The first step was always going to be the hardest, but Jane couldn't afford to take her time any longer and promptly flew a distance in front of the frost buffalo. She lowered her phantom hand so that it was head level with the buffalo and stuck her hand out, waiting for the beast to run into it.
The buffalo saw Jane in front of it but only huffed and continued charging forward. Whatever got in its way would be pulverized. It lowered its head and ran right at her.
BOOM!
A massive sound thundered out from the force of the collision, echoing throughout the redwood forest for kilometers. The buffalo had run straight into her unmovable hand and was stopped dead in its tracks before the rebounding energy from its own body shot back into it.
The buffalo bellowed in pain as its body was flung upwards and overtop of Jane. Its massive body flew through the air and eventually landed on the forest floor with a loud thump, sending clouds of debris into the air from its extreme weight and size.
A smile rested on Jane’s lips, happy with herself.
She looked In front of her where the buffalo had come from and saw a line of destroyed trees and trampled ground that continued all the way to the edge of her vision. The frost buffalo had already caused some immense damage to the ecosystem, and now it was her turn to face said beast.
Turning around, she stared at the buffalo as it slowly got up from the ground with dirt staining its beautiful white fur coat. It shook its head, obviously disoriented from the collision, but it soon found what had caused this whole mess— Jane.
It blew out an icy cold mist from its nostrils and used one of its front legs to scrape the ground in anger while preparing itself to bash the pest getting in its way. Letting out a battle roar, the buffalo used its massive legs to run at Jane again, this time it wasnt gonna fail. Once it got in range of Jane, it flexed all of its legs to dive at her head first— and like the first time, it was stopped dead in its tracks.
It stumbled backwards again, its head in slight pain. Now it was furious.
As for Jane, she had successfully gotten its attention so now it was time to get out of the danger zone and distract it until help arrived. Her plan was to fly up in the sky in one phantom hand while she used the other hand to constantly pester the beast below.
Ascending at a quick rate trying to get into a safe distance as fast as possible, Jane didn't expect a large stream of icy mist to rocket forth from the buffalo’s mouth towards Jane in the sky.
She threw her free phantom hand in front of it but the sheer pressure from the icy mist pushed the hand back while the ice that started to cover it added more weight to it.
Jane’s phantom hands didn't have the same unmovable and indestructible properties her normal hands had, they did take some of its powers in the fact they were quite durable, but there was only so much damage they could take. As for how much they carried, Jane herself couldn't carry that much even though her hands were unmovable— if a heavy thing fell on her hands then she could keep it up— and the phantom hands were the same.
The larger the phantom hands, the more weight they could carry and damage they could take, but it was a lot more taxing on Jane’s stamina.
Feeling the weight build up on her phantom hand, it had already begun to fall out of the sky. Trying to save energy, she unsummoned her hand but that then allowed the stream of icy mist to find its way next to her.
The same thing was happening to the hand she was flying in as an icy coat started building up on it, but if this one disappeared, she would fall out of the sky. Thinking on her feet, Jane let the hand preemptively drop with only a little icy on it so that she could stop its fall.
As Jane got closer to the ground, she made her hand slow down until it gently landed on the ground, but she was immediately met by another stream of icy mist. Hiding behind her hand, she could see more ice build up on her hand until there was an entire block of ice on the other side.
Thump Thump Thump!
Hearing thundering footsteps running at her behind the ice, she had no choice to unsummon her stuck phantom hand and run out of the way. The buffalo smashed into the ice block, shattering it into hundreds of pieces that shot out into the area in all directions.
Jane felt a few pieces of ice scrape against her leg and cut her while some others she managed to block with her hands. She looked back at the buffalo and saw white misty balls form in the air around it, trying her best to remember learning about the frost buffalo in class, her eyes widened because she recognized the attack coming her way.
“Shit!” Spikes of ice shot out from the white balls and rapidly pieced through air at Jane.
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She leapt out of the way of a few and had to smack a few others out of the air with her hands before she tried to summon her phantom hands, grow them large enough to carry her, and then fly her out of here.
The buffalo was smart though, it wouldnt let her do that.
The second her phantom hands came out of her own hands, a barrage of ice spikes came raining her way. If she managed to grow her hand to any decent size that she could ride, a mouthful of icy mist would hit it and prevent it from flying.
By now the landscape around her was an icy hell. The trees were frozen solid, the dirt floor was now mostly ice and even the air around the locations felt colder. Then there were the icy spikes sticking out of the ground creating more obstacles for Jane to traverse as she tried her best to avoid whatever attacks the buffalo sent her way.
There was one thing she noticed; the buffalo wasn't getting close to her. It seems that it's two failures had caused it to smarten up and take a distanced approach— and this thing was right on the money. Jane could do nothing to counter attack from afar and could only dodge more and more.
Her stamina was waning as it felt like she had been in this battle forever. The exhaustion of losing her hands, running around, and being on the edge of life and death, caused her to make her first slip up. It was a literal slip up since she stepped on a patch of ice and slipped right on her ass, giving the buffalo a free shot at her unmoving body.
Jane watched in horror as one of the frost buffalo’s icy streams blasted directly at her face, she felt like time moved in slow motion as the white mist inched closer to her. Closing her eyes and accepting the inevitable fate befallen to her, she waited for her body to get hit.
Suddenly a chime played out next to her which made her open her eyes to witness a golden ball hovering directly in front of her. The second the icy mist got close to the golden ball, it transformed into a translucent shield made of energy which blocked the mist and saved Jane from becoming a popsicle.
‘Huh? Was I saved?’ Jane looked behind her and saw three people run out of the forest edge behind her, while one man came gliding from above the trees down onto the patch of dirt next to her.
Each and every one of the four people that had arrived wore expensive looking tunics with a golden chest sized symbol in the center. Two of them wore green tunics, one wore red, and the one who came from the sky wore a purple one.
Jane could immediately recognize the tunics since they were the official uniform for classholders working for the kingdom. Red was for novices, green was for experts, purple was for masters, while the one color that wasn't here was black, and that was meant for lords.
Depending on their rank, they gained several benefits from the kingdom. The most well known benefit was for lord classholders, they would officially acquire a noble title once they reached this rank.
It wasn't easy to go up in the ranks through, it took years of training and dedication to the kingdom to keep climbing. There were strict requirements if you wanted to rank up which meant that even the distance between one rank was monumental. Classholder could be stuck in the novice rank forever if they didn't actively try to better themselves.
Beside the color of the tunics, Jane could also recognize the symbols that rested on each of their chests.
The young man wearing the red tunic wore a similar symbol that her girlfriend did. It was a compass looking shape indicating they were an elementalist, but instead of a snowflake like Mira, the man's symbol was a mountain. He was an earth elementalist.
One of the two in green had a symbol of a sword and the other had the symbol of a shield. The former was a male brawler while the latter was a female priest.
Lastly the man in purple had the symbol for an air elementalist, the normal elementalist compass shape but with three horizontal lines that curled at the ends in the middle.
The man in the purple walked past her and stood in front of her, looking the buffalo dead in the face. The novice and the brawler stepped up beside him and readied themselves for the inevitable battle.
“In formation! Kylie, you help the misses here.” The master classholder commanded and the men got to work by each taking one side while the master stayed in the center.
Jane felt her exhausted body lifted off the ground by the lady priest while a healing energy started to slither its way into her body. She looked up to find a pretty face staring at her with worry and a calming smile.
“Are you okay?” The priest Kylie asked in a soothing voice.
“Could be better honestly.” Jane replied while looking down at her scrapped legs.
Kylie lightly chuckled at her reply. “It's good that you're fine. I'm also happy that you successfully held the buffalo at bay for us to get here. You did good.”
While Jane normally didn't like people treating her like the priest did— like a lost child— she couldn't help but feel good after hearing her words.
‘Is she secretly a soothsayer?’ Jane thought to herself but was pulled back into the real world as the sounds of intense battle played out behind her.
“Will you be fine if I join the battle? I won't be too far if you need any more assistance.” Kylie asked.
“I'll be fine here, I could even help out if—”
“Please don't.” Kylie cut her off. “It's not that we don't want your help, but it's easier when unknown variables—” She gestured at Jane. “- don't interfere in the fight. Sorry if that sounded a bit mean, but I gotta go help my team!”
Kylie gave her one last smile before she turned around and threw golden balls at her teammates, the sounds of chimes ringing out each time she did so.
Jane didn't take what Kylie said as an insult. She learned about combat at the academy and it was a lot easier to fight when you were most comfortable. If Jane jumped in there, maybe she could help, but maybe she might screw them up. It was better to be safe than sorry.
That being said, she wasn't leaving just yet. If it did look like they needed more manpower, she wouldn't hesitate to jump into the fray, but for now they looked like they got this.
The master classholder could push away the buffalo’s icy breath with a wave of his hand while any attempts at charging were simply avoided. Whenever the buffalo had its attention turned on someone else, the brawler would leap over to it and kick it with such force that the massive thing would actually stumble. The earth elementalist, while being a rookie, would use his powers to warp the ground to try and trip or hinder the buffalo.
The ice spikes seemed to give them the most trouble but either the master redirected them with his wind, they would be dodged, or if any slipped through and hit someone, the priest's shield would block it for them.
They had a good team composition and seemed to be dealing with the frost buffalo quite easily. That being said it was still a tough battle, but eventually, after another few minutes of battle, the brawler landed one last kick and the buffalo fell to the ground.
Seeing the opportunity to finish the beast, the master classholder swirled his hands, condensing the air around him into a blade which he then threw at the buffalo. The wind blade cut into the buffalo neck but its thick muscles prevented it from going all the way through. It cried out in agony as its neck was profusely bleeding out and the rest of its body was bruised and beaten.
Thankfully, the master didn’t let the buffalo suffer longer as he condensed another blade, which this time cut all the way through and decapitated the beast.
The fight was over.