"L-Let go of me, you freak!"
"You can call me by my name, you know?! You'll soon be dead, and then, as the tall lady said, we'll be allies forever, and ever!" Benerib laughed like a maniac before falling completely silent, it would appear that even death could do little for those with maniacal tendencies, they just seemed to keep their strong personality, despite somehow seeming to never become negators.
"I don't even know your name!" countered the Ersta'sol, who was currently in a most unfortunate position, with a crazy woman on top of him, that he was somehow failing to push away despite the fact that she clearly was lightweight compared to him, the amount of sanguine vapour she was emitting was simply incredible, well above what the average Ersta'sol usually possessed, and she was radiating it right at him, weakening his prime vapour and preventing him from manifesting any solar spell to help him out of this situation.
"Did I not introduce myself? Silly me! Or perhaps you forgot? Well, no matter, I'll forgive you! My name is Benerib, I am an arm-bearer of Sanguine Undeviginti and a new member of the empire, I suppose!"
"Now stop resisting… I am saving you!"
"Damn you, woman… I will not be felled by a foul heretic-" he tried to push his arm against her neck to leverage the sanguine worshipper off, but before the Ersta'sol could even try, she bit down on his wrist, pristine white teeth sinking directly into the veins and rupturing them.
Shaking her head like a predator that has just caught its prey, tearing a lump of flesh apart and then pinning the other arm down as the one she took a bite out of went mostly limp.
She had a strange reaction, and before the terror-filled eyes of the Ersta'sol, the piece of flesh she bit off was quickly drained of all the blood it contained, turning completely dry before she spat it out to the side, licking her lips and teeth.
"...You taste pretty good…"
Screams filled the solar temple, but quickly enough it all died down, as instead the sound of someone tapping their feet accompanied by a muffled yell replaced it, though few of the people within the temple could even hear the new sounds.
One of those who could hear it was the young arm-bearer, he had quickly departed when the battle started, and eventually ran into a group of allies that had grouped-up together, arm-bearers, Ersta'las and mundane warriors alike, they managed to a rather good fighting force despite the great amount of casualties and enemies that were apparently still roaming around.
The boy had gotten incredible lucky it seemed, having somehow not ran across any of the other that were still seeking for defenders to slay, if they weren't mistaken and had not missed any, the city was currently being prowled by one of the mysterious warriors, whose strength was uncertain, but possessed the ability to manifest and wield sand that was a similar colouration as that which covered the desert when Prime Undeviginti ruled the skies.
There was also a group of reviled worshippers that was patrolling the outside of the solar temple, and lastly, there was one other enemy inside of the temple at this very moment, a strange entity.
The attack had also included a plethora of familiar beasts as corpses, only that they had lacked any signs of being controlled via sanguine vapour, but most concerningly, the creature inside was not one anyone here could recognise, being described a sort of vaguely humanoid beast with a hound-like face, skeletal but covered in some sort of stretch-out, dried skin.
It sounded simply awful and no one was feeling like facing this thing, especially since it seemed to be capable of smelling them out, rendering any hope of a surprise attack null…
Still, the youth knew that they would have to eliminate every enemy for a chance at victory, or at least force them to retreat, so he left the baby in the care of the group, and went back to where he had seen the Ersta'sol, with such a refined figure heading the group, they just might be able to accomplish something, especially now that many of the attacking forces were stuck under the tyranny of Cleansing Undeviginti's light.
When he got there however… He was met with a sight he could not have expected, a sight he could not quite put into words at first, a sight that made him froze in place, not a single noise escaping him as he stared in pure horror, and even then, what he believed to be seeing was far from the truth, for the truth was even worse…
The boy went through the kitchen, and past walked through the leaf curtain that had been destroyed as the two combatants had gone off into the hallway, he looked left first and saw nothing but a bit of destruction, the ceiling having lost of piece of sandstone, hearing a strange, continuous noise, like that of someone loudly slurping their drink, and then, he looked right, he saw it.
And it was then that he realised what the noise actually was, from his perspective, he was seeing the heretic on top of the Ersta'sol, bearing her weight on him as she held onto his head with both hands, her face pressed up against his.
Although the boy might not be that old, he definitely knew what this looked like, but how in damnation could the situation have turned from a fight to the death to… This? It did not make sense.
But it did not take long for more details to become evident to the young arm-bearer once he stopped focusing on what she was doing to the Ersta'sol, the man's hands were pinned to the ground by some sort of white spikes, his feet and legs were weakling tapping and dragging against the ground, as though he was slowly losing strength.
His muffled voice was frantically yelling something that could not be properly understood, then at last, the heretic rose up, revealing that she had not, in fact, been doing what the boy initially assumed, or rather, she was doing it in what was probably the worst possible way.
Most of the flesh around the Ersta'sol mouth was missing, his teeth were also gone, having presumably been ground into dust by the heretic's own teeth, his lower jaw had been dislocated and was hanging slack.
Benerib took some time to get rid of all the blood on her face, licking her fingers before turning toward the young arm-bearer.
"Great, another blood sack… Ever kissed a girl? If not, today's your lucky day"
She rose up and walked a few steps, the boy frozen in fear, his eyes diverted to the side, noticing that somehow, the Ersta'sol was still conscious and was looking at him, a small sound escaping his broken mouth.
It could not be understood, yet the boy definitely did get the message.
And as his last action, the Ersta'sol managed to manifest his prime vapour, forming a wall in between the boy and heretic.
Benerib did not seem bothered, watching the retreating figure passively.
'I know your scent now…'