“Unlike my Inquisitorial ex-colleagues, I have no law, no restriction, no line in the sand, there is nothing the Statehood can do to stop me from carrying out my divinely-appointed duty,” Alcerys continued, diverting some attention towards the Woman in Red, who seemed conspicuously uninterested in interfering. She even gestured that she wouldn’t involve herself. The woman’s bright-red, claw-like nails stood out almost as much as the brief flash of gold and red inside her sleeve.

“By the authority of the Omniudex, the Black Dragon of the Ninth Wind, I shall judge and punish down all those who think themselves beyond reproach. And you...”

She pointed Emberthorn at that writhing mass of flesh on the ground, puking up the bloody, boiling contents of his stomach, coughing up puffs of crimson-tinged Fog, and wildly gesturing in an attempt to regain control of his weapon.

“...You are most guilty indeed.”

“SILENCE!” howled the general, slipping back into Pateirian as he gestured to make his sword throw itself at Alcerys.

Its immense velocity forced her to dedicate fully to avoidance, knowing full well that it could get into the gaps of her armor. With a surge of Fog and a spark of intent Emberthorn’s entire surface became as a porcupine, its quills spreading all over and briars slithering from its crossguard in a spiraling pattern down its now club-like blade, and with this deformed horror she caught Cao Hu’s Flying Sword.

Indeed she caught it, its impeccable edge slowing only briefly as it mowed her own weapon’s quills, but that was enough. It was enough for her to use the First Arm to snatch the blade out of the air, and in turn, throw it behind herself as she took off sprinting at Cao with the intention of placing the general’s own body between her and his weapon.

The general had just gotten to his feet, his face twisted by pain, and despite the bloody bubbles forming around his mouth, performed an immensely complex full-body gesture with utter perfection, once more forcing Alcerys onto the back foot as she had to fend off the nearly-imperceptible onslaught of his Flying Sword.

Lungful after lungful burned just to keep it away from her, from fueling the First Arm, recharging the Visage after it deflected strikes that would’ve landed, to accelerating Emberthorn’s regeneration. It was harrowing to defend for only a few seconds… But she could bear it. Even as the old scar on her back began wrenching again.

In this game of endurance, Alcerys couldn’t have been more certain of her eventual victory.

A fact that Cao Hu must’ve realized just as well for he stopped playing it only moments later, closing the distance of his own volition, and with each meter, the precision and savagery of his weapon grew. Despite his state, even as he still struggled to breathe properly and coughed up chunks, he was the one on the offensive.

His raw reactions were slower than Alcerys’ own, and despite that, his martial and tactical skill was simply good enough to more than compensate using his Flying Sword. Even the fact she could just grab his weapon out of the air and toss it about didn’t seem to impede him much.

She needed… Yes. That could work.

With a subtle shift of her strategy, Alcerys maneuvered towards Cao Hu to place pressure upon him whilst in reality dedicating every sliver of focus to defense, meticulously controlling her own breathing for lack of a means to store essentia elsewhere just yet. It was pure defensive optimization, a complex dance of feints, parries, and strikes that were destined to be stopped. Combat and theatre in equal measure, deception meant to fool Cao Hu into thinking he was winning. It wasn’t hard to be convincing, since he really had been winning up until the last moment.

Until she finally grasped Emberthorn with both hands, burning two deep breaths just as the Eye instantaneously stuck to the blade’s crossguard. Eagerly, even.

In a split-second Emberthorn was engulfed in an inferno, and murder flashed across Cao Hu’s face as he took what he saw to be an opening… But Alcerys had counted on just that. The time it took him to recover from a deflected strike was brief, but sufficient.

Alcerys had two means of deflection that did not rely on her hands in the First Arm and the Visage, plus her actual armor as a last line of passive defense.

She charged at him openly, Emberthorn trailing an inferno of blue fire.

As satisfying as it would’ve been to bring the Calamity Sword to bear against him, right now it was a pointless risk, lacking a means to wrench open a wide-enough opening for the invocation.

With a sudden gesture the old general called his blade to his side in a flash of light, and it swirled about him with such velocity as to become an impermeable blur. Alcerys cared not. If she could occupy his weapon with defense it could not lash out at her, and in turn, she could afford to drop her defenses at least partially.

Divine fire flaring and swirling, cold-iron clanging against cold-iron, quills being flung both with and without intent, the room filling with Fog even from the negligible exhalations of both combatants. Alcerys didn’t want to use the First Arm, not yet, as she built up a charge within it and kept it in place as another layer of armor for the time being.

Cao Hu tried a number of tricks. Having his sword trail a conjured wire to entangle or trip her, forming an elaborate defensive projection using the Flying Sword to produce the glyphs, even throwing his blade out behind her and employing some manner of Fog-walking to switch places with it in an attempt to catch her off-guard and create distance.

His stamina clearly waning and desperation growing, the general’s attacks subtly grew further apart, less precise, his feints easier to read. The battle went from perilous to merely difficult… And Alcerys decided enough was enough.