Baira and Heran’s battle had turned the nearby trees to charred stumps and the ground bore blackened wounds. It hadn’t been too long since the fight began, but a battle between Divine Artists, even for Earthen Souls, can alter the landscape in mere moments. The two fighters danced across the smoldering battleground like a pair of warring blurs, exchanging furious blows while countering each attack at the last minute. Heran drove his fiery blade down and scorched the ground, missing Baira by a hair’s breadth. She got behind him and delivered a kick to his lower spine in an effort to immobilize him, but was met with his scabbard instead. The two separated from the force of the kick and stared each other down.
“You’re much more skilled than I was led to believe,” Heran coolly said, “just being in the presence of my Ignited Flarus should be causing your flesh to burn away; yet you’re not only unaffected but capable of avoiding any serious damage.”
Baira had no idea why she wasn’t being harmed by the blade. Sure, she could feel the heat and even when the blade missed, the air around her would burn and wrap her in a cloak of intense heat; but her skin was unharmed. She was a higher level than Heran, but his unique blade gave off the power of a Lesser Iron as well so it couldn’t just be due to the difference in Ascension Levels. “Maybe it’s my Water Aspect? I have been feeling much faster when using Rushing Tide,” Baira thought to herself, “but for it to be protecting me from the heat, that would mean I’m getting close to being able to use a Stratal Art.” Baira could see the power fading from the blade and planned her move accordingly; once it was nearly drained, she’d use her remaining strength to take him out with a Cascading Fist. He was only an Earthen Soul so she would hold back just enough to knock him out; killing a Silverblood was a good way to become an enemy of that family and she didn’t need that target on her head.
“I was saving this for someone else, but it looks like I’ll have no choice.” Heran sheathed his blade and took a stance. Immediately the air around him started to heat and steam rose from his skin and weapon. This was one of his original techniques, one that no one in his family had seen before. The ground beneath him started to melt and when he opened his mouth, a stream of steam poured out.
“That’s a tremendous amount of heat! Where’s all that energy coming from?” Baira used her Divine Sight to find the answer, and it made no sense to her. Heran had somehow created a feedback loop between the Spirit Kulda in the blade and his Body Kulda. He was sending Tera from his body into the weapon and Spiritual Tera from the weapon into his body. “But that’s insane,” Baira thought to herself, “sending Tera away like that would dramatically weaken the body…no, wait!” A further inspection showed that Heran was increasing the speed of the Tera and Baira immediately started preparing a Cascading Fist.
“So that stance of yours, that’s a Circulation Stance?” Baira said aloud. She had noticed that a trace of Mental Tera was mixed in with the others, and combined with his non responsiveness, led her to the conclusion that Heran was currently meditating. “The heat he’s generating acts as both an intimidator and a solid defense while he’s preparing. Even if I could attack before him, there’s no way I wouldn’t take at least some serious damage in the process.” Baira cursed at herself for drawing the fight out, but she always had a tendency to try to understand the depths of her opponent’s ability rather than crush them with full force. “If that’s the case, then I’ll need to use as much as my Heavenly Aspect to mitigate the damage.”
Thanks to the Synergization Pill she took earlier, Baira could dedicate a portion of the Tera stored in her Body Kulda to her Spirit Kulda, strengthening the overall quality of her Spiritual Tera. It wasn’t by a significant margin since she was still inexperienced using spiritual energies, but it would have to do. “Now I just need to use both my Physical Tera and Spiritual Tera in unison; do a Cascading Fist while covering myself in Water Aspect.” As she began doing that, she felt a pulling sensation in her Spirit Kulda, as if something were grabbing at her. Baira allowed her senses to follow the sensation and felt a strong, unfamiliar presence nearby.
At the same time, the heat from Heran’s body died down and he unsheathed his blade. “It appears we are no longer alone,” he said as looked right. “It’s no use trying to be quiet, your spirit is screaming with intent to kill. Show yourself.”
A woman with earthy brown skin and pale, pink hair stood on a thick tree branch. “Damn, that’s some skill you got,” she announced proudly, “I’m all the way up here and you spotted me in an instant.”
“Does she think he used his vision to see her?” Baira thought to herself as the woman leapt fifty-feet down. Her landing cracked the ground and Baira could hear the rustling of chains. The woman had thick chains around her waist, arms and legs and wore a black sleeveless bodysuit that didn’t cover her limbs.
“Guess that’s what makes a Silverblood so dangerous,” the woman said as she grinned voraciously at Heran. “Forget the requests, if I take you down I’ll have an in with Ten Shadows.”
“Request? I see, so you were also sent after Baira Monsari.”
“Nope, just anyone that happens to be in the forest tonight,” the woman said.
This struck Baira as odd, why would someone reach out to a Silverblood but also other mercenaries? She kept her eyes on the woman, all the while still preparing her Cascading Fist.
“Baira Monsari, I, Heran of the Silverbloods, by reason of contractual interference have voided the request sent to my family.” The Silverbloods take pride in being the number one assassins in all of the Embrace; as such, they will never compete for a contract as a target is as good as dead once they accept a request. If any other assassin or mercenary is contracted, a Silverblood must immediately terminate the contract.
Baira wasn’t too worried about Heran, even with all of his skills he was still only an Earthen Soul, she would have eventually overpowered him. Still, it was nice not having to worry about being a name on a Silverblood’s list, now she could focus on this new person- “Wait, where did she go?” Baira’s senses screamed at her to look up and did, just in time to see the woman bearing down on Heran. The chain around her right arm began unraveling itself and wrapping around her fist. “Hey, look out!”
The ground exploded under the force of her attack, sending huge chunks of rocks into the air and cracks splintering for hundreds of feet. A thick cloud of dust obscured Baira’s normal vision and before she could activate her Divine Sight, Heran appeared next to her.
“I appreciate the help,” Heran said as he took a defensive stance, “ it’ll take both of us to stand a chance.”
“So then you know who this is?” Baira hadn’t wanted to get into another fight, but the woman had mentioned she was here to kill everyone in the forest, which meant she was already a target. It’d be better to face her with an ally now, then attempt to flee and hope to reach Amani in time. “Running to Amani? I’m still having thoughts like this?”
“Well that was a surprise,” the woman said as the dust cleared, “I didn’t know the Silverbloods worked with non-family members.” She extended her other arm and a chain ran down to her fist, “I wonder if killing both of you would make me a commander in the Ten Shadows?”
“Hey, Heran, what can you tell me about her?” Baira could sense that the woman was a formidable foe, but something about the Tera Waves she gave off seemed odd.
“I don’t know her personally, and I’ve only heard about her in passing, but she apparently uses a strange art that greatly enhances her physical prowess.”
“What are you two talking about over there? Which one is gonna attack first?,” the woman said. She grinned at them like a feral beast that found its prey, “If it’s the Silverblood, then why don’t you go ahead and pop that elixir you have in that robe of yours?”
Baira gave a quizzical look to Heran and he let out an annoyed sigh. “I see your enhancement includes your vision too,” Heran said as he removed a small, gourd shaped container. It was a specially crafted elixir of the Silverblood that was to be used in case of an emergency. He took a sip from it and almost immediately his power was restored; and it felt stronger than before. “This will kill any non-Silverblood,” Hera said to Baira while keeping his focus on the woman, “so I can’t give it to you; not that you need it anyway.”
Baira didn’t respond to Heran but felt a bit of shock at his statement. It was true that Baira wasn’t in need of more Tera, she had barely had to expend any due to her fantastic Tera Control, but the fact that Heran could pick up on that as just an Earthen Soul didn’t sit right with her. “If you can do that move again, I think I have a way to beat her.” She made sure to say the rest in the lowest voice possible, hoping the woman wasn’t paying that close of attention.
“Whatever you’ve got planned, just forget about it and come at me with full force.” Chains rustled as she entered a fighting stance: one arm extended with the palm facing up and the other hand hovering over the elbow of the extended arm. “If you aren’t gonna make the first move,I will!” The woman raced towards the two and delivered two powerful punches. They connected with Baira’s forearm and Heran’s blade and pushed them back into the trees. Before the leaves could even fall from the trees, the woman was on them again.
Her attacks were relentless, but not as powerful as her surprise blow had been on Heran, which piqued Baira’s interest.
“If she had moved and struck like she did early, Heran would for sure be dead and I’d been seriously injured, but she is fighting at the level of a Lesser Iron right now.”
Baira dodged and weaved a ferocious six hit combination and created space. As she did so, Heran slipped in and attacked the woman with deadly precision. His weapon blurred, becoming nothing but flashes of steel, and was met by the woman’s chained fist. She parried each one of his strikes, twelve in total, and dodged the last strike by stepping well out of his range.
“Yes.Yes! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!” The woman began laughing maniacally, “You two are way better than the losers I ran into earlier, they could barely get my blood pumping…but you two…”
Something told both Heran and Baira to use their Sight. When they did, they saw the woman’s body filling with an insanely powerful Physical Tera. It was as if she had suddenly taken a Tera Locus Pill. Her power exploded from her body and every muscle in her body tensed. It struck Baira as odd that it looked as if the woman was straining to keep all that power in check, afterall it was her own Tera…right?
“Heran, I think I-” Baira cut herself off as the woman disappeared from sight. “It’s the same as before, she’s completely disappeared from my Sight.” She noticed Heran slowly turning his head and preparing to block the unseen attack. Baira, empowered by her Rushing Tide, used all her speed and agility to grab onto Heran and get them both to safety.
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She was a half second too late.
The woman materialized in between them and slammed the ground. It swelled in an instant and blew everything into the sky like a geyser. Tons of debris shot hundreds of feet into the air and the force of the attack stripped the bark from the tree and snapped a plethora of branches clean off. Massive clumps of dirt rained down onto the ground like a miniature meteor shower and the woman stood in the center of a half a mile deep crater.
“Oh come on, you guys can’t be dead already, right? A Silverblood and a Monsari gotta be made of tougher stuff than that!”
Baira pushed a piece of earth away that was twice her size. She had avoided most of the fallen debris but the initial explosion had done some damage. Her left leg had a gash that exposed the pink of her muscle and her right arm was bleeding from the shoulder down. She could use her The wounds wouldn’t kill her, but as a Lesser Iron they would hamper her movements somewhat. “Heran!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Heran said, “I’m fine.” He was on the opposite end of the crater, behind both the woman and Baira, and on one knee. The entire upper portion of his robe had blown off and his right arm was broken in three places. It hung uselessly at his side and he had driven his blade into the ground with his left hand. “I’ve taken only a little bit of damage.”
The woman inclined her head towards Heran. “Your right arm is completely busted and you call that a little bit of damage? Oh you Silverbloods really are something else.” There pure glee in the woman’s voice; she truly wanted to enjoy this battle for as long as humanly possible. “Killing you will be the best feeling in the world!”
Baira leapt in from behind and was poised to strike, when the woman snapped around and prepared to guard. As the woman moved to block her face, Baira dropped to the ground and went for a leg sweep. The chain on the woman’s leg wrapped around her foot like an armored boot and Baira broke off her attack.
“You had a clean shot at my leg and stopped…interesting. It seems you’ve figured out my secret.” The woman grineed and pursued Baira. “I hope you don’t think that gives you any sort of advantage here!”
Baira quickly found herself on the defensive for two important reasons: the woman held a clear physical advantage at hand to hand combat, and Baira had understood the secret to her technique. She had figured it out after the second massive attack; the woman was somehow storing the power of their attacks into her body and redirecting it back at them. “It probably has something to do with those chains,” Baira thought as she continued to dodge the woman’s onslaught. “She only has them wrapped around her fists when she’s guarding. They must not discriminate between which energy they transfer, meaning whenever she unravels them she’s going to attack.”
The woman overtook Baira’s speed and landed three quick blows that sent Baira slamming through the upper portion of the crater. She found herself on her back and quickly got to her feet. “ That last hit took a lot of Physical Tera to reduce the damage, I’m running low.” Baira could feel her body slowly succumbing to the pain of her injuries; if she took another blow like that, it could be fatal. Her breathing became more labored but she steeled herself and focused on the woman…who was currently engaged in combat with Heran. “How is he uninjured? His movements are a sharp as before..no, they’re better.”
Baira was at a loss for an explanation, until she saw the empty bottle on the ground where Heran was a moment ago. She used her Divine Sight on Heran and everything was made clear to her. That elixir of his connected his Spirit, Mind and Body Kuldas into a looped Tera Pathway. It was an extremely risky thing to do; it would grant the person incredible power, but drained the cores at insane speeds. Once that happened, the person would instantly go into a Tera Induced Coma and be completely defenseless.
“This must be the signal,” Baira thought, “ he’s ready to unleash that attack.” Earlier when the woman had first attacked, Baira noticed that she didn’t hear their conversation but was able to spot a hidden bottle during combat. That, combined with the sudden change in power, made Baira suspect that there were moments where the woman’s physical prowess wasn’t enhanced. Her suspicion had paid off and it was now time to enact the last part of her plan.
While Heran kept the woman busy, Baira started circulating her Tera in preparation for a Cascading Fist. She got the Tera in her Body Kulda to flow like water, the basis of Rushing Tide, but knew that wouldn’t be enough to put the woman down. The Cascading Fist required her to use the force of her momentum to do significant damage, her opponent wouldn’t give her that opportunity. “If I can use my aspect in conjunction, that should be enough to put her down.” Baira drew on her Spiritual Tera and tried to mix it with her Physical Tera, but it was like trying to trap smoke with a net; the power kept escaping before she could use it.
Heran and the woman continued to battle, appearing and disappearing as blurs across the interior of the crater. The pink haired woman launched another explosive attack and split the ground in half.
“ That elixir is a hell of a drink isn’t it? Your busted arm is completely healed and your reaction time is perfect. If I drink your blood, would it have the same effect on me?” The woman batted away Heran’s attacks with her chained fists and continued to pry about Silverblood secrets. Heran didn’t reply, instead he continued his assault and let the woman absorb his power. He was well aware of what she was doing, but couldn’t let her know that, otherwise she wouldn’t focus her attention on him; and he needed her attention solely on him.
“Why isn’t this working? I know I haven’t been well trained with Spiritual Tera, but it’s still Tera…I should be able to mix it with my Physical Tera.” Baira was growing impatient, but did what she always did when faced with a problem; she entered River Circulation Breathing and began meditating. She found herself surrounded by the familiar clouds of the Abstraction and worked her way through her thoughts. Theory after theory of Tera Application flowed by until she reached a memory on Physical Tera.
“Physical Tera is the energy generated and absorbed by the body and is primarily used in Corporeal Arts. Baira grew frustrated with herself, she already knew that, what she needed to know was how to mix it with Spiritual Tera. The memory continued. “All things, whether living or nonliving, possess a quantity of Physical Tera; without it, there would be nothing to bind them in the physical realm. Non Living objects have a specific Physical Tera Wave that give it its’ shape while living-”
Baira dismissed the memory and returned to The Tactile. How could she have been so stupid? She was doing it all wrong; Physical Tera gives things a physical property, she needed to transfer that Tera into her Spirit Kulda and circulate that instead. Baira did just that and felt a weight to her Spiritual Tera that she hadn’t before; if she had to describe it, it felt like actual water was rushing throughout her body like a recently undammed river. “This is it, I just need to keep it flowing for a bit longer,” Baira thought to herself. Even with her control of Tera, suddenly managing the flow of both Spiritual and Physical Tera at once was taxing; she’d only have one shot at this.
“This is getting boring now,” the woman said as she kicked Heran away. “I guess not all Silverbloods are built the same. I heard that the previous head was a real monster, but you’re barely a scourbeast. Oh well.” The woman, with her muscles primed to explode, uncoiled her chains and regarded both of her fists. The combination of the energy she had stolen, and her own Tera, had caused ripples of power to emanate from both fists like a vapor; she had so much Tera that it was almost visible to the naked eye. The woman recklessly charged in, focused solely on killing Heran.
That was exactly what he wanted her to do.
In his current state, Heran could summon his maximum physical and spiritual power at a moment’s notice without any need to channel Tera. The moment the woman had taken a single step towards him, he had already drawn Ignited Flarus and began his counterattack. The blade struck her fist and the force sent a shockwave throughout the crater. Orange flames lit up the night sky and heat from both it and Heran’s body ate away at the flesh of the woman’s attacking arm, but she didn’t seem to mind; in fact, she began to smile at Heran.
“So you were holding this back the entire time? Maybe I was wrong about you!” The woman was temporarily knocked back by Heran’s parry, but rebounded in a blink of an eye. She feigned a blow with her uninjured hand, and as Heran moved to parry again, the woman caught the blade with her immolated hand. “Too bad for you,” was all she said before breaking the blade and slamming her left fist into Heran’s chest. His ribs cracked and blood poured from his mouth as Heran flew into and then through the side of the crater wall, stopping at the root of a tree some one-thousand-feet away.
Baira moved faster than she ever had before in her life. She was like a rampaging flood that destroyed all in its wake, and it was exactly that kind of destructive power she held inside. As she came upon the woman’s back, Baira transferred her remaining Physical Tera to her right fist and let it all explode forward. The woman turned to face her, but it was too late; her physical enhancements had worn off and her reaction speed was slowed. By the time the woman moved an arm to protect herself, Baira’s Cascading Fist had landed square in her jaw. The ground ripped apart as the half-burnt woman careened through the air for several seconds before smashing into the left side of the crater. Debris exploded from the impact and buried the woman in an avalanche of stone and thick tree roots.
Baira dropped to her knees and fell onto her face, too weak to even brace herself. Her lungs burned and her body felt like it was sinking into the earth, but she had survived. She took as many breaths as her body would allow and, for some reason, thought about the weather. Without the heat of Heran’s attacks, she felt a chill dance across her skin. “I must really be out of Tera, only extreme weather should affect me at this point,” she thought to herself before looking at the hole where Heran’s body was. “I didn’t know you at all, and you did try to kill me, but I’ll make sure your body gets a proper burial…it’s the least I could do.”
The chilling sensation grew stronger and Baira knew something was wrong. It gripped her down to her Spirit Kulda and squeezed it like a stripe melon. Every sense in her body told her she was in danger, but not only could she not move, she couldn’t tell if it was her own body telling her that she needs to cultivate immediately, or if there was some unseen external threat. Baira got her answer when the pile of rubble exploded into pebbles and shrapnel of wood.
“That hurt,” the woman said as she emerged, “I didn’t think a pissant Lesser Iron could pack that much of a punch.”
Baira struggled to lift her head up, but when she did she saw something impossible. The burns that ran from her fingers to her right shoulder were rapidly healing and she had a cut on her lip; otherwise she was completely unharmed. “That’s…that’s not…”
“Wow, so that attack really did a number on you, didn’t it?” The woman placed her healing hand on her jaw and shook it. “I’ll save you the trouble of speaking though, this should explain it well enough.” The woman stopped forty-feet away from Baira and suddenly all the Tera from the woman’s body vanished. “Get it now?”
“Sh…shroud…” Baira’s voice came out weaker and more fearful than she wanted, but there was no point in hiding her fear.
Shrouding is a technique Divine Artists use to hide the strength of their kuldas and kulda strength is how Artists determine what Ascension Level someone is. The drawback to using a shroud is that you’re limited in the amount of Tera you can use. A shroud can only contain so much Tera before it breaks, which is why Divine Artists are usually a level above the type of shroud they’re using; someone of Stone Soul Level would use an Earthen Soul Shroud in order to fight at that level, but would be fighting at the peak of what an Earthen Soul could do.
“Heran was an Earthen Soul but has a weapon the strength of a Lesser Iron, we should have been enough to take her on. That means she has to be at the very least a Greater Iron.”
The woman could see the fear on Baira’s face. “Ah, so you do get it, that’s good” She appeared in front of Baira as she teleported and picked her up by pinching her clothes with only two of her fingers. “You should have some heart, I’m gonna tell you my name before you die, you deserve that much. I’m-”
Blue roots emerged from the ground and wrapped around the woman while another set pulled Baira away. A ball of gnarled roots, the size of a small boulder, formed around the woman as Amani casually walked down the crater. “So that’s why I couldn’t feel any flora nearby, you guys did some extreme gardening.”
Baira didn’t–or rather couldn’t–turn around to face her sister. “Amani? What are you doing here?”
“Wow you must really be out of it if you’re asking such a stupid question.” Amani regarded the wooden ball for a moment, said something to herself, and flicked her wrist. A long, singular root attached itself to the ball, and then catapulted it into the night sky. Amani then walked in front of Baira, knelt down and looked her in the eye. “So, there’s been a change of plans.”