"That hurts… This hurts a whole lot, you know?!" Benerib spat blood on the inside of her mask, grabbing the arm piercing right through her body with strength unbefitting of a dying woman.
"No point in struggling any longer that necessary, you are merely extending your own suffering, do not turn yourself in a corpse-puppet, this will accomplish nothing" the Ersta'sol remained calm, at this distance, he was able to see her eyes, he could not quite distinguish their colour, but they were contorted into something that was not shock or weakness, instead, they were crescent, like the heretic was overjoyed about something.
"Kehahahah! Extending my own suffering? Funny that you would say that, the corpses would say the exact same thing!" pushing herself away, she stumbled back with a gaping hole right where her heart should be, still, she somehow managed to remain standing, albeit in a most abnormal fashion as it was like only her legs still had strength whilst everything else was already dead.
"You still don't realise? I guess I'll demonstrate for you…" something slipped out from her sleeves, a sleek, black needle of sort that seemed to simultaneously absorb and repel light, before the Ersta'sol could wonder what this object was, Benerib stabbed it into her throat, something changing in the air, as though something had just been pulled right into her from all around.
He backed off instinctively as the sound of breaking bones and flesh being torn apart resounded throughout the wide hall, it lasted only for a few mere seconds, followed by the heretic straightening her back, the hole in her chest still present, only that it no longer bled, the grievous injury seemed to have simply stopped behaving as it should, it did not appear dried, it simply seemed still, as though it had not stopped bleeding because she had healed, but rather because she no longer had any blood to lose.
She looked around and down at herself for a few moments, moving her hands and fingers like it was the first time ever.
The black needle shattered into pieces and emitted a strange dark fog that quickly disappeared, leaving only Benerib, whose gaze soon turned to the Ersta'sol, who recoiled in horror as he found to, completely red eyes staring right at him, the shade of them seemed to shift for a few seconds, until it finally settled onto the same pale red as that of Sanguine Undeviginti.
"What did you do?" he asked, not certain if she attacked right now, or just retreat, having no clue what had just happened or what it could possibly mean as to how this fight was now going to go.
"Oh… To think that it was true… This feels right…" she brought one hand up to her chest and channelled sanguine vapour, fixing the hole and the robes alongside it, making a most bizarre noise once it was done.
"Random Ersta'sol! Behold! My body was recreated through death, and has adapted to sanguine vapour! I was reborn! I was blessed! The chains that bound me have come undone! I am now an undead, an Ellaquecorta undead! I can feel it!" she threw her arms up in the air.
"Praise the sun! I have ascended closer to Sanguine Undeviginti!" she sounded so genuinely happy that it was off putting, it felt like that if she was attacked right now, that it would trigger something that he definitely did not want to deal with.
Benerib took off her mask and carefully, gently put it down on the ground, revealing her abnormally pale face compared to the rest of her body, which no longer looked strictly human, her eyes were only red now, no difference between the sclera, pupil and iris, it was all the exact same shade of red, one could only tell that those three separate parts still existed as faint movements could be made out.
That was already a disturbing sight, but then, she did something worse, opening her mouth, only for two of her lower teeth to begin growing in size, shaping themselves into a familiar shape, grabbing the two enlarged teeth, she pulled them right out with the slight sound of something cracking, now holding two sickles like before, one in each hand as the removed teeth were back in the blink of an eye.
The young undead then erupted with pale red vapour.
'This isn't stocked up vapour… She can actually control it without her decorated object!' he wanted to call her a monstrosity, an abomination, but the simple fact that her connection to her patron sun had grown as a result of this transformation was a sign of divine favour instead.
'How?! How could this be? It must be because of Sanguine Undeviginti's obsession with corpse puppets, it must be it! Right… This must be the heretical sun's equivalent to Watchful Undeviginti's hunters… That's the best explanation…' his mind in turmoil, he almost missed Benerib pouncing at him from across the hallway, kicking off the ground with strength so great that she unintentionally blasted off a part of the floor.
In her excitement, she used the vapour to enhance herself to the maximum, which was much higher than before, but had not accounted for the fact that her body was now naturally operating at one hundred percent of its capacities at all times, on top of the fact that her transformation into an undead had not been a straightforward one, this was not merely her corpse, she had gone through a change.
She wasn't a simple zombie or skeleton, Benerib had become something original, although she could not know that just yet.
The Ersta'sol hastily fired a hail of bullets at the undead, who was feeling simply invincible right now, with the weakness of life stripped away, everything seemed clear, every solar spell thrown at her seemed many times slower than they used to be.
In truth, despite the transformation, she had not become that much stronger in an instant, this was all merely the effects of the boons all undeads possessed, Benerib turned out to be exceptionally compatible with the needle, the turn from life to death had been swift and without delay.
Her senses were now linked together by synesthesia, and every bit of information was processed rapidly as though her focus was strained to the maximum every single instant without any sign of fatigue creeping in.
Thanks to this, every bullet was perfectly visualised, their trajectory, any change in the vapour making them up, she could see them even if they were outside of her line of sight, it was all so obvious to the heretic now, that she wondered how it could be that she had ever struggled with this in the first place.
The Ersta'sol was soon tackled to the ground…