from below, shattering legs and rupturing groins.

“Now Butcher, bring me their heads!” laugh-yelled the lightning-eyed slayer. Charging ahead with her blade still held in front of herself, one hand on the grip and the other on the guard. It trembled in her hand, thick arcs leaping across its surface as its sawteeth screamed for blood and its edge seethed bright-orange, bordering on yellow. 

The tide of quills had dwindled down to a steadier flow, with the majority of shielders having expended their supply. It was thinned out even further by the violent, uncontrollable arcs that now leapt from Zel’s skin, lashing out at incoming quills and shattering them into tiny pieces with bright flashes of light and ear-piercing screeches of ionized air. 

Her sheer velocity made raindrops of blood slip off her skin where otherwise they would’ve run down her arms and legs. The ever-so-brief thought of using droplets of her own blood as a medium for ball lightning crossed her mind, and in her battle-addled state, she didn’t feel a reason to avoid trying it. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll just butcher them the proper way,” she thought to herself as she jumped over the shield wall, focusing on charging the droplets that she trailed with Fulgur. The lessening of pressure behind her eye told her it had worked, before she landed behind the firing line and instantly spun around to swing in a wide arc at the Gunners’ head-height. Her swing sent eight heads toppling to the ground in sequence and leaving only a few Gunners alive.

For a scant few moments, at least. A split-second later, tiny spheres of reddish light slammed down on the firing line, zipping through the air and striking absolutely anything that Zelsys thought of as a target. Dozens of them struck in sequence, vaporizing gaping holes into the heads and torsos of the survivors. First it killed the surviving Gunners, then it worked away on the Shielders, destroying the heads of two or perhaps three of them.

Between her initial jump and when the crimson ball-lightning struck there were barely a few seconds, just long enough for Zelsys to readjust her breathing and get her bearings in preparation to burn the rest of her built-up Fulgur in butchering the Shielders.

Only, that opportunity didn’t come. The others had moved ahead and there thundered a resounding, bone-shuddering sound, a throat-song thrumming all about, and she witnessed every single Shielder boil inside its shell, bubbling fluids spraying and bursting from every seam, whether the creature was alive or dead. Those of them who still lived when it struck emitted high-pitched screeching that would best bedescribed as a tea kettle combined with a deathrattle. Strolvath’s violent song even made black sand pour from the ceiling. 

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