Sword and Snow

Leon scoffed at Cierra as she prepared herself for whatever fight was coming. Even as the dragons made of wind and ice coiled around her, he was unbothered. He saw the cold air whip around her and Stena in a decently sized area around her - but it was just that. Cold air. She had no Domain. And that was why she would lose.

He also paid little mind to Stena, who was similarly preparing for the fight at hand. Her Qi was kicking up wind, adding a little more force to Cierra’s. But she also stretched out her hand and pushed a bit of Qi into her storage ring.

A sheathed blade appeared in her hand. It looked like a traditional one handed sword, but the sheath had a scale-like design on it. Stena motioned away with two fingers and wind deftly pulled the sword free with a beautiful resounding note. It sounded more like a tuning fork being rung than the normal sound of metal on metal that accompanied a blade being drawn.

The blade itself was no less impressive than the sheath. The handle was fairly simple looking, though well crafted. It was comfortable in Stena’s hand, though she didn’t always wield it directly. In this instance, wind Qi carried the blade in a short dance around her before she grasped the handle gently as she was taught.

She pointed the blade toward Leon. At that angle it was difficult for him to tell exactly what the blade was made of, but it wasn’t normal metal. It didn’t have the shine of steel, and looked rather drab if anything. But surely she wouldn’t be fighting with a rusty weapon - even children knew better than that.

But still. No Domain meant this would be easy for Leon. What could they do against something that was so overwhelming that simply getting close to him meant being at the mercy of his flames?

If anything, he looked forward to one of them getting within range of his Domain where he could simply spike the temperature as he saw fit. If he wanted something to burn, it simply would.

Leon cracked his whip again, lighting a third tree on fire. The heat in the air as the fires spread felt good on his back and face. As he smiled at the women, he held his left hand palm up and gathered a mass of fire Qi there. It was a simple but effective technique he had borrowed from the Fire Eater Sect called the Signal Fire. It kept a solid amount of fire Qi accessible for you to pull techniques from, which sped up the simpler techniques that utilized raw fire Qi to attack. It could also push extra oomph into them easily.

Leon made sure to keep both women in his focus at once. Yes, there were only two of them and they were outclassed. But he wasn’t about to let one of them do something sneaky.

Concentrate and focus. As long as he did that, Leon was the assured victor here. And then he could take both girls hostage and use them as necessary.

In contrast, Cierra’s mind was moving in a hundred different ways trying to decide on the best route to take. Stena stood beside her, and she knew that her sister trusted her with her life. They didn’t have the same type of bond that their mothers had, but even they could communicate on the fly if they had to.

“What’s the plan?”

Stena’s words landed squarely in Cierra’s left ear. She had utilized a simple wind based technique that allowed her to carry the sound directly between them, and Cierra knew without a doubt that Stena would do the same for her own words. They could talk normally without allowing Leon to hear anything at all. As long as he couldn’t read lips, anyway.

“I don’t think his Domain reaches very far. It’s had no effect on the ice or wind yet, so if he’s not double bluffing us - which he could be - his Domain is only five meters around him, max. I assume it’s fire related, so be careful. Don’t get close.”

Stena nodded, and dropped her stance. The dragon scale weapon that their mothers had left for her fell from her fingers only to be caught and held up by more wind. It was a similar technique to Emery’s, but wasn’t quite as strong or precise. Using wind to carry an item wasn’t the same as manipulating directly, sadly.

“Keep my distance. Got it.”

“Otherwise, we feel him out for now. And we need to do it fast before the trees burn. Or worse, before the bushes catch.” Cierra said, fighting to keep her eyes locked on Leon. It took genuine effort to not let her eyes stray toward where everyone else hid.

“The rest of you stay hidden unless it becomes life or death. If you feel like you need to intervene, do so very carefully. You’re our trump card in this fight.”

Cierra trusted Stena to carry the words to their siblings that hid among the plants. Kord, Enrik, Elise, and Fia were with them, but had agreed to stay hidden as much as they could. No one could be sure how many of them were needed to take on a Sky Realm Cultivator, especially one they hadn’t known anything about.

Now, Leon was a vaguely known entity, but they still didn’t know how powerful he may be. Two-on-one or six-on-one may make no difference in the end, so she didn’t want to risk anyone she didn’t have to.

“And if we get entirely overwhelmed immediately, you run. No acting as heroes, remember?”

Stena relayed a chorus of agreements from each of their siblings hidden around the area. They had stayed a good amount of distance away, so hopefully they could remain hidden and undetected if things went wrong.

Cierra took a deep breath. Things wouldn’t go wrong. She would figure out how to beat the crap out of Leon, and that would be that.

Leon, who had been trying to intimidate the pair by swinging his whip around, had evidently had enough waiting. The end of the whip struck out toward them, elongating to reach across the distance with ease. As it snapped the air where Cierra’s face had been, the girls dodged to the sides, away from one another.

In retaliation, Cierra’s dragon and Stena’s blade shot toward Leon. They both could immediately tell when their attacks met his Domain. Cierra had to put extra concentration and Qi into her dragon technique to stop it from falling apart. Stena had to put in a little extra effort to control her blade’s movement, but the blade itself actually took the heat very well.

Having been crafted mostly from Vale’s scales, they had a natural affinity for heat. The blade glowed from the inside as the heat suffused it. If anything, Stena guessed that the heat would add to the weapon rather than hinder it.

Leon stood his ground against the attacks. He channeled a blast of flame through his Signal Fire to match Cierra’s dragon. The two techniques clashed spectacularly, creating a huge blast of steam where they met. Cierra was glad to see that she was able to match his power inside his Domain. Or at least bring him to a stalemate.

Stena’s sword, controlled by her wind Qi, wasn’t particularly deft. She could really only make it fly straight, blade first, if she wanted it to carry any real striking power. That made her attacks linear and predictable, but strong enough that Leon couldn’t ignore them. He slapped aside the blade on each pass easily with his whip while maintaining the flamethrower technique. But it was enough of a distraction to stop Leon from capitalizing on any opening he made.

Cierra was able to channel her Qi well enough that each time her dragon met a flame attack from Leon, she could conjure a new dragon in time to meet Leon’s follow up attack. She was even able to direct the Qi from the ruined dragon techniques into the nearby trees, slowing the burn. It wasn’t enough to put out the fires, but she managed to control their spread somewhat.

Leon was clearly growing more and more angry. It appeared to Cierra that she was entirely correct. Yes, he had a Domain, but its range was poor. As long as she and Stena remained at a distance, he didn’t seem to have any way to really utilize his biggest advantage. And they intended to keep it that way.

More than once, Leon had made to leap forward toward them or otherwise close the distance. Stena’s sword was remarkably good at being exactly where it needed to be to stop his approach, requiring Leon to step back and avoid an attack, or use his whip to defend himself. And Cierra’s dragons continued to appear and be sacrificed to Leon’s flames, but it kept him locked in.

Cierra was wracking her brain to find some way to break the stalemate they had created. As long as she and her sister were careful, they could conceivably keep Leon pinned, but it wasn’t a favorable situation for them. One mistake on their side and he would get the upper hand. She was shocked, though, to see how close they were in strength as long as his Domain was being kept in check.

Truly, Leon was no fighter. He had a few techniques, knew how to use them admirably well, but severely lacked when it came to training and experience. As they traded attacks, it was the one thing that Cierra became more and more sure of - Leon was about as weak a Sky Realm Cultivator as they would ever see.

He may have more power, but he didn’t know how to use it.

But even then, they were being fought to a standstill in a two-on-one fight. They needed something to tip the scales. Cierra knew from her lessons that a Sky Realm Cultivator could be forced to lose concentration on their Domain, which could then be restrained by their opponent.

They couldn’t do the second portion of the action without Domains of their own, but they could still use gaps in Leon’s concentration to get him undefended long enough to truly strike.

Cierra had a good trump card for a sudden blitz with her hiding siblings, but she didn’t want to risk them all getting hurt if the plan didn’t work. But even more than that, she still wanted her payback.

“Stena. I’m going to try something. Cover me and attack when you see the opening.”

When the next ice dragon and flamethrower clashed, Cierra poured a little extra Qi into the dragon to let it last longer, but abandoned her concentration on it. Instead, while it held off the fire, she started creating the next dragon early.

She put extra power into this one. Reinforcing the ice with more Qi, and making the winds within it stronger. She put more Qi into it than was typically wise - giving it nearly four times the power of every dragon so far. But the strain on her was significant; she would need a bit of time to recover after this.

That was fine with her. She’d prove her theory, and let the rest of her siblings clean up. She whispered a silent apology to her mothers as she prepared to attack. Not because she thought it was particularly dangerous, but because she was positive they would yell at her for something this reckless.

Then, after the last dragon and flame went up in steam, Cierra charged. Her dragon flew just ahead of her as Leon prepared another jet of flame to counteract the dragon, the same way he had done for every other exchange so far.

Cierra had to stop moving forward when she got within a few meters of Leon; she could feel the residual heat from his Domain licking her skin and didn’t want to risk entering his Domain too early.

Instead, she shoved her dragon forward. There was a roar from the technique as it surged into the jet of flame and began to swallow it. The ice and wind surrounded the flames and snuffed them out as it flew directly toward Leon.

His eyes went wide as he scrambled to make up for the suddenly more powerful attack. He pulled more power from his Signal Fire and channeled it into the jet of flame, as well as focused his Domain on the dragon, trying to burn it out before it did any damage.

It was a near thing. Cierra had to struggle to keep her attack from falling apart and feed it extra Qi after the fact to keep it alive. But with the extra power, it managed to survive Leon’s flame and latch onto his left arm. It swallowed his forearm and the Signal Fire whole, with a delightful crunch of cracking ice and biting winds.

Leon screamed, and Cierra immediately felt his Domain’s heat suddenly vanish. That was her cue.

With a scream of her own, she surged forward, covering the remaining few meters to the man in a blink. As she twisted to deliver a strong, sturdy punch, she pulled on a little of her remaining Qi to coat her hand in jagged ice. It wouldn’t make the strike more deadly, but hopefully it would hurt more.

As she pivoted into the swing, she had one more surge of vindictiveness. Instead of a punch, she opened her hand.

Cierra had never really slapped anyone before. Her mothers would have berated her for choosing a slap over the myriad of other, more effective, strikes. Slaps were dismissive and insulting. And that was perfect.

The sound of her ice coated hand cracking against Leon’s cheek was one of the most satisfying sounds Cierra had ever heard.