Chapter 23: 23 – Bramble Shot

She also saw the foreigner, zigzagging at inhuman speeds towards the beast and trailing silver-green ribbons of Fog as she went. Expecting it to do no more than distract the monstrosity for a brief moment, she tried invoking Headpiercer Arts, to channel the Viriditas she had just ingested into a gunshot. 

Her Aether was just about above average, and her grasp of Aethermancy was, as the Tablet suggested, rudimentary - but it was enough for what she wanted to do. Zefaris had no formal training in the usage of such techniques, beyond the absolute basics that every soldier was given. A technique needs a name, or a phrase by which to recall the moment of its creation. She didn’t have the time to think of a “good” name, so a simple one would have to do.

Green Fog spilling from her mouth, she whispered the words, “Headpiercer Arts: Essence Shot!”

A pull of the trigger. The rifle’s internal hammer struck the Ignis crystal, igniting the explosive mixture in the cartridge and sending the lead ball rocketing down the barrel. For the tiniest, briefest of moments, her world came to a standstill as she felt the essence of greenery within her body being depleted - it was a split-second of eternity, a snapshot in time which she would recall every time she used this technique again.

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Left. Right. Left. Right

She wasn’t running as much as she was leaping back and forth, making her way towards the beast in too erratic a pattern for it to decide on where to aim its breath of decay. Its mouth periodically swung open as it seemed to struggle with the decision, and she had decided to use the opportunity to toss the small bottle right into its waiting mouth once she got close enough.

Only… Such a moment didn’t come. An arcing stream of deep red liquid splashed on its back, sending ribbons of Red Fog in every which direction as the beast shivered and froze at the undoubtedly excruciating pain. Zelsys could clearly see its heart beating a panicked staccato as it pumped more black ichor to try and counteract the essentia of animalistic survival that was seeping into its decaying flesh. 

Left. Right.

Almost there, she was almost there, but not quite. Then, from the left, from behind one of the barriers, there came a flash of emerald light and a thundering boom. A moss-covered musket ball carrying a net of thorny vines slammed directly into the beast’s waiting eye-socket, a horrendous scream emanating from the beast as the bramble quickly enveloped its head, beginning to slither down the blood-stalks of its neck, a thick Green Fog wafting from the growth all along.

It was stuck, frozen solid by unbearable pain that could only be inflicted on a creature of death and decay by the distilled essences of life. Zelsys saw the opportunity and took it, stopping at the end of one of her leaps to take a breath before she took off again, sliding underneath the beast from the right. She hefted her cleaver, using the momentum of her entire being to drive the push-saw side through its ribcage.

Though it was unable to move and its mouth was held shut by the bramble, pressurized jets of liquid death sprayed out of the hole that was once the bear’s nose, painting a trail of desiccation and wood rot over the treeline.

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The crunching of bone and singing of steel ringing in her ears as she knelt beneath the Necrobeast’s shattered rib cage. She smashed her remaining seal-bottle into the gap, using the moment of clear air to take a breath as she grasped her cleaver with both hands. Letting out a breath of Fog through an exhilarated grin, she swung it upward into the gap she had made. Unable to help herself, she quipped, “Sorry for the heartbreak.”

Both hardened glass and shriveled flesh yielded to bulldozing steel, yet where she had expected a deluge of pitch-black liquid, there fell out a small gemstone - a many-faceted polyhedron, only slightly larger than a human eye. The beast’s legs were already shaking under its own weight as the remaining Nigredo was burned from its body. Thinking quickly, Zelsys palmed the gem and threw herself into a slide out from beneath the beast, ripping her cleaver free of its decrepit flesh. 

She quickly stood and broke into a sprint to get farther away from the beast, its colossal weight shaking the ground well before she reached the barricade and turned around to look at what she had just slain. Holstering her blade as she watched the body begin turning to dust whilst Rubedo still rained down onto its back, she could do nothing but let out an exhilarated laugh. Then, Sigmund stumbled out of the building, looking around and pointing his stolen pistols. He visibly deflated in disappointment when he realized the beast was already dealt with. He muttered something about returning the pistols before the officer woke up and walked back into the checkpoint.

Second, Makhus finally stopped projectile-vomiting a continuous stream of Rubedo and fell to all fours, retching on the ground as he gasped, “Liqh- Liquid Vigor, need…” 

His tattoos were still partially red.

Third, Zefaris leapt out of cover and ran over to him, trying to get him to drink pure Viriditas. He almost took a sip, but when the Green Fog hit his nose he pushed the bottle away, muttering “No, don’t wgh- waste…” just before he broke into another retching fit.

The cyclopean markswoman sighed in admonishment, untying one of the remaining seal-bottles from Makhus’s backpack, uncorking it, and bringing it to his mouth instead. He tilted his head up and downed it in one continuous gulp, allowing it to pour down his throat with ravenous thirst. His tattoos had turned black by the time the bottle was half-empty, but he kept drinking until it was empty.

Finally, he tossed the bottle aside and spat out a disgusting clump of bright-green mucus, struggling to his feet with Zefaris’s aid. “Never again,” he grumbled. “Let’s get outta ‘ere ‘fore the officer wakes up, this stench’ll stick to us for weeks otherwise.”

The swordsman rolled his shoulders and took a few deep breaths before he turned to finally cross the border properly, but he froze at the sight before him.

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