Nyxil's blade pierced the large embalmed's head, yet it did nothing to the creature. The insectoid didn't so much as flinch.

Its longsword swung at her. Too close to properly manoeuvre, she had to abandon her weapon and dodge to the side. The heavy mass of copper missed her, but the embalmed was quick to adjust its swing into a low arc at her legs. Nyxil flipped over it. Her hands touched stone, and she threw herself back towards the creature's head.

One foot in its chest, and another on between its mandibles, she tore her rapier from the narrow gap on the underside of the helmet. There was no time to strike again; the embalmed threw its body forward, trying to shunt its larger mass into Nyxil. She kicked off. Her body flipped through the air and landed with ease.

Not to waste its momentum, the insectoid fell into a charge. As much as it looked like a mindless charge, it was anything but. The beast knew not to give her time and space. Nyxil ignored her Talent's demand to divert the heavy blade and instead relied on her Ossuul to bend her spine and slip past the powerful strike.

She dropped and swung her rapier, letting the arc morph the corrupt blade into a curve. With her speed, Nyxil should have sliced through the lower leg at the joint between copper plates. Well, it would have, if the swordsman hadn't lifted its leg to kick at her.

With barely an instant to react, she slapped her blade upwards, ineffectively striking against the hardened, wax-embedded armour. It didn't hurt the creature, but it twisted her body enough for her back to hit ground and fall under the thick leg that moved air with the force of its kick.

Nyxil rolled once and thrust into an armour gap where the lower spine would be in a human while flicking herself back to her feet and taking distance again.

Backing away, she took account of her situation. Both the head thrust and final jab would have been enough to incapacitate most humans. She'd done it enough against Fleshsmiths. Yet this being didn't show the slightest concern at such disabling hits. Even if it hadn't been an embalmed, it was hard to tell if strikes that should work against humans would work against these alien people. Their biology was simply too unfamiliar.

The insectoid snapped its mandibles as it glowered down on her. It analysed her as much as she did it. While it lacked visible eyes, those antennae twitched with each of her movements; not hard to determine their purpose.

Nyxil bounced on her feet to keep up the rhythm as she looked around the chamber. While she already had a new target to focus, it was hard to imagine it would be enough to kill the creature. Where was its heart? The slaves had remained alive despite the sludge of their innards because their rope-like hearts had remained preserved. The jars had been a distraction, but surely it was hidden somewhere.

Her momentary split attention was lucky; it let her dodge the ricocheted cannon shot that very well might have ended her life there and then. She didn't know who to glare at: the embalmed that intentionally flung the blast her way… or the Worshipper who fired the shot.

She decided on the latter.

Su'Baar trailed an eye her way and shrugged apologetically. He didn't have time for more. The heavy longsword crashed down on him, extracting a yelp from the boy as he ducked behind his micro-tank. The machine skidded a few metres along stone, but remained surprisingly intact.

His name was definitely geared towards protecting his partner.

Her own opponent continued is slow stalk towards her; its blade swaying in a form Nyxil quickly realised allowed for quick movement. Unless she intended to stab the wall and hope its heart was hidden somewhere in there, it was really looking like her only option was to decimate the embalmed's body to the point where it couldn't simply pull itself back together.

For all she knew, the preserved heart could be beneath the pyramid. No point chasing it down.

As her heartbeat, footstep, and the regular rhythm of her hum all synchronised, she exploded forward. There was barely a point between her decision to attack and when she was swinging her blade. In times like this, the years of constant battle really came in handy. Her body just knew when to act.

The warrior embalmed didn't throw any massive, barely controllable swings anymore. It knew that was pointless. Instead, its strikes were precise, and open to immediate alterations. Despite that, her acrobatic leap brought her soaring at its head, well over the blade. Knowing the blade would sweep upwards to meet her, she spun. Her back faced the ground and her knees touched her chin.

If she hadn't had so much practise, she would have been nauseous. With how weak her body used to be, she'd been sick for less. And what an understatement that was.

The insectoid's blade shot up to meet her, but she'd already flipped. As her body flew over its head, both arms struck. Using her hard, chitinous hand, she smacked the side of the blade as her rapier flicked at the creature's antennae.

Nyxil clicked her tongue when the damn appendages slipped back into the narrow slits of its helmet a moment before her blade could bisect them. Her weapons clanged uselessly off metal.

As her body carried over the back of the insectoid, she saw the longsword already pivoting low into a wide swing to catch her before she landed. No matter how flexible Ossuul made her, there would be no dodging that.

She threw her weapon. It was instant. Her body just knew it would work, and she didn't question the instinct.

The narrow tip of the rapier drilled through the tight joints at the back of the creature's gauntlets, driving it into the stone. Nyxil surprised herself. She hardly expected the blade to be so strong without her own hands behind it. Compared to the heavy longsword, it weighed nothing, after all.

A window of opportunity had shown itself, and Nyxil wasn't about to ignore it.

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Her hands reached out and clasped the head of the insectoid before her momentum could carry her away. She jerked. Both legs swung hard into the embalmed's back and she settled herself before taking full advantage of the strongest part of her body.

Nyxil's hands clenched, and the helmet crushed. Wax and ooze spurted from the cracks. Despite the copper armour able to fend off her blade, it held no defence to the crushing force of her fingers. The embalmed's head popped.

The two slits on the helmet's upper side pinched close, forcing the antennae to outside. They twitched. Nyxil pulled her feet up to the creature's shoulders, grabbed two handfuls of antennae, and leapt away. The sensitive organs tore away easily.

As she landed, Nyxil flicked her hands. The scent hit her. It wasn't nearly as bad as the slave embalmed, but these warriors must have still been here for thousands of years. The once-contained decay filled the air with a putrid odour.

A head crushed to nothing more than paste would be enough to kill most creatures. Not an embalmed. The hulking insectoid tore its pinned arm from the ground. Nyxil's blade clattered along stone. Showing no concern for its flattened head, it turned to her.

Nyxil dropped her eyes to her hands. She was still clutching a pair of detached antennae. Without them, was it blind? Time to see. As she stalked forward, she threw the wax coated bits of chitin aside.

Silent, she slunk around to the side. The embalmed twisted; its body followed hers. If not for the defensive stance, Nyxil would have assumed nothing had changed. But it no longer pursued her.

Nyxil threw a stone from the cannon-shattered wall. When it clattered behind the embalmed, it twisted away from her, blade raised as if expecting an attack. Only a second passed before the blade was directed towards her again. Its main sense was definitely gone, but it could still react.

When she bent down to collect her blade, the insectoid finally acted. With its longsword held close to its chest, it approached. Heavy, measured footsteps thumped towards her. Unsure at first, but quickly flowing into a resolute pace.

Even if not completely, her attack had removed a good portion of its sense.

Nyxil tossed another stone and bound forward with light steps. The moment it clattered, she pounced. The embalmed twitched, as if to turn to the distraction, but instead remained facing Nyxil. Its blade didn't share the reaction to her attack from earlier, so her thrust to its leg went unopposed. The longsword still came at her head, but it was almost too easy to dodge.

Her rhythm enhanced strike pierced copper, wax and exoskeleton, but upon pulling her weapon free, no lasting effects were left on the insectoid. If she wanted to finish the creature, she would need to focus on cleaving strikes. Only problem was… those didn't breach its armour.

She twirled around its back and dodged another strike from the decaying swordsman. The precision was gone. It could tell her general direction, but nothing strong enough to get a clean hit.

An idea came to her.

Nyxil pivoted low and swung her rapier back. Her grip locked. There would be no twisting her wrist for this. The unnatural flexibility of Ossuul flowed through her chest and down her arm. Her hips flexed. Twisting, she rolled her body as her blade swung in a wide arc.

There was a crack, like that of a whip. An instant later, a second came; the sound of metal shattering. Breaking through the side guard of insectoid's joint, Nyxil sliced the leg clean off.

Apparently, the unnatural bending of her bones wasn't useful only for dodging.

Another swing and another dodge, the embalmed grew angered. How did she know that when the thing had no head? Well, it tossed its blade and charged her with a ferocity not shown though the entirety of the battle.

Nyxil leapt over one arm only to be nicked by the next and be sent sprawling along the stone.

After striking her, it took a moment to find its leg and press the wax back in place. Once reattached, the insectoid charged her. Where before it had shown a careful precision to its approach, it now forgot that entirely. The heavy ant didn't give her an opportunity to strike.

Scrambling to her feet, she dodged one arm and the next. She bound backwards, but without her wings she couldn't back away fast enough. Stone collided with her back before she realised she'd been cornered. Its dull claws cut her shoulder as she dove between its legs. Her blade swung at the same joint she'd already separated, but her strike wasn't perfect and steel bounced off copper with a twang.

She made it three quick steps before the warrior managed to turn its body, but that was enough to gather herself. The strike before had worked; she just needed to do it again.

Nyxil's eyes followed the raging beast. It knew where she was, and even while charging towards her, its arms snapped like vipers. The insectoid wanted to catch her in its grip; she wasn't inclined to let it.

She waited. As the embalmed was already barrelling towards her at pace, she felt no need to meet it half way. Her heart slowed; analysing the seemingly random cycle of feral claw strikes.

The ancient creature came close, and her arm became a whip.

As a crack rang through the chamber, Nyxil dove beneath the other arm desperate to pin her down. She didn't pay any mind to the severed arm as it flew through the air and struck the opposite wall. Nyxil rose out of her dodge and spiralled another whip-like strike into the creature.

With the second thick arm gone, it was only a matter of repeating her newly-found attack to delimb the insectoid entirely. The semi-living being struggled. Despite the lack of appendages, it still rolled around and tried whatever it could to knock Nyxil down.

Kicking away a squirming leg, she slammed her blade down into the torso of the embalmed. She expected it to be too great an effort to go much further. It would take too long to hack into the heavily armoured torso and split the eternal being to stop it from putting itself together. She still had to catch Lysyra.

Except, when Nyxil pulled her blade free of the thorax, her nose was assaulted by a sickly sweet smell.

Striking three more times, she tore open a section of armour and exposed the insectoid's insides. All of its organs were mush; just like the slaves. What wasn't the same, was the cracked jar resting within the ancient rotten flesh.

…Why did they put the jar back inside?

Nyxil was flabbergasted, but it didn't stop her from poking her blade through the broken pieces of ceramic to find the entirely intact heart. She jabbed it four times just to be sure.

The cut along her shoulder healed in an instant.

She shook her head and turned back to Su'Baar. Instead, she found the second embalmed lunging towards her, a spiderweb of cracks branching out from a dent in its armour.

With a bounce, she kicked off the creature's head and gave herself time to look for the missing Worshipper. It didn't take long. The boy and his machine was already rolling up the stairs to the next level.

Wow. Way to put up a fight.

The fact that he would abandon her wasn't a surprise — she'd expected it — but the boy could have at least given her a warning that she was about to face a second.

Glancing over the embalmed with its bent sword and shattered armour, Nyxil didn't feel like she'd learn nearly as much. She was confident she'd be able to kill it easily now, but it would still take some time. Time she wasn't willing to waste with Lysyra very likely on her way to announce Nyxil's mutations to the world.

Nyxil ran for the stairs. The tall figure lumbered after her, and as she got a good look up where Buddy was rolling, she discovered the tunnel narrowed enough that the embalmed wouldn't be able to follow. It would be so easy to escape.

Instead, she leapt at the thick pillar of stone that almost crushed her earlier, and bound off. Rhythm flowed through her fist, and she punched the head of the insectoid like a gunshot.

It stumbled. Not as much as Nyxil would have liked, but it was still enough. She tossed a rock and knocked the second jar off its pedestal.

The ancient embalmed didn't have the time to react before it was crushed below a dozen tonnes of black stone. Juice — a mixture of rot and preservative — flowed out from the crack.

Nyxil sheathed her rapier and chased Su'Baar.

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