She knew why he hadn't moved yet. He couldn't. His body could, but his soul wouldn't let him. The presence of the giant Oculus only meters from him, Bishamonten looming not far off, and Victor, somehow, still chanting. All together, Third couldn't exert his aura in any meaningful way, lest it be suppressed or altogether torn away from him.
Each time she struck him, it was her aura against his, her Truth against his, the weight of her existence against his. Zelsys was vividly aware that, under normal circumstances, she would not be able to do what she was doing, and for that reason, she relished it all the more. But here, now, under these circumstances, the resistance Third put up against her was token at best. He was a wretched monstrosity with each limb in a snare, claws torn out, and teeth shattered, yet he still thrashed and writhed in an effort to avoid having his spikes and armored scales torn from his hide.
A part of Zelsys wanted to just continue like this for as long as she needed, but a much larger part of her was aware that she didn't have the stamina to destroy Third's cultivation completely. If she was in her peak state, perhaps, but as she was now, there was no chance.
"The last time I came across an existence as vile as you, I made the mistake of giving him an infinitesimal chance of survival," she spat. "I won't make that mistake again."
She needed to only glance in Bishamonten's direction. Victor's chant changed, and therefore, so did the deity's. It became more rapid, angrier. The avatar gripped the spear-staff with both hands, and, exhaling a huge plume of aura, formed four more floating forearms just to grip it in more places.
It thereafter raised the implement and drove the spearhead down upon the Third Truthseeker.
At first, he resisted. He even managed to stand up, pushing the spearpoint back. Zelsys whipped his legs out from under him and left the blade there, willing it to form a pair of Three True Fang Rippers around his stumps to ensure he couldn't reconnect them. Keeping those two going, at this moment, took every bit of Fulgur she could spare, and it still wasn't enough to keep the bastard's legs from gradually joining back together. She summoned a Thundercharger capsule, cracked it open with her teeth, and swallowed it - glass and all. The pain that flared up her gut and shot through her body told her that wasn't a good idea, but it soon gave way to a reassuring inflow of strength as her body adjusted. It would tide her over. For fifteen seconds, maybe.
Great bursts of Third’s aura raced up the aura-spear’s blade, still trying to corrupt the sanctified implement even as it was forcibly ripped from its master. There was something different, however. While the aura was being purified, it was at a far slower pace than before, and it was gradually spreading up the spear’s length.
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Even now, after all he had weathered, the Third Truthseeker defiantly stood to his feet, his wavering hands snapping into unsettlingly perfect hand signs as he murmured an incantation through the fountain of iridescent blood pouring out of his mouth. His aura, pitiful as it was, flexed, and his blood began to bubble as he burned it in some form of blood magic.
Zelsys glared at him. He grinned with jagged teeth at first, but then fell to his knees as the weight of her aura took effect. The maws of invisible drakes tore him towards the ground, and the foot of an invisible mammoth stepped on his back. Only traces of their forms could be seen in flickers amidst the lingering dust and smoke. Even now, forced into a sort of kowtow, Third forced himself to keep signing and to look up at her, twisting his neck to an unnatural degree.
"Your aura... Lacks the weight of time," he choked out.
Zel flexed her aching soul and twisted Third's own hands into jagged claws with which she tore his throat out. It didn't kill him by far, and his arteries remained intact, glowing with energy as if they were now cables rather than veins. It did, however, stop his hand-signs. In concert with directly exerting her aura on him through eye contact, it sufficed to break his concentration. In an instant, Third’s progress was erased, and the point of Bishamonten’s spear was driven through his chest, severing the right third of his body from the collarbone down to his waist.
With another exertion and a gesture, Zel forced her aura into his left arm, forming it into the exoskeleton for an aura-beast. Its incarnation reshaped its vessel to fit, forcefully rearranging his fingers into a jaw-like form. With popping and cracking, it dislocated his joints and snapped the bones into little pieces, and in moments, what was once an arm resembled a gruesome snake. A second gesture, and Third's mangled left arm grabbed the right just below the shoulder. The fangs of the aura-beast possessing the limb cracked his skin like it was the surface of dried lava, red light showing through. Finally, Zelsys overlaid her own hand over Third's right shoulder, grasping the air. In an agonizingly-long thirty seconds, she forced him to watch as his body pulled at his arm, grinding it against the edge of Bishamonten’s spear until it detached before throwing it into the avatar’s waiting maw.
The moment she released her control, Third's remaining arm popped back into place, bones fusing back together with insulting ease. Perhaps even more insultingly, Third was grinning at her as writhing, crimson worms crawled around his stump, already growing his arm back at a rate that would have the limb wholly restored in less than ten minutes. The gaping hole where his throat had been was also closing up in the same manner. If the spear were removed, his flesh would doubtlessly fuse right back together.
"I'll admit, that hurt," he wheezed. "Not the way you intended it to, but it did. Still, if you mean to play a game of endurance with me, know that I have more than enough vitality to outlast you."