The northerner let out a truly bestial growl and struck the space in front of him. The wolf spirit behind him howled. Ragar’s energy condensed into a gigantic ice fist. It was ten feet in diameter, and could’ve easily destroyed a small hill.
Einen slid through the shadows and stood in the way of the attack. His skin was once again covered in iridescent scales. The shadow ape didn’t attempt to block with its bare paws this time. It now held a shield made of the same iridescent light as the scales on Einen’s body.
“Ape Shell!” Einen cried.
Hadjar doubted apes had shells, but he couldn’t exactly argue with the creator of the Technique right now, whoever they were.
The ice fist didn’t just break through the rainbow shield. It ignored the defensive Technique as if it hadn’t even encountered an obstacle capable of stopping a mid-stage Heaven Soldier’s attack, but a sheet of paper. The rainbow shield wrapped around the gigantic fist, the shadow ape burst apart in a spray of ink, and at the last moment, Einen brought his spear-staff up to block.
Hadjar didn’t know what material the weapon was made of, but it was definitely impressive. Where the Technique backed by his Inheritance had failed, the artifact succeeded. With a deafening clang, the ice fist crashed into the spear-staff. Weakened by the Technique, it couldn’t even lift Einen off the floor. However, the islander was still dragged at least fifteen feet across the ground, and when he did finally stop, blood flowed from his mouth. Fortunately, he’d managed to buy enough time for Shakh and Hadjar to prepare a counterattack.
In the months following the battle at the caravan, Shakh had managed not only to harden his character, but he’d also made an incredible leap along his path of cultivation. Now on the verge of becoming a true cultivator, his power over sand was frightening. He disappeared into it, riding a desert dog, and appeared behind Ragar. His daggers flashed, leaving two shallow cuts along the Spirit Knight’s back. The attacks that could instantly kill any practitioner at the Transformation stage had only been capable of scratching the Spirit Knight.
Turning around, Ragar spread his left palm and swung it in a backhand strike. The wolf behind him howled, and his energy condensed into an ice hand. It was as powerful as his ice fist had been, and it sent the unsuspecting Shakh flying back. If it hadn’t been for the sand that had covered him like thick armor, he would have died on the spot.
Hadjar, who had done nothing up until this point, had been waiting for the moment when Ragar would turn his back to him. While the Spirit Knight was finally focused on Shakh’s sudden attack, which had lasted no more than a second, Hadjar could finally act.
In his mind, he awakened the slumbering little dragon. Ragged wisps of black fog fell across his shoulders. The same fog started emanating from Mountain Wind. Still in his mind, Hadjar summoned the black blade. This time, he didn’t merge it with his physical blade.
Inside his soul, he used the ‘Spring Wind’ stance, while in the physical world, he used the ‘Falling Leaf’ stance. This combination, with the addition of the Call and the black sword, was his strongest Technique. Four illusory leaves landing on Ragar’s body was his limit.
His four sword strikes merged into one. Hadjar’s hands moved so quickly that the two slashes and two thrusts left afterimages behind. They looked like blurred mirages made up of black fog.
His fused knowledge of the Sword Spirit and the ‘Falling Leaf’ stance gave rise to an eight-pointed star. Blue on the inside and black around the edges, it generated waves of such crushing energy that, even without touching the walls, it left deep cracks and cuts in them. The stones on the floor, the ones that had survived the battle until now, were reduced to fine dust.
Ragar, who was still distracted and recovering from his loss, suddenly felt a threat that might’ve come from a Heaven Soldier at the peak of that level, but definitely not from a mere practitioner. This time, despite the risks involved, he had to use not only his ice spirit, power, and knowledge, but also his Technique.
“Winter!”
There was so much cold power in that simple word that a cloud of steam rose from Hadjar’s mouth. Behind Ragar, the snow wolf spirit lowered its head and growled softly. It seemed to pour all the cold of its ephemeral body into Ragar and his Technique.
Just the word being spoken froze the surrounding area. It started snowing. The floor, walls, shelves, books, scrolls, and even the distant ceiling — all of them were suddenly covered in a layer of ice.
The eight-pointed star that had been created by the four sword strikes slowed. The streaks of blue light frosted over. Ragar reached out and grabbed the center of the star, clenching his fist. Hadjar’s strongest attack was simply crushed, broken into a myriad of icy shards. These fragments, driven by Ragar’s will, rained down on Hadjar.
Seeing the hail of ice spears flying straight toward him, Hadjar didn’t dodge or use the ‘Calm Wind’ stance. He’d received the nickname ‘Mad General’ for a reason, and even in this situation, he saw an opportunity to improve his understanding of the essence of the Sword.
Hadjar thrust his blade forward and spun among the ice shards. He moved quickly, but at the same time, smoothly and gracefully. As he cut through and deflected the ice spears, he managed to dodge the ones whose speed exceeded his blade’s ability to parry.
While Hadjar was dealing with the ice, Ragar was slowly regaining control of his emotions. He was recovering from the shock of his loss. Less energy was seeping through his soul wounds. They shrunk and scarred over.
With each passing second, the ice on the walls thickened, the cold increased, and Ragar’s aura became stronger and more complete. The opportunity to defeat the Spirit Knight was slowly disappearing, and everyone knew it.
Einen wiped away the blood on his lips and was about to charge when he saw Hadjar whirling around in the icy wind. Or rather, he saw ice needles raining down on his friend. It reminded him of his own ‘Boulder Storm’ Technique, one of the stances of the ‘Ape Fur’ Technique. He’d stolen it from a traveler’s trunk when he’d been a child.
He’d used to think that the attacks of his staff-spear must be as straight and sharp as rocks sharpened by the ceaseless onslaught of the waves. The longer they resisted the water, the sharper they became. But now, looking at his friend’s efforts, he understood that he’d been wrong all along.
Einen wasn’t a rock. He wasn’t holding a boulder. He fought with his spear, and the spear fought with him. There was no point in separating the two. After all, the spear wasn’t able to strike without Einen and Einen.... For him, the spear was only a symbol. After all, everything around them, even the ice, could become the ‘Boulder Storm’, because everything in this world was fighting against and for something. No one lived purely for pleasure. Even a bird soaring through the sky did so only to find food.
Hadjar fought off the last of the ice spears and wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling a powerful surge of energy. At first, he thought Ragar was preparing another attack, but the Spirit Knight was still in a state of shock and wasn’t capable of such a thing just yet.
The rush of energy wasn’t coming from the northerner, but from Einen.
“Just in time, baldy!” Hadjar shouted, smiling as he applauded his friend’s breakthrough. He’d just become a Wielder of the Spear.
Chapter 409
Two beams shot out of Einen’s eyes. Forming two spearheads, they pierced the floor in front of him. Einen kicked the base of his spear-staff, moving it behind him, and assumed an open stance.
With a slight nod, he acknowledged Hadjar’s shout. By the Great Turtle, his friend was smarter than a sage sometimes, but dumber than a dung beetle at other times. What was the point of telling their foe that they’d become stronger? Fortunately, Ragar still wasn’t able to properly react to the world around him.
Einen remained where he was, stuck in a state of near enlightenment. For a brief moment, he could see the gleam of the Spear Spirit in everything around him: in the growing ice needles, in t
he snowflakes, even in the hairs on his arm.
Was the ‘Boulder Storm’ stance really that simple? Were its strikes fast and hard, like rocks sharpened by the sea? Einen could now see further and deeper.
Hadjar had watched his friend use the ‘Boulder Storm’ a hundred times before, turning his spear into a storm of deadly, precise thrusts. Now, however, when the islander cried out:
“Boulder Storm!”
Something entirely different happened.
If his attack had looked like boulders jutting from the sea before, it was now... waves. Sharp and fast, they rose up like a deadly tide, then fell on Ragar from the most unpredictable directions. They were moving unpredictably, rolling around, doing loops and complex zigzags. They were much faster than boulders, much smaller and thinner, but contained the same power and sharp focus.
By the Evening Stars, Hadjar wasn’t sure that the ‘Calm Wind’ stance could save him from mortal wounds if Einen directed this attack against him now, despite the fact that the northerner’s ‘Winter’ Technique had reduced their speed and power by almost a third.
Ragar roared like a wounded beast. He raised his hands above him. The snow wolf spirit growled behind him. Copies of his hands appeared around Ragar. They parried and smashed the spears to bits. Einen’s thrusts, each of which carried the Spear Spirit, were giving even the Spirit Knight trouble
“Shakh!” Hadjar shouted.
The desert dweller nodded. Crouching, he plunged his two daggers into the sand.
“Sand Slaughter!”
Hadjar hadn’t seen this Technique before. It was obviously difficult for Shakh to use. Taking most of his energy, it turned the young man’s hands to sand. Together with the daggers, they sank into the ground, and a moment later, the layer of ice beneath Ragar’s feet exploded.
Two sand tornadoes shot out from beneath the ground. Whirling, they gradually solidified until they formed replicas of Shakh’s arms holding the daggers. They were ten feet long and dense, and they delivered devastating blows to the target. The floor trembled. The clash of sand attacks and ice defenses echoed around the room. Full of power and energy, they punched holes that were two feet deep in the walls. Any echoes of this fight could kill not only a mortal, but even a practitioner at the Formation stage as well.
“Hadjar, together!” Einen raised his spear behind him once again.
The thousand attacks that comprised his new ‘Boulder Storm’ were reinforced by Hadjar’s ‘Strong Wind’ and ‘Spring Wind’. A thousand penetrating spear thrusts were joined by a wave of wind that held writhing dragons within it, and their bodies had glittering blades inside them — copies of Mountain Wind.
The combined attack of the two warriors who had become Wielders managed to break through Ragar’s defenses. His ice hands cracked. A deluge of spears pierced through them, and then the full force of a tsunami of cutting wind crashed right into the northerner’s chest.
However, this wasn’t enough to send the Knight flying. He wasn’t even dragged across the floor. Ragar only took a few steps back, and a few drops of blood leaked out of his mouth.
The Techniques only managed to put a few dents in his armor, tear off some of the rings in his chain mail, and slightly injure the northerner’s torso. Judging by the blood coming from his mouth, they’d also caused some minor internal injuries.
Einen, Shakh, and Hadjar stood side by side again. Panting, covered in wounds, they looked at the Spirit Knight standing before them. Ragar’s gaze became more focused. His soul wounds were healing, and energy was no longer seeping out of him. The wolf spirit behind the Knight grew more distinct, stronger and brighter. The rainbow scales fell away from Einen’s skin, and the cloak of black mist disappeared from Hadjar’s shoulders.
“Any ideas?”
Hadjar looked at his comrades, but they said nothing.
“What about artifacts?” Shakh asked.
Shakh was the only one who’d continued to attack the Spirit Knight. His sand dogs were leaping at Ragar. Their dagger-tongues kept trying to stab his eyes, and their steel fangs and claws kept digging into his flesh. Only this relentless harassment was keeping Ragar from fully recovering.
“Ramukhan has all of them,” Einen said calmly.
“That sorcerer over there?” Shakh pointed at the unconscious Ramukhan.
The three of them looked at each other, and Einen swung his spear to bring over the leather bag that contained all the amulets Paris had given them. Among the various trinkets designed to deactivate various formations and spells, they found a throwing dagger.
“Evening Stars!” Hadjar and Shakh sighed.
“Great Turtle!” Einen added emphatically.
He pulled the dagger out of the bag, and then, in a most uncharacteristic manner, threw it away carelessly.
“There’s nothing useful in here,” Einen stated bluntly.
The dagger — the only weapon they’d found in the bag — was used to carve into the carcasses of animals and cut out their cores.
“We’re doomed,” Shakh sighed.
At that moment, as if to confirm the young man’s words, Ragar slammed his fists together with a growl. As he did so, hundreds of attacks, full of power, filled the air around him. The ice and cold inside the attacks froze the surrounding area, slowing everything down. Hadjar could’ve sworn that even time itself was a little slower now. Maybe for just a split second, but still… Or maybe his adrenaline and fear had made his imagination run wild. It was impossible to influence the course of time at such a low level!
“You missed your chance, cowards,” Ragar growled.
With a wave of his hand, he created a dozen ice fists that easily scattered the sand dogs. The northerner held his open palms out in front of him, forming a sort of mouth. A sphere of snow spun under its fangs. It held so much power that Hadjar’s heart skipped a beat. One such attack could easily kill a hundred practitioners like them.
“Snow Tear!” Ragar shouted.
The sphere shot out from between his hands. It wasn’t that fast, and it didn’t seem like it could pierce anything, but it was still overwhelming because of its incredible might. It was as if all of Ragar’s hundreds of ice fist and ice hand attacks had fused together to form the quintessence of his skill and power.
Stopping one direct attack from a Spirit Knight was already a feat for a simple practitioner. But a hundred? Pure madness!
Still, Shakh, Einen, and Hadjar didn’t give up. Their hearts were stronger than steel, something anyone who boldly walked the path of cultivation needed to have.
The desert dweller made his move first. He swung his daggers and used the last of his energy to create a wall of sand in front of them. The side facing the snow sphere bristled with dozens of daggers, and huge desert dogs appeared on either side of the wall. Their mouths gaped open, and pillars of sand erupted from their mouths, trying but unable to stop the sphere.
“Sand Cell.” Shakh swayed. Blood was running down his face. “That’s my limit. I can’t do more than that.”
He staggered and fell to the ground. Only sheer willpower kept him from breaking his connection to the Technique. Einen was about to join the young man when Hadjar stopped him.
“I have a plan.”
Judging by the way Einen’s eyes widened, revealing his inhuman, purple pupils, the islander wasn’t surprised, but rather frightened. He wasn’t sure which was worse — death, or having to participate in another one of Hadjar’s mad plans.
Chapter 410
The ice sphere easily shattered Shakh’s sand barrier, sending the young man into deep oblivion. Having expended all his energy, he was no longer able to stay conscious.
Ragar’s attack had lost only a tenth of its incredible force in the exchange. It still continued to create whirlwinds of ice around itself, whirlwinds that seemed to hold ghostly images of punches within them.
“Did you decide to face your death with your sword in hand?” Ragar asked Hadjar in a fierce growl as the man came to sta
nd in front of the sphere. “Well, that’s respectable. May beautiful warriors take your spirit away and carry it to the battlefields where you will receive the judgment of your ancestors!”
Hadjar had little understanding of the culture of the ‘real’ north, but Ragar’s words reminded him of the myths about Valkyries back in his distant, original homeland, Earth.
“Same to you,” Hadjar answered.
Only a third of his energy reserve remained, most of which would be used up right now. By the Evening Stars, Hadjar had never faced such a powerful attack in his life. It dwarfed anything that had ever threatened Hadjar's life before.
If he’d had such power at his disposal before, he would’ve been able to win with a single attack on the day he’d fought his inner dragon. Compared to Ragar, the sheikh of Kurkhadan looked like a particularly powerful child. His Bow Techniques were nothing compared to this one attack.
“Die!” Ragar snarled as the Technique came close to Hadjar.
At the exact moment the sphere was ready to turn his enemy into dust, its progress suddenly slowed down, and then it even froze completely.
“What?” The northerner couldn’t believe his eyes.
If his attack had been stopped by a Heaven Soldier, he would’ve called them a genius. Only a few people among his own peers, other Spirit Knights, would be capable of blocking it. But a measly practitioner? What kind of monster was hiding beneath the skin of this man dressed in a shabby caftan?
“Rustle in the Treetops.” It was a stance that could hardly be called Hadjar’s personal achievement. It was based entirely on the “Light Breeze’ Sword Technique after all, but nevertheless, it contained all the insights and inspiration that Hadjar had attained throughout his journey along the path of cultivation. Although the stance was a defensive one, it still contained the pinnacle of Hadjar’s knowledge of the Sword Spirit.
The dragon inside him, along with Mountain Wind, could only hold the sphere back for a fraction of a second. After losing another quarter of its power, it destroyed Hadjar’s Technique with only a bit more difficulty than Shakh’s sand wall.
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