Amunet cut in front of Grey, her rapier shooting forward in streaking shadows.
The blood that covered Esmeralda formed a hard shell, the echoes of metal clashing against metal resounding as the windows of the cabin shattered, being sucked out as though under negative pressure.
Grey landed on his feet, his arm pulling on a rip cord and yanking to the side. Sparks flew as arcs of electricity raged through his body.
There was no time to pussyfoot around this. He was going to go all out from the very start.
Including activating his Frame to its greatest extent.
"Just give me one opening!" Grey shouted at Amunet.
The Egyptian beauty didn’t reply, but Grey knew she had heard him. She might not remember all the loops, but Grey did. He was sure she was someone with backbone. She wouldn’t be running.
If they were going to cut down this witch, they were going to do it together. And they would do it quickly.
The chainsaw became as light as a feather in Grey’s hands, Magnetic Pull and Push working together in an unconscious union.
A power erupted from Amunet, tendrils of darkness jetting out from her to meet the tendrils of blood that tried to extend over toward Grey.
Yanking a series of long, slender needles out from his hip pocket, Grey threw them. As though they had rocket launched out from his hands, they accelerated through the air, appearing before Esmeralda in a flashing instant.
He cringed inwardly as they deflected away from the sides of the witch’s body, but he knew his accuracy wasn’t good enough to put Amunet’s life at risk with a closer shot. All he wanted was a brief distraction so Amunet didn’t go flying immediately.
While the witch was far weaker than she had been before, that attack from before let Grey know that she was at least on the level of a Region Boss, if not a little better.
He had only gotten lucky the first time he killed the Wicked Forest Witch. This time, there wasn’t going to be any luck to rely on.
The needles pinged off the walls, some flying out from the shattered windows.
In another step, Grey had already appeared by Esmeralda’s side, and in another, his body felt like a popped balloon. All of his stamina was put under great stress in the blink of an eye, his muscles sapped of all their strength.
Spark Fly.
Sacrificing 5 stamina in a single go, he activated the strongest ability of the Chainsaw of the Skrill.
It was meant to cut right through any item beneath Rare. He didn’t believe that the protective coating of Esmeralda was stronger than that.
And he was more than right.
Sparks flew off the rotating teeth as though the jaws of a hellish creature clawing its way out from a dark abyss.
The blood witch raised an arm to block, a carapace of blood appearing over it as a shield.
The chainsaw ripped right through it and into what remained of her skull.
Amunet had taken a leap back, her rapier swirling with so much dark energy that for a moment it looked more like a cyclonic lance had appeared around her arm, rotating with no less viciousness than the chainsaw.
A low shout came from her lips and a ripple bounced across the shadows that covered her.
BANG.
There was a sudden acceleration and she appeared before the blood witch.
As Grey’s chainsaw cut her in two, Amunet’s rapier-turned-lance ripped through her chest, exiting the other side and leaving a gaping hole in its wake.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The floors of the cabin shattered, the walls bowing and bending. Beams that held up the room threatened to collapse on top of them as their foe actually did.
They both leapt back, huffing for breath. They gave one another a quick glance before their focus went right back to the witch. If she had escaped death once before, who was to say that she wouldn’t do it again?
For a moment, all they could hear in the cabin was the sound of their own heavy breathing. Grey was barely on his feet. While the Blessed Bracelet was working overtime to try and replenish his stamina, even if it did, he was ticking away uselessly at 1/10. The worst part was that he had already revved the engine of the chainsaw. Meaning, in another few seconds, he would lose that one remaining point he had left and completely pass out.
He just had to hold on. He just had to make it another few seconds.
’Don’t get up. Don’t get up.’
He felt ridiculous looking at a mangled corpse and saying such a thing in his mind, but he really had nothing left to give. If not for coordination with Amunet, he had no confidence in taking this witch down. She was too fast, his chainsaw would have missed.
Grey’s vision blurred.
BANG.
He didn’t even see it happen. Instead, he felt it.
His body went flying back, all of his bones feeling as though they had been cracked to pieces the moment he hit the ground.
He saw Amunet trying to rush over, but somehow, the blood witch had gotten even faster than before. In an instant, she was already upon him.
Grey barely managed to lift his chainsaw across his body to stop her clawed hands from ripping through his chest. His stamina ticked up to 2/10, only for it to flicker back down to 1/10 in the next instant.
"I WILL KILL YOU!" the shriek of the blood witch made Grey’s blood vibrate almost like it would pull itself from his body any moment now.
Grey coughed and then he grinned. "Your breath smells like shit."
Chi.
A curved blade suddenly soared through the air at the yank of Magnetic Pull and Metal Affinity.
—
Name: Curved Rusted Saw
....
Abilities: Slight curse effect: wounds inflicted upon enemies hurt more. Blood self-sharpens this weapon.
—
And it had been soaked all the way through.
The curve of the blade hacked right into Esmeralda’s head, slicing into the one good eye that remained.
Grey could feel it. That was the only thing keeping her up right now.
And he would take it away.
He threw his chainsaw to the side as Esmeralda tilted under the impact of the curved blade.
Pushing himself up to his feet, he grabbed the hilt of the blade in one hand and stomped down on its body with the other, cutting the eye right out of her body.
He had already aimed for it with his chainsaw earlier, but even it had been curved and diverted away. So this time, he didn’t try to cut it in two. This time, he cut it out.
PUCHI.
"Rot in fucking hell."