Chapter 187: 187 – Return to Sender

It seemed that she was, if the Fog that shrouded her fist was anything to go by. Even the Mantis didn’t seem like she wanted to risk trying to take that opportunity, perhaps waiting to see if the beast-slayer would just get made into paste. 

The Fog-drunk slayer met the colossus’ punch with her own. Bright light flashed from the point of contact to the sound of a thunderous crack, and then… Nothing. She stood unmoved, and the black bug’s fist had been stopped. 

But then, the Black Swordsman’s left arm burst at the seams. Plates cracked and flew off, hemolymph sprayed from the gaps, the limb crumpled like an empty can and bone fragments burst from his flesh in every direction. His shoulder popped out the back of the socket, bursting out through layers of armor accompanied by a geyser of bile-colored fluid.

All at once, his arm had been subject to the force of a punch that had carried a major portion of his body weight, in a single, perfectly linear impulse.

“Return to sender!” she laughed as Fog began sputtering out her nostrils again. Barely a half-second to resume engine breathing.

Another half-second to clamber atop the obliterated limb and begin running up it towards the giant’s head, where even he wouldn’t dare swing that ridiculous axe. Killing the Mantis remained Zel’s main priority, but this tower of meat was the biggest roadblock between the slayer and her ability to carry out that retribution. Her other options were to fully focus on dealing with the Mantis and risk being blindsided, or try fighting both of them at once and thus be unable to fully focus on either. 

Using the tip of her cleaver as a hook to climb the last few steps to his neck, Zelsys pulled her blade back and steadied herself atop his shoulders. Gripping the handle with one hand and the guard with the other she invoked, “Beheading Saw!” 

She had considered whether the Mantis might try to interrupt her. However, she found relief in the relentless barrage of bullets that Zefaris began unloading at the red bug the moment Zel was out of the firing line. Some were Concussion Impacts, others were bounced off coins, but the majority were shots specifically directed to make the Mantis dodge away from Zelsys and the Black Swordsman. 

He stood back up just as the saw ripped into the centipede around his neck. Heave-ho, heave-ho, breath by breath she ripped through the armor and into the meat. The saw struggled to chew through his vertebrae, and it quickly became obvious why when black sand started flying out amongst the gore. The point where the new head met the spine was reinforced with black-stone so thoroughly that there was no way to cut around it. It was a miracle he could still turn his head. 

The axe flew overhead just then, and she decided she wasn’t willing to risk cutting through the extra black-stone. She ripped the saw free and changed her grip so that the sawteeth faced towards her, hooking the saw under the bugman’s neck as she felt his body shift again and the axe passed dangerously close to her. 

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“Style: Beast!” she invoked as she began to saw away at the inner part of the black bug’s neck. She intentionally avoided burning all her lung capacity on fuelling her muscles and the saw, watching out for the impending axe swing. When, moments later, she felt the Black Swordsman beginning to swing again, she more than willingly leaned into it as she channeled Graze Pulse, just close enough to brush by.

The charge she received from just that one gigantic swing sufficed to make her eye vent a geyser of Fulgur as long as she was tall. Just as she did so, Zel heard Zefaris yell “Move!” and saw a bright flash of light from just outside her field of vision, but didn’t think about it beyond just registering the occurrence as part of the fray.

Amidst the carnage Strolvath ran around the chamber’s perimeter, battering down the doorways to hive after hive with concentrated sonic assaults. Two, he cleared out by tossing a grenade in. By the third one, the Sister had taken notice despite her blinded state and started following the music. It only made sense, since the old soldier’s song was the most distinct and arguably loudest noise in the entire chamber, not to mention the pain it doubtlessly caused her through resonance. 

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Zef’s success in driving the Red Mantis away from Zelsys had the side effect of driving the rage-maddened bugwoman towards her, seemingly uncaring for the numerous bullet craters dotting her carapace. Even after she riddled the red one’s midsection with eight gunshot wounds and shot off the upper third of an arm-blade, the Mantis persevered in madly zigzagging and fly-jumping to close the distance. 

And in the end… It worked. At nearly the exact same time that Zelsys used Graze Pulse on one of the black titan’s axe swings, the Mantis reached Zefaris. Not only that, she reached the blonde right after she had fired off the last shot and placed Pentacle into the reloader - the bugwoman either knew how to count gunshots, or she just got lucky.

Her first impulse was to use her bayonet, but… She didn’t. Without thinking about it, Zefaris just opened her left eye and emptied her nearly-full lungs in one exhalation. It was like drawing on muscle memory that wasn’t entirely her own, a nudging impulse from the stone itself. 

“Move!” she called out, and a torrential outpour flowed out through the Philosopher’s Eye. 

The stone eye emitted a flash that blinded even Zefaris, and she heard a loud crack. When her vision returned a half-second later, the Mantis was careening towards the wall and there was an arm-thick trail of Fog between her head and the bug’s previous position.

Pentacle had already reloaded, and Zefaris gladly exploited the bug’s inability to change her course to send three gunshots right into her head.

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