Its tremendous mass shifted in her hand, the center of mass subtly moving along with her intentions. All the while, she knew exactly where every piece of the cleaver was as if it were a part of her own body. The overwhelming force of the Sister’s murder-stroke crashed down on her readied blade, so powerful it forced her to bend her knees. As she stared up into the Sister’s eyes, Zelsys willed it to come awake.

At the moment that cursed vault came open, the Sister felt a tsunami of violent bloodlust pour forth. She’d already brought her sword down in a hammer-smash strike on the abomination’s head, yet the satisfying crunch never came. In its stead, there was the growling song of cold-iron when the homunculus grabbed hold of that abominable blade.

The cleaver rang like a bell when its teeth caught her blade, her opponent staring her down with an utter calm that unnerved more than any threat or wild-eyed snarl ever could. Her eyes shone silver as tendrils of white lightning began leaping down her arms and a waterfall of Fog poured from her nostrils, and the barbarous weapon’s sawteeth began screaming death as lightning arced ‘cross them.

They oscillated with such violence that the vibrations carried through her greatsword and made its blade move within her grasp, its razor edge cutting even into the protective plating on the inside of her hands and carrying through her arm at an intensity that neared painful.

It was then that she felt flecks of black sand hit her face, and realized the saw-thing had begun cutting through her blade.

“W-what?!” blurted out the Sister in utter shock.

Breath by breath, millimeter by millimeter, the Lightning Butcher’s screaming sawteeth chewed through the impossibly tough black stone that made up the Sister’s sword. She struggled against it, tried to twist her weapon free, but it was stuck. Even when she managed to pull it back a tiny bit, one of the sawteeth suddenly grew in length twice over to trap it further.

“What is that?!” the Sister questioned further, still trying to free her blade as best she could, pushing and pulling, twisting and yanking. They were stuck, neither willing to risk breaking the balance; even if her blade were to be cut, it was better for the Sister to have a shorter blade than none at all.

“It was an Ikesian Captain’s Cleaver, once,” Zelsys smugged. “I’ve used it to butcher a rot-bear, the Necrobeast it turned into, a wendigo, even the Living Storm’s own lightning, and only the Dead Gods know how many of your kin. What makes you think you’ll be spared?”

The response she received was an abhorred stare that flickered between her eyes and the Lightning Butcher, followed by a choked question.

“T-that’s the form a Captain’s Cleaver took when you picked it up?” the traitor asked, hesitantly.

Zel gave a slow nod, now having cut two-thirds of the way through her opponent’s sword.

“I’ve seen dozens of these things meet their owners,” the Sister continued, growing increasingly disturbed with each word. “Not one’s had a fucking saw. We even tested one with a composite homunculus, it just turned into a huge saber! What in the Emperor’s mercy are you?!”

“Does it matter?” Zelsys asked. There was no opportunity for a response, for the sawteeth of her cleaver finally ripped through the last of the greatsword’s girth. She followed through, guiding it in a downward arc towards the Sister’s left side. A thrum radiated through her arms and a horrendous screeching echoed as the Butcher’s sawteeth changed direction altogether from a push-saw to a pull-saw. With a breath and a spark of will they came alive once more, ripping right into the Sister’s armor and shredding it to pieces, swiftly progressing to raw meat.

Amidst the Sister’s pained grunting and growling, she could feel the massive motion of her good arm raising what was left of her sword. She readied herself, pushing her right lung to its uttermost emptiest to fuel the Butcher’s sawteeth so that she could burn the left lung’s full capacity on a Rebound Pulse.

But it never came down.

Suddenly, both the floor panels she was standing on shot upward, so abruptly and forcefully that it ripped the Butcher from the Sister’s flesh and sent her spinning backward through the air. She just barely managed to reach out for one of the Sister’s red armor plates before she fully lost footing, but it came off as easily as the other ones she’d ripped off.

The Sister made no noise. None at all. She just stood there, frozen stone-still, her eyes darting back and forth full of panic. After that, all of Zel’s focus was redirected towards avoiding the lethal part of a long drop and sudden stop. She took the care to use her left arm to diffuse as much of the initial impact as possible, then rolled across the uneven ground into a standing position. Even with this care taken, she already felt bruises forming all across her body, but it was of no concern.

At this very moment, she pointed her attention at the sister. Pillar after pillar, a cage-like structure rose up around the wounded, paralyzed Locust Noble, her eyes searching for something. With each pillar in the cage, more of the chamber’s many lightgems flickered to red.

“No! This is not how a duel ends!” the Sister howled. Then, suddenly, just as the cage started to become a triangular box, her eyes found Zel’s and locked on. Struggle audible in her voice, she shouted without hostility or deception, for the first time speaking with true honesty. The only emotion that came through was spite for one’s superior.

“I intended on telling you this if… No, when you defeated me, but it appears I am being rescued against my wishes,” she began, disdain dripping from every word. “This will be the last time we can speak without the Queen hearing our every word, so know this! Azoth Stone Cultivation is a dead end, for the Azoth Stone is just an egg that must be hatched through resolving one’s inner conflicts. The Divine Emperor spread falsities about self-cultivation to prevent anyone from ever rivaling him, as the Dead Gods once did!”