As Ophelia began to run she scanned the immediate area in front of her very briefly, just to be sure it was free of obstacles (and it was), and turned her head to look over her shoulder to see what Arrayah was doing as she ran. She could see in her periphery and through the movement of long overcast shadows that Arrayah was moving all three of her arms in unison--which meant some manoeuvre with the Profane blade was guaranteed, and not likely to be the same attack she'd used last time but the first one she'd showed them--that with an almost uncanny sense of timing Ophelia quickstepped another full five meters to her north-east-east, very luckily managing to dodge the attack Arrayah intended to skewer her and continuing to run towards the clump of her allies--Farren in particular. His warning came too late, after she'd quickstepped, but she appreciated it nevertheless and shouted back to him:

"Sands! I need them!" she shouted back, specific enough for him to meet her request but vague enough that even if the twin blades were to translate her speech into Pthumerian that Arrayah could comprehend it, the plan would not be obvious to her. There was much more she wanted to say to Farren in that moment, of course, a swath of words summoned by her mind ready to spill out of her mouth if not for the dire urgency of their situation and need for that breath to be spent not being skewered by horrific shadow blades--but she refrained and let that be enough. Arrayah was getting desperate, and that was perfect--she just needed a brief enough opening to steal away the sword and deny Arrayah her most effective weapon. After that... she would be nothing, no match at all for five Hunters, renewed by Adelaide's energy or not.

Hissing and seething as she rumbled across the cavern floor, Arrayah relentlessly pursued Ophelia... though as Farren tiredly approached, Torquil and the Moonborn Hunter struggled back to their feet and Gerlinde came charging straight at her in a frontal assault, the monster slowed her pace to just be a little faster than Ophelia's own. Her azure eyes once again started darting from one Hunter to the next, and a low growl of frustration emerged from her inhuman throat. The window of opportunity she had created for herself by disabling all the other Hunters had closed; the time for disregarding everyone else to focus on the Holy Moonlight Sword had passed.

Gerlinde rushed past Ophelia in a full sprint, unfurling her saw cleaver as she went, only swerve left at the last moment before she would have collided with Arrayah. She slashed widely with her weapon, drawing blood... but then she abruptly felt her right arm catch on something, first halting her movement and then pulling her off her feet and backwards, along with their abominable adversary.
Arrayah's left hand had struck once again with blinding speed and closed its fingers around Gerlinde's forearm. Still growling and still pursuing Ophelia, she lifted the thrashing Huntress into the air by the arm, only for her thicker right arm to reach over and grab Gerlinde's left leg by the thigh, all while her thinner arm once again raised the Profane Abyssal Blade high above herself. Arrayah's right arm then pulled to the right and her left to the left, bringing Gerlinde into a stretched-out horizontal position... and blood gushed forth as claws dug into her arm and dragged across her flesh.

_Farren

narrowed his eyes, squared his jaw and shoved his free hand into the pouch where he’d put the ‘Sands’ previously. His fingers deftly, gently, shifted between the pouches’ contents. He tugged the small Snakescale Hourglass from the pouch at his belt far before Gerlinde rushed past them both. Time-willing, Farren met Ophelia’s eyes as they closed the distance, and he passed off the implement, keeping it concealed by his hand until she’d taken it. Farren didn’t stop moving though, he kept towards Arrayah, but as Gerlinde was lifted and savagely clawed, he swerved to the side opposite the one she’d initially attacked, his eyes wide to maximize his peripheral vision. He didn’t get terribly close, nor did he attack. Instead, Farren was more of a distracting presence than anything else. A distraction that was closely observing Arrayah for signs of reprisal.

As Farren passed her and handed off the hourglass, Ophelia clutched it with her free hand and adjusted her course to run towards Torquil and the Moonborn instead. Clumping everyone up left them vulnerable to the more powerful of Arrayah's attacks, of course, but Ophelia figured that such a move would be Arrayah's last: she'd bring the blade down into reach and when her next moment of awareness came it would be gone. Well... she thought so, at least: none of them had ever used the sands before. She wondered what it would feel like, what it would look like: but the sands were in plentiful supply, it seemed, as nothing had indicated that she could no longer purchase them from the shop. There would be time aplenty for tests when she bore the completed blade and Arrayah was nothing but a memory.

Ophelia would continue to run with them if they ran towards Arrayah and caught up as she approached--which was almost certain in her mind as she did--and she would wait for the perfect opportunity. Bringing her half to Arrayah was the perfect bait, one she figured Arrayah was too crazed and enraged to pass up. She could not predict how events would unfold by joining the others in the fray, but bringing the blades close and offering Arrayah a tantalising opportunity seemed to have such a potential reward that she was determined to take it. If not... well, everyone would be close by. Killing her would not be difficult if things went truly awry, though she felt a creeping sense of anticipation beginning to build in her as she approached and her prize neared her grasp. Perhaps for the first time ever, she felt truly alive--and knew why it was that Hunters existed, and why so many lost themselves to the Old Blood.

But though Arrayah's eyes shifted around constantly, keeping track of what everyone was doing around her, she did not lash out. Instead she halted her advance and stayed in place once again, simply watching Farren and Ophelia make their exchange, then keep running in different directions. Her lip curled, showing off more of her hideous teeth, as she cocked her head and simply observed with the Profane Abyssal Blade held high above her.
Without anyone doing anything to help her, Gerlinde remained at the mercy of her captor's brutal torment. Arrayah's claws kept dragging across the Huntress' right arm, carving through skin, meat, muscle and tendon as she was practically peeling off Gerlinde's flesh all the way to the bone. So maimed, it was no surprise that her body quite simply did not have the fundamental mechanical capacity to keep hold of her saw spear, and within a couple of seconds the trick weapon clattered to the floor in a growing puddle of Gerlinde's blood.

While all of this was happening, Torquil and the Moonborn Hunter had long since managed to get back on their feet and were now moving to reengage Arrayah. The Moonborn Hunter charged straight past Ophelia without the faintest acknowledgment of her presence, their attention focused solely on their prey, but Torquil started running, then slowed and finally stopped when he was about fifteen meters from her.
Torquil stared at the eldritch black spear held aloft over their enemy, and his mind flashed instantly to when she had done so before, and what had come after. In a moment of uncharacteristic clarity, the simple Hunter felt as though he could completely re-experience that event at will and analyze it in excruciating detail. When Arrayah impaled herself on the Profane Abyssal Blade, arcane copies of it – and in hindsight he could tell that the conjured spears were indeed arcane forces rather than true physical blades, pulverizing, disintegrating and vaporizing rather than piercing or cutting – burst out of her and the ground around her after a second's delay, distributed over an area in a ten meter radius from her. Anyone standing four meters from her or closer were guaranteed to be hit, since the range of the attack was greater than the range of a quickstep, and even if one reacted instantly, one quickstep was all they had time for. Gerlinde and Farren were both within range of the wide-area attack, and now the Moonborn Hunter was rushing straight in there again as well. Ophelia was in range as well, though whether she stayed that way was dependent on where she was running (since her last heading was simply “towards Torquil and the Moonborn”). If he moved forward just another several meters, all of them would be in range, which would doubtlessly provoke the big attack.
Figuring that they probably did not want that to happen, Torquil reluctantly resolved to keep outside the ten-meter radius in the hopes that this would give the others a chance to fight without being devastated by multitudes of spears from the ground.

Over at the battlefield the Moonborn initiated their new assault, sprinting in to deliver a huge sweeping slash with their transformed chikage before transitioning into a sustained barrage of rapid blows. Each strike cut Arrayah's hide and left marks of corrosion... but not much; the cuts were shallow, and the sting of even the powerful bloodtinge of the Moonborn seemed to teeter out rapidly. As before, the effigial weapons of the Moonborn Hunter barely seemed to affect her.
Content to ignore the inconsequential Hunter of the Dream, Arrayah's left hand released Gerlinde's freshly mutilated and disarmed right arm, only to quickly move to the left, where she grasped the fuel-tank of her flamesprayer and sank her claws into it. Liquid gushed out of the punctured container, rendering the weapon worthless.
Arrayah let go of the flamesprayer and moved her left hand to Gerlinde's right calf, sinking in her claws before letting go of her prey with her right hand. While she hanged Gerlinde upside-down from her right leg – predictably causing her skirt to fall toward her head, leaving her legs and underwear bare – Arrayah's now-free right hand moved to the floor in front of her and picked up her saw spear by the handle.

Watching Torquil fan out and keep his distance, Ophelia was very impressed at what Torquil must've realised--and equally crestfallen that his plan completely inadvertently invalidated hers. No matter, she resolved, there are other ways. She observed the Moonborn's assault failing to be effective at all and found herself thinking that this must be an arcane projection of their guide and keeper--they seemed not to observe the rules that one had to be in a single place at a time, with the ordeal of the Winter Lantern and the Doll's lapse of consciousness... and Arrayah's resistance to the arcane seemed to still be present. Ophelia couldn't fathom another reason why the Moonborn's attacks would be so ineffective-looking given that when Farren had handed them one of his weapons they seemed to be inflicting significantly more damage.

Ophelia cursed her own lack of desire to use any other weapon for a moment, and felt some strange pull towards the weapon that the Moonborn was currently using. She could swear she'd seen a copy--a physical one--in the Workshop. She would have to pick one up ere they succeeded, though perhaps the moment of opportunity would be over then once she had the fully awakened blade... still, it couldn't hurt to have options... as well as get a good lesson on this gun-parrying technique that she felt like she'd dismally failed at. Ophelia stopped her charge towards Arrayah, safely in range of her larger attack but about 6 meters away from Arrayah, beckoning Torquil in with a nod of her head (he often deferred to her but sometimes didn't: she would be prepared either way--and would understand him not, given how awful he'd described being hit by the blades was) while she prepared herself to dodge and somewhat recover her waning stamina as she did. If Farren looked to her she'd beckon him towards the amassing group too--the timing would be difficult, but as soon as Arrayah brought the blade down into a reachable position she would execute her plan of stopping time and claiming the united blade for herself. Otherwise, it was simply a game of continuing to get lucky and maintaining constant vigilance and tension.

Torquil blinked and swallowed nervously after seeing Ophelia look at him, nod her head downward, then turn around and nod her head upward in the direction of their adversary. He also tried to lick his lips, only to be reminded that his tongue was no longer his tongue and his lips were no longer his lips. In all the excitement, he had actually almost managed to forget that his face had been replaced with some monstrous visage.
The specifics of what other implications might be included in the gesture aside, the core meaning definitely seemed to be for him to attack Arrayah... which seemed like a really bad idea. If he walked just a few steps forward all of them would be in range of her big attack, and she would be able to cripple all of them in one fell swoop all over again. Ophelia and Farren kept their distance, staying at a range where Torquil estimated they would be able to quickstep away and avoid getting hit, but if he went up to Arrayah to attack her? There would be no escape unless he learned to fly. So what was Ophelia's plan? Because surely she had thought of something he had not; she was smart, much smarter than him, so she must have thought of something. A small voice in the back of his head suggested that she might be using him as bait, but he immediately dismissed that notion, certain that she and Farren would never do something like that to him.
Loathe though he was to risk getting skewered again, Torquil nevertheless had faith that his companions knew best and did as he was told. Brandishing his Hunter's axe and, after a second's consideration and recalling his conclusion that the projected spears were arcane, the Loch Shield as well, Torquil rushed in to join the assault.

All the while Arrayah just stood there, holding up Gerlinde's exposed, disarmed and mutilated body to her eyes, slowly working her claws in and out of the Huntress' leg as though she was giving her the world's most painful massage. She sank in her claws, rending flesh and shedding blood, and retracted them to let the wounds heal; sank in her claws to reopen the wounds, and loosened her grip. It only took a couple of seconds of this, as well as Gerlinde's body working to regrow practically all the flesh on her right arm, before her regeneration slowed to a crawl. As soon as it did Arrayah ceased playing with her claws, and her eyes shifted to check on Farren, Torquil and Ophelia.
Heaving a deep sigh – completely ignoring the Moonborn Hunter, who dismissed their chikage and instead summoned a Holy Blade to attack with, which proved just as ineffective – Arrayah simply swung her left arm in an arc and released her hold on Gerlinde. The half-dead Huntress was sent hurdling through the air before crashing to the floor a good twenty meters away in the direction opposite of the central column, toward the outer wall of the cavern.
Just as soon as she had discarded Gerlinde, Arrayah's attention instead turned to Torquil running straight at her with his axe poised to strike. Her stronger right arm swung Gerlinde's saw spear in a powerful horizontal chop, which Torquil managed to quickstep sideways to avoid... only for her left hand to dart in just as he was recovering from his first evasion, grab him by his left foot and lift him off the ground upside-down just as she had with Gerlinde a moment ago.
Torquil attempted to swing his axe at her even as he hang suspended, but barely had he extended his right arm for the attack before the saw spear came rushing back at him in Arrayah's right hand, ramming its serrated, pointed tip directly into his right shoulder. He screamed – a strange and inhuman sound with his altered voice, like a swarm of bees imitating a human cry of agony – as Arrayah twisted the blade. Still just standing there. Still with the Profane Abyssal Blade raised high above her.

As Torquil heeded her beckoning Ophelia prepared herself to join the fray too. It seemed the Moonborn's attacks were still ineffective even as they switched weapons--which caused Ophelia to wonder precisely how conscious and aware these aspects of their guide truly were. If they had the memories of being summoned only moments ago it would be clear that regular weapons would be the only ones that truly worked, and yet they simply continued their futile assault. With Gerlinde out of the picture--regrettable, but she personally truly could not have done anything to save Gerlinde without risking their whole mission--they needed enough real threats (or prizes in Ophelia's case) for Arrayah to actually use the profane blade she was dangling quite firmly out of reach. Ophelia had enough time to recover a little stamina, and hadn't been feeling too tired in any case, but she had seen that Farren's breaths were faster than normal and he was much more wilful than Torquil, less liable to make a decision without questioning and hesitation.

"Farren, Paarl's blood! We need you!" she called out as she began to move in, figuring that if anyone could pose enough of a threat to Arrayah and force her to use one of the profane blade's arcane attacks it would be Farren. Moving the blade ever-so-slightly in reach was all that she needed for this to be over. Surely its intelligence--equal and maybe opposite to her own blade's--was guiding Arrayah just as it would guide her if she asked. The enhancing effect of the darkbeast's blood would give Farren all the manoeuvrability he needed to force Arrayah's hand, and perhaps his whip-like weapon could be used to lasso the thin arm raising it above them in some capacity and drag it down? She didn't really know--she just knew he needed to do something now if they weren't to throw all of this away.

As she approached Arrayah she braced herself to quickstep again, though found that Arrayah preferred to target Torquil: her heart soared as he dodged the first attack, only to be grabbed and dangled and impaled by Gerlinde's weapon shortly thereafter. She recalled that others had said giving the Moonborn commands was foolish and that they didn't listen, and so she didn't waste time trying, and her arcane blasts barely caused Arrayah to flinch and would be ineffective... she was running out of options to meaningfully spare Torquil the pain and perhaps acquire a weapon for the Moonborn to use in one fell swoop.

"Arrayah!" she called out as she swerved to the right, the opposite direction Torquil was currently being held in, hoping to attract enough of the beast's attention for her to drop Torquil and recognise the nearing prize of the Holy Moonlight Sword and the impending threat of Farren (if he indeed joined the fray). She hoped it would be enough, that he would listen, and that the very real sense of victory slipping away from their grasp would be enough for Arrayah to get reckless and stupid. She would continue to strafe around Arrayah in an arc, ready to quickstep and dodge any attempts to go for her, such that any attempts for Arrayah to switch focus would require her to free Torquil (or at least force her to use her arm holding the weapon for another purpose, such that Torquil could use his axe on her).

_Farren

had been circling, at barely a jog, hoping to redirect some of Arrayah’s attention–it worked after a fashion, but by and large the malformed wielder of the Profane Blade kept her attention upon whoever closed the distance.

She was whittling them down–and quite effectively at that. Farren narrowed his eyes, certain he had to do something, but not sure what. He winced as Arrayah snagged, then began to maim Torquil–‘dammit’--he cursed internally, gritting his teeth, then Ophelia’s voice reached him.

‘Paarl’s Blood.’

The vial of Darkbeast’s Blood.

Farren felt a vicious grin slide onto his features, his azure eyes lighting up slightly–they’d dulled, growing dim as he neared a point of exhaustion. The hunter moved, dextrous as ever as he maneuvered his pistol onto its hook mid-jog. He didn’t simply slot it down, he dropped it with precise timing at a specific height and angle, and it caught the hook on the way down even as he moved forward and around Arrayah.

That hand then darted into a pouch and retrieved the vial.

At that stage he was nearer to Torquil than to Ophelia, arranged roughly halfway between the arrangement of her head and her outstretched left arm as it held his wounded ally suspended. Eyes wide to take in the positioning of each of her limbs, Farren shifted on his heel, plunged the vial into his flesh through the cloth of his garments, and depressed it.

The world slowed–no that wasn’t it–his perception of it had shifted. Then, distracting him from that strange sensation was a surge of vital energy pulsing into his body from the point where the vial had punctured his flesh. Before even he had slid the vial back into a pouch of empties, Farren felt that intense sensation of rejuvenating energy course through his entire body, his labored breathing and elevated heart rate circulating it in mere moments.

His offhand joined his main upon the Beastflayer and then he burst into a full speed dash at Arrayah. Brandishing his glaive, Farren didn’t attack immediately, but instead sought to bait an attack from Arrayah, drawing her attention to him.

Happily spending several seconds torturing Torquil by digging her claws and Gerlinde's saw spear deeper and deeper into his flesh, Arrayah nevertheless kept her many eyes on Ophelia and Farren. She watched Ophelia keeping her distance, did not react to the mention of Paarl's blood at all and did not seem to so much as flinch when she shouted Arrayah's name. And she watched Farren injecting himself with the vial of darkbeast blood while twisting around the serrated blade in Torquil's shoulder.
All in all, she was attentive but deeply unimpressed with what they were doing.

Since Ophelia insisted on uselessly running in circles and the Moonborn Hunter – who was now slashing at her furiously, half transformed into a beast with a bony fist-weapon in their right hand, just as they had witnessed Skinner use – continued to prove their impotence, there was no contest as to who to direct her efforts toward. She turned toward Farren as he approached and roughly yanked her mundane blade from his wound, only to attack Farren with both hands. Her right hand made a huge, sweeping horizontal slash with the saw spear, while her left hand made an equally huge vertical smash down on top of him... while still holding on to Torquil's leg.

_Farren

azure eyes snapped from left arm to right, then to Arrayah’s other nearby limbs, then he quickstepped. Not retreating, not a fully lateral movement either, but an acute angle towards Arrayah’s left, more forward than anything. He moved the full length of the movement, with it taking him significantly closer to the monstrosity, while circumventing the downwards strike. The other attack simply wouldn’t reach him, the angle of her right arm’s articulation such that it never made contact with him as he went so deep into close range that an attack that wasn’t either precise, blindingly fast, or designed to hit an area simply wouldn’t hit him.

Ophelia stopped running, figuring that if Arrayah moved to attack her she would leave herself open to Farren's empowered onslaught, and braced herself to enact the manoeuvre that had formed in her mind as soon as she'd thought of the queer hourglass he'd plucked from the shop and its ability to halt time for a few precious seconds. There was truly no point in her swinging her awakened blade at Arrayah, though that thought struck her and something resonated within her mind. Still clutching the hourglass she brought her hand to the top of the luminous blade and pulled it downwards, reverting it to its base form. If Arrayah perceived no ability for her to immediately fuse their weapons perhaps that would goad her into making the mistake that Ophelia needed.

"Get her blade in my reach!" she called out to Farren, though she kept a careful eye on Torquil too. She really had expected Arrayah to go for her rather than him, to seize the opportunity, but she had clearly underestimated Arrayah's intelligence... or the profane blade's. She would have time to feel guilty after they'd done what was necessary, however, and focused on being prepared to execute her plan. The moment Arrayah's half was in reach she'd use the hourglass, reawaken her blade, quickstep into position, and incant the words of power to combine them. The moment they disarmed Arrayah and Ophelia had a weapon she could finally use against this monstrosity the fight would be over, she was sure of it: even if they failed to kill her, they'd have gotten what they came for... and could return with runes better suited when they'd grown more powerful.

After having been raised up high in the air, right up next to the arm holding the black spear, Torquil had just enough time to get out a quick sigh as he accelerated back down toward Farren with tremendous force. Not again, he thought, trying his best to turn his face to the side and brace himself against what was coming. “Luckily” Farren moved out of the way in time with a quickstep so that he would not get hurt... which naturally just meant that instead of the relatively soft impact into his companion, Torquil would be smashing straight into the floor. Again.
Arrayah missed her two-pronged attack against Farren, with the saw spear scything across the area just a fraction of a second before her left hand bludgeoned Torquil into the floor, eliciting a rumbling boom from the sheer strength of the hit accompanied with a sort of wet squelch as the captive Hunter left a somewhat Torquil-shaped bloodstain on the floor.

But even though her attack seemed to have failed, Arrayah did not seem to so much as miss a beat. Before she so much as had a chance to recover with the arms she had attacked with, her third arm was already moving, angling the tip of the Profane Abyssal Blade downward and then thrusting it straight down on top of Farren.

_Farren

heard it before he saw it. The sound of something piercing wind, parting it with fierce violence as it traveled down towards him. Farren didn’t tilt his head upwards to look, he turned it sideways instead–a smaller, faster motion–and caught sight of the descending point of the Profane Blade. His leading foot came down against the stone, heel sliding at a slight angle as he began a pivot, then Farren twisted his body counter-clockwise as he initiated a second quickstep. This put his back facing away from Arrayah as he darted backwards in a blur of motion, stopping after 2.5 meters, having tightened the motion so he didn’t overshoot. Still facing the monstrous wielder of the Profane Abyssal Blade, During the brief quickstep, Farren’s right arm had pulled across his body, the tip of the Beastflayer’s glaive pointing behind him and down, past his left side, the shaft at roughly a 45 degree angle. He pulled in a deep breath as he came to a momentary stop, azure-eyes flashing in the murk, and then reversed the motion, gripping as far down the weapon as he could as he activated the mechanism mid-swing.

The Old Blood surged in his arteries and veins, pumping potency into his muscles, and he unleashed an upwards vertical slash as the weapon extended, whipping the glaive-tip forth to sheer at Arrayah’s hand where her fingers gripped the shaft of the Abyssal Blade. The stroke would travel along roughly the same angle as the descent of the spear, putting it parallel to it. With any luck the heavy strike would weaken Arrayah’s hold on the weapon.

Before she'd even had chance to put the Holy Moonlight Sword to rest the moment of opportunity rose, and Ophelia resolved herself to enact her manoeuvre. She watched as Arrayah angled the tip of the Profane Blade downwards and struck with tremendous speed that Farren used his own to counter, and in bringing the blade into reach Ophelia unfurled like a coiled spring released and quickstepped in towards the pair from her standing position, breaking into a sprint as she did. As she travelled she squeezed her right hand until she felt a pop of pressure and the glass comprising the hourglass broke, scattering the scale-sand within as a potent force was released. With time frozen to a standstill for everyone else, Ophelia moved as quickly as physically possibly to get into range--quickstepping if necessary--and touched the luminous tip of her blade to its counterpart as she quickly incanted the words of power: "Gestalt Truth!"

She honed her will to a razor's edge, pouring all of her sense of self and determination into the Holy Moonlight Sword and its counterpart, seeking to wrest control over the opposing half from Arrayah. Arrayah's sense of self was strong to have remained this intact for this long, and the eons, perhaps longer, some unthinkable amount of time that Arrayah had to bond with the opposing weapon had no doubt won its allegiance completely... but Ophelia knew from the Profane Blade's other half that it yearned to be whole--and more than that, that it yearned to be free. Release yourself from Arrayah, who languishes here in the dark between worlds. I am Moon-touched, blessed by the Dream, immortal! All the worlds, waking and nightmare, are mine to traverse--let yourself be bound here no more! she not-quite-thought, her thoughts and desires moving too quickly and too powerfully to be contained or expressed by something as crude as language or thought. Versed in rune-lore as she was, perhaps it was something akin to a rune of her own, forming in this instant as a bridge between two halves... or perhaps it was simply the frenzied and fevered wishes of a half-mad witch falling short. She could not know, but she believed with all of her being that she truly was the rightful wielder of this blessed-and-cursed weapon. Whether it responded in kind she would know only upon the resolution.

In either case, she prepared once again to quickstep away as soon as the deed was done. She would need some distance to prevent Arrayah from simply snatching the weapon back, though given Farren's frozen form about to unleash an attack of considerable power she would have more than enough to contend with. Once time unfroze she would assess the situation again, hopefully with the completed blade in hand.

It would be a profoundly strange experience for Ophelia when she broke her snakescale hourglass. One moment the world seemed chaotic and frenetic with everyone moving rapidly, desperately competing to be the fastest... and then the next instant, with a disconcerting abruptness, everything just stopped. Arrayah's form lurched forward, one right hand at the end of an extended arm angling the saw spear she had taken from Gerlinde to stab it into Farren's back, her left hand raised a bloody Torquil into the air once again, and her second right hand was essentially driving the Profane Abyssal Blade into the floor where Farren had been standing half a second earlier.
Farren was mid-swing with his beastflayer, while just a few meters from him she saw the Moonborn Hunter also mid-swing with a flaming hammer. Even the fire coming off the hammerhead, and that which came from the multitude of sconces spread across the cavern, seemed as though frozen in amber.

But it was more than that. Just as instantly as everything she had been conscious of moving around her became stuck in place, so did everything she had not been conscious of moving. As time stopped for her, all color vanished from the world; the bluish light of the sconces, the azure eyes of Arrayah and Farren, the red of blood and orange of fire – everything – turned to grayscale. In a world where the light was not moving, wavelengths could not be perceived and interpreted as colors, so all she could see was amplitudes; brightness.
More relevant was it, however, that she found herself suddenly in a world of complete and perfect silence. Even the air was frozen in place, incapable of conveying sound waves, which plunged the universe into an impossible stillness. Not not only could Ophelia not hear any of the most prominent sounds of the battle before her, but she would also find that even as she sprinted and quickstepped to close the distance between herself and the Profane Abyssal Blade, she did not make sound either. Even though her feet hit the floor, they did so with nary a whisper, and though she could feel the breath leave her lungs and her heart beating inside her, she could hear neither.

And so, as Ophelia touched the tip of the Holy Moonlight Sword – itself gray and dull in frozen time – to the black form of the Profane Abyssal Blade, finally establishing physical contact between the two halves of the eldritch weapon, she spoke the incantation... but produced no words. Because no words could be spoken in a world without time, because without time there was no movement, no color... and no sound.

Upon realizing that her initial plan had failed owing to the muted nature of frozen time, Ophelia resolved to hold position, maintaining contact between her weapon and that of Arrayah, and waiting for the effect of the snakescale hourglass to expire. In a world without time she found herself bizarrely waiting for time to pass; for those stored-up five extra seconds she had absorbed from the hourglass – from the powdered scales of a Great One who devours time as it passes – to go by and everything to go back to normal.
The tension would doubtlessly be palpable, and she would find that she did not even have the comforting whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword to keep her company, as even its consciousness seemed on pause. Once time resumed and color and sound returned to her world, she would have to speak the incantation again. But of course it would not be without immense risk: they had all already witnessed many times just how fast Arrayah's reactions were, how quick her reflexes, how sharp her instincts. Ophelia had an undeniable advantage by knowing what was happening before it happened and waiting expectantly for her chance to strike while it would come as a surprise to the monster before her... but even so. If Arrayah spoke the swords' incantation first, she would be the one to reunite the halves, to gain the completed whole and become the true champion.
Ophelia had the advantage, but this was still a gamble with possibly incomprehensibly high stakes. With how powerful Arrayah had proven with just the Profane Abyssal Blade, how much worse would she be with it combined with the Holy Moonlight Sword? Would any of them stand a chance against such a fierce creature possessing such arcane power? Would anything in the Old Labyrinth? Would anything in the Waking World?

After the quite possibly longest five seconds in Ophelia's life, as abruptly as it had stopped, time resumed. The black spear sank into the rocky floor, the saw spear continued its thrust toward Farren's back, Farren's glaive slashed across the back of Arrayah's fingers for the second time. Above, Arrayah's many pupils contracted into tiny dots and slits as all of them instantly focused on Ophelia and the fateful point where their weapons joined. Her lips parted, her throat contracted and her tongue moved as she produced words in her foreign language.
But Ophelia spoke first. “Gestalt truth!”

The experience of what came next was surprisingly reminiscent of what she had experienced after she broke the snakescale hourglass: there was a burst of nebulous something in her hand, and the handle of the Holy Moonlight Sword vanished, just as the Profane Abyssal Blade seemed to disappeared from the monstrosity's hand. Arrayah, Farren and the Moonborn Hunter all staggered backward and away from Ophelia, pushed by an unseen shockwave that shot out powerfully – ironically saving Farren from being stabbed in the back – before the world was consumed by darkness.
For an instant, all of them found themselves in a world of endless black; an infinite abyssal void, an incomprehensible vast, primordial emptiness. Then there was something else: scattered across the darkness as tiny pinpricks were countless lights. Were there thousands? No... millions. Billions. Each one miniscule and insignificant next to the sheer magnitude of the void, but so innumerable that what was still mostly the infinite black now seemed alive and beautiful.
The Cosmos.
And at the core of it all, sitting calmly in the palm of Ophelia's hand, was the brightest light of all: a miniature moon, bathing her in its cold, pale light. Compared to everything else it seemed so small, barely a speck next to all the other darkness and light in the Cosmos, yet from their perspective it was bigger and more brilliant than anything else.
Then – after a long instant that lasted but a tiny fraction of a second – all of this immense and glorious reality, all the darkness and light of the Cosmos, abruptly collapsed on itself. Everything folded into itself, becoming smaller and smaller, until it finally condensed in Ophelia's waiting hand.

Arrayah let out a scream of ageless rage and agony as a new weight settled into Ophelia's grasp. She found herself holding a long, slender and beautiful handle that was more than long enough for both of her hands, that flared into a sweeping crossguard. Beyond that stretched a blade that was quite possibly the most exquisite thing any of them had ever seen. It was slightly longer than even the Holy Moonlight Sword had been, but also only a fraction of its thickness and width, tapering into a fine point at its tip. It weighed only a fraction of what the Holy Moonlight Sword had, and its balance felt so perfect that it almost seemed weightless to handle.
The tip of its blade was perfect black, a condensation of the primordial void they had witnessed as the weapons combined, but the further down the blade you looked, the more specks of light seemed to be strewn across it, until it all culminated at the base of the blade, right against the hilt, where it seemed to give off the radiance of the full moon. A blade of light and darkness, of nothing and everything, of rage and serenity, despair and hope. The completed blade.
A voice spoke in Ophelia's head that was not the feminine whispers she was used to, nor was it the masculine voice she had heard since the Profane Abyssal Blade had awakened. This voice was androgynous, neither feminine nor masculine yet somehow both. It spoke with confidence and authority, yet also gently and soothingly. It spoke but a single word: “Champion.”

She also felt something take shape in her mind; something she had seen before, carved into the walls of this cavern countless times.
Ophelia has obtained the Deception Rune. Erases the bearers presence indiscriminately unless they act toward another person in particular. Also allows one to speak without producing sound, essentially communicating telepathically.

As her blade and Arrayah's both disappeared, for a brief moment Ophelia felt her heart sink and an icy shard of despair sink into her very heart, the comforting weight and brilliant light she had grown so used to suddenly leaving her cold and alone in this nightmare of a place. For perhaps the first time since she'd awakened its light Ophelia felt fear grip her; the hairs on the nape of her neck rose as if in anticipatory vigil, her stomach roiled and sank, and her lips quivered and trembled. Her very senses were swallowed by an incomprehensible nothingness the very antithesis of what she had seen when she'd first heard the whispers and become the blade's bearer, and though she could not know how she knew she was certain beyond words that this was what the cold nothingness of distant space felt like. She understood it for only a fleeting microsecond, their position in the grand cosmos, before a tiny mote of light illuminated the darkness... no, not one, but many. More than she could ever count, revealing themselves and shooing away the pernicious cold of true absence. Her heart soared as she saw them, her hope renewed, and the blood that felt like it had frozen in her veins pulsed and thrummed with new life... and she felt it all slip away. How divine... How sublime... she thought as a new weight settled into her hands, far lighter than the Holy Moonlight Sword had ever been.

The first thing she noticed was the moon, of course, almost in the palm of her hand... closer than it had ever been. Whereas before the sword had taken on a sheath of light, like a ray of moonlight just for her, she no longer had to settle for just one. The source of them all was right there, and from it extended unfathomable galaxies darkening to a point of abyssal sharpness she had been very fortunate not to be on the receiving end of... an ability she was eager to put to new use against its former wielder. Let us bring Arrayah peace, for her vigil is over and her purpose fulfilled. Please, tell me how to use your powers? she thought, communing with this blade for the first time as a comforting familiarity filled her.

"You supply it with quicksilver, just as you did with the half you wielded. If you then slash, you will unleash the wave of moonlight you know. If you thrust, the explosion. If you plunge it into a shadow while looking at another shadow, its blade will be projected and emerge there. And if you impale yourself, darkness will exude from you from which many blades will emerge.
It... may have more. It feels as though it has greater potential, but you lack what is needed to unlock it. Our bond is too weak. It may tell you more later." came the reply.

So prepared, Ophelia's right hand came to the quicksilver tube at her side and she wasted no time in feeding a bullet to the blade, quickly scouting suitable shadows about Arrayah's monstrous form from which to launch an attack--she was quite certain that Arrayah would come for her, enraged as she was, so she quickstepped backwards a full five meters and stabbed the perfected blade into her own shadow on the ground as she arrived while looking at the plentiful shadows arrayed about Arrayah, aiming to launch the attack at approximately a 30 degree angle facing towards her, aiming to have as many points of contact as possible through her elongated body. If she attempted to chase Ophelia down she would most certainly run into the blade and if she stood still it would hit her, which would give Farren plenty of opportunity to renew his assault when he recovered from the shockwave while not risking hitting him at all. She would withdraw the blade as quickly as possible whether it hit or missed and begin jogging towards the direction she might find Torquil in, keeping a healthy distance and recovering her stamina. She kept the quicksilver tube handy and her senses sharp, ready to react to however Farren took advantage of the situation and provide him with support from afar.

_Farren

narrowly avoided a grisly injury, not by virtue of any skill, but by sheer dumb luck. The pulse of force sent him sliding, though not terribly far as he snapped his arm backwards to return the Beastflayer to its unified state. Then, before it had even come together everything was bathed in a black less like obsidian and more like coal or tar. A shiver roiled through him, as if he could feel the cold of that vision into the beyond, and for a brief moment he had the haziest of recollections of a Dream. The dream before he’d woken sweating and confused in a small clinic on a cliffside. Woken into a new life.

Then tiny lights, each like a pinprick in the fabric of the endless vastness, the tractless void, shone through. Somehow both ethereal yet blinding, Farren found himself shielding his eyes a moment before they adjusted, gleaming a fierce blue. As if in resonance with the pale orb that he all-at-once saw in Ophelia’s embrace. He blinked, frowned, confused momentarily. It hit him just before the starlit void collapsed–they had won her the prize they’d come for, if not the battle.

The black snapped inwards upon Ophelia and in the next instant a void tipped blade of starlit metal that glowed at its base like the moon formed within her grasp. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. The incomprehensible expanse of the cosmos, that brief manifestation, had been ineffable, certainly…but it was too divorced from the world he knew for him to properly appreciate. This was simpler, a weapon, a tool that a man–indeed, a woman as well–could grasp in hand and wield against the world. Its shape was elegant, its blade–he somehow intrinsically knew–preternaturally sharp, and its strange otherworldly nature serving as counterpoint to the devastation he knew its incomplete forms could bring.

Alas, he would have to admire its form later, for now he had only seconds to capitalize on the fact that his own boon had yet to fail him. Farren’s eyes snapped to Arrayah and he moved, entering a full-length dash in the same breath that he spun his glaive once in flourish meant to draw the eye. Watching–and listening intently–for incoming strikes, Farren called upon the Old Blood coursing through his veins and primed his muscles for a heavy strike. He’d go for the connection point the arm clutching Torquil, if he got that far, but he was not a train upon a track, and if he could not close such a distance faster than she could intercept him, then he would adjust.

While Ophelia and Farren began to realize the depth of the victory they had just achieved, Arrayah more than fully comprehended her own defeat... but more than that, more than anything, she felt the unimaginable vastness of the loss she had suffered. She had been stuck here, in this little cavern, for so long... mad, hungry, angry, hateful, but more than anything she had spent all this time here obsessed with the idea of herself as the champion. The Profane Abyssal Blade was so much more than her mentor; it was the beginning and the end of her entire world, the root of her very identity, her everything. It was simultaneously what had driven her insane and what kept her sane; it was what had made her lose her humanity, and what allowed her to hold on to what humanity she had left.
And now she had lost it. Not only had the weapon left her grasp, it had ceased to exist the way it had before, and what remained of it was in the hands of someone else. Another “champion” who was so much less than her in every way, yet who had taken everything from her. Ophelia.
She recognized this for only a second before her capacity for understanding left her, and all rationality was burned from her brain. Along with the long, piercing, primal scream she let out, almost everything else left her as well. Everything except the hate. Her eyes opened so wide that their corners ripped and she started to “weep” blood.

The first thing the thing that had once been Arrayah, the Black Blade did was to dispose of the burdens that remained on it. She swiped her arms to either side with immense force, tossing the saw spear with her right hand into the nearest perimeter wall of the cavern where it hit so hard that nearly the entire blade, all the way up to the handle, became embedded into the rock.
Her left hand, meanwhile, exerted a similar amount of force as it threw the helpless Torquil in the opposite direction, across the entirety of the cavern, past the central column and all the way to the far wall. It happened much too fast for Farren to even have a chance to stop it. Torquil found himself pathetically cartwheeling through the air for what felt like an absurdly long time before impacting the rock wall.
Far off in the distance from everyone else, Torquil faded away and disappeared, banished back to the Hunter's Dream.

At the same time, Ophelia and Farren moved. Farren stepped in and delivered a powerful swing that cut deep into her flesh... only for the flesh he had just cut to start writhing and convulsing rather than immediately healing, as if something behind the skin was suddenly awakened and began to move. These convulsions spread out from the wound – which, though seemingly still there, stopped bleeding instantly – and her body began to twist and bulge even more obscenely than it ever had before. With small bursts of blood, new eyes opened on her head... then on her neck... then on her shoulders, down her back and chest, and soon started opening all over her torso. Small eyes, big eyes, eyes that loosely resembled human ones, ones with pupils as vertical slits, even eyes that looked like those of an octopus, with the only common feature was that they all glowed with an azure light. Those of her fingers that did not already have claws abruptly spurted long, scythe-blade-like talons, and her muscles seemed to swell to a monstrous degree.
And all the while she kept wailing, giving voice to the unfathomable malice that now permeated every molecule of her being.

Ophelia quickstepped backward and acted upon the instructions she had received from her completed weapon, projecting a three-meter long black blade from Arrayah's shadow and into her body... though it appeared that the arcane blade coming out of the ground still did very little. Rather than pierce Arrayah's flesh the way the spears projected by the Profane Abyssal Blade had impaled them, this blade seemed to only cause superficial damage before the arcane energy that composed it seemed to scatter into a fine mist, breaking apart before it could overcome her resistance.
“Ah,” the voice of her new sword intoned in Ophelia's head. “Its former champion has become inured to influences of the Nightmare, which has also given her resilience against the arcane. Even its completed blade is still arcane, but it is not of the Nightmare. If it... It is difficult without its rune, but... Champion, feed it two quicksilver bullets and incant 'evoke archspark'.”