Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 5]

"Dividing Slash!"

As it had with Cinder, white light burst from Crocea Mors as I swung her, connecting with the armoured breastplate strapped to a straw dummy. Both were cleaved in two without resistance or even a change in momentum. The sword came through the other side and I had to sweep it up lest it smash down into the dirt and jar my arms.

[...]

"I might be able to break armour if it was weak enough, but it would dent and crack first. It wouldn't cut right through it."

Not like it had here, like a hot knife through butter. Except more so, because the armour on either side did not look warped at all. It was a perfect slice.

"Interesting that the same can't be said for the dummy," Hazel said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The armour is cut cleanly, perfectly, but the straw is distorted. Cut in places, pushed aside in others. The typical damage one would expect from a sword striking it, but little more. It's curious that the cutting edge, the Dividing Slash, cuts armour on both the entrance and exit perfectly, but not the dummy in the middle."

It was, I supposed, though I'd not looked close enough to notice it. "You have an idea?"

"Perhaps. It seems to me that your attack divides armour and little more. What you did to the body within," he indicated the straw, "is no more or less than what anyone else could do. The true damage is to the breastplate itself."

An anti-equipment attack, then. I thought back to Cinder, whom I'd used the attack on. Back then, I'd used it to cut through her weapons, and she'd certainly been surprised about that. After all, they hadn't been real weapons. They were flames summoned into the shapes of swords, yet I'd shattered them like they were made from cheap pig-iron that hadn't been tempered properly.

This was becoming something of an odd theme for my Skills. The ones I'd been through with them already and now this one, they often looked and sounded like simple offensive Skills, and yet came with some hidden, almost unseen, caveat.

Dividing Slash, a slash that caused no extra damage to people, but more to equipment. Swords or armour, it didn't seem to matter, though armour appeared to be cut while weapons shattered, at least Cinder's had.

—Forged Destiny [Book 7: Ch. 5]