Chapter 170: 168 – Heartless Madness

Separating the Eye from her sword, she pulled out her gun and took a shot at the rotten immortal, swiftly walking towards him. Another, then another, working the lever by spinning the whole gun. As she walked she gathered a mass of Ignis within Emberthorn, waiting until she counted out her last bullet, gesturing with it still in hand to set loose a strike from the First Arm, detonating the Second Arm well before it would’ve hit Cao. 

The shaped charge bloomed outward instantaneously without a target to penetrate, enveloping the old man in a tidal wave of blue fire before he could muster a proper dodge. He appeared several meters off to the side, having panickedly swapped places with his sword, though perhaps it was the good call, seeing as only his left arm alongside a portion of his chest and face were burned. Reeling, stumbling, wheezing, composure broken, the cursed general struggled to stand. Even his Flying Sword wavered in mid-air, despite the fact it was an artifact able to fly under its own power.

It was fine. 

Holding Emberthorn in a reverse-grip with the quills facing forward, she swung upward and sent a hailstorm of flaming cold-iron raining down on him. Even mustering what was left of his stamina to both try dodging and blocking with his weapon, Cao Hu couldn’t save himself entirely.

A seething grunt of pain erupted from him as he stared up at Alcerys in defiance, drawing in ragged breaths as she approached within a hand’s reach. And indeed she did reach out, grabbing his sword out of the air with the First Arm. Whence it would’ve slipped or forced its way out of her grip before, Cao couldn’t get it free anymore.

She looked down at this husk of a once-feared and respected general, and she felt no hate or disdain. Only pity.

The Eye, on the other hand, seethed with such fury as no mortal man could muster, for its righteous anger was unlike that of humans. 

“Your crimes are numerous, your guilt undeniable, your punishment inevitable…” stated the Charred Judge, coldly. Even now she kept Fog-breathing, hoarding aether and funneling half into her blade’s gemstone whilst the other half went towards her constructs “...But I will give you the opportunity for last words. What have you to say in your defense, general?”

“My only regret is that I didn’t wipe out those fuckin’ loincloths before they could curse me,” he spat, a demented grin spreading over his features. The man’s mind had already snapped at the realization of his powerlessness in this situation.  “But you and yours, you’ll get your due yet. Come on, do what you will. Know that suffering a hundredfold will come to Foreign Devil scum regardless of which subhuman race you come from, which barbaric nation you align wi-”

Alcerys grabbed his neck, squeezing until she heard the cartilage pop, then loosened her grip just enough that he could draw in wheezing, shallow breaths. Enough that the skin of his neck could comfortably roast in the First Arm’s fiery grip. 

First, she roused Emberthorn into growing out its spines, imbuing them with fire before she ran them across his burned arm. Over, and over, and over again, until his entire arm was covered in spines. Secondly, she chose to pluck out one of his eyes, distasteful an act though it was, it was also appropriate. Holding his head still in a vice grip, Alcerys dug the First Arm’s clawed, seething fingers into Cao Hu’s left eye-socket, digging the eye out and cauterizing the inside of the socket with the nerve still left in so that it would have to be painstakingly scraped out if he ever wanted a replacement eye put in.

Were circumstances different, she would’ve stopped there, letting him live, suffer, and perhaps find some form of redemption… She had intended to take the sword to his arms, severing his hands that he might not wield a Flying Sword again lest he have them replaced by Ikesian means, as she knew well that the Wall would not let him out. In turn, he could not have his hands replaced in Pateiria. But he had to die.

“Were you merely the scum you are, I might’ve let you live. To be an undying reminder of your crimes. But you cannot be suffered to live,” she said, raising her blade to him... Only for him to vanish from her hands, and in her grip was left a second Flying Sword, this one possessing a silver handle set with sapphires instead of its counterpart’s gold and rubies. Before she knew it, the first blade was gone from her sight and she felt the Visage lashing out at something, the subtle recoil of its action suggesting something had nearly just skewered her through the head from behind.

Despite everything, Cao Hu stood defiant, snarling and gurgling upon his own blood, wheezing with each breach. He raised a hand to his throat and with the index finger punched a hole into it, and with a sharp yank and a gut-turning pop, forced the cartilage back into shape. With a blood-filled spittle to the side the general summoned both swords to his side, his facial features hardened and his presence magnified ten times over as he roared: “You chickenshit inquisitors don’t know anything about real combat! About real struggle! I’ve choked men to death with my own intestines, cut their throats out with my own shattered bones! What do you know of suffering?! OF REAL WAR?! You call your fucking squabble a war? That’s not real war! A real war ends when a people’s hope for a future is eradicated, when the victors exploit, dominate, and exterminate the losers as they please!”

Knees buckled, legs wide, his sole remaining eye staring back with the countenance of a mad beast, Cao Hu exhaled a plume of bloodied Fog, hair-thin threads of silver contrasting that spidered from his mouth all over his body contrasting against the red cloud. That was when she realized what was happening - he was puppeting his own body the same way one would puppet a Flying Sword.

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