Having found the source of the issue, Yosho swallowed the sickness down in her stomach, attending to Arken's side, with a stagger to fight.
"Er-Erinot," Yosho stammered through foul disgust. "Dear… To think this is what you've been up to."
Erinot narrowed his eyes. Moving a foot slightly forward, the pit of corpses erupted in particles of violent purple. "This is what I need… Once I've sacrificed you both, then I'll that Ennom will be next."
"Tch. Pardon me little wolf," Arken spoke up. "But, that Ennom is mine alone to destroy." He removed his weapon from his back, an obsidian black, double-edged sword, crowned not with a traditional tip but with a distinct, flat and blunt top.
Erinot growled at Arken with mild disinterest. His jaws cracked open slightly, a deep red crimson glow and the wave of heat emitting from inside his mouth.
Yosho promptly realizing what's about to happen, pushed Arken out of the way, dropping to the ground with him, as Erinot's Hell Beam just nearly passed them, inviting the forest in line of attack to the intense heat and vaporization.
On the ground, Yosho held her head up to look right into the face of Erinot glaring down at her, a second away from ending her.
Before this could happen, Arken was up, swiping at the Gray Persudo, forcing him to back off. With the dust in the air for a second, Yosho got to her feet, standing together with Arken.
"Trying to force an unlikely outcome…" Erinot grumbled. "I've already decided how this will end."
"Persciely what I was going to say to you," Arken boasted, raising his blade to the Persudo.
"Quite Dark Devider," Erinot said, irritation prevalent in his voice, having very low tolerance for the Dark Devider.
With a surge of violent intent, Erinot shot forward, his charge laser-focused on Yosho to brutally split her from Arken's side; he bulled past Arken as if he were mere scenery, fixed solely on the hunt, chasing her down with relentless speed and firing a searing Hell Beam that vaporized trees and earth in its wake, all in a single merciless drive to strike her down.
As Erinot's raging beam came to an end Yosho seized her moment, her hand slapped against the rough bark of a tree, using it as a pivot to whip her body around in a blur of motion. Erinot, committed to his forward charge, had no time to adjust. He ran directly into the devastating force of her double knee strike, as it cratered his chest and sent him crashing onto the forest floor.
Erinot rolled up to his feet, ready to engage, but Yosho was already there, with Erinot right in the range of her Gift. To Erinot, it was a mere instant. To Yosho, it was a pocket of frozen clarity. Her instantaneous barrage unleashed, a single, catastrophic wave of force delivered through a dozen precise points in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Erinot's body jolted from the impact, before he was thrown back again.
A sickening, wet crunch-grind of bones realigning and knitting back together echoed from Erinot's body. His piercing red eyes snapped open, burning with renewed malice, and he pushed himself to his feet.
[[>Complex Skill<]]
[[-Regenerative Corpse-]]
The skill was now active, a cornerstone ability that will be pivotal in his next evolution. As long as his head remained, any damage, any broken bone or shredded muscle, would be undone.
Now upright, a violent purple energy, poured from his body in a brief, intimidating wave.
The rushing, heavy steps of armor caught Yosho and Erinot's attention. Erinot turned his head slowly, snarling, his eyes landing upon Arken and his blade heading right for his head.
In a swift motion of blinding speed, Erinot dodged Arken's attack, displacing the air as he claimed a spot in space a distance away from the two.
"Arken!" Yosho called out, the Dark Devider squaring up to the Gray Persudo.
"Afraid, Persudo?" Arken asked, with a cocky smile.
Erinot glared at Arken, and growled. "Taunting me would be the last thing you do… I'll be sure to keep you alive… To have you watch me devour every last member of your kind."
Arken smirked, unfazed by Erinot's threat. "And yet here I'm standing. You'll stand no chance against the Ennom."
"You have no grounds to speak, Dark Devider. Now allow me to show you the difference between us." Erinot's body began to glow, irradiating that violent purple energy, pushing out a force of air forward.
"I'll take you out with my best!" Arken proclaimed, lunging forward, weapon raised over his shoulder.
Close to reaching his target, in his vision Arken saw the calm Erinot being suddenly thrashed by a force from his side that sent tumbling. Arken paused, perplexed, his attention snapping over to Yosho.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?!" Yosho shouted at the top of her lungs, hands on her hips. "Get over here! We're supposed to be working together!"
"You? You foolish woman!" Arken exclaimed. "I was close to striking him down, now you cost us both," He pointed.
"Yosho! My name is Yosho!" She angrily shouted towards him, gritting her teeth, marching up to Arken's face.
Arken puffed his chest out, having no intent on backing down. "Woman!" He said right to her face.
Just before this could turn violent between the two they parted away from each other, closely evading Erinot's Hell Bullet. The pair switched their attention back to Erinot, stepping forward.
The pair glanced back at each other.
"Dear, I have an idea how you can make yourself Useful," Yosho proclaimed, a mild intent of disrespect in her tone.
Arken narrowed his eyes, not appropriating her way of tone, but still listened in on her 'idea'.
Erinot glared at the both of them, his patience having run thin.
Arken got up to his first. "That was quite the pitiful attack, I'm almost disappointed, Gray Persudo."
This drew Erinot's attention to Arken, giving himself tunnel vision from his shared annoyance of the Dark Devider's presence, as he slowly stepped closer.
[[>Complex Skill<]]
[[>Demonic Pulse<]]
[-Life Steal-]
The violent purple energy burst from Erinot's body, the wave crashing into Arken, forcing him to his knees, to all with weak wills were susceptible to having their life energy stolen.
Erinot marched up to Arken's face snarling down at him, the Dark Devider struggling with the pressure and his body becoming weak upon his life being sapped away.
"... I'd end you quicker… But you're deserving of a slow and painful death, beneath my feet," Erinot said.
"Suffer f—"
To Erinot's utter astonishment, Arken, body trembling with visible strain, staggered back to his feet, rising from the ground to glare down at the Gray Persudo with bloodied teeth gritted in a snarl. "Pathetic Persudo… You'll be underneath my feet!" With a raw, guttural shout, Arken swiped down his blade, forcing Erinot into a frantic, graceless dodge that left a deep furrow in his shoulder.
Erinot's red eyes were wide with a rare flicker of disbelief. It made no sense. How? How had this Dark Devider, this brute, overcome his skill... There was no possible way Arken's will was greater than his. To think this creature he considered lesser than him, dared to resist, enraged him even more. He now had to see him suffer, torn apart, begging for mercy.
"Come, let's finish this." Arken got into stance once again, weapon over his shoulder.
"That damn woman… I'd recommend she take this chance… She didn't run away did she?"
Steam hissed from between Erinot's teeth, the air around his maw wavering from the intense heat of his charged skill, the next blow would end it. He erupted forward, Arken met the charge, a dark comet on a collision course.
They never connected.
A third force, instantaneously intercepted. A colossal impact struck Erinot in the ribs with the force of an earthquake. The sound was less a bit and more a rupture; the shockwave ripped through his body, bones splintering internally before he was hurled sideways, tumbling end over end.
Before Arken's mind could even process the intervention, Yosho blitzed past him, a silver streak. Her hand snatched his weapon from his hand mid-stride. Momentum, fury, and perfect edge alignment merged into one merciless strike from ground up.
The blade cleaved through Erinot's midsection with a wet, final crunch. The two halves of the Gray Persudo toppled apart in a grotesque spray. The result was bloody and grim. Regeneration or not, with his torso severed, he was, for now, utterly incapacitated.
Resting the flat point of the blade on the ground, left hand on her hip, Yosho smiled on… this very unpleasant scene, proudly?
"Tch." Arken stepped to her side, crossing his arms across his chest. "Well done woman. I'll let you take the credit this time… Since I decided not to finish him off."
Yosho glanced at him from the side of her eyes. At this point, accepting what Arken is, she shrugged her shoulders.
Now comes the question. What to do with Erinot?