The priestess gestured toward Pan Tian and six blood bolts hurtled through the air, splattering over the barrier of moonlight qi harmlessly. The priestess dived out of the way of Pan Tian's attack and scrambled to evade Pan Tian's follow up strike.
Then, with another gesture, the priestess sent out a pulse of blood qi that washed over everything around her.
The priestess's blood qi pulse crackled against Jie's qi armor, unable to gain a hold as Jie repelled it with a thought. But just that small distraction caused her to be a fraction slower in countering Hazzik's sunfire qi arrows and one detonated too close to Ithilix. The shockwave sent Ithilix tumbling over the stone as blood beasts roared and chased after her.
Ithilix rolled with the movement and spun, lashing out with her tail and cutting a nasty gash across one of the blood beasts' faces. The other tried to bite Ithilix but gained only a mouthful of green poisonous smoke as Ithilix vanished and reappeared behind the summoner. Jie's heart nearly stopped as she feared her friend would die, but relief washed over her as Ithilix recovered with smooth ease and resumed pressuring the summoner.
While the pulse had only barely disrupted Jie, Pan Tian was less fortunate. Blood qi clung to her like living tar, worming its way over her body as it worked to slow her movements. Even so, Pan Tian reached the priestess and slashed at her with her long, bright glowing claws.
The crowd held its breath. But before Pan Tian's attack could land, the priestess clenched one hand into a fist and the blood qi writhing over Pan Tian surged with power and massively expanded, engulfing Pan Tian entirely and hardening into red crystal.
Pan Tian stood frozen, her claws still outstretched toward the priestess, but unable to move.
"Awhaark!" Roared the crowd as they cheered.
The priestess raised her arms upward and cycled a new martial skill. All the blood pools her previous skills had left behind flowed upward and merged together into thirteen enormous blood lances. Each of which was far larger and more powerful than the blood bolts the priestess had previously used.
With a grunt of effort from the priestess, the blood lances turned toward Jie. Their swirling surfaces glinted in the light of the endless explosions rippling in the air as Jie held back Hazzik's sunfire arrows.
Jie's mind raced. Her cultivation was gradually settling and her ability to control her chain finger of light attacks was improving, but it was not yet good enough to allow her to move. Not if she wanted to keep her friends alive.
The hit would disrupt her... yet evading would allow at least one sunfire qi arrow through.
And one arrow was all it would take to end the life of one of her friends.
Then, Pan Tian's aura flared. The crystal encasing her cracked and burst apart into a thousand glittering red shards as a dome of dazzling moonlight qi expanded outward from Pan Tian. It smacked into the priestess like a moving wall and sent her tumbling over the stone. Several blood lances melted into puddles once more while the rest flew toward Jie only for their aim to falter as the priestess's control slipped.
Blood lances thudded into the stone around Jie like glistening red spears with only one grazing against her qi armor. The distraction threw Jie off slightly, but she was able to keep Hazzik's arrows at bay even so.
Pan Tian then charged toward the priestess and their battle resumed around Jie. This time, however, Pan Tian stayed closer to Jie, ensuring she didn't get caught so badly out of position a second time and unleashing a flurry of slashes to ward off the priestess.
Thanks to her friends keeping the priestesses at bay, Jie was able to devote her full attention to countering Hazzik. As she did so, her understanding of how to chain her finger of light skill rapidly improved. And releasing so many attacks massively helped her finally begin to stabilize her cultivation, which made her martial skills smoother and easier to perform.
Jie started responding to his sunfire qi arrows faster and began learning how to more effectively use her chain lightning to counter them. Finally, she countered his qi arrows and managed to slip one of the arcs from her chain finger of light attack toward the platform. It was lower in power as it was the last in a chain, but she felt Hazzik's aura shift and smiled at the fact that she'd finally forced him to dodge one of her attacks.
Making him evade her slowed his shots just barely and gave her a slight opening to push even harder. She used that small opening and slipped two arcs through, forcing him to evade once again. Jie's smile turned predatory as she finally had him on the back foot. Just a little more and he'd--
There was a shift in the aura of Hazzik's attacks and the next time he fired, four slightly smaller blazing sunfire qi arrows shot out instead of one. The arrows spread out, targeting all four members of Jie's group including herself. The shots had lower power individually but there were vastly more of them. And that combined with their spread-out nature instantly made them harder for her to deal with than the more focused and powerful attacks Hazzik had previously used.
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Then, he fired again, releasing another four arrows... and another four. Firing as quickly as he had before but now with four times as many projectiles for Jie to block. And, though they were weaker, each arrow was still more than powerful enough to seriously hurt if not outright kill her friends.
Jie's blue eyes widened in horror and her heart thundered in her chest as she desperately fired chain finger of light attacks at the countless sunfire qi arrows with everything she had.
The air in the arena between Jie and Hazzik turned into a wall of roiling smoke, fire, and lightning as Jie's meridians screamed from the effort. She managed to counter the arrows heading toward her friends, just barely catching those aimed at Pan Tian in time.
The shockwaves of the explosions were close enough that they knocked Pan Tian and her opponent to the ground. And, even with Jie's desperate attempt to counter them all, her more settled qi, and her increased control... she was still too slow in protecting herself.
Jie tried with everything she had to fire off another finger of light as a sunfire qi arrow bore down on her. But not even she was fast enough to do so in time.
It smashed into her chest and exploded.
The force of the blast drained Jie's qi armor even as it sent her sliding backward over the stone. Thankfully, the lower power of the shot reduced the drain, but it delayed her as Hazzik relentlessly fired countless more sunfire qi arrows at Jie and her friends like an endless meteor shower.
The crowd cheered, whistled, and applauded as everything in Jie cried out in fear for her friends. If she didn't do something soon, more qi arrows would get through and all her friends would die before her very eyes.
Jie halted her slide backward with a lightning step platform behind her, using one simply to catch herself and regain her footing even as she released all the chain finger of light attacks she could. Her meridians burned from the strain, but she ignored it. There were more important things to focus on than pain.
Her mind raced, searching desperately for an idea to make it easier to block Hazzik's fire and protect her friends before time ran out and he overwhelmed her completely.
The trouble was her friends being spread out meant that it took an incredible effort to arc her lightning between Hazzik's shots. If she could somehow group his arrows closer together, Jie thought it would be easier to counter his fire even with the vast increase in the number of shots he fired.
But while Jie couldn't control Hazzik's fire... she could control where his targets were... the only issue would be the priestess Pan Tian was fighting. As the controlling abilities the priestess utilized could put Jie's friends in jeopardy if they were all conveniently in one place.
Still, Jie could think of no better option.
"Everyone, group up on Pan Tian and take down her priestess. Ignore the others and stay close together!" Jie yelled, using her qi to empower her voice so her friends could hear her over the deafening roar of the explosions shaking the arena.
Xue and Ithilix reacted instantly. Ithilix vanished in a swirl of green poisonous qi and reappeared behind Pan Tian's priestess while Xue cycled his own movement skill. Crackling blue dragon lightning qi enveloped Xue and he zipped toward Pan Tian's priestess like a ball of living lightning.
Pan Tian's priestess transformed into blood and flowed away an instant before Xue came roaring through the space she'd been standing in with all the fury of dragon lightning.
Of course, for Jie her friend's movements were still slow and she had no doubt it was for Hazzik too. And she was ready for some new dirty tactic as her friends clustered together. But none came and as they grouped up, it became massively easier to counter Hazzik's attacks.
The summoner and her minions that Ithilix had been fighting chased after Ithilix while the warrior arak raced toward Jie. But Jie didn't move and focused intently on pressuring Hazzik, rapidly turning the tide as she easily chained lightning between the more closely grouped shots.
Hazzik swapped back to his more powerful single stream of sunfire qi arrows, firing a massive barrage of them at Jie's friends. If he hit, he would surely kill his own allies too, but he hadn't seemed too worried about that from the start.
It didn't matter as she'd countered his more focused shots before and now it was even easier as every shot he fired was still grouped closer together than it had been before.
The controller priestess desperately tried to fend off Jie's friends with the help of the summoner but the two of them were rapidly becoming overwhelmed.
The warrior arak in crystalline armor reached Jie and swung her swords at Jie, both blades burning with scarlet energy. Jie remained focused on her goal as she overwhelmed Hazzik, forcing him to evade arcs from her lightning and pushing him ever harder.
The warrior struck Jie and Jie allowed her qi armor to react.
Jie's armor snarled against the brightly glowing red swords and the blades exploded into a spray of crystalline shrapnel that peppered the priestess's armor. Some fragments found their way through gaps in the priestess's armor and sliced through feathers and flesh as the bird woman shrieked and spun backward through the air, her body violently convulsing from the shock.
Jie felt a surge of guilt, but she dared not take her attention off Hazzik. His attacks were easier to counter this way, but a mistake now would cost the lives of all of Jie's friends.
The sooner she ended this, the better.
As she forced him to dodge the occasional attack she slipped through, so he fired fewer shots and so she slipped more attacks through to threaten him. Just that slight edge was more than enough to advance her toward victory.
Finally, Jie overwhelmed him so utterly that she forced him to pull back behind the lip of the platform and use it for cover. She reacted instantly, taking full advantage of his brief retreat, and leaped high into the air.
Jie cleared more than half of the height of the crystal column he stood atop with a single jump. Then, she used a lightning step platform and exploded upward through the cloud of smoke hanging in the air.
The second jump boosted her well above the lip of the platform and Hazzik raised his bow to fire at her. But, although she was utterly exposed in mid-air, she now no longer needed to worry about defending her friends.