“I’ll handle the lessers.”
“Got it.”
Avuri sped forward to engage Leon and Quarris, while Emery focused on her flying swords. Controlling them directly - and even using her Domain abilities - required a very small amount of Qi. And she pushed everything she didn’t need toward Avuri.
Avuri felt a rush of Qi pass to her from Emery, and immediately drew upon their vast combined pool of resources. She lashed out with what would normally be a large-scale attack again, aiming to hinder their enemies and give Emery a small leg up to dispose of Quarris’ two allies more quickly. But with only four targets now, she targeted the four enemies directly, deciding the extra Qi spent on control would be well spent.
Quarris had formed a full set of battle armor quickly - far more quickly than Avuri would have imagined - and was ready to receive the attack. Her armor wasn’t the traditional bulky, spiky thing that most earth users favored, either. It was a lithe armor that appeared as though it would be lightweight. Of course, appearances didn’t mean much when it came to Qi techniques.
On the other hand, it seemed like the lighter armor is what allowed Quarris to complete it so quickly. The other two earth Cultivators were still forming their armors, which were the traditional bulky variant. Leon, for his part, quickly created a barrier of fire around himself to defend from the technique that was clearly headed his way.
Rather than a blanket of ice, Avuri went for a more targeted attack. She spun up Emery’s Qi in a greater amount than her previous attack, aiming to utilize the metal Qi more this time. Sure, the metal wire through the ice was great for reinforcing it a bit and sometimes punishing people that tried to break through it with their bodies. But if she wanted the ice to be actually difficult to break, she had to place the wire within the ice more deliberately. And that took more Qi and more focus.
This time she focused her intent on freezing specific parts of her targets’ bodies. Ankles, wrists, elbows - any joint she felt she could target, she did.
And while there was no doubt that she targeted Quarris and Leon, they were distinctly secondary targets. She gave up on them quickly when it became clear that their defensive techniques would be enough to get in the way of her ice.
But the two lesser Cultivators were easy pickings for her. Her technique blasted through their defenses, and encased various parts of their bodies in ice. And each of those blocks of ice had thick, braided cable running through it to reinforce it.
While she had no doubt that both of them were capable of breaking the ice off of their bodies, it would take them time and effort - which they didn’t have.
Emery’s flying swords were upon them with almost no time between the sudden freezing and her first set of strikes. Each Cultivator was harried by five swords, striking in random patterns. With only half of a set of armor and partially immobile limbs, both people did admirably well on defense when they were at such a clear disadvantage.
But they were clearly outmatched. The flying swords were forcing them to move around the field to avoid fatal blows that they could see, but it was also forcing them into blows they couldn’t. Emery kept creating air blade traps just outside their Domains where they couldn’t sense their creation, then drove them into the traps with the flying weapons.
Cuts were opening up all over their bodies and slicing through their armor as they moved desperately to avoid being skewered.
Until Emery jumped into the melee, brandishing her spear. The additional weapon in the mix may have been enough to overwhelm them on its own, but with Emery wielding the spear, it was simply too much.
The first Cultivator had ice and wire surrounding both their ankles, and trapping one arm against their torso. They had managed to finish their earthen armor while avoiding the onslaught, but that was all. When Emery jumped into the fight, she focused on them first; and when an air blade opened a deep gash in one leg near their knee, the leg gave out. Emery was there to catch their face with the butt of her spear - it cracked against their jaw and left them limp on the ground.
The second Cultivator was a bit better off. Ice only remained on their left elbow and knee. It was making it difficult for them to dodge around efficiently, but hadn’t inconvenienced them as much as the other. They had not only completed their armor, but also a large two-handed axe made of stone. Using the axe to bat away the flying swords occasionally had been enough to avoid most of Emery’s invisible blades of air.
When Emery moved in for the ‘kill’, the Cultivator turned toward her and prepared for a close quarters fight, entering a traditional sword fighting stance. It was one that Emery recognized and knew very well, thanks to her torturous childhood training.
It was a good fighting style, well-rounded and designed for duels. It was not, however, very adept at dealing with multiple attackers. When Emery stepped in and struck with her spear in a simple thrust aimed at the Cultivator’s head and they blocked in exactly the way she expected they would given their chosen stance, she immediately decided that this particular fighter must either be woefully unprepared for an actual fight, or simply an idiot.
Two of her flying swords slammed into the Cultivator, handle first. Emery knew exactly where to strike given the blocking form they had used, and the defensive holes that would be left open. When the Cultivator’s body contorted from the blows, Emery swung her spear in an arc aimed at the enemy’s jaw in a similar blow to the one that had knocked out the other opponent.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
As expected, this second Cultivator was better. They twisted to block the strike, and did so in a feat of flexibility, even with their left joints frozen. It didn’t matter in the end when Emery’s flying swords struck from four other directions at high speeds. Emery had dulled their edges to make them bludgeons, and they had succeeded in knocking the opponent out.
Avuri, for her part, knew she didn’t need to buy Emery much time. She could feel Emery’s certainty in a quick victory. But even moreso, she could simply feel exactly where Emery was at in her battle. It would take her less than thirty seconds to put down the two mooks, even while pushing most of their Qi to Avuri.
Avuri planned on making good use of those thirty seconds, especially when so much of their collective strength was currently hers. She split her available Qi several ways as she utilized several of her older techniques. Dancing Snowflakes appeared around her ready to fend off whatever blows might come her way. The chilled air around her hardened into her Hoarfrost Armor. And finally, two Blizzard Dragons coiled around her, their heads each poking up over her shoulders.
The techniques weren’t alive, but she took a moment to scratch under the right one’s chin. If anyone else got anywhere near this close to the technique, the tightly wound wind and hail would begin to tear them apart so this sort of show was one she did often to downplay the danger of the technique.
Leon condensed his fire barrier into a few large wheels then spun wildly in the air. They hovered behind him at the ready for whatever he would do with them. A whip of flame also appeared in one of his hands, while the other held a floating ball of light aloft. Avuri smiled inwardly; Leon may have gotten generally stronger, but each technique he used now were by the book techniques used by the Fire Eater Sect located in Bouquet.
They weren’t exactly a huge threat.
Quarris, on the other hand, worried Avuri more. Her earthen armor looked unique. She didn’t appear to use any hand-held weapons, but had clearly used a technique that created jagged pillars of rock to strike from the ground. She was also orbited by floating rocks that weren’t large, or even shaped. They were just floating stones - the innocuousness of it gave Avuri pause.
Even if Quarris didn’t give her pause, her decision on how to approach this fight was made before it even began. She wanted to remove Leon from the board immediately so they could deal with him later. She definitely didn’t want to kill him, but she was perfectly comfortable with maiming him to keep him out of the fight for now.
She could feel Emery’s approval at the thought in the instant she made the call. Avuri didn’t have a lot of what she considered ‘techniques’. Sure, there were plenty of attacks and skills that she could implement and she was very versatile. But as far as techniques that she considered worthy of a name went, she only had a few. Dancing Snowflakes, Hoarfrost Armor, Blizzard Dragons, First Snow. All four of those had been developed early on in her life, too.
New techniques that were worthy of setting apart with a name were hard to come by. She had several alterations for each of her named techniques, especially with her access to Emery’s metal Qi. Reinforcing her ice with wires was the most common, of course, but there were others too. But none were truly worthy of being called their own technique in her mind.
Except for one.
In the nearly fifteen years that she had spent working with Emery and Cultivating a relatively new style of fighting, only twice had she developed a new technique that she felt was unique and distinct enough to give a new name; and one of them was entirely developed with Emery by accident.
Leon was weaker than Avuri was, by a fair margin. Even putting aside her total output thanks to her Bonded Domain with Emery, Leon was still weaker. He felt like he was only a couple years into the Sky Realm, and his Domain gave off the same impression. It was small - stretching just over a meter from his body - and wasn’t particularly resilient.
Avuri wasn’t great at shutting down Domains, even when they were distinctly weaker than hers. The spiritual force that was required to push against another Domain simply wasn’t in her nature and her blizzard-like Qi. She was formless and destructive, but not forceful. She could have used Emery’s metal-based Qi for it, but when she tried to learn how to combat opposing Domains with force, it hadn’t gone well for her.
Instead, she developed a different technique. It sprang mostly from her supportive, disruptive combat role from earlier in her life, but was still incredibly useful.
She pulled a large amount of Qi from their Domain and forced it toward where her Domain pushed against Leon’s. Avuri could feel the panic in the way his Domain suddenly flickered and surged against hers; but she wasn’t pushing back. Instead, she used her Domain to drastically cool the air where the Domains met.
It took a large amount of Qi to create, but not as much to maintain - just concentration. In an instant, Leon was completely surrounded in a cage of hypercooled metal that brushed against his Domain. The metal, which was cooled almost as far as Avuri could manage, was immensely hard.
While average metals would likely shatter at such temperatures, the metal forged predominantly from Qi could be reforged in an instant by Avuri, so long as she paid attention to it. But at Leon’s level, she found it very unlikely that he would be able to generate enough force to break through the metal. And if he tried, the metal was so cold that they were likely to freeze or cause frostbite on contact.
It was a technique perfect for containing singular threats that were below Avuri’s level. And while she was pretty sure that Quarris could probably break through it, as long as Avuri could keep her preoccupied on their fight until Emery finished up her half, this would end in their favor.
In the same instant that Avuri formed her cage around Leon, Quarris wasted no time attacking. She crossed the field and unleashed a flurry of unarmed strikes. Avuri’s Snowflakes intercepted an elbow, a knee, three punches, and a kick in the first exchange, which lasted all of four seconds. Avuri lost four of her sixteen Snowflakes in the exchange, as they shattered under the blows.
“You’re not so tough.” Quarris said, her voice somewhat distorted coming through the stone mask. “Those little shields of yours aren’t very good at their job.”
“I’m still standing here, aren’t I?” She responded, as the four broken Snowflakes slowly reformed behind her. “And they’re far from my best defenders.”
A sudden roar of noise from behind Quarris made her turn around. Suddenly face-to-face with a Blizzard Dragon, the woman threw up her arms in a guard as the Dragon slammed into her. The highly condensed wind and sharp ice - which was enhanced by Emery’s sharpening effect - shredded through the woman’s stone armor. It left deep cuts up and down her arms, though Avuri didn’t see any blood. The same was true for the clear deep gashes around Quarris’ torso and legs, which went unshielded by her arms.
The stone armor seemed to shift and loosen, turning to wet sand and sloughing off Quarris’ body, only to be quickly replaced by more earth and stone from the ground in a seamless loop.
“It’s going to take more than that to get through my armor.” She said, her tone even. Not haughty, just confident.
Avuri was wracking her brain trying to figure out how the armor worked. The cuts were definitely deep enough that they should have cut into her body. She gathered her Snowflakes and Dragons once more, preparing for a second pass.
“Here comes ‘more than that’, then.”