Chapter 224: 222 – Combat Chess Pt. 2

There was a glimmer in Zel’s eyes before Arnys felt the massive woman’s fingers dig into her skin, her weight scooped up as if she were a ragdoll before she felt herself get tossed across the arena. Having been able to prepare, she was able to right herself and land on her feet.

As she skidded backwards, only stopped by the barrier at the oval’s outer perimeter, the Matriarch grasped her blade’s handle, drawing it forth with a smooth, continuous motion that ensured the gold-inlaid lightning pattern across its flat would be displayed for all to see.

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Mirroring the Matriarch’s motion, Zelsys grasped for the Lightning Butcher, using every spare moment of breathing time to compress pure aether in her second stomach. A few brief seconds, a few lungfuls. Barely a third of the way there.

Arnys vanished from sight in a flash of yellow, but Zelsys had already guessed which direction she’d attack from. A slash from behind and to the right, the movement pattern similar to what she had seen before. Predicting where Arnys’s superior form of Fogwalking would end up was orders of magnitude harder than the Guardian Golem’s, but it was her own use of Fulgurkinesis that granted her necessary insight. Just as her own ball lightning zipped around in a seemingly chaotic pattern before reaching its target, so too did Arnys.

If the distance of travel was long enough - such as crossing most of the arena and getting around to Zel’s back - there was just enough time for her to see the flickering aftershocks of Arnys’s departure, and from them derive the rest of the pattern to figure out the general end point of the lightning-step.

Even being able to predict as such, however, actually blocking the strike was a matter of a hair’s breadth…

…One that Zelsys didn’t manage.

As she brought her cleaver to bear, Arnys twisted her own blade and made it slide across the Butcher’s paddle-like flat, and with an upward cut placed a long, shallow cut across Zel’s stomach. The glyph over her collarbone shrunk as it pulsed red, her flesh hardening in resistance as it was cleft asunder, vague magically-induced pain wrenching from the cut as if it had been more severe than it was. It was a superficial enough injury that it only necessitated marginal breath output loss for a few lungfuls to be pulled shut.

Cold-iron clashed with cold-iron, the supreme craftsmanship of the Matriach’s blade biting a chink into the Lightning Butcher’s rugged edge. She couldn’t get the Butcher free even if she tried, as if some other force was causing it to bind. Its sawteeth reverberated ever so slightly, and she realized what those miniscule flashes of yellow across Arnys’s sword meant. 

“We will both walk away from this bout, but what of Ubul’s ken? Of the other generals? Of the myriad monstrosities and reclusive cultivators that still inhabit this world, waiting for something to draw them out? Will your bravado persist even when victory is as though finding a grain of gold in a desert?” questioned the Matriarch, her voice betraying true conviction where before only jovial evasiveness could be found.

“I’m a beast-slayer. I slay beasts, regardless of how many legs they walk on, what honeyed lies they spew, what false titles or stolen power they boast,” Zel grinned back, still pretending to be trying to force her weapon free. She funneled a surge of Fulgur into the Butcher and hoped the rapidly changing magnetic fields generated in the process would at least help. Moments later, as the etching across its flat came alive, white tendrils slithering over its now-screaming sawteeth, Zelsys felt the inexorable force holding her weapon faltering in sync with the rapid oscillation of the Butcher’s extremely limited magnetism.

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She continued, carrying on to buy some time, “...The struggle of the hunt only makes the kill all the sweeter. And besides, I’m a violent egoist. Even without creatures deserving of butchery, I’d still find some way to make a living through violence. I should count myself lucky that for as long as man lives upon this world, there will be creatures deserving of my butchery.”

The Matriarch’s heretofore focused visage contorted into a nearly psychotic grin, a chuckle echoing from her as if Zel’s answer had brought out an entirely different facet of Arnys’s personality.

“Is that how it is?! Then show me!” she cackled, clearly preparing to do something.

With a bit of focus on how exactly she directed Fulgur through the Butcher’s handle, she was able to slow the oscillation rate of its magnetic fields, thus breaking the deadlock. In the same token she willed its center of mass to shift as close to her hand as possible and effortlessly pulled it free, spinning the Butcher around into a reverse right-handed grip while charging her left arm and its associated muscles in preparation, still stockpiling aether as she went. Halfway there.

She had taken care to note where the widest gaps in her guard sat, and had prepared a two-layered defense of which this was the first, Graze Pulse being the second. The slash which came in response was not the one she had expected, but between anticipation of counterattack, explosive speed, and a bit of luck, she caught it; not in her hand, but in the gap between the bottom of her gauntlet and the gaunt-cannon’s trigger lever.

With a forceful twist of her forearm, she managed to lock the blade in place. The time between the lock and when Arnys pulled some sort of weird magnetism trick to make her sword slippery, already pulling it free of the catch. In that same moment, she also delivered some kind of strange hooking kick that actually managed to break Zel’s balance, forcing her right knee to bend… But that time was still sufficient for Zelsys to get her own attack in, burning in total nearly one and a half lung’s worth of essentia. 

One moment, lightning arced over her arm and her muscles glowed under the skin as she fell into a kneel, pulling her left arm down and preparing for a forward punch, as even as she knelt the height disparity didn’t necessitate an uppercut.

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