I slowed down as soon as I spotted Tetra sneaking up on a group of armor-backed beasts. It looked like she was going to start with an easy kill, then try to sow some chaos in their group as she worked to pick off the most threatening members one by one. It was a classic tactic taught to lightning focused cultivators of House Flameward, and it generally served Tetra very well when she had to engage solo with a large group.

The first thing I wanted to do was quickly scout the area around her battle, and make sure there was nothing dangerous headed our way – such as the wasp-beasts, for example. They were smaller and faster, and while I was pretty sure their stingers wouldn’t be able to penetrate Tetra’s skin, I didn’t want to take that chance.

I flowed silently around the area as a diffuse cloud of snow, but it appeared that any beasts that were capable of faster movement had already left the area before our avalanche arrived, so I went back to watch Tetra fight and see if I could find a good moment to join in. I wasn’t exactly happy with her seemingly reckless choice to charge off on her own, but I wanted to give her a chance to explain herself before I made any judgments.

As I watched the fight I noticed one specific beast that the others were often looking towards during the chaotic melee that Tetra had started… and that was also one of the first beasts to spot Tetra…

These beasts were pretty big (about triple the mass of a shadow-wolf), but they were still smaller than Wulfric in his normal non-iron form, so I didn’t think Tetra would be in any particular danger here. Blunt force trauma, along with other crushing injuries, was one of her biggest weaknesses, but only the largest of beasts would be strong enough to seriously harm her – but that didn’t mean she was immune to being stunned and dazed by a lucky hit, however, and if one of them managed to knock her down she could be in trouble.

So that one had to die, and I figured I might as well take out the beasts next to it as well. I focused my will and formed a few dozen spinning ice shards which I then shot at the beasts, aiming for their relatively soft underbellies. The majority of my projectiles hit, sending up a spray of red that painted a colorful streak against the white snow underneath, accompanied by howls of shock and anger.

I then started to gather myself together into my solid ice form in the midst of the beasts, aiming to further distract them from targeting Tetra. This was a tactic that we had learned on our own, but also one that we later found out was famously used at the Shieldwall to great effect; the general idea was that a slower and tougher cultivator (or group of cultivators) would hold a central position, while speed focused lightning and fire cultivators would dash in and out and around the battle in the center of the formation.

Therefore, I was not only unsurprised when the majority of the beasts charged at me full speed, eager to destroy this threat which had foolishly revealed itself in their midst, I was also pleased that my distraction had worked. Beasts such as these wouldn’t be able to do all that much to hurt me in this form, I suspected, and if the damage started to add up I could relocate or create a barrier of ice.

Tetra kept flashing between the beasts that were not as distracted by me, wanting to get their numbers as low as she could before the chaos started to settle. From what I could tell, she was going for disabling wounds now if a killing blow didn’t present itself, and more of her focus was spent on keeping mobile so that the beasts would be more likely to ignore her in favor of an easier target…

My new Swordmaster had forbidden me from using edged weapons in combat, for now, and had suggested that I stick to ranged attacks or hand to hand strikes. His reasoning was that my foundation was weak, and that I had almost entirely dismissed the usefulness of weapons in and of themselves…

And he was right. My first attack power had been a lightning bolt, and ever since then I had viewed weapons as lesser tools – not exactly useless, but generally only worth having if they facilitated the usage of another ability set. The Swordmaster was convinced that weapons were… much more than simple tools, somehow, and that they were like spirits, the weather, or natural phenomenon of some kind.

My training with him was still in the early stages, but he didn’t strike me as a crazy person… so I had decided to at least do my best to listen to what he was trying to teach me (maybe it helped that he still kicked my ass every time we sparred).

The first beast to reach me was met with a rising uppercut, and there was a resounding crack as its jaw shattered on my huge icy fist. The follow-through from the blow sent the beast soaring up into the air away from me, rotating in a lazy spin before it crashed loudly into a tree.

The second and third reached me almost simultaneously, and I braced myself for impact against the one to my right, while manipulating the ice and snow behind me to grow a series of deadly spikes facing towards the one to my rear.

I heard a strangled grunt of pain as hot blood splashed against my back, but I didn’t have time to check what had happened (I was pretty sure I knew…) because the beast to my right reached me at the same time. I was caught off guard when it crouched down and sprang at me with its front legs extended, but it was barely half my height when I was in my ice form so I was still able to absorb the impact without having to move.

I had expected the beast to charge at me like a bear (or a bull) and try and knock my legs out from under me, but the last-minute pounce caused it to strike me a lot higher up my body. Its sharp claws and snapping failed to find immediate purchase as it tried to climb higher towards my face (and neck), but I kept it from falling by wrapping one of my arms around it and squeezing it tight. Little did it know that my neck was nothing like a weak spot – ice doesn’t bleed.

But ice does melt. The beast's body heat was actually doing more damage to me than its attempts to rip me open, but there was so much cold snow around me already that it would be long dead before I would have to pay it any attention. I created strong bands of ice around it, keeping it locked against my side as I looked around to survey the battle.

Tetra had already taken out a number of beasts while they were distracted, and subtle flashes of violet all around the are showed just how busy she had been. Keeping up with her in terms of kill-count was something that Wulfric had long given up on, and I didn’t generally bother trying unless I wanted to break out the big guns and really flex my power.

The rest of the battle went well, with me mostly acting as the hard-to-chew bait in the middle while Tetra picked off any beast that looked isolated or distracted from the rest. Tetra had even gone so far as to stab one of her Ki blades right through the beast that I had been holding strapped to my side (it had proven useful as a deterrent, stopping any other beasts from attacking from that angle), so when I the battle ended I dropped it’s battered form onto the bloody ground at my feet.

“Heller, Tetra! Did I miss it?”

Tetra and I turned to look over at the sound of the familiar voice echoing through the forest.

“Tetra? Heller? It suddenly went quiet over there, are you guys alright?”

I couldn’t help but grin, and when I looked at Tetra she was grinning as well, though she was looking off into the forest, not at me.

Then my grin faded as I remembered that I was going to have to, somehow, explain our lack of discipline to Jesvae…