Chapter 44: 44 – Put Down

A kick to the chest to knock its confused, headless form even further back, to give her enough time to take another breath.

She had enough time to align the cleaver’s cutting edge for an upward swing, but by then it was already at her throat again, swiping and stabbing with its claws as blood gushed from its stump neck in a pattern of frantic pulses. 

A left side kick, empowered only by a small exhalation. Its freakishly long arms allowed its talons to dig deeply into her back just as her ironclad boot connected, and she felt the fingers of its right hand snap off in her back when it flew to the ground. The wrenching pain that came with every breath did little to slow her down, but it did more than enough to rile her up.

The creature struggled to its feet, but it was exsanguinated, blinded, and deafened. Its body - covered in its own blood - glistened under the midday sun. It stumbled towards her with its freakish hands held out in a blind attempt to strike, broken ribs protruding from its chest where her side kick hit.

Zel kept her distance, stepping aside as it came at her and severing both its arms above the elbows with a clean upswing. When the cleaver reached the apex of its swing, she used the brief moment of weightlessness to flip it around, once more intending to make use of the push-saw side. “Heartbreaker,” she uttered, exhaling all at once. The technique’s unseen force guided her hands into a diagonal downward stab, the cleaver’s teeth chewing through the creature’s very human flesh and bones as if they were gelatin and soft wood.

A sharp yank freed her blade and allowed the beast’s form to slump to its knees. The upper half of its torso folded forward under its own weight, barely held on by connective tissues and the intact portions of its ribcage.

This didn’t feel like a fight. This felt like putting down a sick animal. Every breath brought with it a jolt of pain. Zelsys lifted her cleaver once again, unenthusiastically chopping at its chest until the top half fell to the ground, then holstered it. The Heartbreaker technique had indeed guided her hand in shredding the creature’s heart, but it brought little satisfaction - there was no Azoth inside.

Zel reached to her back, forcefully yanking out the beast’s broken finger bones as she looked about, thinking where the Azoth on a formerly-human beast could be. Her eyes fell upon its antler-crowned head, eyes already milky-white and empty.  Perhaps the brain.

“Only one way to find out,” she thought aloud.

Its skull gave under her bootheel after two good stomps. The brain inside was half-mush, half-pristine, but it wasn’t exactly easy to distinguish which parts were intact with the grey matter smeared on the ground. It wasn’t as if she had the scientific curiosity to care.

She did, however, care for the bulbous, foggy-red gemstone that glimmered amidst the pink slime, nestled between what were at one point the brain’s hemispheres. It was barely the size of an acorn. It clearly didn’t belong, so she picked it out of the goop and held it up against the sun. Just as she’d hoped, she saw mercurial silver glimmering inside.

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Into Fog Storage it went. With the body high of Fog-breathing gone from her system, she became keenly aware of just how disgusting the maneater’s carcass smelled. Never before today did she think she would wish for the sickly-sweet stench of pure Nigredo. Even still, she took the time to gather the creature’s severed arms and split-open head next to its body, her eyes watering from the rancid fumes of its digestive juices. 

“Rest in pieces,” Zel uttered before she made her way out of this disgusting corn field. Once she got far enough to no longer sense the stench, she took the time to step off the road and pick some of the nicer poppy flowers, placing them as well into Fog Storage. The bottles of Liquid Vigor still within her possession caught her eye in the list of stored items. 

The pain that came with every breath and every step was bearable, but it was irritating, just intense enough that she couldn’t ignore it, and much the same could be said for how much her wounds bled. It helped that the blood just slid off the fabric of her trousers, but her chest wrappings had already become crusty by the time the wounds stopped bleeding.

Surely, Makhus wouldn’t be upset if she drank just half a small bottle to soothe her wounds. If he was, she’d just pay however much he asked. 

Out of storage the seal-bottle came, and back onto the road she stepped, downing a third of its contents all at once before she even resumed walking. Soon enough, the effects of Viriditas had dampened her sense of pain to a point where she could walk at full speed without issue, and by the time she was within sight of the town gate, she had emptied the bottle halfway. 

During her walk back, she mulled over what the beast said to her in that field. Assuming what it said about Quincy was true, she’d have words with the barkeep, and if nothing else, would strongarm as much money out of him as she could. 

The guards didn’t even think to question the bloodied beast-slayer when she approached, and merely hurried to open the door for her before she could get restless. After all, they didn’t see what she had done or why she had done it, they only saw an annoyed-looking mountain of a woman, covered in blood and with a bottle of healing elixir in hand.

Even if they had known every detail of the contract, they wouldn’t have dared consider stopping her. 

Zel made her way straight to Quincy’s inn, the townsfolk giving her a wide berth as she walked. Some looked upon her with fear, some with amazement, some with disgust, for she stunk to the high heavens of blood - both her own and the beast’s.

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