Sword and Snow

Ieji wasn’t the type of fighter that would excel in a straightforward fight against someone like Terrane. Sure, Ieji was strong, efficient, and versatile when it came to combat. But the one thing they were not good at was straight forward brawls.

Ieji’s body simply wasn’t built for it. The horrendous training they had endured as a child had left permanent scars throughout their body, many of which weren’t visible. And being practically unable to grow or maintain any appreciable muscle mass was one of those scars. Being a Cultivator, Qi made up for a lot of that loss; but when Ieji went up against someone of their own level, they were at a disadvantage physically almost every time.

It also didn’t help that Ieji had grown to prefer less structured weapons - like the rope dart - which wouldn’t exactly be an asset when it came time to defend themselves.

All of this together had led Ieji down the path that they had been on for the last fifteen-odd years; one of stealth, subterfuge, misdirection, and preparation. While acting as a spy, Ieji got the most use out of the first three items on that list. Stealth and subterfuge would often be enough to avoid fighting altogether, allowing Ieji to make progress toward a goal without fighting. When fights broke out, but were unnecessary toward furthering a goal, misdirection was the best option to simply avoid the issue.

Preparation was the ever-faithful fallback that never let them down. Knowing your tasks, goals, and potential problems inside and out before working toward a goal was the easiest way to guarantee success. Preparing for undesirable outcomes was one of the things that made Ieji one of the most fearsome spies in the Sky Realm. They regularly prepared for things to go awry in the strangest ways; and then when those awkward situations arose, Ieji was always prepared for it.

There was a reason that Ieji regularly carried several spacial items on their person at any given time. Having an inventory of useful tools and tricks was invaluable in their line of work.

But preparations, no matter how brilliant, couldn’t bridge a gap of raw power in a straight forward competition. Tricks like poisons or consumable items could sometimes tip the scales a little bit, but it was rarely enough to win on its own.

And while Ieji didn’t let situations where raw power would carry the day occur often, they did happen. It was an inescapable fact of life that sometimes, someone was just simply stronger than you. And most people had to either submit, retreat, or circumvent that sort of problem altogether.

Evidently, Ieji’s spiritual self wasn’t able to accept that.

No one around Ieji could figure out exactly how the fear aura that surrounded them worked. It was vaguely attached to their Domain, but only nominally. It functioned wholly different from a Domain, although pushing Qi into their Domain did empower the aura as well. Even after years of trying to study it and with help from Vale and their siblings, the closest any of them could figure was that it was some kind of variation on a demonic technique that didn’t appear to need Qi to function.

Demi, at one point, had floated the idea that it was something like a demonic curse. And the longer time went on, the more Ieji believed that whatever it was that affected them was exactly that - a demonic curse. No matter how useful it was.

When Ieji broke through to the Sky Realm and began to alter their Qi and techniques to a style more suited to them, the aura began to change as well. First, Ieji found that they could channel the aura into techniques to create things like the Nightmare Shroud. The way it functioned disturbed them, and they avoided using it unless it was necessary.

Then came techniques that truly made Ieji afraid. There were some rules that Ieji had learned and been taught while Cultivating that had seemed to be the standard way things functioned. One such rule was that a person’s Domain - as long as it was projected around them - was a defensive force that made it functionally impossible to impose one’s will through Qi on another person’s body.

Yes, attacks and things could force their way into and through a Domain to harm the person, but it was impossible to control Qi within someone’s body as long as their Domain was up. It was what stopped air users from pulling the air from another’s lungs, or water users from simply condensing water inside someone.

Those limits apparently didn’t stop Ieji’s aura. And it terrified them. As far as Ieji knew, they had the potential to be the strongest user of emotional warfare in existence. Their ability to cause fear had been able to affect Cultivators of much higher strength without extra effort, and it stood to reason that the more warped and evil effects they could cause with their aura was no different.

Terrane charged, brandishing the stone sword that he had created. The stance was one that Ieji had seen Emery use before, but they weren’t familiar with it enough for that to be of any help. Worse still, Ieji could feel the Qi radiating from the blade; it clearly held so much condensed Qi that if there wasn’t something more to the technique than simply creating a sword, Ieji would retire right there.

Terrane swung the blade diagonally in a cross-cut while still a few meters away and still on the approach. A wide swath of sand shot from the blade in an arc following the cut, flying straight toward Ieji.

So far, so standard. Ieji readied their dart for a counter attack as they stepped to the side, allowing the sand pass. As they flung the dart forward, aiming at Terrane’s left thigh, the man dipped the blade in a surprisingly graceful motion to deflect the dart’s tip by a miniscule amount - but it was just enough to push it off target.

In the same motion, the blade came back up launching another sweep of sand Ieji’s direction. Unable to trust the rope dart’s chain to block flying sand, Ieji was forced to step aside again and pull the dart back to prepare another attack.

Terrane, having completely closed the distance at that point, grinned. The sword swung horizontally in a wide sweeping motion at about waist height. Ieji immediately recognized the aim of this strike - the height made it difficult to duck under, but jumping over it would be dangerous. And it was too wide to avoid to the side. It was an attack designed to make the opponent dodge in an easy to control direction.

And with few exceptions, up was almost always a bad choice.

Figuring that the sand itself couldn’t be too bad, likely just painful, Ieji intercepted the sword strike itself with the dart’s chain and redirected it just enough to avoid being cut by it.

The sand that followed didn’t hurt as badly as they thought it might. But pain and damage wasn’t the issue, apparently.

The sand stuck to Ieji’s clothing and hardened. And it got heavy. Unnaturally so. It felt like Ieji’s shirt suddenly weighed as much as a boulder that they might consider using as weight training.

Worse still, the sand seemed to be invading and traveling through the clothing fibers, making the whole shirt a problem, not just the line initially drawn across it. And Terrane wasn’t letting up his attacks either, to make sure that Ieji couldn’t simply discard the shirt.

Attacks began to flow in from every direction, and not every attack carried the blast of sand. Ieji was forced to abandon the rope dart that they loved in favor of a wicked looking curved knife. It was serrated and had strange protrusions designed to catch blades and make parrying easier. If Ieji was lucky, they could even break a weapon with it, but not this time.

Ieji focused on keeping the sword strikes from crossing their body. A horizontal sweep was lifted over their head. A vertical cut was moved aside. They weaved between diagonal cuts that launched sand past them.

Terrane’s swordplay was surprisingly fluid and graceful, given how heavy the sword they wielded was. Thankfully, Ieji had practiced with an equally graceful swordmaster most of their life. And defending against Emery’s strikes had ended up being fantastic training for this defensive flurry.

And Ieji kept it up until the sand from the initial strike had worked its way into their sleeves, hardening those as well. In the instant that Ieji felt their right sleeve begin to finally impede their arm movement, they lept to the side to dodge a swing that landed them on the ground.

Terrane didn’t miss a beat and stepped up over Ieji, sweeping the sword toward their neck in the same graceful style of movements they had used until now.

And then they just stopped. Terrane’s eyes opened slightly, alarmed. Whatever state of flow they had entered during the battle was disrupted long enough for Ieji to scramble away and back to their feet. The sudden surge of fear and distrust in Terrane’s eyes were as clear an indictment as any for Ieji to know their technique had found its mark.

“Why are you -?” Terrane staggered back, looking around confused. Then he glanced back at Ieji, looking distraught. “Why are you here?”

Ieji remained quiet, but climbed to their feet. Slowly, resolutely, Ieji withdrew a vial of a poison from their storage ring similar to the poison that had been applied to the rope dart earlier; however, this was a more virulent dose. It required direct contact with the bloodstream, so a small cut wouldn’t work as well.

Qi based poisons were incredibly potent and dangerous, but the Qi component also made them near useless in a fight. If the target of the poison recognized it as such, they could simply neutralize it with their own Qi, especially if it entered their Domain. It would be easy to do.

And this particular poison was greatly strengthened by Ieji’s Qi.

Terrane watched Ieji suspiciously as they poured the poison liberally over the jagged knife. Ieji had no idea what Terrane was watching, but it wasn’t someone applying poison to a blade.

Terrane stomped his foot angrily and threw his sword to the ground, where it dissipated back into the dirt.

“Mother!” He shouted, sounding somewhere between angry and desperate. “Why are you here? Or, rather, where are we?”

Ieji smiled at the man sadly. “I’m sorry.” They said, trying to affect a sweeter tone as they opened their arms. “Come here, Terrane.”

Terrane didn’t even hesitate. He walked forward for the offered embrace. As both of their arms closed around the other, Terrane murmured “I thought you were dead.”

Ieji held back their emotions as they slowly drew the knife across Terrane’s back. The blade bit deep enough for the poison to do what Ieji needed it to, and in moments Terrane’s body was locked up in their arms by the paralytic.

Terrible.

That was the only word Ieji could use to describe that technique. They hadn’t given it a name, unable to reckon with exactly what exactly they could do with it.

Clouding someone’s mind to the point that they had no idea what was happening, numb to whatever happened to them, and confused by seeing things they wanted or were afraid of - seemingly whichever Ieji’s technique decided would be most useful in the moment.

As far as Ieji could tell, there was no defending against it. It had never failed, so long as there was only a singular target.

It was truly terrifying, what Ieji could do.

“Terrible.” They said flatly.