Chapter 74: 72 – Lightning Strikes the Glacier

It was the building pressure in her veins, the unnaturally keen awareness of her surroundings to the point of perceived time dilation if she focused, the self-perpetuating cycle of Fog into and out her lungs, flowing through her body’s silver conduits as Aether or being burned to produce Fulgur to perpetuate the cycle.

Yes, even such a short while without using this breathing technique had somehow made this feel all the more exhilarating - or perhaps it was the contrast with the outside’s normalcy, one that had been absent throughout the technique’s gestation in the fires of perpetual combat.

Somehow, Jorfr looked almost as excited to see it as she felt to use it.

“This is Engine Breathing,” she smugged at him without so much as a speck of humility. This was hers. This was what made her better than other Fog-breathers. “Now, show me those full capabilities of yours.“

And indeed he did, drawing in a sharp breath as he took up a very particular wide-legged stance with his left foot forward and right foot back. He arranged the fingers of his hands into exceedingly stiff gestures and very purposefully placed them against points on his chest, smearing the bloody glyph into a new one with equally purposeful movements as he recited an invocation in a foreign tongue.

His breath became so hot that every word produced a puff of steam, whilst conversely, his exterior grew so cold that the ambient temperature dropped and condensation formed on his body, only to freeze solid before it slid off. The new symbol on his chest took on a bluish off-white glow, the glow spiraling out until it consumed the symbol and it began to shift, rapidly moving over the rest of his chest, up to his neck, and down his arms, forming into elaborate runic patterns over his torso, arms, and neck.

“Let the hailstones be my fists!” he proclaimed, and his fists were enveloped in ice, and the blood-paint upon his arms became hoarfrost.

“Let the glaciers be my skin!” he proclaimed, and glistening plates of ice formed over his chest and on his shoulders, the blood-paint beneath them too becoming hoarfrost.

“Let the scouring winds be my breath!” he proclaimed, and a beard of ice grew on his face.

Jorfr rolled his shoulders, exhaling a plume of steam and bluish Fog that brought to mind a volcanic geyser or some great machine’s exhaust. He shot her a grin and bellowed: “Come! Show me how a glacier might be moved!”

The beast-slayer set loose with everything she had, zig-zagging through the pit so rapidly as to produce a constantly vision-obstructing sand cloud. The barriers served as outstanding jumping-off points, both for mobility and for the numerous would-be spinning head kicks she executed.

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He wasn’t particularly fast, but he was fast enough. Fast enough to grab her leg and slam her into the sand the first time he did it, even if just her reflexive attempt to free herself sent a shock so violent through his arm that he let go a moment later, his fingers twitching and undulating like worms for a good couple seconds.

As she sprung up from the ground to deliver a punch to his side he brought a hammerfist crashing down on her, to which Zelsys responded by invoking Graze Pulse and with a subtle shift causing it to just slide off her. It sent a combination of biting cold and the satisfying thrum of her Retributive Battery charging through her skin. Even this miniscule contact was sufficient to inform her of the pulverizing force behind his punches. Were she to get hit, she wouldn’t be surprised to break something.

Moment by moment she danced her way through the mess that was her position. The threat of his arms and his head, all three like battering rams. A light punch to his gut at an opportune time warned her of trying the striking method - just the split-second of contact with his iceborn armour was enough to strip her knuckles raw. Even getting nicked by his breath felt like frostbite.

The most likely path to success would then be to reverse the momentum of one of his punches to get him reeling, then stun him with a surge of current and kick him in the side of the head hard enough to knock him out. If that failed she would attempt to ablate his ice by coating her fist with lightning, but no sooner. 

So it was that this became her endeavor, continuing the violent dance of speed and precision versus unassailable defense. Truly, his invocations hadn’t been an exaggeration. Weaving past his occasional strikes was safe, but he got closer and closer the more she kept up the pattern. She had to disengage and switch styles, but he sent a haymaker to her gut in the tiny window between one lung emptying and the other filling up. The cold snap ripped through her and took her breath in an instant.

It sent her careening across the pit right into one of the barriers, not to mention the truly herculean task that it was to force the contents of her stomach back down mid-flight whilst also returning her breathing to the intended rhythm. Even so, her vision turning red and reeling more from the physical shock than the pain, Zelsys managed to hit the barrier feet first and leap off it, trailing both Fog and tendrils of lightning as she burned one lung’s full capacity. The wood cracked and broke under the force.

She met him fist to fist, hers propelled by her entire body mass flying through the air and his own propelled by the rotation of his equally-massive body. By the accounts of all observers he had the advantage here, with that immovable posture and ice magic. 

As she flew, Zelsys did three things. “Style: Slayer,” she murmured breathlessly, burning half a lung’s capacity to extrude Fog through her fist, using it both to invoke Siphoning Pulse and as a medium to form a sheath of Fulgur a split-second before they collided. A third of her battery charge would be enough. Enough to sear away that ice and perhaps some meat from his fingers. 

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