Agnisotra: Origin Tails

I woke up and looked at what I'd spent the bigger part of yesterday making. I stored them in my dimensional pocket and went downstairs towards the kitchen to get something to eat. It seemed Philip and Hera ate some pheasant last night. I took a pheasant leg and fried it with fire magic. I chomped on the pheasant's leg while heading toward Gregory’s house. What worried me was the possible extra sister of the guardian. When I was inside the PB cave the only sentient beings I noticed were those two. I never saw the third one. There is a possibility I missed her but why would she hide where the other 2 didn't bother? Is she the sneaky type? Or the sensory type? Was she on holiday? That would be too convenient. Is there something else that I might be missing here? While deep in thought I bumped into a wall. Correction, it was a kid who looked like a wall.

“Hey, watch where you go noob!” I'm sorry do I know you?

“There he goes again Dunkey! Teach him a lesson!”

“Nah, let's be the better person and just let him be.” The wall and 2 of his friends left. I have the feeling I met them before… Ah well, they can't be that important if I can't remember! As I came close to Gregory’s house, I saw Charlize and her daughter in crutches. Wait I worded that poorly Charlize was in crutches, not her daughter. Oh shit!

“Wait! As you can see, I'm in no state to chase you nor do I intend to. I was on my way home but I guess I'm in good luck meeting you here. I want to offer my apologies. I didn't realize what we… I put you through by chasing you guys down on sight.” Ahh, I think something like this happened before, I think Cecilia apologized on your behalf too.

“Yes, but I would like to apologize to you personally as well. I'm not giving up on you though! I will find another way that doesn't disturb your peaceful lives, to hook you up with Kanna.” Who is Kanna?

“I guess I should also do something about that poor memory of yours. Hop by for some tea one day, I promise I will not drug it but I might know something that can stimulate memories.” That is very kind of you, but I don't remember having a poor memory.

“Yes, that is the problem… Anyway I won't hold you up longer. The construction of our house finished yesterday so it should look nice.” Construction? Wait what happened to your house?

“A forgetful teenager happened, have a nice day.” Charlize and her daughter walked past towards their house. Charlize is quite a nice person to talk to if she is not chasing you down. I met so many people today only by making a 15-minute walk to Gregory. I hope this isn't a weird sign. As I almost arrive at Gregory’s house, I notice that every manhole has a seal on it. It is probably to prevent people from opening it and keeping the magic inside the sewers. I'm noticing that I haven't been paying much attention to what was happening inside the town. There are fewer people outside than normal. And people in black suits seem to be investigating all kinds of stuff. I wonder where they got those suits from. I don't think they are people from outside else they will get trapped within the barrier. I inspected the two men in black and identified them as the two men who were asking us questions and going through Raishin’s stuff. I looked to see if I could find more men in black suits. Did Johnny or another merchant bring in suits and made it the go-to fashion in town? I see men in black suits also doing normal stuff and not investigating. Hmm, how odd. I ring the doorbell at Gregory’s house and he opens the door.

Wha! What are you wearing? Cool eh, it's a black suit. Gianni had some left. He also had one for you. He goes inside and I follow.

Are you sure this isn't some brainwashing technique or something? Do you see any weird magic on these? He asks while handing a suit to me. I assume this suit is meant for me.

Hmm, not really but you can't be too sure! Don't be silly! So, what did you have for me? I rummaged through my dimensional pocket and presented my work to Gregory.

What are these? Marbles? Yes, frost marbles.

And they are going to help us… how? Okay, so the idea is to store magic in these marbles and throw them!

Can I have a more detailed explanation? Oh, right, so you know how my frost magic absorbs magic and energy and converts them to magic that I can use. Now my theory is that at that point the magic gets turned into my magic. But if I don't absorb it, which only is possible with small amounts of frost, then it will just be a magic capsule with “my magic” in it. And since I'm the only one who can hit spirits, this will allow you guys to hit her too!

Hmm so if I understand this right. Gregory takes a marble out of my hands as we walk toward the backyard.

If I take this marble, infuse some earth magic in it, and throw it. Gregory infuses the marble and throws it which explodes and sends rock splinters everywhere which he blocks with a shadow wall.

Hmm, it does feel like the magic was cast by you yes, a bit dangerous on the execution though. Yeah, so my idea is to give you guys lots of marbles and have you charge them with whatever element and maybe even exchange some. Like I can't use earth magic that well so I could use some of your earth-charged frost marbles.

That sounds like a good idea but how do you make sure these things don't just keep sucking magic? Well, that was the challenging part of making these marbles. It took me the biggest part of yesterday to fix that. After it hits max capacity, it will turn into normal ice and won't be able to absorb magic anymore. I had to put some enchantments in it to indicate that it was full because Raishin would probably keep going and make it explode in his face. Haha, I can see that happening yes. So, the thing is… regular ice melts. I managed to make it become dense ice so it should be fine but no longer than an hour or 2.

Sounds good so far, so what do you need my help for? Well, these things aren't very efficient at doing what they’re supposed to do and I want to make batches that are more tuned to our, uhm what did you call it energy wave uhh frequency stuff?

Close enough, but that could make the process easier yes, it would reduce the need to make them more efficient. I can help with that too. As far as I could tell you need more frost magic in the marbles and less uhh other stuff. It absorbs mana slower than I could pour it in in a casual manner. Trying to do something like this swiftly would make for some nasty surprises. Hmm, yeah thought so. I also could only make them explode. So that should also be taken into consideration, these things are kind of frost bombs.

They didn't seem to release frost magic when they exploded. Oh right, that is because I have some loaded with frost magic already. These things are more stable than when they are charged with any other element.

Oooh, those sound nasty, they are surely going to come in handy. Aight so if you could help me out refining these then maybe fighting that guardian won't be as rough as we thought it would be!

That is some dangerous optimism but if these could damage the guardian then that will be the case indeed. Gregory and I spent the whole morning refining and perfecting the frost marbles. Gregory came up with the idea to make some kind of liquid that would make it easier for different types of magic to mix. He called it a magic emulsifier. It vastly improved the capabilities, capacity, and power of the frost marbles. They seemed to pack a punch now. Because these explosions were practically turned into my magic, I could control these ways better than Gregory could. Both Gregory and I found and fixed flaws in them. At noon all the frost marble refinement was completed. I got a vat of Gregory’s emulsifier and sucked it into my dimensional pocket. I put one of my tails on duty to create more frost marbles while I was doing other stuff. Of course, I put on an illusion to hide my tail. The other stuff in question was for one last time discussing the battle with the guardian and the necessary preparations.

We arrived at Raishin’s hut. As soon as I confirmed that everyone was here Gregory made shadow clones of us and I layered some illusions over them. We had to keep up appearances. We don't know how long this battle is going to take so it is always better to take precautions.

So, you are probably wondering why I've gathere... Alright, so what is the plan?

Hey! Well, I have some frost marbles here, just pour in some magic and the magic will be converted to my magic and if you throw it, it should be able to damage the guardian. It will be a big explosion though so beware.

Ooh, do we get gadgets? Yeah, just charge it till it tells you to stop. After that, you have 2 hours to throw it else it will explode in your pocket. Lovely…

I got some charged with frost magic these don't have a time limit. Ooh, that is so cool! That guardian will get a bone-chilling experience when these marbles start rolling hehe. Alright, enough cold puns.

Besides that. Uhm I kind of made a frost trap that caught the guardian. I was thinking about it but I can't keep her in there since any magic we throw at it will get absorbed and I can’t check her status because the frost magic is interfering with my Elgards eye. Haha, she must be so pissed being stuck there for 2 days! Wait isn't that a bad thing? If we need to let her out of that frost trap it will just be worse for us if she's pissed off!

Well, I can try to instantly kill her with some sword slashes but I might have to let her out. But wait, do we need to let her out? Can't we just destroy the root and keep her in there?

Well, we could but I can't keep her in there indefinitely It is not good for me to keep absorbing mana non-stop. Especially if we have more guardians to deal with, I will have to dispel it at one point because there is a frost magic limit I don't want to go over. Ugh, fine so we just have to defeat this Nayani chick, right? It seems so. Go charge up some frost marbles though, we can exchange some.

Oh right, give some of those cool marbles. … Ugh, can I have some frost-charged frost marbles? Oh, I thought you would never ask. I gave everyone some frost-charged frost marbles.

You just have to hit something with it. Hey, can we defeat this guardian by dinnertime? I have a date. Ted smacked Raishin.

Go make a clone and cancel that! Aww. Unbelievable. Assuming we make it out alive.

But we are fully prepared, right? What could possibly go wrong? Great now you jinxed us. Crap, we’re going to die now, aren't we? Come on, guys! Let's focus! I got some improved anti-nausea potions, half the stink twice the effectiveness.

So, they still stink… Hey! That is the best I could do! I also got some minor healing potions and some concoctions that can make smokescreens, inflict status effects, and stuff. I'm not sure how effective those will be on spirits though. But could come in handy. Aight, I got some meat for y'all when you get hungry mid-battle! Ted and Gregory look at Raishin.

Ooh nice, thank you! And now they're looking at me.

What? I got a shitty motivational speech! Don’t die! And kick ass! That's the best I can do. That is fine, any longer and we’ll get a flood of lame puns.

We started to walk towards the PB cave while discussing some more strategies. I would harass the guardian while Gregory would handle the defensive measures. I would use my crowd control to ensure she won't attack Ted and Raishin who would destroy the root. After the root was destroyed there should be a big chance that the guardian would lose her place of power and either weaken or disappear. We can then decide to escape or defeat her. If broccoli monsters appeared then Ted would keep them busy while Raishin focused on the root. It was a simple plan but everyone needed to get a role. Gregory and I aren't defeating this guardian so Ted’s and Raishin’s roles are very important. We just have to keep her busy and stay alive long enough.

My trap probably pissed her off so she would want to kill me first I assume. Gregory and I had the plan to just absorb whatever she would throw at us and return it to her. If our firepower wouldn't be enough, surely hers should be sufficient to damage herself. We arrived at the PB cave and entered the cavern after Gregory covered us yet again in his shadow cloaks. A huge chunk of frost magic was blocking the entrance to the cavern and there seemed to be a woman stuck in it. She had pale skin, long white hair that ended up in a single braid, and a light blue kimono with snowflake patterns on it. She had light blue eyes that almost looked white and they were glaring at us. More specifically me.

“So, you finally decided to show up after two days! You know I have better things to do than being stuck on this stupid ice for two days!” Like?

“You are so dead ice brat! When I get out, I'm going to kill you first!” Hahaha, you got stuck! I was hoping this would cool you down but it seemed to have an adverse effect. So ehh just curious how are you planning to get out of this? I looked at her and she was frozen to her hip. Her right arm was also frozen.

Oof, imagine if she got an itch on her toe! She wouldn't be able to reach it! That is some brutal torture Agnis!

“Why did you say that? Now my foot is starting to itch! Let me out!” So, what do we do now? I'll see if I can one-shot her with my new sword. I took the magic sword out of my dimensional pocket and approached the guardian. Any last words?

“Ha! Nice try you won't be able to kill me with that!” I swung the sword at her neck but it was met with a lot of resistance. The guardian froze her neck and it completely blocked the sword. “Hah! As long as I know that you can damage me, I should be able to prevent dumb surprises and get one shot just like my sister!” Hmm, dumb enough to fall for my simple frost trap but smart enough to realize this.

“Just let me out so I can kill you guys! I will make you spit out all your ice secrets first!” So, what makes you think I will let you out?

“Humph, it is not like you can kill me. I've had a lot of time to think and this ice here makes magic useless so you can't use any magic to damage me.” Time to think, eh? I say as I look at her half-frozen body. You mean you realized that after throwing magic around and it freezing half your body? This trap originally only freezes your feet to the ground but half your body is frozen.

“Ugh so annoying! Fine! I got careless! How about a deal? You let me out and I will let you brats live for 10 minutes.” Hey is this chick dumb or something? Does she realize she’s in no position to offer deals? Although you're right, we can't get in the cavern or defeat her with her being stuck in this frost trap. So, what will you do in those 10 minutes you will spare us?

“I will freeze the bread I baked before you brats brutally and unfairly killed my sister. I hope it is still good…“ Deal! Wait whud! Exciting! Have you lost your mind?

“You are crazy, but I like that, you pissed me off the most but I will keep you alive after chopping your limbs off as you will teach me all you know about ice magic.” How kind. I undid most of the frost magic. I left a bit on her legs which I covered up with an illusion. Have you lost it?

We can enter the cavern now at least. But she seems to love her bread.

“Just stay here you brats I will kill you in 10 minutes” she runs off while munching on some bread. I have no idea where she got that from.

Running away defeats our purpose of coming here. I think we should piss her off more, she seemed to have calmed down quite a bit. The more pissed she is the more mistakes she will likely make. What do we even do while waiting? The magic that was characteristic of the guardian started to swell. I would loaf to but I don't think I can get a rise out of her. We can't do anything half-baked. We noticed that the magic pressure she gave off was unlike anything we prepared for or could imagine. We should have prepared for this yeast-erday. I can't believe that we were bun-prepared for this!

I should have spent some dough to make sure that we wouldn't get caked. Ok, guys don't get pastry now we should calm down else our plan will come crumbling down. As the 10 minutes started running down, she returned and walked towards us menacingly.

Let’s get b-ready, we're toast if she catches us. I don't want to g-rain on your parade but she is coming for you now.

Whoa stay away, I want naan of that. Gregory, stop loafing around and help me out! Wow so kneady, fine I'll help. Let's drop a nuke on her!

Whud? We gotta risk it for the biscuit. I got no nukes but a knuckle sandwich with her name on it. Hey, don't you guys think we made enough puns?

“I have never met anyone as annoying as you guys!” The guardian sent ice spikes at us and I dispelled them easily. “Ugh, right I gotta deal with ice brat first.” You two go do your thing Greg and I will annoy... I mean keep her busy! Aight let's go! Raishin used [Thunder cloak], grabbed Ted by the back of his shirt, and teleported toward the root.

“Do you think I will just let you go to the root?” You probably wouldn't but you also might want to pay attention. I shot frost spikes at the guardian. Noticing that something was approaching that was absorbing some of her magic she shifted her attention to me and dodged the frost spike.

“Ha! You missed.” If he misses, that means he wasn't intending to hit you. Gregory threw some earth-charged frost marbles.

“Hey! That hurts why can everyone suddenly damage me?” Seems to be working.

“Screw you!” The guardian sent large air slashes at us. I dashed towards Gregory, grabbed him, and dodged them. While I was dodging Gregory sent out some shadow clones and smacked some away with [Shadow Tendrils] We need to bait Nayani into using bigger moves! Uhh, what? Ugh, Nayani! The guardian we’re fighting!

Ah right, sure, I will have to put you down though. Time for sword action?

Yes. I will try and set up something big, will you be fine?

I will just jump behind one of your shadow clones, they automatically use defensive skills when they get targeted by an attack right? I say as I see some shadow clones putting up [Earth wall] and [Shadow wall] to block some air slashes. Yah. I put Gregory down and take out the magic sword. I put some mana into it and it started to feel as if I owned this sword forever.

“Using a sword against long-range attacks, how foolish!” She sends a freezing wind my way with ice shards but I dispel the freezing wind with a slashing motion and parried all the ice shards. I then dashed at Nayani. I say dash but it looks more like I blinked toward her. “Wha!” I aimed for her neck but before the blade made contact with her neck I got blasted back by a strong wind. “Phew that was close I don't know if that would do anything to me but I don't want to risk it.” I saw that she created a wind barrier around her. Getting close to her will become risky with that barrier around her. I made a shadow clone and sent it to her. The moment it came within melee range, its strike got blocked and it got sent flying.

Hmm, that will leave me vulnerable to counterattacks. I swung my sword at her and sent a wind blade at her. She used my [Frozen Ground] skill and dispelled the wind blade with wind magic. It seems neither ice nor wind magic was effective against each other. Nayani seemed to notice that well. She started throwing around elementless attacks. I dodged them and fired up my [Tail Dynamo] and used [Thunder Cloak]. It will dampen the blow of element less magic if I do get hit. I charged the magic sword with lightning magic and the blade started to vibrate. I briefly looked at it and it seemed to be a feature since nothing seemed to be wrong with it. I swung the sword towards Nayani after blinking behind her and a big lightning-charged slash made it through her barrier and hit her. Anything behind her got cut by the [Lightning slash].

“Ouch!” She charged up a stupid amount of magic and sent it toward me. I wanted to dodge it but a shadow wall appeared before me and blocked it. I looked over at Gregory but it seemed that this was a part of his preparation. He might need to absorb a lot of energy for it. Ha is that all you got?

“Don't worry, I have more of those for you!” She rapidly fired those magic blasts. I kept dodging behind shadow clones which erected [Shadow walls] “Ugh stop dodging! I guess I should take those clones down first.” Good luck with that. Nayani, who was now focused on defeating the shadow clones started attacking into shadow clones. She managed to defeat 1 clone. I didn't lose this opportunity. I put some more lightning in the sword but I kept it in the sheathe. I took a stance and prepared for a quickdraw or Iai as I like to call it since it's shorter. [Iai: Thunderclap]. I got to say, I have a lot of fast attacks but this one takes the cake. It was also the first time I used Iai with a lightning-infused sword. It hit Nayani and I seemed to have damaged her with it.

“What was that?” She applied ice magic to her cut. It wasn't deep. Even though yet again everything behind her got cut. While the lightning slash looked big and flashy this slash was a pure cutting attack so only a thin line could be seen of things that got cut. But Nayani only had a small shallow cut. Hmm too shallow.

“What are you actually? You don't seem to need anything special to damage me and even among things that can damage me rarely have things made me bleed. I never won against my sister but that is because she just sealed my magic and movements and tickled me till I gave up but she never could put a scratch on me.” Oh me? I'm just a random brat.

“Bullshit!” She glared at me. “You are better at ice magic than me and at least some of your sword skills can hurt me.” If you are so tanky, why did you block most of my attacks?

“I don't know what abilities you have, that ice of yours gave me a hard time, I might not be as smart as my sister but I'm not as proud as her either so I will just be cautious and kill you while turtling down. I have all the time in the world.” A very wise move. I jumped behind another of Gregory’s shadow clones which blocked another blast. It seemed like she was focused on me and Gregory now. I looked over at Ted and Raishin and they seemed to be fighting a horde of broccoli monsters.

There was only 1 enemy that seemed to be able to give them some trouble but they were clearing the wave of monsters quite fast. It should take them no more than 20 minutes to clear out every one of them. I don't know how many monster waves there are or how long it would take to destroy the root but we might not have to keep Nuyani busy for too long. I decided to do something uncharacteristic of me. I started to talk during combat. I have a good excuse for that. Our role is a distraction and buying time. Also, Gregory was preparing some skills. And we were severely lacking information. If you are so strong, why are you down here guarding some random tree root?

“This is my home. It is irrelevant whether this root is here or not. Anything that can be used as a place of power will do.” a place of power. “Yes, I'm a spirit, and spirits need a place of power to stay anchored to the corporeal world.” I dodged a punch that cracked the rock wall behind me. Sounds inconvenient, why don't you go back to uhh your spirit world or something?

“We did go back for a bit but a long time ago the spirit king started making decisions that a lot of spirits disagreed with. At first, it was just my older sister living here but 5 years ago Suyani and I came here to live with her. Suyani disliked this place and went back 2 years ago.” There were some things I already knew and others that I didn't about this story Nayoni was telling. So, they do have another sister but she’s not here, that is reassuring. I sent more lightning slashes at her but she kept up close combat preventing me from doing any big moves. I don't mind close combat fighting but this chick hardly takes damage even though I can hit her and she isn't super-fast but fast enough that I have to pay attention. And as these cracked rock walls and craters in the ground can tell, she packs a punch. I got a Teleroad message from Gregory. It is done, it would be more effective if you absorbed some magic with your frost magic. Are we going to do it now? Do you need setup? Not really but Nayiri is insisting on punching me so I might need a bit. I blocked 2 punches by covering parts of my body with frost magic and tried to counter her. I landed my counter successfully and sent her flying with a kick.

“Ugh, why is it so hard to hit you?” That is my thing. So why don't you just move to another uhh place of power? I blocked a wind blast with some frost magic.

“You want me to abandon my home? My memories with my sister? My personal bakery?” Wait personal bakery? And well if you say it like that, I guess moving sounds like a bad idea. But this root is responsible for a barrier that keeps a lot of people trapped! I sent another [Lightning slash] towards her and countered the punch she threw at me after evading it. I had to be careful with these counters one mistake and she would wreck me. Maybe I should stay with the things I’m good at. I tried to cut her speed down by going for her legs but she evaded them and sent another element-less attack toward me. Which I blocked with a frost wall. I activated the frost on her legs that I covered up with an illusion and froze her feet to the ground.

“What? When did you?” I am ready, do I need to lure her to a certain spot? Just let the nearest clone block her next attack, she will then be in range. I'm sure you will get the timing right with your attack so good luck! I dodged another blast.

“So, what about you brats? What business do you have with me?” We don't like your style, we’re the style police.

“You killed my sister for something like that!” I dispelled the frost freezing her to the ground. She seemed to get even angrier and tried to dash toward me. I jumped behind the Gregory clone. Suddenly the surroundings started to become black as we got enveloped by a dome of shadow. Tendrils came out of the walls of the dome and they started to turn more solid and shiny like obsidian. Oh, it is this skill. I thought you knew what I was up to! I was busy dodging this crazy chick!

“Who are you calling crazy?” She sent ice disks at me which were spinning at a high speed. I cut them in two. The big shadow dome started to make it dark inside. It should be releasing its black and purple lasers soon. I will have to time my attack with this. Nayani didn't seem to be paying much attention to the dome since she seemed to want to cut me in half with these ice disks. I liked these ice disks so I sent out some of my own. She just tanked it. I decided to send out some frost disks. She evaded these. “Don't think I didn't notice your little tricks!”

How about this one then? I snapped my fingers and the dome started shooting its purple and black lasers, they did scatter some light blue items before that though. I didn't set this in motion though I synchronized my snap with Gregory starting his modified [Liberation]. Oh, I see what he did. He seemed to have modified the frost marbles a bit and is shooting those lasers at the frost marbles which are falling down now. I will get vaporized if I get hit by this. I will have to throw in an attack of my own though. I increased gears on my [Tail dynamo] and threw in the energy I absorbed from blocking attacks with frost magic. It will be a lightning-based attack but I can’t call this skill Liberation now, can I? [Frost mirror: Purple Lightning wave]. I blinked towards Gregory who was waving with a prepped earth and shadow wall. Nayani seemed to be confused by the rapid developments and got hit by the lightning wave and the frost marbles that exploded.

“Aaargh!” Wow, she doesn't seem to take a lot of damage from this. What a monster.

“Ugh, that stings. You guys have interesting moves but don't seem to be threatening. I'm starting to wonder how you killed my sister.” She seemed relatively fine. The nuke we sent at her seemed to have messed her hair up a little bit and she seemed to have some scratches on her but she seemed relatively fine otherwise. I didn't see any defensive magic. Hey, what if, we can make her an ally? She would make an amazing tank! Good luck with that one, after killing her sister I don't think she has any interest in being on friendly terms with us.

Hmm, that makes sense. So, do you think this is enough stalling? We weren't really supposed to defeat her but it's a bit disheartening to see that a big attack like that doesn't work. I don't know, if you linked my vision with yours, I could tell.

Oh sorry, I forgot. I linked Gregory up and we looked at Raishin and Ted, they were fighting the last big broccoli monster. It seems we need a little bit more. Gregory erected a shadow wall to block Nayani’s ice spikes and ice disks. I used all my stored energy in that attack. So, you’re practically useless until you store up the minimal amount of energy to get stuff done? I'm sorry.

Don't worry, it is not your fault that this chick is so overpowered. I parried ice disks and dispelled ice spikes that Nayani was throwing at us from within the enormous crater our attack made. It seemed that she was cautious to approach us recklessly as she did before. I decided to go towards her. I spun my tails faster and strengthened my [Thunder cloak] and blinked toward her while infusing my blade with lightning. This time I was planning to make it go red lightning and at the moment it changed color used an Iai on her. This way I won't have to deal with the insane energy cost of red lightning since I will only be generating it and discharging it in a split second. The moment I blinked behind her the red lightning flashed as did my sword. A loud crackling could be heard and I smelled something that had similarities to burning flesh. I saw the slash travel and cleanly slice Raishin and Ted’s last enemy in two. I also heard a familiar sound. This was the sound of a sword shattering.

Shit! As I looked at the magic sword that just shattered, I also saw Nayani with her arms crossed in front of her. On one of her arms, there was a deep cut and some burn marks. Ugh, weren't magic swords supposed to be indestructible? I made a mistake. At that moment Nayani dashed at me with an ice-augmented punch. I saw it coming but I would have to block it. I layered frost and water magic on me as a [Multilayered water and frost barrier] and met the blow with this barrier. The punch still sent me flying. The frost magic absorbed a lot of the energy and the water magic wedged between the frost layers turned into steam due to the energy transfer which got let out by holes at the edge of the barrier. These barriers can protect me from a stupid amount of damage but the fact that I still got sent flying into a rock wall 40 meters further shows how much that punch packed.

“I can't believe you actually hurt me and didn't go splat from that punch. You have a lot of interesting tricks up your sleeve. I can't wait to get you to teach me those! Even by force!” She came in with another punch but this time an [Earth wall] and a [Shadow wall] came to my rescue. I’m sorry I couldn't react to that punch earlier. Don't mind it, I got careless. I inspected myself. Just some minor bruising. It hurt in some places but not to such an extent that it would hinder me. Nayini tried to go for another punch but she seemed to be immobilized. That must be [Shadow bind] and I was correct I saw tendrils of shadow touching her shadow.

Hmm, that seems to work. That is because I'm letting the energy out of the frost marbles and letting it flow toward the tips of the shadows. I tried it earlier and it didn't do anything.

You must be running low on marbles. Yeah, I can't keep this up for long. I would say use this opportunity to land a blow on her but after taking that hit with that red lightning sword strike, I don't think there is much you can do to hurt her besides using stuff that will probably damage everyone here.

Hey Nayini can you stop being so OP and let us defeat you?

“My name is Nayani! And I'm not OP whatever that means.” It means overpowered and my bad.

“You are weird.” I hear that a lot. Greg, back off a bit. My magic sword broke so I had no more cool stuff to test out. Why do all my swords shatter? Maybe I’m the problem. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Back off? For what? I started to raise my temperature and orange flames started to gather at my hands.

Oh shit, you're going to use fire! Gregory backed off a lot.

“You can also use fire! Ugh, I should've killed you and not played around. Now that I look more closely, weren't there 4 brats? Where are the other 2? “Oh shit! I seized this moment to create a ring of fire around her and sent a [Flame wave] at her. Normally I would try to control the power of my fire but there seemed to be no need for this now.

Hey, Agnis can you dial down the heat a bit I can feel it from here. Sorry. The fire seemed to be more effective against Nayani but as I thought I can't overuse it since Gregory, who was hiding behind a rock 50 meters away from me, could feel the heat of my flames.

"Ice, fire, lightning, hard-hitting sword skills, 7 tails. You are not some random brat, are you?" I guess the fox is out of the bag.

“I should start getting serious too. I'm sure those other 2 brats are up to no good.” Oh, you don't need to get serious! You can just stay like this, maybe even go easier on us!

“Nice try ice brat, that fire magic you used hurt so I will have to kill you now, I wanted to keep you as a slave to teach me those ice tricks but you are too dangerous.” Nayano seemed to focus and her power started to swell. The root started to glow a little bit. The temperature dropped and it started to snow inside the cavern.

Are you testing a new move Agnis? Wait what are you guys doing down here, shouldn't you be destroying the root? Well, this guy's intuition told him to not touch the root and to consult Agnis first.

I'm getting a bad vibe from that root. I don't feel anything. I think that can wait, Agnis might need our help! While my buddies were talking, I was dispelling and interrupting various ice attacks coming at us. I tried to parry ice shards and stuff first but my swords seemed to instantly shatter whenever I landed a parry, either the magic sword was super strong to not shatter when I did this earlier or her powerup was crazier than I thought. I could dispel most of her ice attacks because my skill level in ice seemed to be slightly superior to hers. Also, I could see the formation of the magic circles she was making and disrupting some. I focused mainly on disrupting those that belonged to big magic spells. I managed to put a halt to the snowfall but the low temperature was here to stay. Raishin sent some lightning bolts at her but they passed through her.

What! Is she a ghost? Use the marbles smartass. Ted threw some marbles at Nagani which she deflected back.

Oh shit! Ted and Raishin dodged the marbles that got sent back to them. Use the marbles! He says, also Ted: almost blows us up!

Hey, I didn't expect that! Give me a break. Ted attempted to block a huge ice spike flying at them. I wouldn't do that if I were you. A [shadow wall] appeared in front of Ted but the ice spike made it through. This however gave Raishin enough time to grab Ted, Torai style, and teleport toward us.

“Oh, you're all bunched up now how nice of you. I have to first do something about that shadow brat.” She weaved some magic which seemed like a different type. I couldn't interfere with it. “Here I have a taste of spirit magic!” I expected some flashy attack but I only heard a grunt behind me. Greg! Greg! Some white-blue chains wrapped around Gregory. Ugh don't worry about me she just hit me with a seal, it disabled all my magic and skills, I can still manipulate the energy in it though if you guys can stay alive for 10 minutes, I can disable this myself. Something tells me that we won't be able to. The root starts to glow brightly and Nayani seems to grow in power and starts another magic attack that has a similar magic circle as the attack that sealed Gregory.

Uhh, guys, I think a big one is coming. Shit, we could use Gregory’s walls now. She finished her cast and a beam half as high and wide as this cavern shot at us. I didn't hesitate and made the biggest frost wall I've ever made. I was hoping that this spirit laser was a fire-and-forget attack but it kept going. I assume that she can keep this up for a long time since she is at her power spot. Well, this is a problem. Hey, Agnis I thought you sucked at defensive skills! That is correct, this is a poor defensive skill.

How so, it is blocking this laser fine. Look at his hands and feet. I was blocking this laser and its energy was being converted by the frost magic. This process lowers my core temperature, normally it is not a stupid amount of energy like now so it hardly does anything or just lowers it by 1 or 2 degrees Celsius. When I one-shot that other guardian my core temperature dropped to 5 degrees Celsius. Because of all this energy, my core temperature was plummeting and my extremities started to freeze slowly. Also, the rapid influx of energy was damaging my body but my hands mostly were touching the frost wall. My hands started to get cuts and were bleeding. I decided to waste a lot of energy before I would explode.

Oh shit, I don't think I have anything strong enough to defend against non-physical attacks though. That is fine, it might get a bit hot here, I need to waste a stupid amount of energy else I will explode. I said as I set myself ablaze with blue fire. It uses up a lot of mana but it's not even close to what I'm getting in at the moment. The frost wall was going strong but I was frozen till my ankles and my hands started to get cold. The fire was counteracting this process well but I started melting the ground beneath me and my buddies weren't comfortable. I appreciated that they weren't complaining but I had to find something else. Pain and cold were flooding every millimeter of my body but if I gave up, we would all get vaporized. I started doing things I normally never do because they are too mana-intensive. I infused lightning into the frost wall to attempt to push the laser back, and with enough force, I could turn this into a counter. The lightning turned red in no time. The normally mana-guzzling red magic hardly put a dent in whatever I needed to spend. I made a pointless amount of illusion layers. I also started casting spatial magic which when cast without my nine-tail skill takes a stupid amount of mana, there is never a reason for me to use it like this because I can cast those for free with my skills but it’s ridiculous mana cost were convenient now. I bombarded Nayani with spatial arrows and created distortions around the laser to divert some of its power away from the frost wall.

The incoming energy decreased dramatically because of this but I still wasn't in the clear since the incoming energy vastly exceeded what I was spending. If at first, I was getting an ocean's worth of energy in and spending a droplet, now I am getting a slightly smaller ocean in and spending a bucket. The lightning got darker and darker as it needed more and more mana. I was hitting quadruple digits in illusion layers and I was frozen to my knees. My buddies were saying something but I couldn't hear them I had too many things I needed to keep track of. What felt like an eternity of wasting mana and blocking this laser seemed to be only 2 minutes. 8 more until Gregory was free. The gap between what I was getting in and spending got smaller. I started bleeding everywhere because my body couldn't handle the stress. Until the bleeding stopped, I guess my blood froze. Suddenly my lightning spiked and the force pushing back the laser spiked. My lightning entered the next stage: orange. I wasn't happy about this because I would never be able to use this mana-guzzling lightning stage under other circumstances. I diverted more of the laser away with distortions. I noticed that after all this my lightning started to mix with my frost magic. How odd. I couldn't see what was going on with my feet because there was a sizable amount of frost covering my body. A silver lining was that it was numbing my body making the excruciating pain more bearable.

My core temperature was approaching minus 20 and 4 more minutes to go. Would I make it out of this alive? The moment my core temperature hits minus 70, I will certainly die. Being a frost phoenix has its perks. Without that cheat race, I would have kicked the bucket the moment my core temperature dropped below 25 degrees. Then again, I wouldn't have been able to use frost magic. This orange lightning is putting in some work. I'm frozen to my waist and the orange lightning has completely mixed with my frost. I also managed to push the laser back 5 meters. The energy in and output were more comparable to a lake in and a bucket out. I made more illusion layers and ran useful but also a lot of pointless simulations in my tails. I sent a lot of mana to my eyes and turned on all the filters, this would normally cause my eyes to bleed but at this point, my blood was frozen at least the upside of this situation was that I wouldn't bleed out. I saw a lot of things and I sent the information to my tails. They could deal with all that information. I Infused some blue fire in the frost wall and this almost equaled out the in and output a little push and all this would turn into the biggest, riskiest, longest, and most painful counter ever. I prepared that all the magic I had running would collapse into the counter and stop sucking mana. I had to hurry. I was frozen to my chest. I wanted to strike a cool pose before I completely froze, which is inevitable when I stop using mana. I gave the push, the frost wall and orange lightning sucked up all the mana I had in running and shot back at Nayani. It looked like a blue-orange helix shooting back at her. I struck a cool pose.

I made 7121992 illusion layers, use them wisely. I will be frozen for about 3 hours, don't die! Those were the last words I could say to my buddies before I froze solid, but I made sure that all those illusion layers hid me from my enemies. My core temperature was minus 46 degrees Celsius and I managed to return the favor to Nayani after blocking her stupid laser for 9 minutes and 24 seconds. This low core temperature won't kill me but I will be unable to do anything. But that doesn't matter. I'm sooo sleepy.