Unwilling to let things go so easily, Jun tried pinpointing where exactly the problem lay.
Where he could’ve possibly gone wrong.
It didn’t take long for him to recognize that some weapons evinced a greater resistance than others. While thinner blades, daggers, long swords and the like, appeared to submit to his will with only a token amount of resistance, everything else didn’t seem to want to budge whatsoever.
With a tsk of annoyance, Jun released his hold on all but the longer of the bladed weapons, quickly pulling them to hover at his side in short order. Another thought all it took to send them winging into the storm—the sounds of singing steel a fitting accompaniment to the ever-present fizz, crackle, boom.
With a series of rapid thumps, Jun planted each of the two-dozen long swords in the sandy arena floor, following a meandering trail he only loosely tied together in his mind. Like a reverse set of breadcrumbs, leading all the way up to the distant light show ahead.
The only reason he didn’t simply follow through and skewer the beast where it swayed, the exponential drain holding so many objects aloft was imposing upon his mind. The drain only worsening the further out they went.
When everything was in place, Jun immediately doubled over, gasping for air. Wiping sweat from his brow, he let the condensed aura dissipate. It’d served its purpose, and already he could see his labor bearing fruit. As yet another bolt of blue lightning snaked outward, arcing forth in his general direction, it was suddenly intercepted.
Redirected into the protruding blade of a buried longsword, and from there, made to burrow harmlessly into the ground. Jun grinned. Until the steam cleared and he saw the state said sword was in, after having redirected the heavenly assault. Having turned into little more than a pool of molten slag, Jun found it prudent to put his satisfaction away in favor of getting a move on, almost immediately.
With a detonation of sand and silver aura, Jun exploded forward, closing the distance in mere seconds. Not even bothering to dodge, he weaved between the crooked field of blades, trusting in the makeshift lightning rods to redirect any bolts aimed his way. For the second time in what couldn’t have been more than half a minute, Jun came within arms reach of the ThunderClap Cobra.
Close enough to strain his neck at its imposing height and feel the static tingle of electricity skitter along his arms.
Close enough to see its intelligent eyes widen, in both fear and surprise.
And this time, there’d be no third party to ruin all the fun.
“Splitting Chop!”
Before either of them could blink, the rising head of the Thunderclap Cobra went eerily still, before slowly peeling apart to either side—an elastic hand having cleaved it cleanly in two.
“What in the-?!”
But before S. Jun could properly voice his outrage, you know, really get into the swing of things, Cutting’s snide voice cut in.
“It was a joint decision, I’m sorry to say. It would seem that everyone but you unanimously agreed that putting hands on, what is effectively the supercharged equivalent of a live wire, was a very bad idea,”
“But-!”
“I’m sorry, but the council has spoken. You’ve been overruled. Completely out of my hands, believe me! I tried fighting for you, I really did—suicide is such the tempting option—but wouldn’t you know it? Cleaving has political pull like you wouldn’t believe! On the bright side? You’re now free to go punch punch punch away to your hearts content. Just so long as it’s not something liable to kill us immediately upon contact.”
Jun grumbled.
“Could’ve taken it…”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Jun snorted, was about to respond, when a change in the environment snapped him back to attention. It took him only a moment to realize what was wrong.
The blizzard!
It was lessening. In mere seconds, the once raging arctic storm had vanished, leaving a bitter chill in the air and shallow drifts of snow the only real evidence of its passing. Meaning that, either the big boss bear had run out of blizzard juice, or it saw no point in maintaining a screen now that it’d run out of minions to run interference.
Or no, scratch that.
Hasn’t completely run out, it would seem.
Frozen feathers bit large chunks out of his aura, spilling yet more of his blood. That wasn’t even the worst of it, however. Jun braced himself as the Volcanic Ash Elemental descended. Before his vision was completely obscured by a whirlpool of burning ash, Jun managed to catch a glimpse of the cowardly bear some distance away—still favoring his left paw, as it damn well should.
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It would have to be good enough. He was sick and tired of being jerked around like he hadn’t a say in how this went.
“Don’t fancy resorting to this but… desperate times and all that…”
Oh, who was he kidding? With a roar, Jun expelled as much crushing aura as he reasonably could without blacking out right there on the spot. Blasting everything around him to smithereens—sand, living ash, the very air itself in places.
Rejecting anything and everything in a three-meter-wide radius that didn’t have the common decency to be crushed outright. Then he inhaled, reabsorbing the mist back into himself until his entire body was covered in a thin layer of chrome. Jun crouched.
Preparing himself, he winced with every well-placed feather that plinked off of his second skin. Now acting as a force multiplier, both in the external and internal sense, even the errant flick of a small child would pack enough of a punch to bruise for several days, and these damnable feathers were hitting a lot harder than your simple finger flick.
Ignoring the pain, ignoring the strain, ignoring the swirling ash of the elemental reconstituting, Jun focused all of his attention on one, singular thing. The muscles of his left leg bunched. Jun braced. Then the world became a streaking blur of motion.
BOOM!
Tendons tore, bones shattered, the world behind him exploded. At the same time everything ahead drew nearer at truly impractical speeds. Suicidal ones, if one were to go putting labels on things. The Arctic Devourers eyes might’ve widened near the end, it’s body even scramble to leap out of the way. He didn’t know, would never know.
He’d simply been moving too damn fast for all that. Fist met snout at breakneck speeds, and the bone didn’t give way under his touch, so much as cease to exist. The entire top half of its body becoming a twenty-foot-long smear against the furthest wall.
The sudden impact not only serving to get his heart pumping like you wouldn’t believe, but to immediately arrest his forward momentum before he quickly followed the beast's example.
Convenient that.
That the same sudden wrench that arrested his momentum effectively broke every bone in his arm? Far less convenient, if he was being totally honest. Jun hit the ground and stumbled—ruined leg unable to hold his weight. It was a good thing he’d only used one in the approach. One good leg and one good arm meant he was still in good fighting condition, as far as he was concerned.
“You know, when I said, punch away to your hearts content, I apologize if you took that as some sort of encouragement on my part. Worse, tacit permission of some kind to do… you know what? Never mind. It’s not even worth the breath at this point. The council has spoken. Your steering privileges have been revoked. Seriously, this is why we can’t have nice things.”
And with that, the chrome cast of his skin immediately faded, to be replace by a rising red mist. Lying down—a twisted tangle of broken limbs—even through his general contempt for pain, Jun winced at the sheer amount of damage he’d sustained.
His arm a morbid corkscrew, twisting around itself more times than he could count, while his ankle seemed to have wrapped itself around his knee. Somehow. And to make matters worse, he was still being pelted by that damnable bird.
With a sneer, Jun threw up his only working hand. Forming several fine daggers, he merely thought to taunt the bird at first—knocking its feathers out of the sky with his own far superior projectiles. Then, inspiration struck, and his plans immediately changed.
Not overly much at first.
He still continued to deflect the feathers aimed his way, though far more attention was given to peppering the far-off figure. Not even with the intention of harming the bird. Merely riddling the outer layers of its plumage would do. Eventually, he deemed his efforts satisfactory. And just in time too, as, through his periphery he could see ash beginning to swirl and coalesce.
Plumage now riddled quite thoroughly with his ruby blades; it only took a meager expenditure of mental energy to release them from their semi-corporeal state. Detonating simultaneously, the glittering Phoenix was soon engulfed in a cloud of ruby red mist. Not done yet, he immediately began manipulating the aura—molding it to his exacting specifications.
Before, with a vicious grin, he made a tight fist with his still upraised hand—snaring the bewildered FrostTail Phoenix in an Iron Maiden like construct. A wicked, glittering cage whose proverbial door, much like his fist, slammed shut with a decidedly pointed finality.
Ruby blades immediately shattered upon contact, having failed to even come close to penetrating its resilient plumage, though Jun had honestly expected as much. With a thought, the chipped and broken blades dispersed, only to reform a second later with another clenched fist. At which point they once more shattered upon contact, leaving little more than shallow indents behind. Breaking into glittering shards, only to then reform again, and again.
And as he continued his assault, ran through each successive cycle, his speed at this only grew. From one revolution a second, to three, and then five. Soon enough, the distant Phoenix couldn’t even be seen past the perpetual release and reformation of cutting blades.
And though he couldn’t visually affirm as much, he was positive all those small nicks and cuts were adding up. He hadn’t forgotten the greatest strength of his, the greatest of all the concepts, after all.
Precision.
And though he might have been brute forcing it out of necessity, he was well aware that all he needed was to strike the right place, at the right angle, at the right time. Do that, and it was likely he could sheer through just about anything.
Irregardless of his own personal strength.
He was sure a normal practitioner, a swordsman or the like, would’ve hung back and observed, waiting for the perfect time to strike. He didn’t have time for that. His way, it was purely a numbers game. Only a matter of time before…!
There came a sharp cry from up above, then the glittering nuisance, lording over the skies since their battle had first been joined, plummeted in a hapless spiral towards the ground. Jun grinned. He had no idea what he’d hit, only that it’d been vital enough to save him the trouble of learning how to fly.
A rather tall order, given moving at all was currently something of a struggle. A half shimmy, half crawl the best he could manage. Yet manage he did, as he wouldn’t be leaving anything to chance.
Though he’d made it look easy, that little display had cost him greatly. He’d rather not place all of his hopes on the idiot bird having the common decency to die from the long fall. A few undignified seconds later, a well-placed [Spearing Hand], and it was done.
Jun slumped against the rapidly cooling corpse, the occasional flicker of blades enough to keep the apparently immortal Ash Elemental suitably dispersed. And that was more or less how Eleanor and the rest found him.