[h3]Pthumeru Yharnam layer, the Old Labyrinth[/h3]
[h3][color=red]Arrayah, the Profane[/color][/h3]
For a couple of seconds Torquil actually slowed his stride toward Arrayah, deeply confused by what Ophelia had just told him. “Just discharge Fulmen, dear. We need to know what happens,” she had said, which seemed to suggest a different course of action than he was already aiming for. The inclusion of the word “just” seemed to suggest that he should disregard other conditions, and discharge the voltaic hammer now rather than when he was at point-blank range of their enemy as he had intended. Initially that seemed like a waste to him, but he was sufficiently convinced of Ophelia's wisdom and good judgment to assume that his own plan was wrong and start to rationalize his interpretation of her plan.
It was true that there were a lot of unknowns with Fulmen right now – he had just pondered that himself, after all – , and that discharging it under circumstances with as few variables as possible would probably yield the most useful information. Even he understood that much. And while unleashing all that energy potentially at nothing seemed like a waste, it had also turned out that recharging it could be done rather easily. He could just discharge it to see what happened and then hit a rock, or even just the ground, nine times to fully charge it again. It would take time that he was not sure they had, and repeatedly hitting stone like that was bound to degrade Fulmen's durability considerably... but maybe it was worth it? Particularly since he was so unsure how many hits worth of energy he had stored right now. It was not what he would have done, but if Ophelia suggested it, it must be the smartest move somehow.
But then he glanced back at her and realized that she was not looking at him, but was quite pointedly staring straight at Arrayah, which made him second-guess his interpretation all over again. Maybe she did mean for him to discharge it at Arrayah? It was still incredibly ambiguous, with her words downright suggesting to disregard their adversary and her somatic language being so subtle. It could just as easily be her simply observing Arrayah, as she had since the start of the battle, as it could her indirectly trying to tell him to attack her. He wished she had been more clear in her instructions, like telling him [I]where[/I] to discharge Fulmen in words or even just pointing as she spoke, but with things as hectic as they were and time being a valuable commodity in the midst of battle, he did not really want to waste precious seconds asking for clarification.
Thus Torquil decided that since Ophelia's instructions were ambiguous, he would stick with his original plan. He had meant to discharge Fulmen anyway, so he was doing as he was told; he was just going to do it directly adjacent to the rampaging monster if possible. She could scold him later if he was wrong.

Up ahead, Farren, Gerlinde and the Moonborn Hunter all prepared for Arrayah to finish her wide turn and come rushing back. Farren offered his instructions and then started moving, with the two others immediately following in formation. While Farren went right, the Moonborn Hunter darted left and readied their Bulwark for a slash across the opposite side of the mutant's body. Unlike Farren, who intended to simply do as much superficial damage and shed as much blood as possible, the Moonborn – drawing upon the experience of countless lifetimes of studies and battles, and realizing from Farren's words that they were to try to create a window of opportunity for Torquil – meant specifically to cut as deep into the side of the torso as possible. They knew from experience that cutting a bone altered by the Old Blood was all but impossible, which was why it was so incredibly rare for beasts and Hunters to be dismembered... but they were not aiming for bone. Though Arrayah hardly resembled a human anymore and injuring her “legs” would be a fool's errand, her torso did seem to mostly maintain its original structure. They knew that if they could severely damage as many abdominal muscles as possible, ideally not just the ones at the sides, but in the front and back as well, remaining stable while erect would become borderline impossible. It was a gamble since Farren did not aim to cut deep and thus probably would not do much damage to those muscles, if any at all... but the Moonborn Hunter did not know that. They moved to hopefully knock Arrayah down, and that was that.

Gerlinde also heard Farren's words, observed his and the Moonborn Hunter's movements, and began to rapidly evaluate how to best contribute. Her usual mode of operation was simply to do as much superficial damage as possible, similar to what Farren was currently aiming to do, but in the current situation she wondered if something a bit more clever was not called for. With the two others charging ahead into melee range, and particularly with Farren abandoning his guns in favor of his Beastflayer, not only were they putting themselves in danger since Arrayah could just turn slightly left or right to trample one of them... she could also swipe at both of them since the threat of being gun-parried was no longer a factor. Truth be told Gerlinde very much doubted that Arrayah's addled mind was intelligent enough to identify those conditions, but then again Gerlinde herself was rather addled, and she was thinking it. And they did know that Arrayah was at least smart enough to use Caryll Runes. The fact that she was trying to trample Farren now could be in response to her being staggered by gunfire when she had tried to rush and attack him at the beginning of the battle... or it could just be the random actions of a mad blood-crazed creature.
Ultimately Gerlinde decided to err on the side of getting the best of both worlds and, with wide eyes and a wider grin, charged directly at Arrayah... only to, when she was a mere couple of meters away, let loose a gout of fire from her flamesprayer up and aimed directly at the monster's head. Even if her eyes managed to get through the conflagration intact, simply being engulfed in flames would at least obstruct her vision for an instant. Hopefully that instant would be enough.

And so, everything happened all at once: Gerlinde blinded Arrayah's many eyes and burned her face, only to get promptly and brutally thrown to the ground and trampled by the massive creature, disappearing under its form. In this moment of vulnerability, Farren carved Arrayah's left side and the Moonborn Hunter cleaved deep into her right, all while each of them slipped narrowly past her form.
Letting out a horrid wail, Arrayah clutched her face and wobbled, knocked out of balance even as her wounds kept closing rapidly. She awkwardly came to a halt as her torso drooped to her right, struggling to remain upright until her muscles had reconstituted. It was a brief opening, not even enough to be considered a stagger and far from enough that any of them would feel the instinctive urge to visceral attack her... but for Torquil, it was just enough.

Fortuitously arriving at just about the perfect moment, Torquil – against his better judgment – closed the distance and initiated his attack with a two-handed swing of Fulmen aimed straight at the left side of Arrayah's lowered head. It was a solid blow combined with a now significant amount of electrical energy that seemed to stun her for just a fraction of a second longer, but her sheer size was enough that her head absorbed all the kinetic energy and brought the hammer to a complete stop, directly adjacent to her head.
And then Torquil pulled the trigger.
The eight segments of the hammerhead separated and shifted outward, revealing the naked core inside... and for about half a second, nothing seemed to happen. Fulmen stopped vibrating, the electrical sparks ceased, and for all intents and purposes it seemed completely inert, as if all that energy had just spontaneously vanished. But during this brief instant of near-tranquility amidst the chaos, a faint bluish glow filled the air between the exposed core of Fulmen and Arrayah's head, which rapidly intensified... until it culminated in a blindingly white flash that turned the entire world into nothing but white light and black shadow, accompanied by the sound of a muffled clap of thunder that rolled and echoed through the cavernous chamber.

It would take a second for anyone to be able to see or hear properly again even with their accelerated healing, but when they could they would find Arrayah laying on her right side, completely toppled over. Her limbs – both her main arms and the multitude of assorted limbs on her hind body – twitched spasmodically, seemingly paralyzed for the moment, while black smoke billowed off her head. The flesh looked to be seared on the entire left side of her head with a lot of it downright missing, and many of the eyes that had been there – including the largest one – looking blind and cooked, with several having actually burst. None of them, nor the one on the right side of her head, were glowing anymore; they had grown entirely dark and dull.
But even know her flesh kept knitting itself back together at an astounding rate. Laid-bare facial muscles shed their scorched parts and reformed themselves, skin spread to cover the wound, and even punctured eyes seemed to reseal their exteriors and refill with fluid. Arrayah was quite clearly not dead, though this had quite obviously done a significant amount of damage and left her dazed and [I]very[/I] vulnerable for several seconds.

Remarkably, Torquil looked to have gotten through the ordeal unscathed aside from the blood running down the sides of his head from his ears. He looked rather stunned himself, though it was more out of surprise than because he had taken damage, and he reflexively held the trigger to keep Fulmen in its transformed state. This allowed anyone who cared to check to notice that the core of Fulmen was quite blatantly giving off a red glow and that a quite noticeable haze of heat was rising off it. It appeared to be intact... but also [I]very[/I] hot, to the point where Farren in particular would likely recognize that the metal would be rendered quite a bit more fragile than normal.