He initiated his onslaught. Sweeping arcs, lightning thrusts, cleaving blows -- every conceivable halberd technique flowed from him with the deadly, ingrained artistry of a seasoned butcher. The Monster Slayer danced on a razor's edge, evading his relentless assault, able to launch a riposte only in those slivers of a moment when he transitioned between savage forms of attack. (I must seize control of this exchange,) Irene thought. Exploiting her superior agility, she closed distance with Wenloff Friez once more, unleashing the dazzling Swallow Dance. He anticipated her strategy, gripping his polearm near the head to intercept her blinding flurry of strikes. (His right arm is the target.)Her attacks combined both devastating speed and formidable power. Having deftly turned aside one of his brutal sweeps, Irene rose onto the balls of her feet, her silver sword transitioning smoothly into the Ochs, the classic ox-guard. (Lance Dance.) With explosive force, she drove her blade into the vulnerable gap in Wenloff Friez's right arm armor—the distinctive sensation and sound confirmed her silver sword had penetrated mail to strike bone.
She couldn't be certain whether Wenloff Friez's guttural sound was truly a groan, but the impact had unquestionably affected him. Irene committed her body weight forward, forcing the silver blade deeper into the wound. Yet she quickly recognized her critical error—she wasn't combating a mindless Drowned Ghoul, but a thinking opponent with a weapon still in hand. (A mistake.) The deeper her sword penetrated, the more difficult extraction became. She planted her feet in a solid horse stance, struggling to wrench her blade free from flesh and bone. But she was a fraction of a second too slow. A bone-jarring impact slammed into her left ribs, and the world exploded in a kaleidoscope of pain as she and her sword were sent cartwheeling through the air.
Blood erupted from Wenloff's right shoulder in a crimson fountain. He merely frowned slightly, turning his head to curiously sniff his own spilled lifeblood. The Monster Slayer lay stunned upon the ground, each breath an agonizing labor. She offered silent gratitude to the gods that his strike had been delivered with the flat of the halberd rather than its cutting edge. Wenloff Friez hefted his weapon and advanced toward his fallen prey with predatory deliberation. The tremor of his heavy footfalls through the packed earth reached her even before the sound; Irene reacted instantly, rolling to her feet and snatching up her silver sword in one desperate, fluid movement.
It all happened in a blur of motion. Wenloff Friez closed the distance with a single, earth-shattering stride, his polearm already arcing upwards from its earth-gouging repose. The Monster Slayer gripped her sword with both hands, channeling her body's rotational momentum into the devastating Farmer Dance. (Sever it,) she commanded herself, her azure eyes locked upon the halberd's wooden shaft. (Cleave it in two.)
Whether she misjudged the distance or Wenloff altered his attack mid-swing remained unknowable. Her silver sword connected not with the wooden haft as intended, but against the massive iron head of the polearm. The catastrophic impact sent shockwaves reverberating through her arms, and Irene instantly comprehended the outcome without needing visual confirmation. The blade of her prized silver sword had snapped off completely, soaring more than seven meters skyward. Her sole consolation lay in observing that Wenloff's formidable halberd had suffered similar damage—its wooden shaft splintering precisely where it joined the metal head.
Her mind struggled to catalog her remaining armaments. In that critical moment, ordered thought proved elusive. (The dagger—I think I still have it,) she thought frantically, hands fumbling at her belt. (Father's parting gift.)
Before her fingers could locate the precious heirloom bequeathed by her father the earl, Wenloff Friez crashed into her with his full weight, driving her brutally to the ground. He straddled her prone form, his right hand crushing her slender throat with methodical pressure. "You have lost," he rasped, ripping off his snarling hound-helm and thrusting his bare, brutal face inches from hers. "You have lost everything, woman," he savored the words. "Your dignity, your futile hope, your very life. You," his grip tightened, a cruel pressure on her throat, "will die here, drowning in despair, just as all those other defiant bitches did in our pits. Your kind never learns. You never win your freedom, nor glean any wisdom from the abyss. But take some small comfort in this -- you will not be made into a 'Girl on a Lance.' No, your head I shall claim for myself, a lovely, silent companion. I will treasure it dearly… even if its pretty mouth proves too small to accommodate all of me." Wenloff calibrated his grip with practiced precision, ensuring she remained conscious for his degradation. With his left hand, he drew his broadsword from its scabbard. Gauner, the long-haired Friez, let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, his gaze fixed upon the obscene tableau before him -- Wenloff astride the Monster Slayer like a rutting beast -- a knot of complex, contradictory emotions tightening in his gut. His thoughts traversed familiar territory—in some deeply buried corner of his soul, he had occasionally harbored silent hopes that the Monster Slayer might somehow end his master's tyranny.
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Wenloff compressed his substantial weight against Irene's body, acutely aware of each labored breath she drew. "You exhibit no fear," he observed with genuine bewilderment—the second such instance that day. In her crystalline blue eyes, he discerned something profoundly different from the countless dying women he had watched expire in the arena—only tranquil contempt and cold disgust. "This indicates you have not yet experienced true despair."
"We Monster Slayers remain unfamiliar with that particular emotion," she rasped, her voice sandpaper-rough from his constriction. He marginally relaxed his grip, permitting her continued speech. "Whether confronting bloodflies a fraction of my size, or a towering giant ghoul capable of ending my existence with a casual swipe, fear has never claimed me. From the moment I assumed the mantle of Monster Slayer, my life became the sole property of the twin blades upon my back..." Her voice diminished to a whisper, prompting Wenloff to reassert his crushing grip. "Oxygen deprivation invariably induces desperation," he grinned, revealing irregular yellowed teeth as saliva dripped onto her face. "Only the truly desperate speak unvarnished truth, rather than reciting grandiose heroic declarations."
Wenloff Friez experienced a peculiar sensation. He had committed his absolute maximum strength to her strangulation—of this, he harbored no doubt whatsoever. Her slender column of a neck should have snapped like a dry twig beneath his onslaught; he could pulp a sapling of similar thickness with one hand. Yet the Monster Slayer's eyes remained fixed upon his with unnerving serenity, her breathing labored but rhythmic. As he attempted to intensify his grip, the disturbing truth crystallized—while he was indeed exerting his utmost strength, his own physical capacity was deteriorating with alarming rapidity.
Within half a minute, Wenloff's hands began involuntarily relaxing—despite his mental insistence that he maintained a death grip upon her throat. The weakness spread methodically from his fingers to his arms, eventually suffusing his entire musculature. A bizarre alternating pattern of limpness and rigid paralysis overtook him, almost comical in its unpredictability. The Monster Slayer leveraged this opportunity to raise herself upright, planted her palm squarely against his chest, and propelled him sideways with unexpected strength.
Gauner swallowed audibly, his throat suddenly desert-dry.
"What… what devilry is this?" Friez slurred, the paralysis creeping into his jaw, making his speech a distorted mummery. "Your… your blade…"
He fixed her with an unwavering stare of hatred. "Sword oil," Irene explained, clearing her throat before expectorating contemptuously. "Two nights past, while journeying toward Kadenford, I encountered several ghouls within the forest. I engaged them in combat—specific details elude my recollection. Judging by your current symptoms," she suppressed an involuntary laugh, "the causative agent must be residual blade oil coating my silver sword—in my inebriated state after dispatching those creatures, I evidently neglected proper weapon maintenance. Simple oversight." Wenloff Friez's increasingly rigid fingers scraped futilely at the earthen surface beneath him. "That particular oil is a concoction of mandrake root, thornapple blossoms, and the juices of the pietrogan herb. In principle, pietrogan is a neutralizer; against creatures not born of magic, the oil should have little to no effect. And yet..." She narrowed her eyes, a thoughtful, almost clinical expression as she studied the steel-clad giant now writhing and twitching on the ground. "It would appear, in your case, it remains devastatingly effective only against… true monsters."
Wenloff Friez's face was a mask of tallowy, death-like pallor, his eyes glazing over with the dull, vacant opacity of a week-dead fish left to rot in the sun. Fury, humiliation, and fundamental disbelief warred within him—the realization that defeat had come not through honorable combat but through some arcane alchemical concoction. Respiratory distress soon followed as paralysis progressed, triggering a primal fear previously unknown to him—not merely of defeat, but of inexorable death. This experience bore no resemblance to his countless previous mortal confrontations—an unbridgeable chasm separated the exhilarating courage of actively facing death and the helpless degradation of passively awaiting its arrival. In this moment, he experienced a profound reversal of perspective, as though inhabiting the consciousness of every beast his younger brother Riveper Friez had mysteriously slain, comprehending with perfect clarity the impotent horror of inevitable demise.
"Curse you, whore..." In extremity, humanity's true nature invariably reveals itself.
Gauner swallowed reflexively. The stark reality dawned—he now constituted the sole surviving Friez representative in the tavern's vicinity. The Monster Slayer coughed repeatedly, pounding her chest to restore normal breathing, while Gauner contemplated opportunistic retreat. He reluctantly hoisted the grotesque Girl on a Lance, silently cursing its unexpected weight. "Departing without formal leave-taking violates the principles of chivalry," Irene observed coolly.
"I claim no kinship with knighthood," Gauner responded, his voice unexpectedly rising to an embarrassing, eunuch-like pitch. "I merely constitute another anonymous Friez. Our activities share no common ground with chivalric ideals." With resigned acceptance, he pulled back on his mount's reins.
"You demonstrate surprising self-awareness," Irene remarked, advancing deliberately toward him. "Though all you Friez possess this quality in abundance. You represent no exceptional case in this regard."
