The trap that had been sprung acted on both the physical and spiritual realms. If I hadn’t managed to divide my mind and learned to compartmentalize each mind-scape, I would have died instantly. But I had, and that meant I had the ability to deflect that initial soul strike and kinetic attack my blunder had triggered.

The kinetic attacks that were taking place within the Clan Leader’s office were more along the lines of a poltergeist run amok than a full fledge psychic attack. The door that had been heavily warded and that I bypassed had exploded into flying missiles, a swarm of projectiles that seemed to have no pattern or thought behind their actions.

But they were coordinated enough not to get in each other's way.

I made deft use of my Tessen and armor, spooling out great reams of fabric to hide behind. I released enough fabric that by using my control over the wind, I was able to create four ghost-like constructs of material that I used to absorb the constant bombardment of projectiles.

I began adding a layer of billowing fog to fill the space. I wasn’t sure how the attacks were selecting their targets, but I hoped the mist I released would obscure my Qi by saturating the room with that very Qi. My Qi or vitality was the most likely focus for each attack.

With the room saturated with Qi, it should be hard for whatever runic enchantment had been crafted to focus on a target. The space, once filled to bursting with my Qi signature, should act like a lightning rod, grounding the remaining defenses and giving them nothing to target.

I’m not sure if the four simulacra of fabric or the room flooded with my Qi was what worked, but the attacks slowed, the swarm of flying debris losing cohesion as it did. The active wards were still empowered, they hadn’t gone dormant or returned to their initial formation, but they had been slowly neutralized.

At least for now, hopefully, long enough for me to free Toi.

The battle within my soul space from the second part of the attack was another matter. The energy there was already teaming with my Qi, but the apparition that had formed, the spirit of some barely remembered ancestor, was knowledgeable enough to dismiss my inner ocean.

Whomever he had been, he retained his soul abilities, as well as an ability to take shape- a shape that could control his martial skills. He was a person, a manifested spirit that sent a continuous ping of perception across my inner ocean to detect where my Dharmic body was located.

Once he had found me, he began to unleash a tide of soul attacks. His control over soul energy was so profound that he was able to abscond with the liquid of my own inner sea to enhance those attacks.

His soul strikes were devoid of any hint of elemental energy. They were powered by aether to create a field of null energy. That absence of anything would tear at my soul, shredding it until it was utterly destroyed.

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I was able to deflect most of those attacks. The ice that I controlled worked to form a barrier. I used a technique I had learned during the Hindel competition for consort, the method of enveloping and capturing the attacks instead of just trying to guard against them.

Each strike was powered with a small amount of the entity's soul. He weakened himself as he attacked, and if I could hold on long enough, he would fade into oblivion. The ice sheaths I created were layered with a small amount of my Dharmic energies, sufficient that once the soul strike was captured, I could compress the soul encased in ice to destroy it.

The process of compressing the soul energy and ice was much like what a blacksmith might use when forging a sword. The layer of ice and soul folded together over and over, each fold tempering the defensive sheath.

Storm surprised me and the entity by releasing a barrage of wind blades laced with lightning. I’d known she had been experimenting with the concept, but this was the first time I’d seen her succeed. Perhaps because of location, my spirit ocean was the ideal place for her to fuse the distinctive elements.

The wind blades worked very much like they would against a physical body. Even though the apparition was a being of pure soul, each edge shredded the spirit energy of the entity that had invaded my mind.

The fight wasn’t over after Storm’s attack. The entity was able to reform after each attack. It even managed to create a barrier that countered Storm’s creation. But in order to do so, it had to invest most of its energy and focus on Storm, leaving me free to attack.

The success of the soul and ice compression I had created to trap and destroy the energy the apparition had released gave me the idea to entrap the creature in a block of that soul-ice mixture I had made. With the creature’s attention focused on Storm and its defense, it was easy enough to implement my idea.

I had no idea if the entity had been alive at one time or if it was a spirit that had been tamed and bound to the defense of the library. It hadn’t seemed especially powerful, and I wondered if time hadn’t eroded the creature's abilities. Whatever the case, my block of soul-ice easily encased the entity, trapping it in what looked like a coffin.

Appropriate, I suppose, because this would be the final resting place for a defender that had outlived its creator.

The battle in the library itself had reached a stalemate. The runic defenses seemed more confused and disjointed than ever. The fog laced with my Qi making it impossible to locate me.

It gave me time to locate the sequence of runes that Toi was trapped in, a ceramic vase barely glowing with enchantments. I spent some time trying to decipher the enchantments before I had to admit they were beyond me and gave up.

There was a more straightforward method to free Toi.

The vase was ceramic, and a firm push was all it took to send it crashing to the floor. If I hadn’t realized the soul creature that had invaded my inner sea was weakened, I wouldn’t have tried to smash the vase. It might have been protected against breakage with protection that destroyed anything it contained.

But time was inevitable, and enough had passed that the enchantments that emanated across the vase had weakened. There were dark spots where those enchantments had failed, the ceramic had already cracked, and the glaze had chipped or weathered.

It was enough that once I smashed the vase, Toi was freed, and the runic defenses that had been placed to guard the room failed.

I was relieved to have prevailed and honest enough with myself to know that if I had attempted absconding with the contents of the library when the defenses were at full strength, I would have died.