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Chapter 58 - War Part 1
🕑 Added 2023-10-17 14:44:40 +0000 UTCIt was faster than his eyes could follow.
One moment the Warlord had come for Aguilar with a speed that defied comprehension, the next moment, Lukas arrested his armored fist in his armored palm. The next moment, wind blades attacked him from every possible angle, leaving him no room to maneuver or escape. Aquamancy was all about trajectories and flows, and to Olfric’s trained eyes, there was no hesitation or imperfection in every single one of those attacks. A hundred different blades came at him in perfect angles, intent on slashing him up in a hundred different ways.
Before he could so much as widen his eyes in fright, the blades were gone, shattered by an invisible wall, exploding in the Warlord’s face.
Olfric hadn’t even seen Lukas move.
“I await for no salvation —”
Olfric felt the words reverberate through him like the ringing of a bell. He didn’t know why, but those words felt… spiritual. It was not unlike the feeling he got when he took part in an Onmyōji ceremony, drawing on the power of the gods above to deliver justice against the profane. It was heavy, so much so, that he felt the thoughts in his head derailed and grinded to a halt as they washed over him.
“They vanished!” yelled Elena.
Several hundred feet away, both of them seemingly rematerialized, with a loud clash as their weapons met. Olfric watched as the Warlord slammed his blade against Lukas multiple times within a single second, only to be deflected by an invisible shield, only for them to vanish and appear somewhere else to repeat the clash before the fraction of the second was over.
“Fast!” he whispered, as he tried to keep up with that spar. “I knew Aeromancers are fast, but this is… beyond my expectations.”
“Trust me,” said Tanya, her teeth clenched. “They are only warming up.”
A shiver ran down his spine. He had always known Tanya to be the fastest thing he had ever laid his eyes upon. Witnessing her massacre through the Shimizu Army in the Desert during the mission, and most recently, murder her way through everything unfortunate to fall across her path. The Warlord was definitely moving at speeds way faster than that. The real surprise was Aguilar, who was somehow keeping up with him.
Even for someone capable of using all five elements, Aguilar had what… a couple of months at best? That much time was simply not enough to hone himself in any element, and definitely not to acquire a speed like this. He idly observed that the entire war had stopped, with both sides watching as the two combatants vanished again and again, appearing in different places in a clash of metal, wind and sound, only to vanish somewhere else. The clashes were growing in frequency, and aggression. One strike became three. A missed kick created a small crater in the ground. A flex of power on both ends ended up with a miniature detonation.
“The Outsider has changed,” said Ryu. “I cannot even recognize him anymore.”
“Neither can I.”
Both of them turned to Olfric’s left, and found Solana, the yokai leader standing next to him. “His body feels different. Very, very different. The shift is too pronounced, too sudden. Like he has had a breakthrough.”
“Even compared against the Empress?” asked Ryu.
Olfric winced, wondering if he could slowly step backwards from the two of them. He couldn’t even imagine himself talking to an elder clan member like that, reminding them of their recent failure against the foreigner.
It simply wasn’t done.
“Yes,” said the skinwalker. “The person that fought against the Empress was strong, but he wasn’t him. Whatever breakthrough he made, it is too significant. Too outstanding compared to the state he was in back then.”
“How can you say that?” Olfric asked, trying his luck. Either Ryu’s words would be proven true and the skinwalker would not take offense at his curiosity, or Olfric would be dead and would haunt Ryu from beyond the grave. “I mean, all they’ve done is clash their weapons. They haven’t even started taking things seriously.”
Much to his surprise, the skinwalker let out an extremely refined snort. “That is because for all your observation, you do not understand it. For all their skill, their bodies are bremetan. That armor the Warlord is wearing is no ordinary suit. Regardless of his prowess, the armor is empowered by Eternal Light, no doubt keeping his kami under firm restraint, allowing the Warlord to channel as much aeromancy as he wishes without fear of mana poisoning. Observe how his suit has wind swirling around it. It was absorbing the effects of friction, of sudden momentum, and the sheer force behind the attacks. But Aguilar….”
She trailed off right there.
Olfric didn’t blame her. He could see it as clear as day.
Aguilar was meeting his hits head on. And no, that thin band of metal covering his body was simply not in the same level as that armor.
“I am not sure how the Outsider does what he does, but his body has mutated, or is mutating, adapting to those conditions. His physical capacity is far greater than what he was, and this is the first time I’ve seen him perform on this level.”
“But this is the Desert,” yelled Olfric. “Eternal Light cannot penetrate this place.”
“It cannot,” said Solana softly. “But it can be contained, stored and brought int.”
Olfric followed her gaze and glanced at the massive floating warship in the sky.
“...well, I’ll be damned.”
Solana gave him an impish smile. “You fight on the side of demons, Asukan. You will be damned either way.”
“Look!” yelled Ryu.
BOOOM!
Aguilar was blasted away by an explosion of wind, while the Warlord shot forwards, several dozen blades on his trails as they came for him, aiming to hack him apart, if not for the sudden force-blast that allowed Aguilar to escape at the last minute.
“STOP FIGHTING LIKE A BRAT!” yelled the Warlord. “Fight me like a warrior or die!”
Lukas’s gait was almost lackadaisical, as the liquid metal slid down his face, allowing him to talk.
“Compared to you, I am a brat. Why wouldn’t I fight like one?”
And then his lips curved, and he spoke in that hauntingly heavy tone from earlier.
“No taste of glorious victory —”
Just what was that aria? Some kind of spell he was enacting? That was the only thing that made sense.
Right then, the terrain beneath Mujin’s feet exploded. The aeromancer shielded himself and shifted to the right, only for the ground to detonate again. He dodged through five successive detonations, before he vanished, and appeared right above Lukas and slammed a punch at his head. The fist found empty air, and smashed against the desert sands, creating a fifty-foot crater.
“Trickster!” said the Warlord. Olfric noticed that somehow, they were able to hear them speak perfectly fine, despite the distance. No doubt the skinwalker was employing some form of sonic manipulation.
Lukas popped out about twenty feet away, and began wiping the sand off his metallic suit.
“Short-ranged terramantic bombardment, instant concretion and terraportation,” said Mujin with distaste. “What are you, boy? Some kind of svartalfar half-breed?”
“He’s wrong,” murmured Solana. “That wasn’t terramancy.”
Olfric looked at her, surprised. “But he just —”
“Terraported, yes, but the others, they weren’t terramancy. The floor exploded, because he made it so. He bypassed the limitations of distance, and directly inserted the explosion beneath his feet.”
“That’s impossible,” said Olfric. “He’d have to be a magnitude faster than him.”
Solana’s teeth showed. “Who said he did it himself? He didn’t even move from his place.”
“But —”
“BOOOM!
The Warlord had shot up to the air, and was bombarding him with a dozen, two, three, five — scores of pressure orbs were shooting down at Aguilar like meteor showers. Every time they hit, the sand blew up in a massive explosion. Together, it sounded like the beating of some cosmic drum, with the shockwaves radiating out in every direction as Aguilar dodged him. Olfric stared at him, jaw-dropped, as Aguilar survived a constant barrage of thirty-eight perfectly-aimed buckshots, and looked at Tanya who was staring at them with open shock and awe. Olfric had seen Tanya perform those buckshots — Wind Shear she called them, and each one of them was capable of reducing the population of a single house to zero leaving nothing but dust and destruction in its wake. The Warlord was somehow holding absolute control over every single one of those shots, while also keeping perfect track of Aguilar’s movement.
“Watch carefully, girl,” said Solana, and Olfric knew who her words were intended for. “This is how it is when titans fight. That level of parallel processing is impressive. And neither of them have yet given into their emotions.”
“Grandfather has.”
… what?
Olfric followed Tanya’s gaze, and looked at the Warlord, amplifying his vision with lifeforce. A terramancer like Zuken would be able to do that much better, but even Olfric could see the glower of frustration forming in the man’s face, as he bombarded the terrain with aerial buckshots in untold numbers, striking one after another with increasing amounts of raw power. Had this happened inside a city, it would have been wrecked to ruins. Really, it was taking him an absurd amount of focus to just keep track of the explosions, and there they were, tracking each other’s attacks, determining their trajectories and maintaining a stalemate while operating at such speeds.
It was ridiculous. Absurd. Insane.
“Pesky little pest!” snarled the Warlord. “You’re quick on your feet, and are using this place to duck in and out like a mole. But this ends now. You can run, but you cannot hide —”
He soared into the sky, and four massive wings of crimson red erupted out of his back, each of them easily twice as long as he was tall. Around him, the winds began to twist and churn, forming —
“....fuck my life,” muttered Olfric, staring at the sky with growing horror.
Wind-blades.
They hung in the air, held up by invisible hands, by the hundreds, by the thousands they numbered. Enough to strike at almost every random space within the dome. They lined up row upon row, spanning across the circumference of an invisible circle, with Mujin in the center. Olfric didn’t need to be a sensor to know that each and every one of those blades had as much impact strength as one of those buckshots from earlier. They would rain down death and destruction, and scorch the terrain itself if they must to take down their foe.
“Oh dear….” said Solana, instantly doubling her barriers.
“That….” whispered Tanya, staggering back, her eyes open in blank shock. “That is Ezzeron’s signature move. He — he duplicated it?”
“Death By A Thousand Blades,” muttered Solana. “The signature move of the Wind King. Seemingly impossible to dodge. Can you perform that, girl?”
Olfric whirled so fast that he feared he’d snap his neck.
“I… can,” Tanya swallowed. “I can only manage a few hundreds. But… that—”
Olfric looked up at the veritable wall of wind blades, ready to crush anything and everything within its unforgiving embrace. They left no gap between the ranks, no weakness that could be exploited, and allowed nothing to slip by their guard. Lukas could keep dodging blades when they fell one after another, but not even he could survive that onslaught when they fell everywhere at the same time. Either he would be forced to go deep within the ground, in which case those blades would follow him, and take advantage of his slower speed underneath the sand. Trying to take advantage of the desert’s area and escaping would do him little, because those blades would just follow him and trap him. If nothing else, he could make a stand by trying to defend against them in which case he would be blindsided with overwhelming force. A man, no matter how powerful, could not hold the mountain back. Whatever Aguilar chose to do, it would lead to his doom.
It was a flawless strategy, simple in plan and execution. There was no reason to believe it would not work like it had when the Wind King had used it. But somehow, Olfric just couldn’t bring himself to believe that. He didn’t know why, but something within him, a deep subconscious instinct, told him that the Warlord had not counted for something. A fatal error that would cost him more than this assured victory.
Seeing Aguilar just stand there, without the slightest tensing of his body only confirmed that growing suspicion.
“Any last wishes, boy?” demanded the Warlord.
“Please,” said Aguilar, waving his hand. “It’s not like you’re going to vanish those blades and take me to a restaurant if I asked you to get me a fancy dinner as my death wish.”
Despite himself, Olfric snorted.
The Warlord’s lips twisted.
“Fire!”
Olfric all but shut his eyes, not willing to see the aftermath as the untold fury of those blades came down, raining death and destruction upon —
“My trials have no meaning, yet they are what shapes me — ”
The words rippled across the battlefield, their undeniable weight giving pause to everyone, even the monster flying above. Olfric saw Lukas Aguilar raise his right hand up, palms open, meeting the Warlord’s eyes and….
The silence that fell upon the battle terrain was almost deafening with intensity as every eye there gazed in wonder at what they saw.
Lukas was still there, absolutely unmoving. He hadn’t run. He hadn’t terraported. He hadn’t tried to defend, and neither had the Desert exploded in a thousand explosions. Solana’s barriers hadn’t been breached either. And the reason….
Was up there.
In the air.
“I….” murmured Olfric, breaking the silence. “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”
The blades hung in mid-air, held back by invisible chains, a wondrous impossibility that made no sense. They hung in those majestic numbers, and even from a distance, he could see the Warlord try to pull them back, or cause them to move or explode, or do anything at all.
But they didn’t.
They just stood there.
Floating.
Affixed to the world, as if held in place by an impossible power.
The mountain had been held back.
Regardless of mass, momentum, gravity, or aeromancy.
“Is this….” he murmured, despite himself. “Is this… the power of a Demigod?”
Solana’s neck snapped in his direction, her eyes widening but Olfric could not bring himself to care.
And then, Lukas spoke again, in that loud, heavy, impossible voice.
“I….”
He paused, and snorted. Like he had just gotten the punchline of a hilarious joke. His entire body shook slightly, but the blades still stayed unmoving. Olfric watched as Lukas turned towards Tanya, and a strange, intense look flashed across his features, as if he had just comprehended something vital, before turning to face the mighty Warlord above.
“I steal from the Infinity —”
He flexed his right wrist, and the blades — the impossibly powerful attack of the Wind Warlord, suddenly shifted direction. Instead of Lukas, they were now aiming for —
“MOVE! MOVE!” Olfric could hear people yelling, as they hurried to escape their fate —
— Towards the warship.
“And I Deprive the Beyond.”
And the blades dashed at a speed that would have put lightning to shame.
If left obstructed, the power behind those blades would have sundered an entire city apart in a single second. Each of those blades had the concept of ‘friction’ removed from them, allowing them to phase through nearly almost anything, and would keep flying ahead infinitely into the sky. But if something did happen to be in the way….
Olfric watched, flabbergasted, as dozens and dozens of wards and barriers began to form around the floating warship. Layers upon layers of protective enchantments enforced by dozens of mana generators within the warship that made it the ultimate war machine for the Earth King sprung into existence, turning the warship no less than a floating fortress in the sky capable of withstanding extreme damage.
And it was nearly overwhelmed the moment it came in contact with a force of a full powered Level-4 attack.
It was an unstoppable force against an immovable object. The two titanic powers erupted against one another with such might, that the warship was blasted further along the trajectory, taking the entire brunt of that chaotic attack.
BOOOM!
The collision erupted violently, as though a supervolcano had just erupted in mid-air, blinding and deafening all there regardless of whatever powers or constitutions they had that would normally reduce the impact. The shockwave from the blast itself was already cataclysmic, and would throw any bremetan off their feet even from this distance, without some sort of support or protection to ground them. Solana cried out in agony as she was pushed down to her knees, doing her utmost to keep throwing more barriers as the prior ones kept shattering, or else the detonation would instantly kill every single one of them. And that was with Tanya using Aeromancy to push her own barriers to augment Solana’s.
It wouldn’t have surprised Olfric if this detonation was heard throughout Haviskali, and have the Cobalt Army come in to investigate. Then he remembered that Lord Naowa had been sent a message to pull the Army away to a different site, but he doubted if he could have managed that on such short notice. But when the smoke died down and the stars dancing in Olfric’s vision died down….
The warship was still there, looming over all of them ominously, except for that massive hole in one side of it.
And the worst part? Lukas was down on one knee. Whatever that spell of his was, it had taken a lot out of him.
“Haah!” said the Warlord. “I have to admit, boy. You have some power in you. I’ll even admit you gave me quite the scare for a second,” Mujin chuckled. “But surely you didn’t think the Earth King’s Warship would be destroyed so easily.”
“He’s fibbing,” said Zuken from behind him. “For all his talk, he’s nervous. And no way was that attack easy. It was a Level-4. And I know for a fact that not even a Warlord can dish out level-4 attacks one after another. He can gloat all he wants, but that attack exhausted him as well.”
“But the Warship’s still there,” said Olfric.
The Warship is functional, yes,” said Tanya, “but the strain that the blast put on its resources and defenses? That’s another matter entirely.”
“Yes,” said Olfric. “But I don’t think that guy is going to let Aguilar play with another of his super-powered attacks. And I don’t think Aguilar, or any of us can punch another hole like that in that ship.”
“No, we —” Tanya began.
…giggle.
He must have lost his mind, Olfric decided, for when turned to look at the unflappable skinwalker, he found her giggling. Solana — GIGGLING — like a little girl. Even her shoulders were shaking, like she had just understood the meaning of the most hilarious joke in her entire life. It was the laughter of a woman who had been hit by an extremely surprising gift that she knew she would enjoy having a lot.
“That impossible man…” chuckled the skinwalker. “He was playing the Warlord all this time. He knew he couldn’t fight him and win, so he met him at his fullest power, and enraged him enough to use his more or less most destructive attack. And used it against the warship, to either destroy it, or at least considerably damage it. And look, he targeted the attack, not at the total ship, but —”
“At the cannons,” Olfric whispered in awe. And indeed it was, the warship might still be there, but it wasn't going to start firing down at them any time soon.
She turned to Tanya. “He told us, remember? You will face the Warlord, while he will do his best to undo that man’s strengths. He’s now given you an idea of how fast the man is, the nature of his attacks, and the power and concept behind his apparently most powerful blow. And he has destroyed the cannons, so Mujin cannot hold us hostage any longer. The rest is now all up to you.”
Tanya smiled, as her hair turned a spotless white, and the color between her irises began to fade.
“There’s one thing you forgot though,” she said. At Solana’s raised brow, she laughed. “It’s been five minutes since the battle started.”
With that, Solana undid the barrier, allowing Tanya to rise above the embankment, to meet her nemesis, ready to enter the battle at last.
One moment, Mujin Shimizu was up in the air, trash-talking about how he had been taking it easy, and how it was ludicrous that Lukas even imagined in his wildest dreams that such a paltry attack would be able to damage the Earth King’s warship. Of course, he knew that it was bullshit, and the fact that a Warlord was even needing to bluff him made him lose whatever respect he had for the man’s prowess. Suddenly, the sight of the battle-hardened Warlord shifted to the image of Ultaf Shimizu, only older and in possession of a far more powerful kami, and a complementary physical and elemental skill to boot.
It was… disappointing.
The next moment, a lance of wind tore through the sky at him, and for a moment, Lukas hoped that his rejuvenation skill could heal him from that wound, and then —
— Snikt!
A ribbon-like thing slashed through the lance, shattering it right when it was some feet away from striking his chest.
“Really, grandfather,” he heard Tanya say. “Attacking others when they are at their weakest. I wonder if Ultaf learnt that from you.”
“Learnt to bark, have you?” asked the Warlord, swooping down on the ground.
“That and some,” said Tanya. “And if you have even a piece of dignity left in you, wait before I settle my matters with him. Then we can fight, and I can kill you.”
The old man sneered.
Lukas pushed himself up by his elbows, heaving as he sat upright. His vision was still cloudy, what with manipulating all those momentum vectors all at once while maintaining Motion Negation against a Level-4 Wind Manipulation skill. He had made it look as theatrical as possible in an attempt to deceive the warlord, while doing his best to maintain his composure as blood vessels inside his brain were popping, with the Anomaly’s regen factor acting on it at the same time. At least he wasn’t suffering from another brain aneurysm, but it was still pretty damn close. He could barely make out Tanya’s blurry form, as she grabbed his hand, and pulled him upright. He rested against her shoulder, and gave her a lopsided grin.
“Five minutes are over?”
She chuckled. “That they are,” she said. “Thank you.”
“... For what?”
“For giving me the chance to grow past my fears. I needed to see him fighting. Seriously, it’s like every time I look away, you’re pulling my ass out of the fire.”
“And what a delectable ass it is too,” said Lukas, grinning.
“Idiot.” She grabbed him, as he lurched slightly. “Now you relax, and let me take care of it.”
“Can’t,” he said. “Need to take care of… that,” he panted, raising a finger overhead. He couldn’t give a fuck if he was pointing correctly at the warship, but she’d understand. “Don’t… do you… think, he’d… give us a five-minute break?”
“No, but he is probably charging an attack right now.”
“Figures,” Lukas mumbled. “Like I understand he’s come to capture you and kill us all, but did it hurt to be a little polite?”
Tanya snorted. “Now rest, while Frost and I finish our overdue business with him.”
“Good Luck.”
With a smile, Tanya turned around and faced the Warlord, who for once, had respected her words, and waited until she was done. Lukas had recovered enough to see things and understand them with clarity, maybe even dish out a couple of distractions if need be. He had all but used the full chant to carry out his biggest surprise, rendering him exhausted beyond belief, and it was still far from done. Then again, nothing significant ever happened without equally significant effort. Fate, for once, it seemed, had decided to keep him out of the direct fight. Just as it had decided to hurl him directly in the previous ones.
Quickly, he checked the Screen.
Territory Creation Active
Vertical Boundary Set. Length: Indeterminate
Terraformation Active
67% of Omphalos Reserves drained.
Continue with Terraformation? (NOT RECOMMENDED)
Yes. Lukas told it. He had bet everything on this one surprise tactic. It had to work. He had gotten the idea upon realizing the might of the force they would be facing. But facing them while standing upon these sands, where everything he had ever experienced had begun, a new plan had begun to form in his head. Options that he had not seen before were now available. He could work with this… so long as he managed to complete it just in time. The only problem was the sheer amount of power he needed to get it done, and not even the nigh endless reserves of his Omphalos were close enough to get it done.
That, and he needed to stay in one place until it was over. No matter what happened.
“Grandfather,” said Tanya, standing in front of him like a shield, facing the man responsible for all the wrongs in her life. Her hair was already cadaverous, though it didn’t feel like Frost had taken control yet. Despite the identity of who she was up against, this was Tanya’s fight, first and foremost.
Two whips of Everfrost appeared in either of her hands.
…. Or perhaps he had been a little too hasty in making that statement.
“There is something poetic about this,” said the Warlord, taking a step towards them. It was a psychological trick, because the closer he got to him, the greater the chances of him attacking and possibly killing him, which would make Tanya increasingly desperate. The Warlord impaled his blade upon the desert sand, and laughed. “This place witnessed the end of the Glacier Queen at the hand of the Great Goddess. It is only fitting that this place witnesses the fall of these pathetic parasites for good, while I defeat their last hope, and drag you by your hair like a pathetic slave.”
“And to do what?” asked Tanya. Surprisingly, there was a lack of venom in her tone. “Pathetically try to steal the Glacier Queen’s power so that you can call yourself worthy?”
Surprise flitted across Mujin’s face.
“Don’t be surprised,” said Tanya. “I know all about it. The Wind King defeated my mother Tsurara in combat, and imprisoned her. He was a warrior, a King, and to the winner went the spoils. I can understand that. But then you came along. A pathetic whiner, a shame on your father’s name, an insult to his potential. Even Ezzeron thought you were beyond his notice. And so you tried to steal Tsurara’s power hoping it would compensate for your inferiority.”
“Inferior….” spat the old man. “You call me inferior? When all your life you’ve fled to escape my wrath? Do not think that the half-breed behind you, or those parasites hiding behind those veils can save you from me. Do not mistake, girl. I will crush that defiance from your eyes. I shall kill that half-breed and obliterate him to dust. His remains shall blow in this very desert, while my soldiers crush your allies before your eyes. And then, when you lie defeated and alone and begging for death, I shall drag you back to that same prison your worthless father broke you out from. The Wind King started the end of these parasites. It is only fitting that I, his son and heir, be the one to end his righteous crusade.”
The words were meant to bite, but instead, they incited a scornful laughter from her.
“You are no longer mired in your hypocrisy,” said Tanya. “You’re drowning in it.”
The slight curl around the man’s mouth was the only sign he was angry.
“You claim that these parasites are demons, because they possess others to survive, and hence, your crusade against them is righteous. On the other hand, you crush your own people’s hopes and dreams and lives, turning them into flesh puppets that fight for you.”
“I have no need to explain my actions to a half-breed,” snarled the man. “A crusade needs soldiers to fight with, and while some of them can be unwilling, their protests pale in significance to the Greater Good.” He smacked his clenched fist against his breastplate. “I am a true Asukan, and domination of all that is profane is our divine right, for we are blessed by the gods. Your spineless father lacked the fortitude to bear this truth.”
“Spineless…” said Tanya. “Or perhaps he simply was a better man than you were.”
Mujin laughed. “A coward. That was all he was.”
Lukas noticed the tiniest amount of tension in her body language, before she regained her composure.
“Perhaps you’re right. Then again, he was your child. The sins of the father, as they say….”
BOOOM!
There had been no witty responses to that. No proclamations, no angry retorts. No meeting of eyes, nods of approval, or sign of mutual acknowledgment. One moment Tanya was mocking the man, and the next, she vanished, and met his sudden onslaught head on, her frosted whip meeting his blade without the slightest delay or hesitation. Every time they clashed, her whips were severed to pieces by the heavy metal, but they rejoined immediately and effortlessly for the next exchange a millisecond later.
The two aeromancers passed one another, making constant attempts to end the other’s life. Both kept moving, turning with the extreme momentum they were operating with. Mana was gathered. Tools were repaired. Bodies reinforced. Eyes narrowed. A never ending series of single passes that had them gambling with death every time.
It was a battle between two forces that did not possess the ability to stop the other without severely risking themselves.
Even to Lukas’s eyes, the Warlord was slightly weakened from channeling all that power. And the reason for that was obvious. The more mana you channeled, it tended to create imbalance within your elemental and emotional spectrum. And there, in the middle of the Desert where Amaterasu’s All-Seeing Eye was blind, where Eternal Light could not naturally penetrate, the restraints that the Shikigami Ritual applied on the kami were weakened to a significant degree. Which meant the more you used mana, the more power you gave the kami, and if you weren’t careful, the kami could severely affect your emotions and fiddle with your clarity and judgment.
But even so, Mujin was still a Warlord. His speed was leagues above what Tanya could achieve in her current state, and his strength could crush her with even a glancing blow. Even while limiting himself, he should’ve been able to take down Tanya, who was definitely no match for his physical prowess.
Weapons crashed. Bodies moved. And once more, the combatants stood still, already on the move for the next round.
Lukas had already lost count of the number of times Tanya had gotten close to being killed, just like he had stopped counting the number of times Mujin should have gotten cursed with Everfrost.
Every time they passed, Tanya kept drawing a little more of Everfrost to augment her Aeromancy.
Every time they passed, she had to abandon her attempt to destroy his body with a single blow, or stab him with frost, lest she be crippled or worse. Her body was already sporting a wide collection of paper thin cuts.
Every time they passed, her face turned just a little monstrous. Frost was beginning to take over her skin. Her wounds were healing faster, but her expressions lost their sanity, giving in to a thirst for blood.
Lukas had risen from an average human to someone capable of operating at tremendous speeds thanks to Inanna’s Kinetomancy. But even then, he’d have to admit that the Warlord had not gone all out on him. When he had traded blows against that madman, there was something playful about it, in a condescending manner as if he was amusing himself just to see what Lukas was capable of, until the very end when Lukas’s little play at bombardment had annoyed him to take him seriously.
But now? Now there was no restraint in the man’s eyes. No hint of mercy, no holding back. No doubt that Ultaf, or should he say, Joey’s claims about Tanya totalling the entire fortress had taken root inside the Warlord’s mind, which was why he was coming at Tanya like a hungry predator after its prey. He was calling on every scrap of his power and using every bit of his knowledge and experience at combat to bring it down on him.
So how was Tanya still able to keep up?
Lukas had seen her fighting against the endless hordes inside the lava ridge borderland. He had seen her obliterate the entire horde of bylestyrs with high-powered Level-3 attacks, and tear through monsters like they were nothing but mindless meat before her wind blades. It had given him an idea of what her limits were. Very impressive, but that was it. That was her max. That level was already far below the Warlord’s speed, and somehow, she was still keeping up. Unlike Lukas who had Inanna’s blessing in the form of Level-4 Kinetomancy, Tanya shouldn’t have been able to improve her performance to such a startling degree in such a short time. Why, the only creature that had been nearly as fast as she was had been….
Oh.
Maude had claimed that there were no active effects of Meynte’s possession on Tanya’s mind. That said, there were a lot of remnants of her psychic architecture — her memories — that had integrated with Tanya’s own spiritual core, and would either fade or be assimilated into her soul. Both of them were yuki-onna, both used Everfrost, and held similar genetic and spiritual structures, which caused a spiritual resonance that allowed her to gain certain skills and perhaps, instincts from her ancestor.
Maude was only half-right there.
Spiritual resonance wasn’t just possible because of having similar spiritual architecture or their connection to Everfrost. It was also possible when both of them experienced an event that resonated powerful with both souls. Meynte had faced Amaterasu’s power in this very Desert, and now, her descendant and fellow Everfrost vessel was facing another Asukan that used the power of Eternal Light.
Just like with him and Inanna — facing the Ifrit King in a world of Flame, and her, facing the wrath of the Vikahl Ashlands.
Mujin was right. It truly was poetic. Lukas only hoped that he’d appreciate the irony behind his statement.
