Felix watched as the Onooka Clansman gave a final nod of confirmation to Elder Rong. A cold breeze brushed along his neck making him shiver. He turned around to find that the errant breeze seemed to be coming from the direction of the road.
Why is it suddenly getting cold? It was warm if not hot earlier on. Is this a weird weather thing I didn't remember? I assumed that this world had seasons much like my own and I would've assumed we were still in winter.
Felix turned back to find Elder Rong looking in the same direction.
"Well Felix... looks like we should get going," said Elder Rong. The elder's eyes looked Felix up and down. "You still want to go check on Xue with me, correct?"
Felix slowly nodded, unsure of the Elder's intent.
"Well, I can see you felt the cold. You're going to need a little extra protection."
Elder Rong grinned as a pile of clothes began forming at his side.
----------------------------------------
I feel ridiculous.
Elder Rong had pulled out a hoard of cold-resistant talismans and clothes. He had then forced Felix to put one every single one of them. With so many layers on he found his limbs greatly restricted, his gait reduced to a waddle.
Sigh, I am just glad those kids are knocked out. I can't imagine this looks flattering from the outside. Though I suppose there is little doubt of that, what with Elder Rong grinning and the Onooka Clansman refusing to look in my direction.
"All right, that should keep you alive," said Elder Rong and clapped his hands together. A second later, a flying sword appeared at the elder's side. "Come on, get on. Hop to it now."
Felix waddled over to the levitating sword, talismans rustling with every step. He tried to ignore the itch he could no longer reach and stopped right next to the sword. The sword hovered two meters in the air. He stared at it for a moment, looked down to his legs that could barely bend and then glared at the elder.
Elder Rong tried to stifle his laugh. "Haha, I am sorry disciple Felix. I swear this is necessary."
The elder reached forward and hoisted Felix up, depositing him gently on the front of the sword. With a blur, the elder landed behind him a second later. Felix looked up at the now overcast sky as a few snowflakes began to fall.
The pair ascended and soon they were high above the treetops once more. Then Felix saw the full state of the weather. For miles around snow fell, but it was clearly more intense in the direction from which they had fled. Even though the heavy snowfall, he could see a concentrated vortex of ice at the epicenter.
"Okay," said Felix. "I am starting to see why I needed the extra protection."
Their sword zipped toward the maelstrom and Felix witnessed the terrain below become white with snow. At first lightly dusted, the trees were soon bent under the strain of so much mass. As they approached, the wind became so fierce that Felix began to fear he would fall. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and steady him.
Felix turned his head around to ask Elder Rong how this was possible, but then the words died on his lips. Elder Rong seemed to have become more ice elemental than man. Snow adorned the man's head and shoulders and ice crystals embossed his clothes. The elder's bushy eyebrows had expanded while his beard had grown into a foot long icicle.
The elder noticed Felix's stunned look and winked. A buzzing sound filled the air and the ice flew off in a cloud of white. The elder’s defrosted state lasted barely a minute and he chuckled softly.
"My boy, this is why you are bundled like a babe. Everyone within the range of Xue's technique is affected. No matter whether friend or foe."
"Huh, I did not get that from her cultivation manual at all. Was that in the third section?"
The elder raised a single frosted eyebrow. "She let you look at her manual?"
Felix opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by a raised hand from the elder.
"We have reached the center, my boy," Said elder Rong, pointing his finger down.
Felix followed the indicated direction to see that they were back at the road - although not a trace of it could be seen. More than a meter of snow covered everything. Large furrows and pits marked the snow from the top of the slope all the way down to where the pursuers had first appeared. Through the raging blizzard, Felix saw six people furiously fighting.
The leader of the men stood in place, swollen beyond the size of a mortal man. The man's feet remained still, yet he continuously wielded a sword longer than he was tall, flinging forth gigantic fire serpents with every swing. Another man wielded two small swords, arms blurring as a barrage of small flaming snakes wove across the battlefield. Three other men cloaked in shadow were not so stationary as they phased into existence to strike the last figure whenever they dodged a barrage of fire. Though coated in icy armor and obscured by the falling snow, Felix realized that this last person must be Sister Xue.
While the men were hampered by the deep snow and the freezing wind, Xue suffered no such encumbrance as she glided atop the snow. Smoothly moving out of the way of one giant flame serpent, Xue contorted her body to dodge two shadow-coated swords, repositioning to keep the shadow-wielding men between herself and the ever-flowing smaller fire serpents. She reached out with what Felix now saw were icy claws to redirect the final shadowy blade with one hand and crush a small fire serpent with her other. Moments later, Xue had moved away, pursued by more attacks of fire and shadow.
Though stunned by the intensity of the fight, Felix was not happy that they were just watching. He turned around on the flying sword to a happily humming Elder Rong, who vibrated every now and then to shed another layer of ice.
"Elder, why are we just watching? We need to go help her! There were way more men that came out of the woods. Twenty if not more. I don’t know where they are, but we should finish this before they come back to help."
"Felix, Felix, Felix," said Elder Rong with a slight shake of his head. "Haven't you noticed those lumps of snow below? Those are the men you fear."
Felix looked down to at the uneven snow, making out at least twenty-five mounds that were a bit too large to be men.
But if you account for how much snow has fallen...
He gulped.
The men below noticed them as they started talking and the two fire wielders exchanged looks. The leader face set in a hard expression and then those two swallowed a familiar black pill. The fire serpents rained forth larger and faster.
Elder Rong ignored the change below.
"But how is this possible Elder Rong? Defeating this many people.... are the men below just weak?"
"Felix, what do you think of this weather?" said Elder Rong.
"I-what?" Said Felix, a little confused at the non sequitur.
The elder turned from the fight to face Felix.
"Since you have looked at her cultivation technique, I assume you know that Xue can only perform one external technique?"
Felix paused but slowly nodded.
"Well boy, what you see all around us is the result of that technique. Two of those men fighting below are at high core cultivation while the other three appear to be at middle core cultivation. All those mounds below are likely cultivators in the essence condensing or the early core cultivation level. As the blizzard raged, she got stronger while they got weaker. She probably didn't even need to kill the weaker ones. They just lost the fight against the cold"
Felix was now even happier about his many layers of protection. He looked back at the fight.
Though barely fighting off the cold, the three men with shadowed blades finally boxed Xue into an incoming giant fire serpent. However, she stepped back towards the man behind her, ignoring a blade aimed at the small of her back. Instead, she shot one hand back toward the man's face. The swords hit and slide off her back, leaving deep scratches in her armor. Undeterred, two icy claws punctured the man's eyes and brain. Dead in an instant, the man's hemorrhaging quickly stopped as his now unresisting corpse froze solid. Xue's hand closed on the man's head, dragging it forward to block the fire serpent. Seconds later, she dropped the half burnt, half frozen corpse and was once again dancing in between the incoming attacks.
Felix ignored the next exchange of attacks, instead watched as the dead man's frozen blood and the smoking corpse was quickly covered in clean white snow. He swallowed the bile in his throat and turned to the elder.
"So Xue's cultivation makes her a body cultivator with one powerful technique," said Felix, vaguely gesturing around them. "Somehow, her special roots and physique let her create all this."
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The elder smiled. "I suppose that is about as much as I can expect at this point. Her technique is only possible because she has a very special physique called Nature's Rage. External spiritual energy strengthens each attack, but it makes it impossible to control. So Xue decided to not even try to control it. She created a technique that passively helps her while hurting her enemy. It even strengthens over time. The longer she has it running, the stronger the blizzard will get. It also has the side benefit of her never running out of energy."
"So, so she basically won't run out of energy AND she has a permanent area of effect skill?"
Elder Rong gave him a little smile and turned back to the fight. Xue had just killed another one of the shadow wielding cultivators. The remaining three cultivators made a break for it.
"Well, we can't be having that," Said elder Rong. He blurred and appeared behind the fleeing flame wielder with two short swords. The man turned back and barely deflected Rong's ridiculously sized mace. With three quick blows, the man was crumpled on the ground. Xue meanwhile caught the remaining shadow wielder who desperately tried to fend her off.
"Wait here," said Elder Rong. Then he disappeared in pursuit of the leader who had vanished in the direction the pursuers had come from. While this had all been going on, the sword Felix had been standing on slowly descended until it was only a meter above the snow.
Felix turned back to Xue who was now standing silently over her freshly killed enemy. Now that she was finally standing still, he could better make out what she looked like. It was as if she was adorned in crystal plate armor. Every inch of her was covered and even her head was coated in a thick layer of ice. Her fingertips extended into wicked claws with some crystallized blood coating them.
Well, she looks scary. Though with how she is just standing there, staring at a corpse, she also looks kind of desolate.
He glanced around at all the mounds, some of which were becoming less noticeable under the building snow.
Well, she's sad for the right reasons. I should go talk to her.
With determination, he hopped off the sword. Then sank up to his chin in the snow.
"Oh come on!" yelled Felix
He struggled to get out of the snow, but his constricting attire made the already difficult task impossible. His struggles stopped as he heard the crunch of snow and looked up to see Xue walking over. For some reason, she wasn't bothering to glide anymore.
Oh come on! You look over now.
"Well, can you give me a hand Elder Sister Xue?" said Felix. "This isn't helping my self- esteem."
Xue brought her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a laugh, but no sound escaped her frozen helm. She paused than held up a finger indicating he should wait a moment. Before Felix could ask, she brought her hand to the left side of her face and tore off chunks of ice to reveal her smiling lips beneath.
"Ahh, much better," said Xue, smacking her lips together. Her smile turned into a playful grin. "I assume you are not just doing that to improve my mood? Want some help?"
"That would be much appreciated." Said Felix. He reached his hands up to be pulled out.
Instead, she reached forward and plucked him out by the scruff of his clothes. She held him aloft and Felix found that dangling wasn't much better.
"Sooo," said Felix, deciding to be the bigger man. "How are you feeling?"
Xue looked around, not answering right away.
"Not great. Though I will manage."
"How?" blurted Felix. "How can you feel fine after all that?"
She slowly turned her head back to him and Felix calmed himself down. He thought she wasn't going to answer him until a sigh escaped her.
"Not easily, Felix. However, it is something I have had to face before. I never took quite so many lives as this, but this is not the first time I have killed. Though being a cultivator helps."
Felix realized he was slowly spinning in her grip and grabbed her arm to spin himself back to face her.
"Um, how does being a cultivator help?" said Felix
The corner of Xue's lips curled into a smile. "I keep forgetting how much you don't know Felix. We will fix that, don't you worry." She walked over to a rather large tree. Tossing Felix into the air, she tore through the tree with a spinning roundhouse kick. She reached up, easily caught Felix again and then the tree landed with a resounding crash. She walked over to the middle of the tree, set him down and then sat down next to him. He noticed that the blizzard had begun winding down.
"Well, there are three main things that help. One, as a person raises their cultivation, their mind become more resilient. Trauma, shock and other such emotions don't leave lasting damage as easily. Not that they won't affect you, but it becomes harder for them to break you. Two, many of the methods people use to cultivate or train have the side benefit of training one's will. Three, I am an ice cultivator. Just using my technique helps protect me from emotional turbulence."
"Huh," Said Felix.
I am not sure how to feel about that. What does it say about cultivation that it makes you better at getting over killing...
"So what does your external technique exactly do? Elder Rong explained it to me briefly but I would like to hear it from you."
Xue began using her claws to reach under her armor and tear it off piece by piece. Her clothes were mostly intact though Felix couldn't help grimacing as he saw the innumerable cuts and burns beneath. Some of the deeper gashes were even frozen shut.
"The technique does a couple things," Said Xue, idly ripping a chunk of ice from her left arm. "My physique is called Nature's Rage. It helps slightly when body refining but what it is really known for is its ability to stimulate the surrounding spiritual energy. In fact, the response is so extreme that it makes external techniques useless for such a cultivator. You either can't hit your target or hurt someone you don't intend to. Sometimes yourself."
"Wow, that sucks," said Felix. Another nasty burn was revealed on Xue's right leg and Felix found his horror at the killing reducing at the unveiling of each wound.
"Ya, it does. In fact, people with my physique have been known to be caught and killed by formation masters. Since my physique has the ability to increase the response of the surrounding spiritual energy, I make a perfect component for increasing the power of arrays. The elders have said that it isn't unheard of for the powers-that-be to ignore such things since it is a type of physique that can be more trouble than it's worth."
"Sorry, I am not sure what arrays do but that sounds horrible. Are arrays when you arrange stuff to into patterns to make stuff happen?"
Xue snorted, finally removing the rest of her ice helm and shaking out her hair. Then she removed the last bit of ice on her hands.
"Sure, that is good enough for now. Let’s focus on my cultivation method. So, I can't really do normal techniques. So, I decided to make one technique that actually helps me. I went all-in to make the resulting technique even more powerful at the cost of not being able to use any other technique. I essentially started the blizzard. The blizzard pulls in the surrounding spiritual energy which in turn feeds back into me. Then I strengthen the blizzard. Everyone in range is basically constantly attacked, slowing them down and tiring them out. They have to fight off the cold, the wind, and the building ice. On the other hand, as the qi re-enters me it slowly forms the armor you now see strewn across the ground. You wouldn't believe how many armor forming techniques I had to read to get that right. I am able to move faster, never tire, and get more and more resistant to damage."
Felix stared at her.
"Once again, teach it to me."
Xue laughed.
"I told you that wouldn't work. Without the physique, you can't create the feedback loop. Without those three spiritual roots, it would be near impossible to create the armor, and even if you could, you would freeze solid without them."
"Well," said Felix. "You were able to defeat all these people. That is something."
Xue grimaced.
"That is the end goal of the technique, but it was not as easy as it seems. Once I get going, I should be able to fight hordes of people, but they attacked me earlier than I wanted. It takes a while for the feedback loop to start unless I am already in the middle of a blizzard. You can see the injuries I incurred."
"Really now Xue," came Elder Rong's voice from the woods. They turned to see him dragging the unconscious leader. "I expected better. We will have to go over your training schedule after this. Alright, now that I have a captive, it is time for us the pick up the recruits and go home."