Now that Saber could get a better look at the Lancer, what she saw was... disturbing. That blackness clinging to her body, shadowy matter of some nature... even from here, the King of Knights could feel it. Something deeply wrong and warped, something corrupted attached to the Lancer's body. One of her eyes was a shade of gold... something was horribly wrong with this Servant. Something had blackened her very existence. Almost immediately after Bathory's distraction, the white-haired Lancer hurled herself towards the horned Servant, attempting to drive the tip of that unusually-shaped spear directly through the pink-haired girl's throat.

Reaching into her mana core, Arturia allowed magical energy to burst through her body, filling her with even further strength, light flowing up Excalibur's blade. From this angle, she'd have to strike from above in order to deflect that spear...!

Breaking into a sprint, tossing snow up behind her, the armored girl suddenly sprang into the air, raising her weapon above her head before bringing it sharply towards, slamming the resplendent blade down onto the place where the shaft of the spear met the head, briefly burying the tip in the snow with the resounding clash of metal on metal. Before the enemy Lancer could pull her spear back up, Arturia immediately drove the tip of her sword towards her chest...!

... And as expected, had it blocked. Servants did not fall so quickly, after all. In fact, the motion of the spear's shaft to avert its wielder's impalement seemed almost instinctive, rather then a calculated move. It wasn't unexpected given how sudden the knight had attacked, and yet... On Arturia's second attack, forcing the Lancer back, her guess was confirmed. The Lancer's motions were swift, but there wasn't any intelligence behind the defense. It was not strategic in any sense, simply an automatic move made to save the enemy Servant's life as opposed to anything intended to force the blonde Saber to change her tactics.

However, guessing that the Lancer was acting entirely off of instinct and nothing else would be a mistake.

The tip of the spear suddenly launched forward, a pin-point strike aimed directly at Arturia's heart. Now, she was forced to defend, deflecting the oddly-shaped weapon only to have it nearly immediately lash out once more. The strikes were not wild attempts to deal damage, but instead targeted blows... the Lancer was inflicted with some form of madness, but not in a way that dulled her skills. Rather, it make her focus almost entirely on offense!

Again and again, spear met sword. The Lancer's speed was lower then expected from her class, but it was hardly enough to exploit. Still, the instinctive nature of that defense... the Saber-class Servant felt that if she focused on unexpected attacks she could overwhelm it!