Sword and Snow

Mica and Cove were struggling. The fight had lasted barely a minute so far and they had been on the back foot the entire time.

Mica was able to take more punishment from Firmis than either had expected, as she was finding some resiliency that she didn’t realize she had with her back against the wall. But taking the attacks that Firmis was sending their way would only get them so far. Even if she could manage to stay standing after hours of punishment, somehow, they would need to find a way to counterattack. And she wouldn’t last hours. She would be lucky to last several minutes like this.

But Firmis was shrugging off their counters like water off a duck’s back. In the short bursts of action so far, the only thing that seemed to have any effect at all was weakening the man’s footing; but Firmis had recognized that weakness as well, and kept his Domain extended and in the ground to keep it solid under him.

As Mica once again stepped into a big hammer swing to intercept the blow meant for Cove, they both cursed. Cove, because he couldn’t seem to come up with any winning strategies. Mica because the stone armor on her arms that she used to take the blow shattered. Again.

Cove retreated as Firmis leaned into his first swing, bringing the hammer all the way through and around behind him only to heft it up with that same momentum and carry it forward into an overhead smash. Mica, while scrambling to reform her arm protection, was forced to jump back from the attack as it impacted the ground heavily, throwing all kinds of debris into the air, most of which bounced harmlessly off her armor. She did feel a rock smash into her cheek, but it didn’t really accomplish much.

The cousins took a moment to breathe while Firmis yanked his hammer from the impact crater in the ground. Once again, he slung it up and over a shoulder lazily and smiled a taunt at them. “Are we going to actually fight or is this going to continue to be one-sided? Not that I mind beating you senseless, but I’d prefer it to have at least a little sport.”

“How ‘sporting’ are you willing to be?” Mica returned with a strained laugh. “I mean, if you’re willing to wait for us to come up with a plan, maybe this could turn into a real fight.”

She knew she was spouting absolute nonsense. But if she could buy them even just ten or fifteen more seconds to think, it could make the difference. Who knew? But Mica did know that if they did come up with a plan, it likely wasn’t coming from her. She wasn’t stupid, sure, but she never thought of herself as clever. And even when she was clever, it was rarely an in-the-moment type of clever. She thought through problems over days before coming up with a solution, usually.

Which meant that she was mostly relying on Cove to come up with something.

And Cove was desperately trying, but coming up empty. Their skill sets were a bad match for Firmis. Cove was similar to Avuri - a wide range support specialist, good at tripping up enemies. Loose moving sand was just as good at it as ice was. And while Cove had some ability with manipulating water, he had no talent for freezing it or using it as ice. And even then, he wasn’t focused on attacking as much as hampering - tinkering with tide pulls in shallow water, for example, to trip people up.

And Mica was sturdy, but lacked power. She was proving just how sturdy she was - which was far moreso than either of them expected - by still standing. But her endurance would eventually run out. She was human after all, even if she was a Cultivator. And they needed to find some way to put Firmis on the back foot before Mica fell.

Cove couldn’t help but think that, ironically, if Glenn had stayed with his sister instead of covering Ieji, she would have the strong attacker she needed, instead of a supporter that was ill-matched against their opponent.

Cove snapped back into focus when Mica made a move. He wasn’t sure if he missed a remark that angered her, or if it was meant to be a surprise attack, but her sudden burst of motion brought him out of his thoughts. She had a full suit of stone armor on once again and rushed Firmis in a hand-to-hand grappling focused stance.

He did what he could to support her with little warning. A surge of Qi moved swiftly underground as he tried to destabilize the dirt that Firmis stood on. As it had for most of the fight, the technique had middling effects. It churned some of the dirt underground, but Firmis held a large patch of earth together to stand on with his Domain.

Mica closed in on Firmis quickly. He swung his hammer at her which she dodged as she continued to slide inside his guard. In the instant that the hammer blow missed, he dropped the handle and moved in for a hand-to-hand exchange as well. Mica opened with a few tentative punches to test how he’d react. Firmis weaved around the strikes instead of blocking or parrying, while throwing a few testing strikes of his own.

Mica followed suit, deftly moving around the attacks rather than block, just case. Cove began launching small scale attacks at Firmis while trying to anticipate where the holes in his defenses would be following Mica’s strikes. They were mostly blasts of sand which wouldn’t really have much effect. They weren’t designed to harm higher Realm Cultivators, after all. But he wanted Firmis to get used to ignoring them. Which he did quickly.

Mica and Firmis continued to exchange blows, with neither side gaining any sort of solid upperhand, if only because neither was willing to commit anything. Firmis’ caution took the cousins by surprise, after he was previously attacking with abandon, though Cove imagined he was just hesitant because Mica suddenly changed her approach.

Fifteen seconds into the new exchange, Cove took his shot. Firmis had moved both hands to intercept two simultaneous elbow strikes from Mica, leaving himself as open as he would ever be. Cove flung a blast of sand into the man’s face. It was unlikely to cause any real damage, but Cove sustained the attack as long as he could, hoping to deposit as much dirt and sand into Firmis’ eyes as he could.

Cove nearly sighed in relief when Firmis staggered back and clawed at his face to remove the sand. Thankfully, even without warning, Mica saw her opportunity to strike. She slid up to Firmis while he was distracted by the sand and grappled him around the waist. She lifted him to perform a fairly standard throw or body slam, Cove couldn’t tell which, but that wasn’t his concern.

In the instant that Mica lifted Firmis from the ground, the man’s Domain stopped holding it together. Cove immediately sent a burst of Qi to scramble the earth, destroying the firm footing that had been giving Firmis a strong base. Cove watched, hoping that it would be enough, as Mica slammed Firmis to the ground and immediately slithered into an arm bar, despite the bulk of her armor. Cove was impressed by the grace in the movement.

As Mica had a firm grasp on her opponent's arm and levered it in the arm bar to try to either dislocate or break it, there was a moment where they thought it might be enough. It did not last, though.

Despite Mica’s tugging on Firmis’ arm, the man was still simply stronger than her. He had cleared away enough of the sand in his eyes that he could ignore what was left of it, and simply bent his arm forward. He had enough strength that Mica, still holding desperately to the arm, was forced to sit up with it. And then Firmis stood, holding Mica’s entire bulk with her armor up with just the one flexed arm. He turned and smiled a vicious smile at her.

“Sorry, but you’re gonna have to do better than that.” Then, with a tremendous heave, Firmis threw Mica off of him. She smashed against the icy wall that Avuri had created, and the ice cracked in a spiderweb pattern radiating out from her impact. Evidently, Avuri wasn’t focusing on holding up the ice anymore.

The throw itself didn’t really hurt Mica other than her pride; she was back on her feet quickly and jumping back toward Firmis, who was already moving toward Cove. He was clearly looking for some revenge for the sand attack, going by the look on his face. Cove was trying to keep Firmis at bay, but his attacks were basically insignificant.

And then there was a huge crunch and cracking sound from behind Mica. Specifically near where she had impacted the ice. Everyone turned to look as a tree trunk nearly a meter in diameter shattered the wall and grew straight through it. Glenn jumped through the hole his tree had made, dusting off shards of ice from his clothing.

“I noticed the fertile ground and figured I’d come help.” He said with a smile and he rotated his wrists in a stretch. “I think Ieji has the other part well in hand now.”

As if on cue, screams of absolute terror erupted from the other side of the wall.

Glenn quickly took in the state of the battlefield and nodded. “I think the three of us can handle this guy.”

Firmis narrowed his eyes at Glenn while trying to get a read on the newcomer. “Three against one, is it?” He shrugged. “These two have hardly been a problem. We can see if a third makes a difference.”

“Glad to hear it.” Glenn said as he moved further into their little clearing. As he did so, small plants grew at his feet as his Qi invaded the ground. He grinned again. “I see you all have been churning the ground nicely. And dumping Qi into it too - nice.”

With a quick burst of Qi, a tree trunk sprung up from the ground and grew toward Firmis incredibly quickly. It could have feasibly been an attack if the target was slower. But Firmis moved to the side easily, allowing the tree to grow right past him. As he did so, he recreated his hammer and stared down Glenn.

Glenn reached out toward the tree he just created. Vines and bark seemed to grow from the tree and wrap around his forearm, creating a gauntlet from the natural materials. He stretched his gauntlet-clad arm out toward Firmis, flexed his fingers, and moved.

Firmis met him midway with a wide hammer swing. Glenn pivoted into Firmis’ swing and punched the hammer with his full strength. Unlike Mica or Cove, Glenn had Cultivated his body’s raw strength. He had enough power to turn aside the hammer blow - but he didn’t. The plants that made up his gauntlet attached themselves to the hammer rather than shatter it.

It was one of the most annoying techniques that Glenn had in his arsenal. While training in the Stone Breaker Sect, he had needed to develop some way to overcome stone and earth Qi. It took years, but he had developed a technique that would allow his wood Qi to invade and break down earth focused Qi in the same way that tree roots could grow through stone with enough care.

As the roots grew through the hammer, it cracked and fell apart in Firmis’ hands. To his credit, the man immediately adjusted to a hand-to-hand combat form, rushing into Glenn’s space. Several blows were traded, though neither side seemed to leave any sort of damage behind.

After moving apart to refresh themselves for a moment, Firmis stomped. The attack manifested as a spike of stone erupting from the ground toward Glenn’s chest at high speeds. Glenn blocked the attack with his gauntleted arm while Firmis moved in to follow up.

Mica stepped in then by tackling Firmis from the side. He did manage to turn and intercept the attack in time, avoiding any sort of injury. But as he held the spikes of Mica’s armor at bay, Glenn slipped to his side and laid into him with a solid punch. The wooden gauntlet crashed into Firmis’ flank with a level of strength well beyond any blow he had received so far.

But what really hurt was the follow up. Glenn didn’t follow through with the punch. Instead, similarly to the hammer, roots and vines grew from the gauntlet. His Domain protected him from the worst possibilities, but the roots still dug into his skin trying to find purchase to hold him in place.

Firmis tried to pull away, but found that as he had focused on the sudden and unexpected pain from the roots he hadn’t focused on the ground like he had done until now. His foot sank into the dirt as though it were quicksand, and he couldn’t get any purchase to push away from Glenn.

Mica saw her chance; she slipped behind Firmis and grappled him in a bearhug. Firmis tried to spin in her grip and wound up an elbow aimed at the side of her head. As his blow crashed into her stone helm and cracked it, Glenn’s second punch landed. It slammed into Firmis’s flank, which was now nearly parallel to the ground.

Glenn pushed the other man to the ground with the force of his attack. And this time, rather than the roots making an attack of their own, they crawled over and around Firmis body and took root in the ground.

Firmis fought against the roots, ripped a few of them loose, but they grew terrifyingly fast - and thick. By the time Firmis was anywhere near escaping, Glenn had prepared his last attack.

As Glenn’s final punch landed squarely in Firmis’ solar plexus, an entire tree crashed into his head.