Chapter 197: 195 – Subtle Metamorphosis

The Mind was willing, but the Body wasn’t there to do the deed…

...Until it was.

Indeed, just as the Composite Titan recovered from the loss of a right arm, the Primordial Self had finished carving out the back of the Emperor-effigy’s neck and severing the spinal cord, causing it to limply tip forward. This feat complete and its thoughtform body barely even coherent at this point the Primordial Self leapt from the Titan’s left shoulder, somehow manifesting within its hands a replica of Twitcher’s chitinous chemical rockets, with which it sped through the air at such velocity the air distorted around it.

It shattered the glass plate under foot when it landed right next to Zelsys, discarding its thruster. Taking a deep breath and momentarily regaining its concrete form - in so doing repairing its utterly shattered legs - it turned to Zelsys, giving her a brief look, a nod, and a growl of affirmation before it just… Stepped into her. 

Suddenly, she couldn’t tune out her instincts anymore.

The brilliant-white pain, the all-consuming exhilaration, the sheer sense of will, it all swirled and mixed together as Zelsys dug her heels in and lifted the giant sword, twisting on her heel with the combined strength of the Primordial Self and the inner-world shaping authority of the Thinking Self.

Extrapolating the logic of her own punch technique, Zelsys created such momentum that the glass-encased cleaver’s point broke the sound barrier just before impact, effortlessly skewering the Composite Titan through the chest, pinning it to the desert floor and lifting Zelsys high into the air with its motion.

There was no split-second technique creation moment, but already Zelsys had named it in her mind and decided that she would create a real version of it, thoroughly convinced it was possible to create a thrusting attack capable of matching the Evil-cleaving Slash.

“FORMLESS BUTCHERY: THUNDERCLAP STING”

Desperately grasping at the blade, the Titan used its remaining functional arms to try and remove the blade or break it, in a final token struggle.

This struggle was one that Zelsys cut short with a command to the blade, a command that shook the sands and resounded everywhere all at once: 

“THUNDERCANNON!” 

A deluge of glass and lightning followed.

The Titan’s flesh sloughed away, the craggy rock holding it together turned to dust, the blackstone of its exoskeleton crumbled into so much as sand, and in the wake of devastation was left only a towering, half-shattered cleaver and a field of greenish glass, entombing a colossal matte-black skeleton.

She hanged from the still-intact cleaver’s handle and witnessed the sun rise over the glittering field of glass.

---

Zelsys woke to the rumbling of an empty stomach. 

Yet, it wasn’t a demand. It was a question, a request.

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More questions came from without, the first of the day being from Zefaris: “By the Dead Ones, finally. You feeling alright?”

“Urrnh…” Zel grumbled as consciousness washed over her and her eyes fluttered open to the sight of a visibly concerned Zefaris, very clearly having woken recently herself. The chin imprint in the mattress, she’d fallen asleep sitting at her bedside. “Yeah I’m… Good… Did I zap you in my sleep again?”

A chuckle erupted from the blonde and she smiled, “You sure fuckin’ did. Looked like you were having one hell of a nightmare. It was the scroll, wasn’t it?”

She glanced towards the now rolled-up scroll up on the nightstand.

“Wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but yeah, it was the scroll,” Zel admitted, sitting up and blinking a few times to get the sleep out of her eyes. “Please tell me you weren’t by my bedside all night.”

“Of course not, you woke me up…” she glanced up at the wall, a distinct lightgem surrounded by glyphs upon it. The light flowed out of it into the glyph and projected a clock. “About an hour ago.”

For a few seconds, Zefaris stared up at Zelsys in consideration, the twin pupil of her left eye dilating as she opened the right. A furrowed brow.

“I thought that whole subduing your inner beast thing would be more obvious, but the antlers are still there, just a bit different...” she muttered.

“Yeah, the Primordial Self didn’t look too different in my dream…” agreed Zel, leaning down to share a brief kiss with Zef before she got up properly, stretching as she suddenly became aware of every single stiffened muscle. She distinctly felt her body responding in a fraction of the expected time, and by the time Zef had gotten to her feet, Zel added: “Might just be ‘cause I was pretty in-tune with my instincts to begin with. I’ll tell you all about it later, I need to get it out of my head somehow. Could maybe write it down and sell it to those Hanging Feudalist folks.”

“Huh…” Zef squinted, a realization dawning upon her that seemed almost mundane now, despite having been unthinkable up until mere weeks ago: “Reminds me that I should probably take that breakthrough pill one of these days.”

She sleepily stumbled out of the bedroom as Zelsys finagled with her underwear, for the first time using both chest straps in an emulation of the criss-crossing pattern of Arnys’ outfit because she liked how it looked and figured using both straps would probably be more practical, rather than less. 

Her hair hung loosely, and although she had the wrappings on hand to do it up properly, she didn’t feel like it, deciding to instead just tie the long, ginger part of her hair into a high ponytail. Noticing small sparks still jumping off her as she tied it Zel purged the excess Fulgur, the directionless outburst causing her hair to briefly grow charged. While the silver, short portion settled down quickly, the greater mass of her ginger hair caused it to hang onto the charge, becoming fluffy.

Zelsys got dressed, went through her morning hygiene routine, and together with Zefaris headed off to the mess hall for breakfast, both of them looking forward to eating Ozmir’s cooking. He didn’t cook fancifully, instead producing meals that one could extrapolate the cooking process of to a nearly impossibly high standard of quality. 

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