Its head snapped towards her, its eyes shuddering in their sockets as it visibly struggled to stop itself from lunging. “O-one more thing, ple-ease,” it pleaded. “Tell Quincy I’m sorry.”

Zel gave a nod, digging her heels in as she trained the gun on the beast’s chest. “Staggering Shot...” she uttered, hand utterly still even whilst her quarry lost control, untangling its spindly arms and lunging from the ground.

An exhalation as she pushed the lever all the way. Click. Boom. She slid across the cornstalks when the recoil pushed her backwards, the smoke clouding her vision and the thunderous noise drowning out all sound. As she had done every time before she didn’t wait for the smoke to dissipate, sprinting through it as she continued to breathe, trailing a heavy curtain of Fog.

She saw that it was indeed staggering, a gaping wound in its stomach from which there gushed a mixture of blood, half-digested human meat, and bone fragments. However, it only staggered for a second, not nearly long enough for her to wind up for a full swing. No choice but to use her own momentum as she ran by, cleaving its thigh wide open with the very tip of her cleaver just before she spun around into a full swing with the intent to bisect it.

The wound snapped it out of the haze, and she felt its claws dig into her side. Brilliant pain shot through her body, but it only served to elevate her focus. Breathe in, breathe out. It tried to hold onto her with its vice-like grip, its teeth chattering and any humanity gone from its eyes as it gurgled and gibbered in inhuman tongues. Its mouth stretched wide open in the moments before it would sink its teeth into her flesh, but she had dealt with this before.

Once more, gunmetal would be her armor. Once more, she rammed her left hand right into its mouth. It bit down with inhuman force, its teeth creaking, their enamel audibly cracking under the pressure, and just as its teeth strained, so did her gun’s trigger mechanism, struggling to keep the trigger lever locked in the fired position.

As useful as the Lover’s Breath was, she wasn’t yet accustomed to exploiting its advantages and compensating for its downsides. A deep breath in, she bore the pain of the beast’s fingers between her ribs as she filled her lungs. Halfway would need to be enough. A sharp exhalation, a shove using the cleaver to create some space, the beast’s fingers scoring gashes in her sides and shredding some of her chest bindings on the way out. As big an inhalation as she could to regain some lost breath.

Zelsys took hold of the cleaver with both hands, turning it to its push-saw side.

“Beheading Saw!”

A step forward and a thrust to meet the beast’s immediate lunge. The feathered teeth sang as they cleft through flesh and veins and bone, but she knew to heed the beast’s own warning.