A paragraph from the second book ran through Victor’s head as he watched the display unfold.

“...Among the least appreciated, yet most potent abilities available to Storm-soul Cultivators is the ability to rectify internal imbalances, replicating the natural role of the Thundergods upon which their cultivation method relies, merely within the human being rather than a storm cloud. If a Storm-soul Cultivator develops this branch of their path, it becomes nearly impossible for any deleterious effect that relies upon directly inducing an imbalance to take hold. While nearly every True Path, through some method or another, renders the practitioner highly resistant to such tampering, a Storm-soul Cultivator is particularly difficult to affect with simplistic poisons and curses.”

“Combine this with a trait such as Metabolic Alkahest, and all but the most potent or sophisticated of poisons become worthless.”

And that ability to force flesh back into a semblance of its rightful form… That had been described earlier in the same book, a unique trait gained from the alchemically purified Azothic essence of something called a… A necro-something. He couldn’t recall, and frankly, didn’t care to try remembering at the moment. Something felt off about the way Zelsys fought. It was nothing like what he’d seen back in the forest, and it certainly fell short of how she was described in the books. There was a… Stiltedness to it, still. An intentional inefficiency, one that went deeper than that hair trick.

“...Is she sandbagging?” he muttered, more to himself than as an actual question, but it prompted a real answer from Zefaris.

“Of course she is. It couldn’t be more obvious that the knight captain has something that he thinks will instantly win him the fight, so he’s misguidedly trying to put on a show before he plays his winning card. That said, he’s not even using a breathing technique…”

They clashed again in an open exchange of blows, but the knight captain was somehow not only not slowing down, but speeding up. Victor had been just barely able to follow his movements until now, but instead of weakening, the more Zelsys beat on him, the harder he fought. As if the mere mention of it had spurred him on to use it, Von Wickten seemingly got his breathing under control out of nowhere, hissing much like a False Drake would as gusts of blue flame began to issue from his mouth and nostrils with each breath.

It was then that he at last caught Zelsys off-guard, feinting an upward slash only to turn the strike into a swift thrust.

The knight captain’s flaming sword passed right between one of her lower pairs of ribs on the left side, obviously having been aimed at her heart. Unfortunately, he had underestimated the preternatural toughness of her flesh, and his blade got stuck halfway through her lung. Zel’s first thought was angling her torso in order to trap the blade, but… The wound was clean. The sword had passed through a nonvital region without ripping or puncturing anything of true importance, and so, she stepped forward, fully impaling herself upon the knight captain’s now-sputtering sword.

Staring eye to eye, the flame of his exhalations washing over her face, her face twisted into a grin that sprouted more from amusement than the thrill of a real fight, Zelsys took a few moments to revel in this. She knew it would soon end, that he would soon grow desperate enough to play his gambit, and that she would have to put in some actual effort to put him in his place.

“Another mistake: A precise strike doesn’t do anything if you don’t hit a weak point… And I don’t have many.”

Even as thin rivulets of black blood ran down from the entry and exit points, her Engine Breathing didn’t stop or even slow down. What she had done stunned not just the spectators, but the knight captain himself, albeit for only a moment - but a moment was all she needed to grapple her opponent and animate three of her braids. Blue-white tendrils slithered down their lengths as hideous, beastly heads of congealed lightning formed around their tips, each braid coming alive as though a serpent, briefly coiling back in apparent examination of their prey-to-be before they opened their maws and lunged into Von Wickten’s unarmored chest, burrowing between his ribs in a horrific undulating motion.

They seared his flesh and gouged horrible wounds between his ribs, with one actually penetrating into his chest cavity before the knight captain finally decided to swallow his pride, let go of his weapon, and create some distance by leaping backwards.

“I am… Truly impressed, southerner,” the knight captain uttered between heaving breaths. There was no respect in his tone, only barely-suppressed anger. “But it wouldn’t do if I let myself be humiliated like this. Take this as an honor, for none have seen this before and lived!”

Zelsys could’ve interrupted him, just as he could've interrupted her when she had gone off on monologuing tangents, but she didn’t want to. If she stopped him from playing his ace, he - and those who wished to undermine her victory - would have something to latch onto, an easy excuse. That, and… She was terribly curious to see what he would do.

His pupils contracted to hair-thin lines, then vanished completely, giving way to a subtle, but unmistakable pattern in their stead: Three lines in the shape of a cornerless triangle, the true mark of a dragon descendant.

The knight captain began convulsing in place as his flesh visibly shifted beneath his shirt, a disgusting cracking and squelching audible from inside him. It started at his hands, scales suddenly covering them in their entirety, followed by sudden lengthening of the claws to talons the length of short daggers. Symmetrical, filed horns grew into their true asymmetrical, gnarled selves, newly-growing scales and spikes tore apart his shirt and a short, stubby tail grew from his back, accompanied by wings just barely big enough to be impressive while remaining useless.

“Oh. It’s just a mutagen transformation,” she thought with a pang of disappointment, having seen this type of grisly metamorphosis a dozen times before. The Gorth’Itans - or eagle-men - who had left the Kargarian caravan to join the sect nearly all demonstrated a minor form of self-induced mutagenic transformation, just as varied as the shapes of their taloned feet and colours of the feathers they had instead of hair. While the knight captain’s transformation went on, Zel pulled his sword out of herself and tossed it aside, dedicating a good portion of digested Vitae towards making sure the wound remained shut and that no blood leaked into her lungs. It was always fun to see how even the same type differed person to person, but Von Wickten’s was… Uninspired. Feral, barely refined, obviously something he hadn’t put real work into, treating it as an emergency power boost for fights where his subpar swordsmanship failed him. Zel did nothing to increase her own fighting ability for now, deciding to clash with him at least once on his terms. He was a good deal faster and stronger, the extraneous wings affording him a minor tactical tool in an easy way to kick up sand. From his mouth now issues concentrated bolts of blue flame that she actually felt the need to dodge, and he managed to leave quite a nasty, albeit surface-level gash on her side with an attack that came out quickly enough to blindside her, as lightly as she was taking this fight. However… The moment she actually got a feel for the jump in raw capability, it was over. He just didn’t know it yet.

Despite the impressive increase in mobility and power, Zelsys found herself having to put in even less conscious effort to fight Von Wickten in his Pseudo-draconic form. He’d lost what little self-control he had exhibited previously, his fighting style became entirely instinctive and reactionary, fully that of a rabid animal. Predictable, direct action, always the most direct movements possible, telegraphed, frontal assaults with attempts to go for the jugular.

Zel decided to up the cyclic rate of her Engine Breathing to perhaps two-thirds of what she would use for a real fight, such as the False Drake.

To deal with his claws, she dredged up small quantities of Metallum and blended it with Pneuma in her second stomach, storing it away specifically to use with her actual defensive technique, whose use she had foregone until now.

Von Wickten lashed out like the animal that he currently was, only to find his strikes robbed of momentum, any attempted followthrough foiled by conveniently-metallized skin that didn’t lose its hardness until after Zelsys had already left his reach. He tried again and again, not understanding what was happening until a phantom antler had taken form on the left side of her head, and even then, he had no way to know what that display meant. In his rabid state, Adalbert didn’t even pay enough attention to be worried when he saw Zelsys twisting her own forearm clockwise, flesh and bone glistening metallic and bending as if it were nothing. Evading his furious onslaught the entire time, she twisted and twisted until her forearm looked like a wrung cloth and her fist was in an otherwise normal position relative to the elbow.

In the end, the knight captain’s capabilities were even more disappointing than she had expected. The least she could do was make it look good when she put him in his place… Even if a part of her felt insulted by using the strike she’s used to finish off Ubul, the Beast Reborn in Stone, on a degenerate rapist slaver.

They faced one another down from opposite sides of the pit.

Von Wickten charged at her.

A great serpent of lightning coiled down her arm, the motion line of muscular contraction lighting up with intramuscular arcane combustions in rapid succession. She uncoiled her entire body into a modified casting punch, her arm following the motion of a whip as her forearm violently sprung back into its natural shape, flesh and bone made into a terrifying torsion spring by the clever application of Metallomancy and supreme internal control.

A STRIKE TO HUMBLE THE GENERALS OF DIVINITY

FORMLESS BUTCHERY: THUNDERCLAP STING

The beast-slayer’s metallized fist struck the feral Dragon Knight mid-charge like a wrathful hand of divine tribulation, and from its impact there issued a blinding flash and a thunderclap. Only perhaps a dozen people in the entire amphitheater had had either the good judgment or foreknowledge to cover their ears. Once the dust cleared Von Wickten was left standing there stone-still, a gaping pit in his left side, a crater amongst his armored scales. Shattered ribs protruded from his chest like the broken trunks of thunderstruck trees after a storm. A blood waterfall poured out between his snarling teeth, the draconic shine vanishing from his eyes in favor of half-dilated pupils.

His wings, tail, extraneous scales, and additional muscle mass all faded away in seconds, crumbling to putrescent dust that blew away in the wind…

…And he still raised his hand to strike her, the pride in his eyes unwilling to accept defeat of its own accord. It was pitiful.

Zel leaned to the side, the jab sailing right beside her head before she grabbed his outstretched arm and threw him to the ground, leveraging his arm while reaching for the blackstone handle that protruded from the sheath on her back. Even now, as his purplish blood soaked the sand, he snarled, hissed, and struggled, and for that, she had to give him some modicum of credit.

It was that blade again. That terrible tuning-fork tonfa which Victor now knew to be the broken remains of Zel’s cleaver, the Lightning Butcher; or more accurately, now the Broken Butcher. The sawteeth on one of its prongs began to violently oscillate back and forth, the metal screeching as she funneled a tremendous deluge of Fulgur through the weapon and used it to begin sawing off the knight captain’s horns, smugly demanding his submission the whole time. As evidenced by the spurting of purple blood from the horn and the furious, flame-belching protests of the knight captain, the so-called Butcher’s Teeth had not grown dull in the slightest through the blade’s breaking in the final battle of the Blue Moon War.

It wasn’t until she was halfway through the second horn that he submitted, and even then, Zelsys pretended that the noise of her weapon had drowned out his voice, prying at the horn until it broke off, leaving an unsightly splinter.

"...Now, my winnings, if you would," she smugged into his ear as she leaned in.

He gurgled, spitting out a glob of blood before turning his head just enough to say: "Tgh... The red sun... Rises over... Bloodstained peaks."

Zel drew in deep breath as she ceased Engine Breathing, uttering into the knight captain’s ear with a long exhalation of Fog: “Good.”

Rising to her feet, she rolled her shoulders and basked in the divided mixture of cheers and jeers that poured down on her alongside a downpour of small-denomination coinage. Even now, she turned her attention to her opponent as he struggled to get up.

Another deep breath, this time spent to efficiently synthesize Fulgur and funnel it into the Broken Butcher to have it act as a particularly powerful magnet. A swirling mass of coppers flew towards the weapon, Zel looking down on the knight captain throughout. His chestplate shuddered in place, but it was too heavy to be moved.

She still had something to say, to break him down even more.

“A point of consolation, if you will: Once I and my companions leave, you will once again be the strongest man in Arches,” she remarked, feigning goodwill to twist the knife of his defeat. “But that won’t remain the case for long if you let yourself stagnate, relying only on raw power. Oh, and do avoid alcohol-based recovery elixirs, it’ll be like begging for total liver failure in your state.”

After shaking the hunk of coins off of her weapon into her Tablet’s storage vortex, not bothering to collect the non-magnetic coins that had been thrown into the pit. She then jumped out and returned to her companions, intentionally disregarding her opponent as the pit attendants helped him out of the pit. She took note of the spectators who seemed incensed about what had just transpired, burning their faces into memory just in case.

The party celebrated her victory for a short while so as to not appear suspicious, drinking and laughing together, but Zef and Jorfr both knew that the plan was to obtain the passphrase, leave the amphitheater as soon as possible, attend the auction, and then disappear altogether from Scarlet Silk Road. It was hard not to notice the amount of attention directed to their table, especially the amount of death glares from the self-same people who had jeered Zelsys in the pit. The concern was not to do with their own safety, but rather the covertness of the operation; What she’d just done would attract attention to begin with, an outright battle against the Dragon Knights would go too far for comfort.

“We’re leaving,” she said, rising from her seat. Zef and Jorfr followed suit, with Reiner taking a moment to catch up, while Victor seemed a bit confused, asking, “Huh? Why?”

“We have other business to attend to,” Zefaris explained as the four of them began walking off, tacitly pressuring Victor to follow them. To none of the trio’s surprise, they were being followed by one of the displeased faces from the crowd; and he was keeping up a little too well to just be an angry fan of the knight captain. After creating a short distance from the amphitheater, Zel whispered to Zef: “Think we can lose him in the illusion corridor?”

The blonde nodded, the twin pupils of her emerald-green eye already dilating as she prepared to lead Jorfr and the two youngsters through the illusion, as, unlike her or Zelsys, they didn’t have foreknowledge of it.

Jorfr intentionally fell behind a bit, acting to herd Reiner and Victor from behind by flatly telling them: “We are being followed. Confronting the pursuer would draw too much attention. We will lose him in this alleyway. Follow Zefaris or you will become lost.”

Though confused, the two obeyed without question.

Squinting and rubbing his temple as he walked through the illusion-warded alleyway, Victor stopped for a few moments once they were through, closing his eyes as he leaned against a wall.

“Something wrong?” Zefaris asked.

“No, just… Made my eyes ache a bit,” he excused, blinking a few times and shaking his head before looking up at her. “Was that an architectural illusion? Why’s Arches have one of those, and here of all places?”

“Don’t know,” the blonde shrugged.

The party used the tangle of back alleys to return to one of the more significant offshoots of Scarlet Silk Road’s main causeway, this one seemingly dedicated to peddlers of more often than not illegally imported clothing and jewelry. Once the three cultivators were certain they were no longer being trailed, Zel tasked Jorfr with getting the two youngsters back to their homes or some other safe, out of the way place, since he wouldn’t be able to get into the 2AM auction to begin with. While Reiner had taken the hint, leaving in Jorfr’s custody, Victor wasn’t at all eager to follow suit, stubbornly insisting that he had been to Scarlet Silk Road before, and that he wanted to spend some of the money Zel had given him while he was here. Short of tying him up somewhere out of the way, Zel couldn’t exactly think of a way to get rid of him for now. It seemed that, for all the good it had clearly done him, the young man’s newly-ignited sense of drive had also dulled his sense of danger.

It was a self-solving issue by her reckoning; he would inevitably get shocked into a more balanced state of mind the next time he found himself in a life-or-death situation. However, that solution wasn’t exactly in the cards right this moment; short of a convenient back alley mugger to offer up their life to help adjust Victor’s mental state, Zelsys couldn’t think of an easy way to adjust his attitude that wouldn’t risk alienating the youth before he could be set on a better path.

“You understand that there’s a very real chance Von Wickten might have a thug or even a Dragon Knight in disguise come after you because of your association with us, yes? The man tailing us might’ve very well seen your face,” Zefaris asked in an effort to indirectly coerce him into leaving, but it was obvious that he just wasn’t in a mental place for logical considerations of danger.

He began wandering around while Zel and Zef considered just dragging him out of here, but as Zel watched him, she saw him heading towards a tent of Kargarian design, the elaborately-decorated fabric being a cover for solid internal walls. It was… Conspicuously familiar, so she decided to head closer to get a look inside. Just as a familiar counter came into view, Victor’s eyes magnetized towards a particular garment hanging amidst the discordant gallery of one-of-a-kind pieces behind the counter.

Despite the fact she couldn’t see the proprietor anywhere, the blackstone sewing machine at the back was unmistakable: It was the Needle Empress.

There was no doubt in her mind: This had to be the Craftsman’s tent.

“...Why’s he here?” Zel wondered aloud.

Furrowing her brow, Zef added: “Can’t be because of us, can it?”

“I want to believe it’s just a coincidence, but she doesn’t deal in coincidences…” Zel sighed as the two walked into the tent. She certainly appreciated what seemed a good way to simultaneously set up her would-be-protegé with something to wear that could withstand what she planned to put him through and bribe him into leaving Scarlet Silk Road, but… It was a little soured by the possibility that the Craftsman had been sent here by the Krishorn Matriarch to keep an eye on the three of them.

The old man was in the top-right corner of the tent, fiddling with one of the displays, not having paid any real attention to Victor. However, the moment Zel and Zef crossed the precipice, he perked up, glancing in their direction as he finished correcting the display and making his way behind the counter with a speed entirely unbefitting his elderly appearance.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Zel questioned, putting a hand on the counter. The Craftsman idly scanned her arm up and down, muttering to himself: “I’ll need to keep re-measuring the circumference if y’keep getting more muscular, just in case…”

She raised an eyebrow to him, “Did I stutter?”

“Whaddyamean… Ah, that!” he seemed to jump off of whatever secondary train of thought he’d boarded. “Are you joking? A bustling underworld in a town far away from the occupied shitholes, and one with a surviving cultivator-nobility at that! By Karga’s light, the duke has brought in nearly as much money during my stay here as I had made all winter. Now, let me take a look at you; you haven't mistreated my babies, have you?”

He leaned over the counter, putting a bespectacled eye to her pants, then looked up at her, squinting.

“You’ve been oiling them properly, yes?” he questioned with a feigned sense of accusation. “You know, the fact they mend themselves doesn’t mean they won’t degrade if you abuse them.”

Being absolutely certain that the old man was just screwing with her, she answered in kind: “Yes, yes, I got a bulk order of snake oil from that peddler that had set up right next to you, don’t you remember?”

Grinning at her in response, the Craftsman’s attention shifted to Victor, who was now just outright staring at a particular item. It was a ridiculous thing, mimicking a somewhat familiar style, but still recognizably Kargarian, reminding her of the tiny vests and translucent blouses she’d seen members of the great caravan wearing. A loose-sleeved, hooded shirt of sorts, only it wasn’t a shirt at all. It was just sleeves, a hood, a small portion that went halfway down the back, with only enough fabric in between to hold the getup together.

Indeed, it was a ridiculous thing, a garment obviously designed for one who wished to display their physique for all to see, perhaps to be layered with something else; it was the exact sort of thing Zelsys could see herself wearing. The price tag was well over three hundred gelt, and no wonder, given that the Craftsman only displayed one-of-a-kind customs behind the counter.

Despite holding resentment for the tasteless, overdetailed kitsch of high nobility, vanity was something Zelsys understood very well, and even as he was now, it was clear Victor cared deeply about his appearance. Though they were of the mass-produced variety his garments were tailored, and he had adorned himself with the same type of makeup as Kargarian nobility. It certainly helped that he was naturally very pretty to begin with - not handsome, like Jorfr or even the bookie in his own artificial way, but pretty.

She’d decided, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Alright, I see where this is going. How about this: I’ll foot the bill to get you dressed in something proper, not this mass-produced shit. In exchange you get the fuck out of dodge, lay low and train hard until I get back to you about that next mission.”

“Huh? Why do you think-” Victor began, intending to question why Zelsys was talking as if he meant to come along with them on their insane journey, but he stopped himself, realizing that she’d read him like a book before he had even figured out what he wanted next. Of course he wanted to come with them. Even something half as interesting as the pulps was preferable to eking out a living in Arches. He sighed, tacitly conceding the point.

Instead, he pointed to Zel’s thigh, specifically the bright red and yellow stripe running down it.

“What about something like your pants? I can’t see myself killing a snake that big, but…”

“I’ve never killed a snake, to be honest. This is scalebark from his stock,” she admitted, pointing a thumb to the Craftsman. She turned to him, asking: “So, how about it? Got any scalebark left?”

“Nope. I’ve some nice sturmgandr leather left that I could use for the inner lining, but no scalebark.”

“How about a deal, then: I’ve got the hide of a False Drake, so how about you make the kid something out of it and I let you keep what’s left over as payment? Pants, maybe?”

She turned to Victor.

“You’ll be the one wearing it, the choice is on you.”