The following battle with Beisht wasn't a grand affair with her water divinity being thrown around everywhere... It was a brutal battle in which I used summons to hold down her massive form so we could stab her in her weak points when we could reach them. There was no sundering blows bards could sing of.
Beisht shot beams of compressed power that tore apart the island and partially collapsed her castle. Shenhe created massive icicles she used to penetrate Beisht's flesh, I used my Anemo energy to send the electro-coated Geo crystals into her flesh creating large bleeding holes like someone shot with a bird shot.
Ten thousand cuts were the way Beisht died... Or more specifically ten thousand brutal stabbing wounds from Shenhe, and I used two massive Ruin Graders to hold her bitch ass down while I shanked her with my claymore Rain Slasher. Her thick scales and large body made Shenhe's spear have to dig deep into her flesh but with her serpentine body being more than fifteen meters wide, Shenhe's spear and even my claymore couldn't reach too deep past the muscles of her body.
So Beisht's death was a slow and painful thing even if I didn't particularly want to draw it out... She was simply too damned big, with her divinity-enhanced body and strong life force making her bleed out was a trial that took Shenhe, Guihzong, and myself a whole hour to complete.
Once the grizzly task was complete and Beisht's cloudy eyes were stiff as her body lay limply on the plain of ice Shenhe had created with her rampant use of Cryo energy with Beisht's form dyeing it dark red with her life's blood I limped over to Shenhe who was breathing heavily.
After Guizhong silently went back into my soul to recuperate from the stress of manifesting in her still hurt form, I was just sitting on a Geo crystal stump I made so I wouldn't need to sit on the ice like Shenhe was... And even though Shenhe wasn't that emotive, there was no mistaking the smug smile she was fucking wearing as she repeatedly threw knowing glances at me.
Finally, I couldn't take anymore and I spoke up with my voice thick with irritation. "Alright Shenhe, laugh it up... We should have just killed her or maybe we were too stupid and I shouldn't have accepted eating her food." I said dully and Shenhe nodded plainly before retorting.
"No Jake, accepting the offer of food and tea as a guest was the right move, but we came as enemies, we should have just killed her easily in her human form that way we could eat her holding food and drink without having to consider someone poisoning the food," Shenhe explained and my ears almost burned at her cultivator murder hobo mindset... Gods, Cloud Retainer had probably trained her to have the mindset she would have needed for back during the damned Archon War.
Honestly, though her words weren't wrong. "Fine... You win." I said defeated with a weak smile that then became more natural as I took a breath and eyed the scene of Beisht's corpse laying atop the massive field that consisted of Geo and Cryo constructs that sorta made up a torn apart arena we inevitably made during the battle that had expanded the island's range. "So Shenhe..." I drawled out and her multicolored eyes were like the rainbow colors of a sea shell blinked as I continued. "What do you wanna call dibs on for the loot?" I asked.
Shenhe's smug small smile turned soft and she hummed in thought as she looked from Beisht's corpse to the surprisingly intact Asian style tower and then she spoke. "I want Beisht's snake gall bladder, her skin to make clothes, her teeth to make weapons, and..." She paused before shaking her head as she looked at me with a gracious smile as she held a hand to her cheek when she finished. "You can have her dragon core Jake."
I blinked in confusion before I caught up to her cultivation lingo and I raised a hand and spoke wryly. "What does a dragon core do?" I asked faintly and she blinked in confusion not knowing why I was asking with her head tilting to the side before she answered frankly.
"Ah? They can be molded into a necklace or other jewelry to increase your natural energy stores, they slow aging, and if absorbed you can take on some dragon attributes, but with her only being a flood dragon I suggest the first options as she is only... A lesser dragon." She finished with some disdain in her voice making my eye twitch.
'Was this why all the dragons of Teyvat were gone, or were partners of the Archons?' I thought wryly before shaking my head as I took a breath to stand up beside Shenhe who likewise got up after her explanation and was walking over to Beisht's corpse but as we both reached the corpse and I laid a hand on the cold scales I felt my soul shiver and I froze in place as I fucking realized a major issue...
Mentally dipping into my soul and semblances almost like a directory of souls of summons I saw her. I saw the pale-skin, blue-haired voluptuous beauty Beisht in her human form sleeping within my soul.
'I was the worst necromancer in the universe... Literally, everything I killed would come to fucking haunt me!' I thought mentally screaming as I watched blankly as Shenhe used her insane muscular strength to use my Rain Slasher claymore to carve Beisht's corpse open so she could literally climb inside the corpse to cut out the materials she wanted from the corpse.
"Jake, help me pull her skin off." Shenhe asked me softly as she came out of the corpse and my eye twitched as I saw how she had rammed the massive sword between Beisht's vertebrae and into the ice below the corpse so while we would pull off the skin and scales of Beisht, her body wouldn't be dragged along with it... Cultivator women who wanted their materials were scary!
"Alright coming," I said weakly as I took a breath and used my Geo powers to anchor me to the ground so I could help Shenhe skin the snake. But as I was doing it, our hands couldn't really grab the flap we had carved open to be the starting point so Shenhe hummed in thought before she ducked under my arms and before I could react her voluptuous backside clad in a body glove and barely covered in that stupid skirt flap thing was pressing against my waist as she leaned against me a bit as she spoke plainly and seemingly without shame.
"Thread your hands together with mine so we can tug together." She ordered and I could only eye the back of her head like she was crazy but I still did so.