Once those words left her mouth, she began to scoop up something from her leg. She ripped the remaining muscles and ligaments, slowly but surely.
Her femur came into view; she thrust Nightfall into the ground. Then she began to pull, her left hand clamping down on her former sole. As her right hand twisted and pulled, a squelching sound echoed around them.
With every twist and turn, her femur became looser, until they were two separate parts.
Dropping her boneless leg on the ground, Eve gripped her bone with both hands.
Crunch.
She began to bite the medial condyle for two reasons.
Crunch.
First, she needed to pump her jaw muscles to their peak biting power.
Crunch.
And the second reason was that she had thrown Vigil's knife away.
Crunch. Crunch.
Saint Roch remained quiet, his hands forgotten at his sides. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Eve was biting away at her femur, from hand to mouth, crafting a knife from her bone.
Bite after bite, it took form; it almost looked like a spear of sorts.
What Eve did was physically and biologically impossible. Elyon knew that. Even accounting for her abnormal strength, this was too absurd.
The femur was the strongest bone in the body; you would need a force of 6,000 pounds to break it. And yet Eve chipped it with her teeth, which would require a much greater force.
A normal human bite generates between 120–162 PSI.
A lion generates between 650 and 1,000 PSI.
That was excluding the fact that normal teeth would turn to dust before they could even manage to reach that pressure.
Eve matched a lion at its peak by more than six times.
This time, Eve wasn't the one to question how Elyon was so powerful, who Vigil was, or where her father was.
In turn, it was Elyon's turn to question: what is Eve?
Once she was done, she grabbed Nightfall again... yet her head leaned as far back as it could toward its left, and Nightfall changed positions.
Rather than going into her hand, Eve bit down on the handle, the tip pointed toward the sky.
She gripped the femur in her left hand. In her left hand lay the remaining ripped parts of her former leg.
Drool began to pour down the handle of Nightfall, veins straining in her neck from the sheer effort of biting a sword. There was something that Saint Roch didn't realize: the sharp edges weren't facing him. Just the fuller part of the sword.
Saint Roch's expression turned to anger, and he got into position, his back facing Elyon and Vigil this time. He grabbed his sword properly, with two hands.
"Truly, a dreadful animal, a candle that withered aw—"
His words were cut off.
"F..F-UCK Y-YO..U," Eve yelled through her gritted teeth.
Before Saint Roch could continue speaking, Eve threw the shredded part of her leg into the air. Once it came falling, Eve strained her neck even harder, and the fuller part of Nightfall hit the leg.
The leg came at such speed that Saint Roch could barely parry it.
Just as he did, Eve was already upon him. As she hit the falling part, she broke into a run on all fours.
Mid-run, she changed and grabbed Nightfall in her right hand, putting it in a reverse grip, just like a knife. Yet Nightfall wasn't a knife; it was a greatsword.
The sharp part of the femur was held in a fencing stance.
When Saint Roch realized Eve was about to pierce him with the femur, he knew he could parry the attack.
Yet that attack never came.
Eve broke her run by thrusting Nightfall into the ground, effectively stopping her less than a foot away.
Saint Roch was left open with his guard high in the air; he saw the twitch in Eve's left femur. He knew a slash was coming, and he brought his sword down as hard as he could.
Yet the second supposed attack didn't come either.
Instead, Eve kicked the soil into Saint Roch's face. Momentarily blinded, he slashed his sword, hitting nothing.
In the haze of the soil, Nightfall's pommel was rapidly approaching Saint Roch's face.
And it did, successfully breaking his nose.
Other than the way her body was moving, just a simple thing was taking up space.
Be like the three of them.
More wrath.
More tricks.
More hunger.
Nightfall shot forward, but not to cut, but to spray more soil into the Saint's face.
Once Saint Roch saw the dirt flying toward his face again, he tried to dodge backward. But before he could, a devastating kick connected with his ribs.
The kick broke some ribs and knocked the wind out of him.
When the dirt started falling down again, he thought he would see Eve doing another trick. But this time, a pair of teeth was flying toward his throat.
Saint Roch barely managed to cover his throat with the sword, and Eve bit down hard on the blade; cracks began to form across it.
But before he could even manage to pull his sword back, Nightfall was falling into a killing arc; its target was his head.
He twisted his body awkwardly, and Nightfall sliced a chunk of his thigh and armor along its way before it crashed back into the dirt.
In his peripheral vision, the femur knife was coming from the other side to pierce his head.
Saint Roch pulled his head back as hard as he could, yet the femur knife cut a streak across his face.
Before he could recover, Eve's right hand connected with his face. She let go of Nightfall once it hit the ground.
Saint Roch was pushed a few meters away; he was barely holding on to consciousness from the punch.
He caught a glimpse of his hand, then looked back at Eve. His sword was still between her teeth.
Saint Roch was left without a weapon.
He brought his hands into a guard high by his temples. But with a flick of her head—
Eve threw his sword back.
"We barely started."
Saint Roch hurried to grab his sword. Once he did, he knew he couldn't pretend anymore.
He needed to use his powers.
"Damn animals."
Eve broke into a run again, but before she could reach him, the ground opened up and swallowed her whole.
A terrifying forty-meter-tall worm slid from the ground; it began to rise and rise.
This was the true power of the first general, the truest form of hunger.
Saint Roch was the King of Worms.
Once the beast fully emerged from the ground,
it stood tall, unopposed by none.
Saint Roch started walking toward his animal while laughing. He began to pet his most beloved.
"Is this what you turned out to be? A measly, hungry woman. Look at you, dead inside the be—"
Nightfall shot through the skin of the giant worm, piercing both its skin and Saint Roch's throat.
In a single flick of the arm, the worm was cut into two.
Eve stepped out while the worm began to wither away.
With the last of his life, he clutched his cut throat. He glared at Eve with a dagger-like stare. Eve followed by slicing off his head completely.
Hunger, in front of her, lay a corpse.
She bent down, and she picked up Saint's head.
Eve opened her mouth wide.
"Stop it, Eve."
"EVE! STOP!"
Both Nightfall's whispers and Elyon's shouts rang out at the same time.
Elyon ran toward her, and once he was behind her—
"Eve... plea—"
Nightfall almost cut Elyon's head clean off, the blade drawing a line of blood across his neck.
Yet Elyon remained rooted to the spot.
"Please, stop... it's over."
Those words didn't stop her, but something else did.
Did Elyon trust her with his life that much to risk it this stupidly?
Maybe.
Maybe... could Elyon be trusted?
At least half trusted?
With a single short nod, she let go of Saint Roch's head and began to walk toward Vigil.
She wiped the blood from her face.
"Let's go, Elyon; it's dark, and I am tired."