The Ersta'sol had originally been forced to fight against a group of organised enemies headed by a particularly annoying individual, a sort of monstrosity, that had the body of a man, yet possessed the head of a hound with awfully sharp teeth, wielding a sort of polearm the man was not familiar with, he had constantly pressured him and preventing any attempt at doing anything else than defend against its attacks.
This had eventually pushed the Ersta'sol outside of the city, where he was surrounded by archers and strange users of foul witchcraft, still unable to do anything about them as the dog-headed abomination would severely punish even the slightest of mistakes, the arrival of Cleansing Undeviginti had put a pause to all of this.
He used this occasion to motionlessly manipulated vapour into pushing a piece of broken sandstone over to him, doing so at such a slow pace that it had seemed like an eternity, but he had no other choice lest the fragmented sandstone was reduced to nothingness, controlling an inanimate object and getting it to follow the right amount of slowness for the radiant one to not deem it to be moving too quickly was much simpler than it was to adjust one's own body movements, mere twitch, if too swift, could get one reduced to ashes.
Using that piece of sandstone to create a shadow, he had successfully managed to extract himself from the tyranny of the cleansing one and gotten back to the solar temple, where he had the displeasure of finding a most foul heretic making a mess out of the provisions stocked in the kitchens.
Although bloody and battered, as a worshippers of Prime Undeviginti, he had already healed his wounds, and met the arm-bearer head-on, evading the rapid slashes as she summoned her twin sickles, deflecting one attack by striking at her forearm, he fired vapour bullets at a near-touching distance, but just let herself be carried by the momentum to evade them, throwing one sickle, which he parried by manifest a blade upon his hand.
'A woman with two sickles made out of pure sanguine vapour and wearing a mask… That one is relatively famous, I was told that she was an arm-bearer, but that level of control and skill definitely qualify her to be an Ersta'la…' he closed to the distance and landed a heavy kick right to her chest, launching the woman into a wall, which did not seem to bother her much as she didn't even seemed dazed.
She rushed back at him, her body shrouded in pale red vapour, he did the same with is bright vapour, and dodged the first strike aimed at his face, twisting his body to the side as she kicked at him, a red blade extending from the sole, he grabbed her ankles, hands imbued with much vapour, attempting to twist the bone and flesh altogether.
Benerib made a weird noise and focused onto her heel, manifesting a scythe-like blade wider than a person, the tip failed to reach her opponent as he spun around without delay and threw her at the ceiling, hitting the sandstone hard before falling right back off alongside crumbling debris and dust.
The heretic coughed and waved one hand in front of her face, she wasn't coughing any blood, so she presumed that internal damage had been avoided so far, or at least, the extent of the damage wasn't enough to worry about for now.
Rising up, she cracked her neck and ground her sickles against one another, she just needed to land one good hit, if she could strike a major artery, sever a limb, or perhaps reap on of his eyes, she felt confident that the pace of this fight would considerably shift in her favour.
"I can just feel your mad thoughts… You can cease thinking, I was not expecting the infamous masked heretic to be so weak- Just stand still and allow me to put you to rest" the Ersta'sol was calmly walking toward her, his hand and fingers stretched out as vapour gathered around it, forming a blade.
"Kehkihahah! Weak? You call me weak? You? You?! You would dare? When the vapour you manifest is see-through?! You are a sham! What qualifications do you have to be an Ersta'sol?! You can't even make your vapour tangible! You can't even separate your vapour from yourself! See?! My sickles aren't linked to me, look how you can't see what's behind them!"
"Ignorant fool! What is the point of being able to wield vapour without a decorated tool if it's to produce such garbage?! I may be weaker than you in might, but your faith is feeble! When was the last time you prayed to your Undeviginti?! When was the last time you praised your Undeviginti for something good happening?! A long time, wasn't it? You attribute all your successes to yourself! Egotist! Self-seeker! You are the real heretic here! A damned poser! A sham! A fraud!"
"You should kill yourself, slit yout wrists right this instant! How dare filth like you believe itself superior to me?!"
"What… You damned lunatic…"
"I don't hear you denying anything, is that acceptance of guilt? Or do you have no lies prepared to counterfeit a false truth?"
"I was not told that the masked heretic was prone to throw hissy fits of rage at the slightest of insults"
"Heeh?" Benerib laughed like a demented little schoolgirl "How would you react if the turd you just shat out tried to speak down to you? Revolting, wouldn't it be? I see confusion on your face! Do I need to explain what the turd is supposed to represent?!"
The two combatants just stared right at one another without moving a centimeter, the Ersta'sol was genuinely disturbed by what had just happened, never had he been faced with a genuinely unstable person before, and it was seriously giving him the creeps.
"Aah… All the anger I had accumulated… I was bottling it up for future use, you know? And look at what you've done! You can't go around and talk down to other people , they could take it badly- Good thing it was me though, I know how to keep my cool" partway through her sentence, her tone fell back to a neutral one, as though getting mad had depleted her emotional batteries.
"...I'll end you swiftly, so don't make it any harder than it needs to be" he resumed his march forward, and Benerib just surged forward like some sort of beast, lowering her body close to the ground, her sickles like those of a praying mantis as she targeted his feet and ankles.
Rising up, her weapon cut into the man's chest, but without flinching, he grabbed her wrist with one hand, and plunged the other right through her chest.
"Hopefully, you'll be purified wherever it is that you're going"
Blood flowed in abundance.