I had fallen to my hands and knees while partially fixing my arm and it only took a small shift to brace my feet against the tree that I was next to. I couldn't fight snow worms with my bare hands, even with my nails, they simply didn't have any external weak points.

I leapt up and forward at the same time as the snow worm to my left struck, just missing my feet. I was on track to clear the snow worm that was just coming in front of me, but it reacted to my leap by lifting its front end, twisting around, and opening its mouth.

I was now on track to go right down its throat. I raised my right hand as I approached, grabbing hold of the top of its maw I pushed it down. Vaulting over the rest of its body I twisted to land in a skid in the clear area I'd made while I was sleeping. I scooped up my staff in my left hand, tucking it against my body, and unsheathed my sword from the scabbard that was on the ground with a flick. I came to my feet with my sword in a ready position facing the three snow worms.

The snow worm who had leapt at me sank back into the snow without a trace. I rested for a few moments, getting my muscles back to full energy. I still had my power sunk into the snow the snow worms were moving through, the third snow worm, the one that hadn't made an attack on me yet, was lining itself up to strike.

I held my sword out to the side and timed my dash to match its strike. It was becoming my favoured move, with a sword as sharp as mine I just had to hold steady and I would go through anything that was in front of me. The snow worm struck, and I dashed to its left cutting it in half.

The second snow worm was just behind the one I'd just killed, so I pivoted and leapt over it, moving my sword down and swinging up. The front third of the worm was cut off from the back two thirds, and I landed in front of the first snow worm that had missed me originally and hit the tree I had pushed off of. It was turning to flee back the way it had come. I cut it in half length-ways and came out in an area clear of snow.

The rest of the snow worms were keeping their distance in the deep snow. The winter priests were on the other side of the clear area, they were using the snow as a component of the spell that they were chanting for.

It was a spell I hadn't seen yet, they were forming a wall of needle thin shards of ice, an anti-personnel siege spell. The needles were a meter long, half a centimeter wide, and were spaced five centimeters apart in a grid.

They fired the needles as I came out of the snow, moving them at incredible speed. There would be no dodging this spell. I ran through several different scenarios and the best I could manage would be protecting the majority of my brain, and then maybe my heart. If I kept the Matter Manipulation part of my brain, the rest I could repair or hold together.

I stepped slightly to the side to put my spine in a gap in the grid and threw my sword up so that the hilt would cover the upper left side of my face, the cross-guard over my eyes, and the blade would cover the majority of my heart. After that I brought my hands to my sides so that the needles would go through and not along my arms.

The needles hit and went entirely through me. The ones that hit my sword pushed the sword into me and then shattered against it.

I took a snapshot of my body's condition and then maxed out my perception of time to give myself time to think.

I had massive trauma all over, the worst of which was stomach acid leaking from my stomach from a dozen places and multiple veins hit. I had some loss of function from my brain from where several of the needles went through my head, but I still had muscle control, and my Matter Manipulation power still worked.

My muscles were in pretty bad condition, and any major movement would increase the damage. I couldn't see properly, my eyes were fine, but the vision part of my brain was large and complicated and it had taken at least one hit. I could hear the priests continuing to chant with my one functioning ear.

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My first priority was to kill all of the priests before they could finish me off. To do that I would need to keep my body from dying for the few seconds it would take. If I brought my restoration of my body to the working model I had of myself right to the edge of my mind being consumed by pain... It might be enough. Maybe.

I sped my perception of time up enough that I could control my body, reached up and tried to grab the hilt of my sword with my right hand. The tendon in my right arm was severed. I couldn't grip the hilt. I redirected my repairs to focus entirely on getting a single strand of tendon joined up, then used my power to reinforce that strand to withstand the force of my grip.

Switching back to my whole body repairs I brought my sword to horizontal at neck height and dashed towards the priests. I had to turn my head back and forth to keep track of their locations with my one ear. Thankfully they were all still chanting so it was easy to keep them accurately in my model.

I had to adjust the angle of my sword as I was going through them as they started dodging. I wasn't moving at my maximum speed due to my muscles being at about half their effectiveness with holes through them. I was only able to kill two thirds of the winter priests on my first pass, my sword not being long enough to reach the right-most rank while I was dashing past the left-most.

I planted my right foot after I'd gotten past the last priest, intending to turn back to kill the remaining four. My right leg started to fold up, dashing using the damaged muscles had torn more of the muscle and my right leg was next to useless.

I turned my sword so that the flat of the blade would act as an anchor and stabbed it into the ground. The tendon in my right arm almost snapped despite my reinforcement but I came to a stop facing the back of the last priest.

I shifted to dash from my left leg and brought my sword up to waist height. The last priests had stopped chanting, so my model was becoming less accurate. I compensated by aiming for the larger target, their center of mass.

I dashed forward and my sword went through the first three priests. I slammed into the fourth and last remaining priest as he tried to dodge and ended up in my path. I disconnected most of my sword, turning it into a dagger, and stabbed him in the heart as we tumbled to the ground.

I then sank my power into the ground and pushed it out to the snow five meters away in all directions, searching for the snow worms.

From what I could tell they were all fleeing at their maximum speed, I just caught their tails disappearing at the edge of my sense. I spared a few moments checking my hearing, there were no heartbeats.

I turned my power and focus inwards. My heart wasn't beating. My body had gone beyond shock, it was already mostly shut down. And I was bleeding from everywhere. Estimated time to restore my body from my working model, ten minutes. Prioritising critical systems extended that to fifteen minutes.

I wasn't sure what would happen if my body died so I selected the fifteen minute version and triggered the program. The absolute pain lasted forever. But subjectively it wasn't any worse than when I fixed my arm. When it's an eternity of the worst pain possible while you're inside it, it seems it doesn't matter how long it lasts objectively.

I came back to my senses laying on top of the winter priest I'd ended up tackling. I sank my power into the snow and dirt around me. I was alone. Standing up, I took out my light stone and looked around the clear area the priests had made. There was a few centimeters of snow covering everything.

The snow was stained red around where the priests had fallen, they'd bled a lot.

I found my hilt and dagger, and the rest of the blade that I had disconnected, and spent a few minutes fusing them back together. There were several gouges in the metal from where the needles had hit, so I repaired that at the same time.

I cast around with my power to find my staff. Apparently I'd dropped it nearly immediately after coming out of the snow bank. It had gouges in the stone of the staff, and an unlucky hit had cracked the orb on top. After repairing it I was almost ready to head out again.

Winter priests were becoming a threat that needed to be eliminated immediately. I hadn't worked on any ranged attacks, and perhaps I should have. Throwing knives with my ability to calculate force and trajectories might work, so I spent a few minutes converting the dirt of the clearing into a dozen stone blades. I made the stone the same diamond-like material of my fortress walls. I wouldn't be able to reinforce them, so the edge that they could hold was less than my sword, and any sort of magical shield would probably stop them. But I felt better for having something I could throw at threats.

I started running towards Chantelle again, only twenty kilometers to go.