A moment later, there came a thunderous boom and an angered roar from the beast, soon followed by Zelsys shouting mockery. Even from behind the door, they could hear the smile in her words. Makhus looked to his compatriots. “Don’t break ‘em if you don’t have to. Open the door once I stomp twice,” he advised, and they returned only quick, affirmative nods.

He only hesitated briefly before he brought the Rubedo bottle to his lips and took a deep swig, his tattoos gradually shifting from black to bright red. He put the cork back, gritting his teeth as he struggled to keep the violent essentia from overtaking him. For the moments before his tattoos absorbed the essentia, it burned his esophagus and filled his body with a dozen primal sensations all at once, his entire being flushed with blood so thoroughly his skin turned a shade of pink.

Unable to speak the technique’s name, he gestured with his right hand whilst he cradled the bottles in his left. It wasn’t any actual sign language that he was using, but rather a series of hand gestures that had a strong mental association with the technique, as he had been taught them specifically for occasions such as this. Though he had met a few individuals capable of triggering high-level techniques with one or two gestures, he himself was not remotely as skilled - it took him fifteen gestures to manipulate his body into doing what he wanted.

Though he needn’t do anything other than performing the gestures, Makhus was set in his ways, and strongly preferred the way he had been taught. “Purgation Arts: Rubedo Expulsion!” he chanted over and over in his head as he performed gesture after gesture, stomping twice just before the final one.

Just as Zefaris kicked the door open, Makhus stepped out and saw the beast’s pelt-cloaked rear end. He instinctively gauged the distance, raising his head at a shallow angle just before he clenched his fist whilst imagining it crushed his stomach.

He heard the footsteps of his compatriots running out of the building after him, but his vision was consumed by red. All red. Everything was red. The beast gurgle-roared in pain when the spray finally splashed on its back. Though he couldn’t see, Makhus vaguely felt how full his reservoir was by a tactile sensation of fullness - at this point, he had only expelled a third of the Rubedo contained within his tattoos.

Zefaris came running out of the building only a moment after the swordsman, running over to one of the barriers and taking cover behind it. She quickly opened one of the bottles and took a swig of its emerald-green contents, doing all she could to ignore its aggressively herbal flavor, the undertones of which so closely matched how the foreigner smelled. “Homunculus Eye…” she whispered under her breath, leaning out and taking aim at the beast’s head. From this angle she could only see its head from the side, its eyes foggy and unclear.