The giant bone-lotus had fashioned itself out of the ribs of a most titanic beast, and made itself capable of moving by taking the limbs of a great variety of remains, creating the impression of thousands of unknown creatures crawling around the base of the lotus and onto one another, but in the heart of this abominable, restless flower, there was a humanoid torso, bearing two arms, each ending in hands with five fingers each.
And atop it all, a head that looked just like that of a regular human, only that instead of a jaw and nasal cavity, there was only smooth bones, its eyes peered around as the legless upper-body seemed to freely swim through the bone plain that was the inner portion of the lotus.
Massive spheres of soul energy would coalesce at the very tip of the ribs periodically, some would be launched as is, creating dreadful explosion that rendered all caught within to nothingness, or they would pop and send a rain of smaller projectiles that were less likely to kill someone caught in the area they landed in, but could be much harder to see coming.
All in all, the bone-lotus was simultaneously a humanoid restless, a chimaeric abomination and giant, its special ability was simple as well, fitting for the flower theme, as it simply absorbed the soul energy carried along with the rays of the soul sun and directed it form simple attacks, unlike Xator who had much freedom in manipulating energy, the lotus could only do two things with it, but considering the amount of destruction that it had caused on its own, that wasn't of much importance.
Many warriors had attempted to attack all at once, but having no fear of its own fire power, the lotus had merely fired directed next, and upon itself to clear the way, leading to no one in the immediate vicinity to be around to distract its attention, focusing on firing toward the elites to aid the three generals in their endeavours.
None of them seemed that they would emerge victorious any time soon, but Xaros in particular was struggling fairly heavily, which just seemed odd at a glance for the lotus, he was the biggest of the three generals and was fighting against the smallest of the elite, how could he be having so much trouble?
But although not quite understanding of the finer details, the lotus did understand that the currently four-armed general was trying to bring the redheaded elite toward its position, but there was no need, closing up its ribs, channeled a big portion of the stocked-up energy it had available to form a sphere of soul energy at the tip of every single one of them, but naturally, their current proximity led to the concentration of one, big sphere that it launched directly at the elite pursuing Xaros.
Which caused both the living and restless to wonder if the lotus had really thought this true, unlike Xator who had enough fine control to avoid friendly fire, and Xaltar who knew how to make his flames not inflict damage upon other restless, the giant flower of bone could do no such thing, meaning that an ally could easily be vaporised if they were caught into such an attack.
Much to Xaros's surprise however, the living's expression of worry was swift to turn into one of sharp annoyance as she stopped in her track and raised her bronze dagger up.
"Mourn!" she said once more, and the blade formed a mouth to cry again, causing the massive ball of soul energy to shudder and come apart, all of the energy turning docile and flowing into the air.
'She said it again?' the restless didn't bother to appreciate the sheer power her second step had to be capable of completely nullifying such an attack in a mere moment, as he instead finally realised what her weakness was.
He leapt up onto a nearby building, and shouted toward the bone-lotus.
"Xarina! Do it again!" the ribs flexed back and forth to signify understanding.
"Little bastard…" Aliata narrowed her eyes at him, understanding that he knew now.
The way her steps functioned was indeed quite different from the norm, her first step 'cry' was simple enough, it granted her dagger the ability to disrupt the soul energy of whatever she hit, but her second step was completely different.
Firstly, she could activate it directly without any problem, as the moniker implied, it would normally be best to walk the first step before going to the second lest you fell and ate dirt- Secondly, her second step wasn't actually something that persevered, only the enhancements would stay, but its ability was used once after activated, and she would need to do it again and re-expend energy to use it again.
And with how much it cost, she generally preferred to only use it once or twice, a third time was fine, but a fourth was pushing it, and a fifth would definitely leave her on the ground, and even then, it wouldn't be certain that it would work.
Aliata wasn't certain what to do, if she went straight for the giant restless, Xaros would be free to move away and go support of of his fellows, but if she rushed him down instead, then she would just allow herself to be targeted by that enormous sphere of energy again, which she doubted could be effectively dodged considered the sort of radius in which it would destroy everything.
But then again, she couldn't allow herself to let it fall elsewhere, that would kill countless.
'Well, I guess I don't have a choice'
Xaros had been in the range of her second step just now, so his energy was not going to be available for a little while again, her best bet was to rush him down, destroy him and perhaps use mourn a third time, and then rush for the rib-flower before another sphere could be manifested.
A wave of intense heat radiated over the whole city from where Alistel and Irlanx Xacobus were fighting, this reminded of her leader's presence invigorated the elite, who shot right toward the restless ducking underneat his right arm, all alone on this side currently, and kicked at him.
One of his hands brushed past her face, and nearly tore into it as she took much more risks to get close, which ultimately paid off as her dagger claimed the lowest of his three left arms, moving underneath the other two, slashing at his femur.
Twisting around, he nearly landed a kick that forced the living into an unfavourable position, leaving her exposed to be struck across the face by a punch, which instantly drew blood and tainted her white teeth red, Aliata ignored the dizziness and reaped another arm.
Bringing him to the exact same number as she did, right as the second sphere was launched.