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225 - Seclusion Training: Fang Ripper [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-05-04 19:33:15 +0000 UTCHer efforts in supplanting swordlight had also progressed to a point she was satisfied with. She had started with manipulating individual Fangs into projectile forms by causing their sawteeth to straighten out and grow to a spearlike length. Then, she would spin the resultant Fang Spear, bringing it to a white-hot glow before throwing it with a whipping motion. The False Fang Spear embedded so deeply into the ice that she just left it to disintegrate rather than try to call it back, gouts of steam erupting from the wound for a short while afterwards. The thunderous crack of its breaking the sound-speed barrier was no longer a jarring noise, but merely the satisfying sign that she had successfully combined the benefits of Fulgarrow and Thunderclap Sting in a repeatable format. She couldn't help but feel pride when she brought out all the blades she had accrued for use with Fulgarrow and compared them to a False Fang Spear, finding that its properties completely overshadowed every single real, well-forged blade she had, even the Dragon Knight ones.
The Fang Spear was ideal as a direct armor-penetrating attack, and one that could be used with her braids at that. The effort to result ratio wasn't just good, it was great. Sure, it was no Bloodstar Impact, but she wasn't entirely sure where to even begin breaking that down into a normal technique due to all the different factors that enabled its use. Reproducing a normal version of it, of course, was far more plausible.
It was, however, not a true replacement for swordlight. No, that came from the combination of three Fangs into the shape of a buzzsaw. Even while split from the main body, individual Fangs still benefitted from their usual properties, their sawteeth oscillating and violent arcs leaping between them. Two were not quite enough, with the arcs struggling to clear a 180° gap, while using four or five started to give diminishing returns. Thus, she settled on a three-Fang composition as a baseline, and five for when the additional power was truly needed.
First, a version using False Fangs.
Formation; the growth of False Fangs between True Fangs.
Joining; removal of False Fangs from the main body and their conjoining into a buzzsaw.
Spin-up; infusion of Fulgur to empower the chakram. Arcs formed between individual teeth and magnetic fields spun it up to thousands of revolutions of minute, combined with Zelsys physically spinning the whole thing like one would a sling.
Launch; the whipping motion to actually launch it and optional severing of the arcline if the projectile was to reach further than roughly 15m, or for any of a myriad other reasons.
Such was the process, and the result was a screaming glaive that could casually tear holes into glacierglass. Naming it was as simple as observing it in action.
BUTCHERING ARTS: FANG RIPPER
She sicced it upon a target pillar instead of just the wall, and found that even as a fire-and-forget option, the Fang Ripper had the curious property of hungrily sticking to a target, revolving around its perimeter until its energy ran out or the target fell to pieces. Already, ideas of dismembering giant beasts by setting two or three Fang Rippers on one limb swirled through her head.ř
Despite producing a far flashier result, the nascent technique ate up less Fulgur and Metallum than the old Flying Thundersaw.
The reason was twofold:
Firstly, Carnifex Fulguris was orders of magnitude more powerful as an amplifier than the Lightning Butcher had ever been. It didn't just offer up far less resistance to any Fulgur or Metallum she poured into it; there was no resistance. It greedily drank up what it was given, only to turn around and spit out three or fourfold the expected result.
Secondly, Carnifex was designed from the first to produce False Fangs. It was as natural a part of the blade's function as splitting into segments and rejoining. The old Butcher's enchantments had to be finagled into letting the back edge split off and to then grow a new one.
The technique wasn't just a ranged attack; she could remotely control the projectiles to a degree and re-establishing an arcline connection was downright trivial. If she so wished, she could even join the arcline of a Fang Ripper to Carnifex's handle and insodoing transform Carnifex into an entirely different weapon; a sickle-and-chain of sorts. She didn't see herself using this option particularly often, but it only served to demonstrate the staggering versatility of its design.
Next came the version using True Fangs, and its downright brutal cutting power only made Zelsys feel all the better for choosing to develop this option. With the need to create the projectile removed, the True Fang Ripper would be as readily accessible in a split-second situation as any other of her more involved physical attacks. When formed into a Ripper, any constituent True Fangs subtly shifted in shape to match one another, without even requiring the overt command to do so.
The tactical value of the technique couldn't be understated.
False Fangs still made for strong rippers, and were visually indistinguishable from True Fangs. The real trick came in with the fact she could form a saw from True Fangs and use their supreme properties to imbue them with a hidden payload, using False Fangs as a diversion.
Despite her single-minded goal, Zelsys had by no means tunnel-visioned on the solitary purpose of creating a swordlight analogue of greater sophistication than the Thundersaw. The absence of a continuous "saw" surface on Carnifex's back edge and the blade's inherent properties made the Thundersaw obsolete to begin with. It could produce Thundersaw-like effects without the need for a special technique.
On the whole, her grasp of Carnifex had grown by leaps and bounds. This was not the realm of untrodden ground and murky waters, after all, but one of dialing in what she already knew to make it fit Carnifex as best as possible, and then building ontop of that pre-existing foundation.
It was this training that had reinforced what Zelsys already knew to be the nature of her own cultivation. No great breakthrough came without a monumental foundation, and in the same way, she built upon everything she already had, everything she already knew. There could be no innovation without looking back at what was already known, and merely by re-applying old knowledge in new ways and combinations, the paradigm could be made to shift.
The fundamentals of saw-cleaver combat and basics of weaponizing Fulgur.
The full involvement of the whole body in every strike, leading up to Thunderclap Sting.
The Flying Thundersaw, a technique born of mere fancy, previously good only for chaff-chearing.
Fulgarrow as a compensatory method of sustained ranged combat to make up for a crippled melee range.
Advanced lightning control culminating in arcline, both allowing Thundergods to take proper form and allowing Carnifex Fulguris to exist in the first place. After all, the segmented design had been born from an application of Arcline to temporarily return range to the Broken Butcher.
Even her experience using the torn-off mandibles of locust-men would be applicable when she would form a Five True Fang Ripper, and thus would need to shorten Carnifex down to just the Root and Crown Fangs.
