ERode

Fire Emblem: Crestfallen

_{@Ambra@Ithradine@Psyker Landshark@Serei2477}

Well, Andrion had really just wanted to get a rise out of the little princess, but to imagine that the whole thing served as a house-building activity instead? Leave it to the blue-bloods to start snapping at any sign of weakness!

"What can I say?" the massive man replied, turning to the ice-cold motherfucker. As he did, he pulled down the collar of his already-bursting shirt somewhat, revealing the symbol of Yhirel that hung from his neck. "As an adherent, I've only the most profound respect for a fellow so stainless as the Archbishop. And as a person, well, we're outside, so why'd we use inside voices?"

He clasped Doric's hand with his own after, presenting a firm, but not domineering grip.

"Andrion Godson, my good man. Thanks for the warning, but I don't figure I'd even need to keep my head down for a week." A thumb crudely jabbed towards where Sherry was presently, fawning over a little winged lizard. "So long as I keep one of those in my breastpocket, I'm sure all'd be forgiven."

"Wouldn't be so eager to pluck those flowers too, little lady!" He laughed, walking past the garden to keep up with the Archbishop. "They grow pretty, but smell like shit after cutting. I'm sure you wouldn't mind, but your roommate sure would."

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

Well, it stank like piss, so it must have been the boy's washroom.

Verity closed her eyes, listening briefly to her surroundings, forcing her vision to adjust to the decreased light in her environment. She could hear the others. Not in another stall, but in a close-by room. Girl's washroom, same floor. What was the logic here? Was there any logic, here? She'd have to check the calendar date, but if the date itself hadn't changed, then that means, at the very least, time hadn't passed in too abnormal a fashion since they slipped from one world to another.

Her bare toes curled against the tiles. The spring had washed away the soil that had stuck to her feet, but now it was being soiled by something worse. Boys and their hygiene. They had a dick to aim with and yet, they're still so sloppy.

She opened her eyes. Reviewing her memories now, she recognized it too: Sofia hadn't fallen into the spring. No, she had sailed a tremendous distance. A distance so massive that she had flew over all the palm trees, past the entire width of the beach, and crashed, presumably, into the ocean. Freshwater was home. Saltwater had lead them away from home. What would happen to someone who dove into the sea twice?

Verity marched out, footprints tracking the lonely hallways. She recognized the second floor, recognized which windows could become which exits, and popped open one of them with little concern, stepped out onto windowsill, then leapt. Caught a sturdy branch, let her momentum swing her towards the trunk, and then caught herself again, shimmying down the rough bark until she hit the grassy fields below. Dew cleaned her. Dirt coated it. Pavement scraped against it. And, some time after, wood heaved beneath it.

The dockhouse, bathed in moonlight. Everyone's clothing, gone. Collected by a good Samaritan, or perhaps...no, it didn't particularly matter to her. She stared out at the waves, blue ripples rendered in monochrome by darkness and reflection, consuming what scant stars shone brightly enough to be seen in sea. A breeze passed through, many times more hostile than the breeze at sunset, and Verity took in a breath.

The matter of her clothing, of her wallet, of her keys, of her phone, could all be left for another time. Now, however?

Well, it wouldn't be the first time she had to break into her own apartment.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

Wub wub just imagine all three-five actions being sunk into this. Time to ante up and go all innnnnn.

Sleepless Nights\\ Iron Cages

She saw it in the reflection of her extended blade.

A myriad of presents expanding outwards in the instant of severance. Shadows fading away as Yasu met her end, her mouth opening up to speak the last words that only Yasu could read. Some filled with encouragement. Others filled with unsated wrath. Still more happy to have made it so far. And all of them, confident that this wouldn't be their end. For where Yasu fell, Yasu continued, living the futures that had been lost.

The whip flew by, impotent rage cut down at the root, and the youth charged on, not giving herself a moment to rest! Prodigious size simply merited greater exsanguination! Muscles that bulged like that were simply filled with fluids, not flesh! And an angry cat was cute, not scary!

"Everyone!" They could hear the joy in her voice, the joy of living to personally see another sun rise, the joy of living to continue down the path that the others could not. "It's time for an all out attack!"

And with that, Yasu hurled her sword forwards with all her might, mirror-polished steel turned into a brilliant disc as it sank into the chest of the blind lion. Without even giving it a pause to roar out in pain or sink into itself to protect its vitals, the young girl dashed forth, the crimson cross within her odd eye bending into a crimson halo, a crimson ring. She could see it all. All the paths she could take, all the methods of execution available for her. And while the precocious Cleaner occasionally had a taste for being a contrarian, in this case?

Branches converged, three hundred Yasus deciding that they all wanted to do the same thing.

Launch into a Rider Kick that would shoot her sword straight through this third-rate ringmaster.

Expedition to Isekai

---

//Day 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

“Shit! Shit!”

It had been over before he could even get up and help, but now, in the aftermath? It took all of Daisuke’s effort just to keeping going. Adrenaline faded now and the emotions he had locked up were bursting out of its dam, his veins popping out of his forehead as he pushed his fingers beneath the slain wolfbear and lifted. The still-warm corpse offered little resistance as it was rolled off his friend, but what remained didn’t look good either. He had seen his fair share of horror movies during training camps, had even gone and checked out some wild-ass execution videos out of morbid curiosity with Hiroshi, but this was something else. This was someone he knew. Someone he practiced with, played with, gamed with.

Guts torn out of the stomach, then mashed up by a prickly mass. Skin like ash, lips coated with too much blood. The golden-haired youth fell down, felt the weight of this great burden. Who was it that thought to charge? Who was it that got everyone involved? Sasuke offered the opportunity, but he…he had pulled the trigger.

“Fuck…” His head slumped. Shoulders slumped further.

“DUNCAN!”

And there was his little girlfriend too, running across the field. Haruko’s eyes, too bright to bear. Back to a corpse. Back to this mess. Daisuke brought his fist up and then smashed it against his jaw. It stung. Could feel one of his teeth loosen up. A cut inside his mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was he thinking? They were fucking middle schoolers, and none of them even did martial arts! They had nothing! He raised his fist again, muscles tensing with a fury that desired oblivion and ob-

His arm stopped, held back by another. There was only one person that could’ve done it.

“Sasuke, don’t stop me.” Words spat between clenched teeth. He deserved far worse than what he was doing to himself.

But the blue-haired youth didn’t let go. He cast his gaze towards Asahi briefly, his dojo friend having fallen down in shock, paralyzed once the adrenaline faded, then turned back towards Daisuke. “Look, please. Look.”

“I don’t s-”

But Daisuke did see it. And so did Haruko, caught between shock, disgust, and confusion.

They saw what everyone present saw.

They saw Duncan’s organs drag themselves back into the cavity of his stomach, saw the flesh slowly ooze itself back together. As if a time lapse in reverse. As if magic had occurred. A miracle, even.

A miracle, however, that wasn’t shared with Yuki.

...

It was funny, what people noticed at the weirdest times.

And in that moment, rather than smelling Ayana’s burnt hair, Shun instead felt the roughness of Yuudai’s lips pressed against her palm, along with the stickiness of the blood that seeped from those cracks. She couldn’t keep her hand there long though, even if she did enjoy the sensation: the crew cut boy was basically suffocating, after all.

“Phew!” He inhaled, then winced at the pain in his body. His voice was so much fainter than before, but he could still crack a smile. It took less muscles to do so, after all. “Thought you were trying to fini- Oh, uh, her, hair???”

He tried to make a move, but his body didn’t respond, and Yuudai overall was just entirely bewildered by how the class’s disaster magnet somehow didn’t realize her hair was on fire. It was surreal enough to make him forget that he could even feel some parts of his body. Thankfully, before Ayana went entirely bald, Tsubaki appeared. For a brief moment, she was paralyzed by the state of Yuudai, her brain scrambling through all the medical equipment they had (which was fucking zero, in truth), before her eyes settled on Ayana and she decided to deal with the more immediate problem.

She pushed the disaster magnet down and then stomped the fire out. The twintail was never going to be a twin again, but on the other hand, an asymmetrical hairstyle wasn’t terrible either.

More importantly, though…

“We can’t really carry him like this. Gonna need a stretcher for Yuki too.” She gnawed at her thumb, brows furrowed. An infection was basically guaranteed, huh? And though Yuudai could put on a brave face, reality was against him. But the girls didn’t need to know. “You two should go to the others. Hiroshi’s figuring something out right now. I’ll stay by Yuudai.”

Not that she could do anything. Not that any of them could really do anything.

With a sigh, Tsubaki sat down, cross-legged.

Yuudai returned her presence with a crooked smile.

...

What Kogen didn’t notice during all his grandstanding was that Rin, exactly a half-second after he returned her hammer, collapsed, falling unconscious.

And, regardless of his triumph, he also didn’t notice Masato’s back. Didn’t notice that beyond the layer of blood that obscured everything, that the flesh was mending itself, closing off that wound.

“Nice going, chuuni kid!” Despite everything, even Masato’s whole refusal to help her up, Maki had managed to get up, hopping over on her good leg to deliver a resounding slap to Kogen’s back. “Got a real killer spirit, don’tcha? Oh, Sohei! Rin’s right…well, guess you can already see her.”

And indeed, Sohei could. The older of the Ito twins slid to a stop right beside the unconscious Rin, a deluge of expressions flickering past his usually mature look, before finally settling upon relief. Against all odds, she looked mostly unharmed and was definitely breathing, her complexion healthy enough that it didn’t even really look like she was doing anything but sleeping. Without a word exchanged, he swept Rin up into his arms and strode off, rejoining the group.

“Sheesh. Didn’t figure he was such a prince-type.” Maki grinned. “I can get over there myself, so hurry up n join em, demon king. This may as well be your new debut, ya know? Same with you, Prez.”

And the cluster that was forming in the clearing certainly was growing. Except for a few pockets of injured fellows, it looked like the class was coming together. As for whether the discussion was going to be fruitful or not…

...

...Hiroshi seemed to be set on making it so.

At Kuroshio Ogata, he had been a weirdo who stuck to the library all day long, reading up on random shit and sniggering quietly to himself. He was part of the weirdo trio that never actually joined the Literature Club yet always showed up to their meetings, after all. The sort of guy who'd pull out trivia from his brain that no one asked for and no one cared for. But now? He almost sounded dependable.

Well, maybe with Masato still pulling himself together, Daisuke too concerned for Duncan to join the meeting, Mayumi still unwilling to grasp for authority in such a situation, and Rin too knocked out to bring up her hare-brained schemes, Hiroshi was only in charge by default.

It was still weird though, how wholly calm he was here.

"Yup, so we're in deep shit, but it could be worse. Those fanged deer were scary, but some of us here seem to be able to fend them off. That means rather than having dead students, we only have dying students. Which is still not great."

Ayano gripped Fujita's hand. She didn't make the wrong decision, pulling him away from Kogen. She didn't.

"We have food though. And we have fire. We need water and shelter."

Kumi's stomach growled and she clutched her stomach against her legs, ears burning up.

"Hana said she can prepare the fanged deers, if she gets help. But we'll need wood to build a proper fire up. And we need people to go off to look for water. People to build a shelter too, especially for those who were hurt. And we need a couple people to take stock of what we have too. At this point, anything could help. Even textbooks could."

As tinder, Kunio suspected. He was set though. He was 100% joining the water-searching party. The mood here was way too awful to stomach, and more importantly...the burning bus was still a beacon to draw more unwanted attention.

"The sun's probably going to set in another three hours. These tasks are not up for debate, so get organized and get going. And...Kogen, Masato, Ayana, Shun, Asahi."

Ayane's gaze turned towards her half-sister, incredulous both at her current appearance as well as for whatever 'special' treatment she was receiving right now.

"I don't believe I can order any of you around, but since you five seem to have become more capable than the rest of us, I hope you think carefully about how to best use your time. It's going to be hard but..."

Mayumi's face the entire time was one of sheer incredulity, lambasted as she was by this new side of Kuroshio's number one trivia nerd.

"...if you figure things out, the dying might not become dying."

Endo Yuki. Suzuki Maki. Higasa Yuudai. Stewart Duncan. Maybe even Inaba Rin.

Their conditions may be different, their situations may be as well, but in the end, without food, water, or a place to properly rest, they would be the first to die.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@HereComesTheSnow@VitaVitaAR@PigeonOfAstora}

The fortress was not overcome. The past remained, unshakeable, unperturbed.

From the moment the necromancer's barrier shattered, nay, from the moment the numbers shifted further into the favor of the Iron Rose knights, the conclusion had been decided and the fate of the villain had been sealed. All that mattered then, was to seize that fragment of an opportunity to test one's self, sharpen one's self, against the monument of human might. And yet, worn down by the passing of millennia, bereft of half the capabilities that made him legend, Erich remained flawless.

A fortress that moved.

Serenity rose from the pile of inanimate bones, the undead warriors that had lost their movement once their master had been slain. Fragments of ancient steel slid off her chainmail as her ears roared still with the ferocity of an end that came too soon. Gerard, mace head covered in gore. Fanilly, blade slick with foul ichor. The necromancer slain, the child saved, the witch broken, and the champion lifeless once more. She drew in a breath, a breath befouled by her own blood, and reached to pick up the weapons she had dropped. Hatchet and mace, used so frequently, and yet used so pointlessly. The shield she had lent, warped without having truly served its purpose. Opportunities, squandered.

Stilled, the corpse of Erich Cazt was not so much taller than herself. She placed her hand upon his chest, felt the tension in her muscles, the urge to push. To test how immovable he was, even in his second death. Her flesh, pulsating beneath her gloves. Her eyes, smouldering like the embers of a forge.

Time had passed him, but humanity had not.

Serenity dropped her hand and marched past instead, boots crushing the corpses in her path until she could finally reached the necromancer's corpse. One hand grasped his hair, pulling his head off the ground. The other hand hooked beneath the shattered ribs, pulling it up and rolling the body over her shoulder. Light as a feather. Stank like the rotting dead. He deserved not to lie another second longer upon the Demonbreaker's tomb. And as for the witch...

It didn't matter whether she was a pawn or not. It didn't matter whether she had changed sides or not. It didn't matter whether she let go of her desire to revenge the axeman up above. It didn't matter, because so long as she breathed, she could change her mind. Sir Steffen and Sir Fleuri were forgiving, but would they still be forgiving if any of her lightning bolts had slain one of them? Would they be so forgiving if Sir Vier had been cleaved in two by the Baruksteadian's axe? Would Lein see her as ally instead of enemy if the extent of her sins grew just a little more? In the end, she was a witch. Inscribed with sorcerous tattoos that allowed her to call forth spells of great power without uttering a single word.

Leniency could be had after they bound her wrists and kept a dagger steady to her throat, after the mages of the College have peeled away whatever gave her the freedom of the storm itself. Leniency could be had after they knocked her unconsciousness. Serenity's hands were full, but she still had her feet. All it would take was one good kick, and the witch wasn't in a state to be aware of her surroundings anyways.

But she was a knight.

"We are shield and sword," Serenity spoke from behind the kneeling Hundi. "Not gavel and block. Rise up, Lein. The body's not here and the soul doesn't desire the prayers of a foreign church either." A pause. What smidgen of warmth laid beneath that chastisement faded away in full. "As for you, witch. We will see to it that the axeman's body will be embalmed for whatever funeral you desire for him, but your trial will come first. For the benefit of the law and yourself, be truthful and compliant, lest you waste the last words of your partner."

If she stayed any longer, she was going to act, so Serenity left it at that, walking away. Away from Erich, away from the witch, away from her fellow knights.

A trail of blood staining stone and bone, a worthless head swinging to and fro.

Expedition to Isekai

Nine guests each time, but there's like, only seven players here. Literally who are the rest of y'all lmao.

Expedition to Isekai

---

//Day 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

Rin was a gawky girl. Scrawny, even. Flat too. Short.

Her mass offered nothing for gravity to work with, and the impact she made had no physical effect. Her feet struck the back of the wolfbear’s neck and she stood there awkwardly, before successive movements from the beast threw her off.

Emotionally however?

It was enough to get the job done.

The hammer impacted the beast’s elbow with force enough that the flesh itself rippled. Twisting to the other side, Kogen finally broke free, sliding off and away from the beast’s pin. Its jaws opened still, biting down, but he craned his neck to the side, catching it with his shoulder. Left shoulder, unarmed shoulder. Pinpricks of pain squeezed down, his bloody running hot. It didn’t stop him, though, from driving the claw of the hammer into the monster’s neck.

He saw it, then.

It was impossible to make out before, but in such desperate times, in such dire straits, with all his might leveraged, Kogen could see it. See the monster’s body stiffen upon contact with the claw. See space itself distort, as if rejecting the interaction of such materials. There was some interference here. Something that stalled him.

Claws reached out, swiping towards him.

And Masato was there to catch it, exposing his bloodied back towards Kogen as he wrestled with the limb, pinned it against his armpit and his chest. Buying time, more than enough time now for the eyepatch-wearing idiot to force through this resistance. The claw bent beneath the pressure. The handle warped from his grip. He struggled as best as he could, before finally finding the purchase he needed. Through fur, through skin, through fat, stainless steel pierced the veins and then ripped downwards, tearing open the monster’s throat.

It struggled still, baptizing the two boys in steaming blood, acrid blood, black blood. They held on tight, joined soon by Rin herself, holding the monster as it raged in its death throes.

Until it stopped.

Until it was over.

The three of them laid atop the beast they had slain. Rin, still dazed from her experience with flight. Kogen, sporting an ugly bruise and a set of fang marks on his shoulder. Masato, his pants and shirt ruined and his body like a scratching post.

It had to be over.

But it wasn’t yet over.

…

He could feel his guts press up against his shirt. Could feel the stiff fur of the wolfbear poke into those tender, fleshy ropes. Blood ran thick in his mouth, the iron stench coating his world. But Duncan had its back and he clung on nonetheless. An elbow drop that sent the beast into the ground, then long arms wrapping around, trying desperately to squeeze the life out of the monster.

And would you look at that? He was stronger than he thought. Stronger than he felt.

His thoughts were scattering, the red of his vision turning white. Lightheadedness, like that time against that powerhouse school from Saitama, the one where he spent the entire match trying to break free from his mark. His mind was slipping, but his body held on, even as hooked claws dug into his arms.

Even as the wolfbear, possessing superior mass, rolled over, and Duncan felt that oppressive pain crush every part of his body. He too was suffocating. Strong enough to strangle, not strong enough to snap.

And then, he felt an impact.

Felt Asahi’s impact.

The pink-haired youth, so talkative, so charming, had no more words now. The charred stick snapped against the force of the stone, caught between a rock and a hard place. Even now, the monster struggled; it was nigh impossible to aim for an eye when emotions ran so hot. But he still had the stone. The second impact sounded, fractures forming over his weapon’s surface.

More. More. More. Brutal and unforgiving, Asahi raged against everything that he had experienced, everything that was still left to be experienced. Stone turned to dust in his hand, and his hand became a fist that pounded the monster’s skull.

Blood mixed with dust. Sweat with saliva. How long was twenty seconds under a pin? How long was twenty seconds in an exchange?
Finally, Duncan could feel the body above him grow limp.

Finally, Asahi could see the body beneath him grow limp.

Finally, they could rest.

…

By all accounts, it shouldn’t have worked.

But if there could be one miracle, there could be another, and Ayana was really feeling it this time!

A rancid taste filled her tongue, like biting into an unwashed towel, but she had committed to her move and by God she was going to see it through. Her back arched, her spine protested, her lungs could hardly get any air at all! But a wolfbear’s body wasn’t designed with limbs that could easily reach behind its back either, and with only a yelp of surprise, its head smashed into the floor, through the floor, and then…through the bus itself.

The bus had always been an old thing after all. It should have been decommissioned and replaced a decade ago, in truth. And now, weakened by the blaze, damaged by the impacts of wolfbear and Shun? It didn’t stand a chance and broke in half, Ayana and the wolfbear tumbling through sooty pipes and gears, warped steel and foam.

It was a good thing then, that Shun prioritized getting Yuudai out first. It was impossible to tell at a glance whether or not he was alive, but if nothing else, it looked like his head was still in place and his heart hadn’t been punctured. Humans could die so easily though. They could die just from a bad fall.

Shun threw him anyways and he hit the grassy field, rolling twice before coming face-flat to a stop.

And by the time she turned once more, hurling an iron pipe through the air, the situation was already too chaotic to score a hit. The pipe embedded itself into a pile of burning scrap, inches away from Ayana’s own face, while the wolfbear scrambled up, breaking out and away from the bus. Its eyes, watering from the smoke, swiveled about in six separate directions to ascertain the situation at a glance, before it growled and sprinted away.

Trying to escape.

But would they let this end, just like that?

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@HereComesTheSnow}

The hero lived up to his legend, decayed and disgraced as he was.

An apex of humanity from a bygone era, one that possessed strength enough to one-handedly hurl Gerard towards her with such force that she hardly had time to think. Time, diluting further. Air, bursting through her veins. Heart, racing double-time.

She jumped back.

Two hands opened, weapons dropped as the knight’s form slammed against her own. The lioness found purchase in that moment, one hand grasping his collar, the other his belt. What was the point of training if she couldn’t do it in real-time? What was the point of mastery if she could not apply it beyond its usage? What was the point of study if that did not expand her options?

When the plainsfolk of Velt besieged fortresses of stone, the scarcity of wood in their homelands called for solutions of another sort. In the absence of trebuchets and catapults, the strongmen of that era would grasp great slings loaded with boulders, spinning them round and round to building up momentum. Would release at the peak that their bodies could bear, sending stone to strike fortifications two hundred paces away.

They called it a hammer throw.

One foot landed, a pivot finding purchase against stone. Her body twisted, forcing Gerard’s body away from her own. Shoulders stood strong, fingers gripped like a vice. Lightning sparked, both in her mind and out her mind. Second foot landed, granting more stability now, keeping her balance. With the initial force of Erich’s own throw, there was no need for a full rotation. All she had to do was add her own strength to existing momentum, use her own strength to resist the building inertia, and!

The barrier shattered.

The Captain disengaged.

Serenity released.

And Gerard flew, a boulder to test a fortress.

Decibitus

---

~1444 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE

---

Bolts of arcane power sang through the flickering light and shadow of the venue, striking with aplomb before Edward delivering a killing blow with his Scythe. Twas with the fury of the storm itself that his staff smashed through the last of the wisp's defenses, vines and petals charring to ash before the tip of the staff cracked open the skull of the child inside. No blood, no cry. Only a muted stare from a pair of pitch-black eyes.

And then, unraveling. Fibers unmade, threads unspooled. The entire body of the predator-plant peeling away into a myriad of ethereal lines. The lines twisted together once more, wrapping into itself over and over again, spinning with the speed of a mechanical loom. Histories and egos stripped away, form and substance flattened to a single color, the life that made the wisp, the life that made the child before the wisp, it all became of nothing once more.

A ball of yarn, rolling to a stop by Edward's foot. To be processed at the Kiln once all this was over.

And though all this was not yet over, one could certainly forgive the necromantic aspirant for wanting to bask a little in his own victory. After all, he, not Lucian, not Vera, had single-handedly taken down a triple-phantom-infused wisp! And without doing the disgusting amount of collateral damage that Amelia did either!

It was good to be a God of Undeath!

...

It was bad to be Lucian.

Ribs cracked, abs crushed, the former model picked up his pool cue once more, ready to take a hefty swing at the dragon. But the nature of luck was that what went up must go down, and while in most cases, misfortune would rebound upon someone else, in this case?

Half-stumbling, half-charging, half-swinging, his foot slipped upon the pool balls he had scattered just four minutes prior and Lucian found himself face-down, ass-up. Thankfully free from concussions owing to the hardiness of his face, he nevertheless cut a sad image, one that was of no use to Vera and no harm to the dragon.

But Vera herself had found her tempo now. The world was pulling away from her as she continued to prioritize, continued to categorize. The fire alarm turned mute. The civilians were mere shadows. Celeste was a concern for another time. Edward's gloating earned no thoughts. All there was was her sword and the dragon, the prototypical tale of heroes and the monsters they had to slay. Everything else, after all, was just a backdrop.

Spectral sparks scattered from the deflectional parry of her longsword, bone chipping as the blade guided it away. With the momentum of that movement, the swordswoman transitioned into a cut that aimed to behead the beast while its head was extended. It sliced into the dragon's upper jaw instead, shorning off what ought to have been its nose before digging into its lower teeth. If the beast had been alive, there would be hot blood, roars of pain.

But it was just bones, animated and possessed with fury.

It drew its jaw back, more teeth shattering as it pinned Vera's blade inside what remained of its mouth. It would not be something she could free easily. Not be something she could free on time.

For within its ribcage, spectral flames coiled once more, rushing up the channel of its neckbones and bursting out the gaps of its ruined face! It was a shotgun blast, rendered in a blaze, and if Vera did not defend, she would be sent flying back, perhaps suffering the same fate that Lucian had just extricated himself from.

But if she did not defend, she could attack.