Zelsys drew in a deep breath and kicked up some sand, burning the better part of her lung capacity to generate Fulgur that she immediately dumped into her outstretched right arm, causing the minor muscles to twitch uncontrollably under her skin as snaking, blue-white arcs branched off of the limb to strike at airborne sand particles. Each grain became the core of a miniscule lightning-sphere, none powerful enough to cause serious damage, yet together counting over a hundred.

She whipped her arm in front of herself in a wide, sweeping motion, firing off the swarm of fireflies in a haphazard shotgun with huge, intentional gaps in its coverage. Even having given him space to dodge, the projectiles naturally zipped around in a chaotic manner, speckling the man’s bare upper body in nigh-on two dozen shallow, cauterized craters, each about a centimeter deep and twice as wide.

FORMLESS BUTCHERY: SCATTERING FIREFLIES

“A DAZZLING DISPLAY TO OVERWHELM THE SENSES”

It was a diversion and nothing more, meant to take up Masonson’s attention while she ducked into his blind spot and clocked him in the underside of his jaw with a right hook. With a single strike, her knuckles pinched a pressure-point behind his jaw and sharply twisted his head on his neck, causing him to crumple to the ground like a sack of meat. Those pressure-points - that glaring weakness - had been among the few things she had intentionally changed about her own body in the last few months, although she couldn’t eliminate it entirely without disfiguring herself. The issues of the spinal cord getting twisted or the brain bouncing around inside the skull were ones she had yet to devise solutions for.

Zelsys got down on the ground and put him in a modified sitout pin, hoisting his legs up onto her shoulders so that his legs and lower body were elevated while his upper back remained on the ground, simultaneously pulling at his arms so that, when he came-to, he didn’t even think to try breaking out. As a sporadic shower of coppers and a few silvers rained into the pit, Zelsys showboated to the crowd for a few seconds, taking a moment to pick her opponent up and ensure that he was conscious. Only once two of the attendants came down to help him out of the pit did she let go of him, turning her full attention to the spectators.

Zel collected the money as was her prerogative to do, being the winner, quickly channeling lightning through her hand to generate a strong magnetic field and gathering the cash in a lump before she just handed it off to Masonson, picking the few non-magnetic silver coins out of the sand by hand. It wasn’t a great sum and she would’ve given her opponent a share of the money to begin with, and refusing the payout that rightfully belonged to her could further agitate Von Wickten if he was watching. Her gut told her that he was, and she could count the number of times her gut had been wrong on one hand.

With most of the crowd’s attention still very much on her thanks to the show she’d put on, she jumped onto an empty table.

“What you just saw was me trying my best to go easy! I could’ve tied both my arms and one leg behind my back and still won!” she exclaimed to the crowd, embellishing somewhat. She was quite certain she could’ve won without use of her arms, at least.

“The only man alive in this town who I can really fight without killing him is Adalbert Von Wickten!”

Perfectly on-cue, the heretofore closed door at the far north-eastern end of the amphitheater opened up, the knight-captain striding out onto the elevated stage which took up that section of the ground.

“FO-HOO-HOOLISH HUBRIS!” he laugh-screamed, the appearance of supreme self-confidence tinged by obvious anger at being upstaged. “Your hubris will be your death, stranger, doubly so if I choose to be so magnanimous as to choose you as my opponent! Should you qualify by being among the three winners of the next round, that is.”

“Hubris implies confidence in excess! However…” Zelsys smugged back at him, drawing in a breath before she stared him straight in the eyes and shunted a lungful’s worth of Fulgur through her hair, briefly causing her braids to animate not unlike serpents, discharges of blue plasma gathering at each braid’s tip and forming the beastly heads of the Thundergods that fuelled her magic.

“Mine does not extend a hair’s breadth beyond what I am able and willing to do,” she finished, and with the last word, she ceased the magickal display, her braids falling limply at her back, the blades at their tips jangling against one another. She took a moment to get a look at him, and he looked exactly how she had expected him to. Von Wickten was clad in a suit of beautiful full-plate that had been ruined with an inhumanly kitschy level of filigree and inlay, designed to resemble the bright-red scales of a stereotypical dragon. He wore no helmet, perhaps due to the three pairs of horns sprouting from his head that obviously wanted to grow unevenly, but had been carved into a false symmetry, exposing his long, flowing blonde hair for all to see. His face was covered in reddish-rusty scales where one would expect facial hair and bone ridges in the stead of eyebrows, a few of his scales stained by the makeup that was thickly caked onto the skin of his face. His eyes were akin to those of a serpent, yellow and slit-pupiled, while his jawline was so cartoonishly pronounced that it leapt over the uncanny line that the bookie’s modified face had only toed.

“WE SHALL SEE!” screamed the knight-captain, the spotlight bouncing off of his blindingly-white teeth and armor alike before he spun around on his heel and angrily stomped off-stage.

Before reuniting with her compatriots, she stole off to a corner near the stage, making it look as if she was inspecting the larger fighting pit while, in truth, the majority of her attention was directed to listening in, trying to see if she could make out anything through the closed door… And she could. Its vast bulk only allowed Von Wickten’s screaming to pass through, accompanied by a boyish, pleading voice and the smashing of glass, noise which she wagered only a small handful of those present could make out, or even cared about in the first place.

“THIS SHALL NOT STAND; END THIS SUB-HU-MAN; RIGHT HERE AND NOW!” her Primordial Self screamed and thrashed deep inside her, demanding that she drop the pretense, that she drag that pederast out by his testicles if he even had any, that she string him up from a street lamp, but Zelsys reassured the raging cavewoman part of herself that the knight-captain would get his due once he’d outlived his usefulness. Thereafter, this part of her began to hope that he would turn out to know nothing, so that the promise of his lynching could be fulfilled sooner.

When she returned to her companions she found the young man to be conspicuously absent, Zelsys didn’t think to ask where he was at first. She shared what she had learned, and having noticed that Zefaris had opened her left eye when the knight-captain was on the stage, she asked what the blonde had seen.

“It checks out with what you heard - his soul is downright filthy; if a normal person has a candle-flame, then he has an industrial waste burner. I noticed the presence of a damaged geas, likely one to secure loyalty to the duke that Von Wickten had attempted to break, as well as a nature concealment enchantment that was so deteriorated I had to actively search for one to notice it. His filthy nature is too much for even the best mage a knight-captain’s money can hire to hide it, it seems… Or he simply no longer fears anyone noticing what he is.”

Her mind swirling with malice, Zel’s first thought at the description of Von Wickten’s soul was to pull out her White Marble Tablet and retrieve a slim box made of polished blackstone, opening it up to reveal three rows of seven off-white, oval shaped pills each, with several missing. She removed one and dropped it into the tablet’s Fog Storage vortex alongside the box itself, causing the device to list the pill as an independent item.

BOX OF IMPURITY EXPULSION PILLS IMPURITY EXPULSION PILL x1

“Those things? My, what a cruel fate you have in stock for our valuable asset,” Zefaris grimaced, her own memory of what it was like to eat one of those pills still very fresh. Even for someone whose soul had been relatively pure for a professional killer, the breakthrough had been an experience that the blonde didn’t wish to repeat, even with the knowledge that similar breakthroughs would only get harder from here on.

“These are for after I rearrange his skeleton. He’ll cry and beg and plead repentance, so I’ll just give him one of these and let its effects run their course,” Zelsys explained, making no effort to hide the malice dripping from every word. “If he truly does repent he might live, which I doubt.”

“Considering how much of his soul looks like congealed impurity, I’d wager that at best he’ll be reduced to a bumbling amnesiac with no clue of who he was or where he is,” the markswoman chuckled, her own tone becoming tinged with the same malice.

With barely a second between this exchange and the next, Zelsys turned to Jorfr, asking: “Right, where’d the kid go? You didn't lose your nephew, did you?”

“He said something about how he knew someone who would want to see you fight Von Wickten, likely someone from his class,” the Borean said, clearly not worried for the young man in the least. “Say, how long is it until the next round? It will likely be a long enough wait for you two to register for the auction in the meanwhile.”

“Us?” Zefaris raised an eyebrow, to which Jorfr nodded.

“Yeah. I have chained myself by bringing Reiner, it is my responsibility as his elder to look after him. It would not be right to risk having him return only to find himself alone in an unfamiliar place, even if he is nearly a man,” the norseman said with utter seriousness. “...And I would rather not risk his grandmother’s wroth.”

Zelsys decided to ask the bookie how long it was until the next series of matches, finding to her dismay that it would be roughly another hour. She visited the bar, buying a tankard of ale for Jorfr, one of apple cider for Zefaris, and simple grape juice for herself - not because she disliked alcohol, but because she wasn’t in the mood to drink the ten men’s worth that it took for her to feel anything.

A few minutes later, Zelsys and Zefaris departed the amphitheater, leaving Jorfr to stick out like a giant, extremely muscular snow sculpture.

After getting some distance from the amphitheater the two broke off from the main part of Scarlet Silk Road, following the guidelines given to them by their Bureau contact. After a few minutes of walking through tangled, unmarked streets, they arrived at an inconspicuous door to an equally inconspicuous building near the amphitheater, hidden in plain sight by a trick of architectural illusionism - the street could clearly be seen from where they stood, but normal people on the outside couldn’t notice the place unless one knew what to look for, or had some means of seeing past low-level illusions.

A particular knock pattern made an eye slit in the door slide open, and a gruff, stilted voice asked: “Na-mes?”

“Zelsys and Zefaris Newman. We’re on the list,” Zel answered, gesturing first to herself and then to her partner. The door swung open, and they entered an appropriately inconspicuous cellar, a black, metal door covered in hammer marks and chained shut staring back at them across the room.

The bearded, tan-skinned man who had let them in walked over to a table covered in documents, a bright red lump pulsing on the back of his neck. Both women felt shivers run up their backs, their killing instincts demanding that this poor wretch be put out of his misery, but they both held back.

“De-po-sit?” the man asked again.

Zel wordlessly pulled out two sacks of money, tossing them onto the table, to which the parasitized flesh-puppet of a man opened them with inhuman dexterity, counting the money in a few seconds thanks to the high denominations. He scribbled down something on a piece of paper, put it off to the side, and using a different pen dipped in luminescent, scarlet-coloured ink, he drew a complex glyph on another piece of paper, forcefully tapping his finger next to both to gesture either of the women to take them.

The moment Zelsys stepped over and grabbed the papers he started up again, turning his head up to stare Zelsys right in the face. There was nothing behind his eyes.

“Auct-ion be-gins at… Two ayy-em,” he gurgled. His breath stunk like rotten meat, and where one would expect a tongue, there was a small, tongue-coloured beetle.

They departed as quickly as they had arrived, making their way back to the amphitheater on a meandering path, and in the absence of anything better to do, the two went out of their way to find a peddler that sold alchemically-activated alcohol. It was only ever sold in its pure form, and mostly marketed for its intended use as an elixir base, but it was also so potent that it could effectively intoxicate someone with an inhumanly capable liver such as Zelsys. This intoxication, however, took hold nearly instantly and only lasted a short while, much like the elixirs which the alchemic alcohol was used as a base for. After obtaining a quantity of equally cheap and delicious sangria to dilute the alchemical base into a palatable form, they found their way to an inn that conspicuously rented lavish, sound-insulated rooms on an hourly basis. Of this hour, they spent the better part putting the aforementioned insulation through its paces before returning to the amphitheater in a much better mood and with only a scant few minutes left before the next round of fights.

Victor had initially refused to believe it when Reiner had told him that the supposed main character of his pulps had challenged Adalbert Von Wickten to a pit fight, but he couldn’t convince himself of it being untrue either. So, still off-balance and irritated, he agreed to come with, following Reiner to Scarlet Silk Road with his Tablet, and thus pulps, in hand.

He’d been here before, albeit not very far in at all. When the two young men made their way to the Amphitheater, Victor saw a man who looked nearly exactly how the books had described Jorfr; the Borean who had bet Zelsys the starmetal that was later made into her armored sleeve, the man who had shared with her the shamanistic knowledge of his ancestors and taught her how to draw Metallum from deep within the earth, and who had supposedly played a vital role in the slaying of Ubul during the Blue Moon War. Still, he refused to fully believe Reiner’s claims, holding onto that disbelief for nearly an hour, even as Jorfr magnanimously supplied both of them with drink and regaled them with tales of battle, reassuring him that Zelsys and Zefaris were dealing with some business in the deeper parts of Scarlet Silk Road and that they’d return before the clock struck nine.

…And indeed, that promise came to pass, shattering what little disbelief was still left inside the Khestun heir. Seeing those two enter the amphitheater with the tall one casually gesturing a greeting in the table’s general direction before they headed up into the stands, was enough to take him most of the way to admitting that it wasn't all a coincidence and that these were real, flesh and blood cultivators.

Wait, no, she had gestured at him. “Why?”

After coming up to their table for what little time remained until the next round, Zel didn’t even get the time to sit down so she could preemptively take her boots off before Victor hit her with a question: “Are you really Zelsys Newman?”

“...Well I don’t know who else I could be, I’m a bit hard to mistake for anyone else,” she responded without even looking up at him.

“But that’s just a novel character. You didn’t really-”

“What, wipe out a locust hive, spit in the Emperor’s face, and kill one of his Generals? All true,” she said to him with a great deal of pride, rising above the table after pulling both her boots off. “But then, I don’t need you to believe the books - Reiner here brought you ‘cause he thought you’d like to see me beat some civilization into the degenerate your duke calls a knight-captain, isn’t that true Reiner?”

Though clearly not quite in agreement with the way Zelsys referred to Von Wickten, Reiner still nodded. She smiled at the affirmation, continuing: “Seeing that ought to be proof enough of my identity, if what I did to that False Drake didn’t suffice. Nice tool-assisted pyromancy, by the way - very creative use of a weapon you wouldn't have otherwise been able to use effectively.”

“Er- Didn’t you mean civility?” Victor asked cautiously, clearly trying not to insult her. Zel shook her head, reaffirming her choice of words: “No, I meant what I said. He’s a vile, uncivilized beast pretending to be human.”

Zelsys couldn’t help herself. She could feel that what tenuous grip the young man had had on his conception of a mostly mundane world was being ripped away with every word she said, and she derived a great deal of enjoyment out of finishing the job. Between what Duma had shared about his genetics and upbringing to the bubbling, barely-contained savagery she could sense inside the boy, Victor just positively reeked of wasted potential. It would have been such a shame to let him fester in depression, and in a town that he clearly didn't fit into to boot, which was why Zel had decided to raise him from that mire.

She’d already had the Teacher slip that pamphlet into one of his books, after all - the fact that Reiner had brought him here changed nothing about her intentions, but only served to accelerate her plans. Pulling out her Tablet, she checked the time - around three minutes left until the next round. Idly scrolling through her extensive Fog Storage inventory, she questioned him: “Say, how much money did you get for that drake? Just… Out of curiosity.”

“Uh… The payout was supposed to be three-hundred gelt for each member of the hunting party and six-hundred for the captain, but since we didn’t actually take it down and the huntmaster found out, we only got one-fifth,” he explained, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists in anger, even as his voice remained mostly calm.

Victor reminded her of the very first person she’d fought after her arrival to Ikesia - an arrogant young master by the name of Halxian Estoras, the son of Willowdale’s provisional governor, the descendant of a rare heroic family which had not fallen to dead-end cultivation methods and inbreeding… And, in the last few months, one of her favored disciples, as much as she didn’t want to admit it even to herself. Besides both of them being genetically gifted noble descendants with all the vanity and good looks such an upbringing included, Victor came across like a version of Halxian whose self-assured confidence and confrontational nature had been smothered by depression and maladaptive escapism, and somehow, Zelsys loathed this defeatist outlook even more than Halxian’s obnoxious veiled insults.

Zel turned the Tablet and tipped it towards Victor, willing it to eject six Cold-Iron Sovereigns. The fifty-gelt coins slid out from the newly-formed Fog vortex, emitting resonant tones as they struck one another.

“There’s your payout. Another three-hundred if you come along as an independent contractor on the next assignment I take from the huntmaster - that means you sidestep the guild, I’ll pay you myself, not a fucking word to the huntmaster. Sound good?”

After unflinchingly looking him in the eyes for the few seconds that it took Victor to process what had just happened and shamelessly snatch the money, Zelsys got the answer she’d wanted: “Sure. It’s not as if they offer anything above Hazard Grade D anyway.”

Of all people, Reiner cut in, a tinge of amusement in his tone: “A False Drake is Hazard Grade D?”

“W-well, no, but that was an exception-” the Khestun heir stuttered, and just as the exchange began, the clock struck nine and the bookie’s voice blasted across the amphitheater once again.

Not even bothering to listen, Zelsys just leapt directly into the middle of Pit Three and, just as before, sat herself at its edge before the dust had the time to clear. Her opponent this time was to be none other than the second highest-ranked contender, Baldwin von Burgghusen. His epithet was almost pitiful: “The Second Strongest Man in Arches”. He certainly looked the part, being a Dragon Knight just like Von Wickten, and having an appearance similar to him, but being a less exaggerated version of him. A natural face, two somewhat asymmetric horns, a tamer haircut and a thin mustache of black hair to complement a beard of scales and spikes.

Zel couldn’t help but bring it up before the fight: “Isn’t it a little sad? Your entire identity, reduced to being Von Wickten’s second-best.”

“Tell me, why do you fight?” he questioned, ignoring the jab. “What drives you to seek out violence and struggle, to put your own life at risk? Power? Glory? Revenge? Answer quickly, but answer well, for-”

Zel interrupted him: “This is just how I get my kicks, man.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I just… Like fighting. That’s it.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, of course, but it was the truth as far as his question went, if that question was interpreted entirely at face value. Zelsys had no deeply personal reason driving her to seek out violence - she was just a naturally violent person. The enjoyment she derived from combat was an entirely different, and far longer-lasting thrill compared to the satisfaction of putting down a rabid beast.

“Now tell me… Why do you fight?” she turned the question around on him, already knowing the answer.

“Just-” he began.

“-following orders?” she interrupted, lunging at him with an obvious jab, one which he blocked just as she’d predicted. “Wonder from whom.”

So it was that they fought. Baldwin’s raw capability combined with stereotypical draconic abilities such as a fiery breath, envenomed claws and his legitimate skill as a martial artist improved Zel’s opinion of the Dragon Knights as a whole, but unfortunately for him, he was a few ladder-rungs below what she would’ve considered a proper fight. Fighting him was certainly fun, but it was fun in the same way as shooting coins mid-air was fun for Zefaris - terribly impressive to a layman, but a matter of muscle memory to someone of their caliber. More of Zel’s attention was put towards making the fight entertaining for onlookers than actually fighting.

The struggle, the exchanges of blows, the apparent closeness of the match - it was all a show. Zelsys limited herself to using the absolute basics of her toolkit, metabolizing a greater volume of Pneuma to produce flashy visual effects than she did to saturate her own tissues… And Victor noticed the discrepancy between her apparent performance and how she was described in the books. He also asked questions, directed as Zefaris, albeit with quite some timidness: “...Why hasn’t she knocked him out yet? If the books are true, she should’ve been able to punch through his head.”

“She’s sandbagging,” the cycloptic gunwoman said offhandedly. “Von Wickten won’t agree to a fight if she shows her true strength, so she’s putting on a show to make it seem like she’s a manageable opponent.”

When, after a good fifteen minutes of falsified competition, Zelsys performed an equally falsified tombstone piledriver on the Second Strongest Man in Arches, it was over. She sat there holding him upside-down with his head buried in the sand for a good half-minute before she let him out, not out of malice, but because that was how long it took the visibly-nervous ref to actually count down from ten and declare her the winner. In this case, she gladly took her rightfully earned winnings, holding no sympathy for a man she considered to be a follower content to serve under a subhuman slaver.