Five seconds.

That was how long the statue remained silent and motionless after she stopped talking, staring at her. Then, once more, it spoke.

“To teach plainly, to avoid such muddling of the arts hath ever been amongst the founder’s - among Lord Branstein’s - teachings. That thou speaketh of such things with such conviction maketh clear that the rot truly must run to the roots...”

Creak. Crack. Snap.

The chains holding the Horse-man’s ankles strained, then burst into pieces, clattering onto the stairs. It stepped forward, crushing the incense-burner on the lower section of its pedestal underfoot. Raising its arms, the shackles on its wrists exploded as well.

“If thou wouldst rip out the rot by the roots, then prove that thou art able!”

Zel’s instincts screamed imminent danger, and in a flash of lilac light, the Horse-man vanished from before her. She felt its tremendous bulk charging towards her from behind, and knew well to step out of the way. It turned on a heel and bucked at her, yet stumbled when she met it head-on with a fist clad in Siphoning Pulse.

Funneling Fulgur into the Lightning Butcher, she swung its saw-side at the statue’s armpit, determined to dismantle it piece by piece and expecting it to lack many of a living thing’s weak points. Lightning flashed, sawteeth screamed with vibration, and bit into stone - just barely. Not one to just stand there and take it, the Horse-man simply grabbed her arm and spun around, throwing her all the way across the courtyard and into one of the trees.

Yet, as she flew, she was glad - glad that the throw was that long, for she had the time to orient herself and brace for impact - Zelsys was able to channel Siphoning Pulse through the soles of her feet thanks to the Fog-infused nature of her boots. Although the timing was far from perfect due to her focus remaining squarely on that golem, enough of her impact on the tree was siphoned off that it was no worse than jumping a few meters down. It was, however, enough to damn-near cause a full antler to take shape over her eye, one that vanished the next moment when she discharged her entire kinetic charge to send herself flying right back at the golem. She gripped the Butcher with both hands to fully utilize the saw, unable to stop herself from cackling madly as she flew, proclaiming: “BUTCHER! BRING ME HIS HEAD!”

The Butcher shuddered. Another lungful of Fog burned. It pivoted sharply upwards and to the right. Its sawteeth screeched, changing direction - then, they changed direction again. And again. And again. Until they were even more of a blur than before, not only violently oscillating through electromagnetism, but back and forth through the cold-iron’s own metamorphic properties.

It swiped at her in an attempt to swat her out of the air, but the Butcher’s course-alteration combined with her use of Graze Pulse made the strike merely slide off her stomach right as her blade’s sawteeth ripped into the golem’s neck. Chunks of stone were thrown from the motile edifice, a shallow canyon left in its surface. The movement of the Butcher’s teeth combined with Zel’s momentum caused her to trace the statue’s back and loop around it, sending her spinwards to the ground as it thrashed in an attempt to get her off, reaching back and failing to grab at her.

Over the course of this exchange, the sound of the band cut through Zel’s hyperfocused state of mind - from tense music, to a full performance to put Strolvath to shame. A gravel-voiced, male leading singer belted lyrics, complimented by the voices of a man and woman, while the other male occasionally cut in with scream-growled lines. Drums pounding, driving riffs crunching, all underlined by elaborate twanging melodies of such speed and complexity that it damn near distracted her. Nevertheless, Zelsys remained steadfast, using the music as a focusing anchor amidst the instinctual chaos of battle.

“Reach the point of no return, stand up, face to face, we burn! Unleash fire and flames alight, full force, STRIKE! WE FIGHT THE NIGHT!”

It wouldn’t fall. Wouldn’t relent.

No matter how she peppered it with Ball Lightning, it wasn’t precise or destructive enough to inflict meaningful damage.

Without a heart to rip out, tendons to sever, joints to dislocate.

Even were she to behead it, she was certain it would not fall.

The Slayer’s Instinct told her as much, guiding her to no particular weak point beyond where its joints connected to the torso. It was amorphous. Formless. Beyond the bounds of mortality, a moving monument rather than a beast.

Even as she carved chunks from its body, she noticed previously-severed pieces leaping up from the ground and rejoining the mass. This game of endurance was one she could not hope to win on the golem’s own terms.

It certainly didn’t provide wide-enough openings to invoke the Dance of the Fireflies, or even Thundercannon - not quite yet. She would have to dismember it, put it off-balance first.

Zelsys had to face the reality that not all the beasts of this world would yield to that which could sever flesh and bone.

The armor of a Locust Noble, the limbs of the Wendigo Statue, the undying Black Swordsman’s body - she supposed it was only inevitable that using the Butcher’s Sawteeth to their fullest would inevitably become a technique of its own.

Indeed, she had spent a significant portion of her training time in the preceding days exploring her cleaver’s properties, never having had the time to do so until that point in an environment which suited such endeavors. She had simply poured as much Fulgur into the weapon as she deemed necessary to make its edge heat up or its sawteeth oscillate, presuming that more power would inevitably yield diminishing returns, as she had observed.

Yet… She had found that to not be the case. Despite not having dedicated enough time to this avenue of curiosity to know for certain, Zel’s gut told her that the cleaver could likely store and discharge far more power than she had been feeding it up until now. Something - perhaps a hunch, perhaps the Butcher itself - drove her away from directly pouring a surge of Fulgur into it as she did with her arm-cannon.