Chapter 22: 22 – Breath of Death

The very glass tubes that once connected it to the still had been melded to what was left of the creature’s arteries by crusty, scab-covered clots.

Something had punched a hole into its ribcage, whether it was the shot she hit it with during their previous battle or something else, and from this angle, Zelsys had a clear shot. She had no choice but to take it. Taking another deep breath and bracing against the barricade, she brought the gun to bear and worked the trigger lever, fighting the urge to taunt the beast all along. 

Click. Click. Boom. 

First came the flash, then the shockwave, and lastly the smoke, but instead of lead ripping through flesh, there came a loud crack and an agitated roar. The recoil forced her into the cold metal, but she was up on her feet within moments, having picked up the bottles and taken off running in a wide circle around the beast, stopping behind it. 

Once the beast came into view again she saw that it was completely unharmed, with the lead ball embedded halfway into the tough glass of the flask. Its head frantically swiveled on its blood-stalks as it searched for the assailant, and Zelsys called out to it to get its attention.

“What part of rest in pieces did you not understand?!” she yelled as she threw the small bottle and readied to throw the large one. The beast whipped around almost instantly at the first word, as if it had recognized her voice. The bottle shattered against its arm, the emerald liquid spilling over its rotted musculature and evaporating into numerous, thick ropes of Green Fog. It gurgle-roared at this, getting down on all fours and rearing back as if to vomit - and vomit it did. A flood of liquid Nigredo poured from its tongueless maw, covering too wide an area for Zelsys to get out of in time. 

Thinking quickly, she smashed the larger bottle at her feet, trusting the pure essentia to protect her. It reacted with the influx of liquid decay, violently turning to a wall of Green Fog as the wave of Nigredo flowed around her. The trees that the wave crashed against began visibly dying, desiccating from the trunk up, and when it seeped into the soil, everything it flowed over had decayed. Even the soil itself had turned dry and desiccated.

It began to rear up again, and she took a deep breath of the Green Fog that swirled about her. Herculean strength and vitality filled her body and she unsheathed her cleaver, then broke into a zig-zagging sprint towards the beast, trailing silvery-green ribbons as she exhaled. At that moment, Zelsys felt that instinctive feeling more than ever, and she came to a realization.

It wasn’t fear, or even a survival instinct. It was a blazing will to live, screaming out against the world’s attempts to snuff her out, and every battle made her feel more alive than the last. 

---

Two of the three soldiers scrambled toward the door after Zelsys ran out, rushing to close it behind her before the beast noticed them. With bated breath and ears against the door, they waited for the commotion to start. Meanwhile, Sigmund took a moment to take two of the officer’s pistols, having stored his rifle in the Tablet.

A moment later, there came a thunderous boom and an angered roar from the beast, soon followed by Zelsys shouting mockery. Even from behind the door, they could hear the smile in her words.

Makhus looked to his compatriots. “Don’t break ‘em if you don’t have to. Open the door once I stomp twice,” he advised, and they returned only quick, affirmative nods.      

He only hesitated briefly before he brought the Rubedo bottle to his lips and took a deep swig, his tattoos gradually shifting from black to bright red. He put the cork back, gritting his teeth as he struggled to keep the violent essentia from overtaking him. For the moments before his tattoos absorbed the essentia, it burned his esophagus and filled his body with a dozen primal sensations all at once, his entire being flushed with blood so thoroughly his skin turned a shade of pink.

Unable to speak the technique’s name, he gestured with his right hand whilst he cradled the bottles in his left. It wasn’t any actual sign language that he was using, but rather a series of hand gestures that had a strong mental association with the technique, as he had been taught them specifically for occasions such as this. Though he had met a few individuals capable of triggering high-level techniques with one or two gestures, he himself was not remotely as skilled - it took him fifteen gestures to manipulate his body into doing what he wanted.

Though he needn’t do anything other than performing the gestures, Makhus was set in his ways, and strongly preferred the way he had been taught. “Purgation Arts: Rubedo Expulsion!” he chanted over and over in his head as he performed gesture after gesture, stomping twice just before the final one. 

Just as Zefaris kicked the door open, Makhus stepped out and saw the beast’s pelt-cloaked rear end. He instinctively gauged the distance, raising his head at a shallow angle just before he clenched his fist whilst imagining it crushed his stomach.

He heard the footsteps of his compatriots running out of the building after him, but his vision was consumed by red. All red. Everything was red. The beast gurgle-roared in pain when the spray finally splashed on its back. Though he couldn’t see, Makhus vaguely felt how full his reservoir was by a tactile sensation of fullness - at this point, he had only expelled a third of the Rubedo contained within his tattoos.

---

Zefaris came running out of the building only a moment after the swordsman, running over to one of the barriers and taking cover behind it. She quickly opened one of the bottles and took a swig of its emerald-green contents, doing all she could to ignore its aggressively herbal flavor, the undertones of which so closely matched how the foreigner smelled. “Homunculus Eye…” she whispered under her breath, leaning out and taking aim at the beast’s head. From this angle she could only see its head from the side, its eyes foggy and unclear. 

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