If it had been Ren Ziq Quen alone, Zae Zin Nim would have done her best to fight him to the bitter end. Seeing Yurwa and the others retreating to the tower, about to be crushed by the stone, had finally driven her to take a stand. She had to give this fight everything she had.

But they had only fought for a few minutes before Boreas appeared, floating on crystals that appeared to be embedded in his body. His qi might be derived from crystals, and he made no attempt to coordinate with Ren Ziq Quen, but he was as powerful as his title suggested. Between the two of them Zae Zin Nim could only retreat. She desperately wanted to get to safety, yet if she actually escaped them, they would only turn around and attack her allies.

Now that the primary armies had been broken and scattered, maybe she had a chance to use one of their plans. Her determination to stop them didn't extend to throwing her life away for no reason. So Zae Zin Nim retreated to the Yulthens Stadium, which was a hollow shell of itself without the audience.

There she could feel the pieces of the plan in place... but there was no time to think about that. Ren Ziq Quen and Boreas had arrived, both rotating around the outside of the arena and waiting for her to flee. This time she didn't make any move to escape and simply bowed toward the other cultivator.

"Ren Ziq Quen, I formally challenge you," she said. "If you believe you are truly superior to me, then prove it in a fair duel."

"You proved you were inferior when you allied with peasants," he responded, "and you forfeited your right to a fair duel at the same time."

"This isn't a game." Boreas clenched one fist, which began to glow brightly as he prepared another technique. "This is a war between crystalliers."

Except that it wasn't, not solely. If they had been paying more attention, they would have noticed the weak qi presences around the arena, but they were Diamond Crystalliers and peasants were beneath them. All their attention was on her, the true threat to their dominance.

So when the revolutionaries rose from the boxes and emerged on balconies, they were unprepared. Arrows swept into the arena like a wave, tipped with anti-crystallier spikes and acid spheres and monster fangs. Ren Ziq Quen immediately moved in an anti-projectile routine that sent them spinning away, but Boreas wasn't quite so fast.

Even though he put up defenses, these arrows were designed to punch through them. Several embedded themselves in his body and he staggered, the light within him dimming. Zae Zin Nim added her power to that of the peasants, hurling her own qi techniques to deflect his and drive him back. Another arrow struck, this one through his arm.

Boreas roared out and for a moment his body glowed so bright she could see a crystalline skeleton alight within him. He shot directly upward, tearing through the storm of arrows. It was a display of immense power... and he was fleeing. Retreating from a bunch of peasants who even now kept releasing arrows after him.

A palm swept toward Zae Zin Nim's chest.

She barely knocked it aside, but Ren Ziq Quen was too fast and already deep into his striking technique. The third blow clipped her arm and the fourth sent her flying backward, through one of the arena walls. When Zae Zin Nim staggered back to her feet, she had to wipe blood from her mouth.

Ren Ziq Quen walked in over the rubble, tearing an arrow out of his robe. "You wanted a duel? Looks like you'll get one after all, and see exactly how little you're worth."

.

..

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Suortril was a puzzle, hard to crack and increasingly frustrating. Back in Yulthens the first time, Omilaena had assumed that she would find some easy way to slip through that prism. Now she still hadn't found a clear weakness and it was becoming increasingly relevant.

He disdained to actually fight, but his presence along with Traelisia was a serious hindrance. Any time he stepped in the way of attacks he nullified them completely, while the Diamond Crystallier could easily direct her techniques around him. Their combination was shredding the ranks of the army on the docks, and even the tougher workers wouldn't last long.

Kai was still recovering, so Omilaena took it upon herself to find the prism's weakness. She started with the oldest theory and began gathering as much raw chakra as she could in a single needle. Then she unleashed it from partway across the city and watched it streak toward Suortril.

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At the last second, a plate of stone jutted from the ground to defend him. As her needle dropped to the ground, Suortril made a rough gesture to Traelisia, who began building a fortress of stone around him. He hovered in that stupid little crystal chair on the inside of a throne made from stone.

So he feared chakra, at least. Before Omilaena could try again, Suortril twisted one of his rings and a ripple passed through the city. She wasn't sure what it meant until she felt something respond from the arena to her east.

Boreas exploded from out of Yulthens Stadium, burning with more crystal cultivation than she'd ever seen before. He arched in the air and streaked straight toward her, not to mention Kai. She had only a brief moment to react and decided that this was not the time to hold back.

"Energy, Kai!" She was already in the air to draw the fight away from him, but she called back. "Not force, you need energy that isn't mana or qi!"

Then the streak of hot white light collided with her and Omilaena was pushed back through the air. It took all she had just to deflect his attack with a shield she had generated, but he was burning straight through it. Since she couldn't fly, Omilaena kicked off him to retreat to the nearest rooftop.

Only an instant later Boreas recovered and began circling around her, all the crystals in his body still bonfires of qi. She found the rhythm of his movements and hurled a needle to intercept him, but it was torn out of the air by the qi emanating from him.

"You're going to make this interesting, huh?" Omilaena spun a syringe in both hands and tried to figure out how she'd solve this one.

.

..

.

Kai limped toward the docks, willing Behemoth's Heart to heal his leg faster. He had been in better condition before he needed to fight a couple Ruby Crystalliers to help Maggle and his allies escape. But Nirka was still down there, apparently critically injured, and she was being slowly hemmed in by the combination of Suortril and Traelisia.

When he'd had others with him, it had seemed like a winnable fight. But Zae Zin Nim was nowhere to be seen and Omilaena had been forced to engage with Boreas, so now he was the only one. Kai drank the one potion he had stored, wishing that it could knit him back together faster.

At his best, he might be able to take on Traelisia. Even a little weakened, he thought his odds were good if he kept track of her Elemental Nations skills and leveraged his own advantages. But with Suortril there, nullifying so many attacks with his damn prism, it seemed impossible. The merchant looked smug about it too, floating within his stone defenses.

What could break through that prism? If he had full access to the chakra that now flowed inside him, maybe he could pierce it, but all of that went to fuel raw force. Void Gaze seemed most likely to ignore the prism, but Kai didn't think that would actually disable Suortril, and as soon as he acted, Traelisia would be counterattacking. Infernotoad's Burst had fire, but the prism would no doubt stop the boulder. Acidic Lance would have seemed a bit more promising, except that acid cultivation had already proved useless.

He knew from experience that Tyrant's Claw wouldn't work, but what about Isulfr's Bite? It had always been his strongest technique, capable of piercing armor and even consuming raw power. The limited range seemed to make it surge from the very heart of his power, the most potent attack he could manage.

If he got close enough, he could try it. The problem was getting there.

As soon as Behemoth's Heart had basically restored his body, Kai began sprinting down the city toward the docks. Traelisia noted his approach and immediately identified him as the largest threat: she withdrew most of her attacks from the struggling army and instead began throwing spike after spike of stone at him.

Kai spun aside from some, leapt off others, slid between more, and made his way closer. The distance between them was vanishing fast, and Traelisia desperately tried to throw up a wall of stone. He hit the side with his foot and ran up it, launching himself into the air and closing in on Suortril.

Silver flames drove him backwards.

The next thing Kai knew, he'd slammed backward into the pavement. Stone leapt up to bind him in place but he clawed it aside, getting back to his feet barely in time to be hit by another gout of flame. It burned, almost as badly as when he had been struck by the golden dragon. Behemoth's Heart was pounding wildly, but it couldn't possibly build up his defenses in time for this battle.

"Is that all?" As the flames faded they revealed Suortril, stroking an ornate silver carving of a dragon's head. "When I heard you barely survived one dragon, I thought I'd find another. This sort of power isn't that difficult to buy, you know."

When Kai tried to dodge, stone closed around his legs. Traelisia unleashed several more spikes to impale him and he managed to knock them aside, but meanwhile the stone around his legs began crushing. If he hadn't reached D rank Physique, his legs might already have been broken. But desperately trying to defend himself in place, he couldn't possibly escape the next gout of silver flame.

It faded and Suortril shook his head at him while the dragon head recharged. "Still alive, but not for long. This is going to end exactly the way it did before. You could have saved us all the trouble by dying instead of bothering with this tiresome determination."

"No!" Nirka leapt from the water with a cry, her spear thrusting at Traelisia.

She didn't have a chance in hell of actually killing the Diamond Crystallier, but her abrupt attack took Traelisia's attention away from the fight. A moment later Cragrila leapt from above, her spear punching through Suotril's stone - and glancing off his prism. The spearwoman redirected, trying to drive Traelisia back. As her stone attacks ceased, Kai was left staring just at Suortril and the silver dragon carving, invulnerable inside that glittering prism.

It seemed hopeless... and then, all at once, he realized that he had been thinking too small.