Swoosh. Zoom. Clang.
Eren's labrys clashed with Krista's broadaxe with a loud noise. Eren gripped his weapon and used it as an axis to turn around and meet Lambert's staff with his bare hand covered in water element mana.
As he applied his lightning mana through the water whips sprouting from his hand, Lambert had to distance himself from Eren.
Krista smirked when her weapon was locked with Eren's. She could tell that Eren was trying to use the two rankers as live dummies to test his new spells. His movement spell wasn't optimized. His weapon handling was exceptional. But it didn't gel well with his fighting style. And most importantly, his spell execution was subpar at its finest. As if he had only recently learned to cast them.
The butcher was underestimating the members of the Blood Punished Force. Krista decided to teach him a lesson for that.
Her icy-blue eyes shone brightly as she cast her class-specific spell and altered the weight of her broadaxe. Her posture changed as the practiced weapon handling kicked in. Her hand movements became erratic as she freed her weapon from a deadlock, swung it around herself, generated motion with her mana-based martial arts, and attacked Eren's hand that was holding the weapon.
***
Krista's Ether-sub element allowed her to manipulate the weight of any object around her or herself. She could make the heaviest of weapons featherlight and make the lightest object weigh a ton using her spells.
Krista's expertise lay in how she handled the weight manipulation while handling her weapons. She would keep her weapon light when she was swinging it to attack. And she would only change the weapon's weight when it made contact with her opponent or their weapons for a fraction of a second.
She would change the weight of her weapon as soon as she made contact with the enemy, allowing her to retrieve it as easily as she could.
This battle style allowed her to dominate any opponent when it came to close combat attacks. The butcher had made a huge mistake by getting close to her.
***
Eren suddenly felt that Krista's weapon had drastically changed the weight behind it. Before he knew it, he had his hand cut by the sudden swing of her weapon attack.
The blood started gushing forth from Eren's amputated arm as soon as his hand was cut from the wrist. It sprayed directly onto Krista's clothes and her charming face. She didn't bother to repel it away from her and let it fall over her. A reward for landing the attack successfully.
Krista's face and her body-hugging gray suit were painted red. Even her arm guard and her leg guard were covered in Eren's blood in an instant. It took another fraction of a second for Eren to stop the bleeding by enhancing his mana defense layer.
"Aaaaaargh! Fuuuuuck!"
This was the first time Eren had such a wide chink in his armor. His defense was never this easy to breach. However, Krista's unique weight manipulation element along with his own thirst for experimenting with the newly learned spells had landed him in this trouble.
The butcher was on the receiving end of the injuries he had often inflicted on his opponents. This was the first time he had lost his hand. That too when only a few seconds had passed since the start of the battle.
At this moment, he knew he had fucked up.
However, he quickly snapped out of his victim mentality. This was his own doing. The butcher had already made up his mind to experience injuries when he had decided to experiment with his spells.
Eren's eyes turned red and he gritted his teeth to deal with the pain he was subjected to. He deployed his water-element movement spell and tried to create a safe distance between himself and Krista. He understood her powers as soon as she demonstrated them in front of him.
However, retreating from the trap was not as easy as Eren had initially thought. A strong attraction drew him towards Krista.
Eren's movement spell couldn't get him to safety before the attraction force started acting on him. It pulled him towards the wickedly smiling Krista so fast that he was back at his previous place within a fraction of a second. The distance he had created from Krista was turned to zero by external intervention.
The butcher could tell the attraction force acting on him was not Krista's doing. Krista already had one unique element she was blessed with.
This was Lambert pulling strings to make Eren come back to his previous place. Just like all the members of the Blood Punisher Force, he too had an affinity for a unique element that could only be categorized by the Ether-sub element term.
Lambert was able to create, alter, and use the power of magnetism. He could create the force of attraction or repulsion among several objects or people he came into contact with. The staff he carried could amplify the power of spells he was used to casting, making his spells difficult to counter.
Sedating Gaze!
Eren's eyes turned completely white as he used his Ability to slow down Krista. The butcher took Rigor Mortis out of his storage and charged it with his lightning mana as he approached the elf. She had expressions of disbelief and shock on her face as she watched her broadaxe-holding hand get cut by the butcher's weapon.
Repel!
Eren was about to take a follow-up on his offensive when the magnetic force acted on his body once again. This time, in the opposite direction. He was dragged away from Krista, saving the elf from more of his vengeful attacks.
The elf's facial expression changed in slow motion and her eyes started to turn moist. Too bad, she couldn't cry in pain because Sedating Gaze still acted on her.
The butcher had cut the elf's hand in the same manner as his, by the wrist. He couldn't retrieve her weapon because its weight had been altered. But he managed to take Krista's amputated hand with him.
"A hand for a hand."
Eren smiled graciously and spoke up after he stood at a safe distance away from both the rankers.
