When the thirty foot tall rock monster fell to the ground, it became an easy target. Juzui and Jiyao swept in and struck it rapidly, causing more rends and tears in its rocky body. The rock monster started to climb back to its feet, but Songji called the two of them back. They were curious why, but then they remembered who was missing and they laughed at the poor golem. Right on time, there was a flurried hissing from up above and they glanced skyward to see the strange looking Iridescent Flame Vulture light up in actual flames.

He’d ascended to a thousand feet in the sky and then started to dive downwards. At the same time, his body lit on fire, looking like a small meteor crashing down. Tujiu dove from the sky, letting gravity pull him down and adding on his own fiery propulsion. The flames changed shape, turning into vortex shape and then narrowing further like a thruster. Only when he was a few dozen feet from the ground did he abruptly roll over and extend his taloned legs, using them as his spear. The flames were being emitted from his claws and when he spun around he changed the style and created a lance of fire, smashing it against the rock monster with the full force of his diving attack.

There was a loud boom and the rock monster lost one of its limbs. It struggled to its feet, missing its left arm. It seemed even more angry than before, suddenly picking up speed and putting up a fight against the five birds. They didn’t seem to care, Baozhai engaging in a head on duel against it. Jiyao and Juzui continued to harass it from the sides and back, while Songji struck whenever she saw an opening. Tujiu recovered for a while and then started to ascend into the air once again.

Boom!

The main battle up above drew everyone’s attention again. Wu Chang was really pulling out all the stops now. There was blood running down his leg and there were a few small tears on the rainbow surface of his fan. In the skies, facing him, Ruanfu was also sporting a few injuries. Her clothing was ripped in many places and there was blood running down her arm from a large laceration on her shoulder. The wound looked a bit worse than Wu Chang’s, but she only stared at him with intense concentration. She’d been waiting many years for this opportunity and she was going to make Wu Chang suffer for what he did. She had been holding herself back to give him hope and now she saw the glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

“Time to crush him,” she thought.

She was the last on their side to trigger her Human Seal. Now that he had regained his confidence, it was time to truly smother his hope. The snowy haired woman in the blue robe was gone and in her place was another large beast. A completely unusual creature that Sage had named ‘White Hawk Drake’, it looked something like a wyvern. A western styled dragon with only four limbs, two legs and two wings. Only, this one had a much longer and more flexible neck and tail, and looked like it was combined with a bird. A dragon with the beak and talons of a hawk, and covered in feathers everywhere except the belly and legs. She was completely white, except for blue accents on the blade edges of her beak and tips of her talons. She was also quite large, with a sixty foot wingspan and an equally long body length, from beak to tail. Her actual main body wasn’t that large, as the majority of her body was wings, neck, and tail, but it was still an impressive sight.

With wings, she was no longer at a disadvantage against Wu Chang in an aerial battle and she started to circle around him. She was pleased to see that glimmer of confidence was gone and replaced with the set jaw and manic look that meant he was getting desperate. That was when she completely extended her control outwards. Wu Chang had been using his mastery of the wind at his full strength for a while now, but Ruanfu had been holding back. She only used just enough to defuse his attacks, reducing them to a level that wouldn’t cause her too great of harm. Of course, Wu Chang hadn’t yet used all his most powerful moves and trump cards, because he was just trying to hold her off long enough to figure a way out.

It also didn’t help that their two laws had some overlap. Ruanfu had gained comprehension on the laws of Snow, an uncommon choice. In the early levels of law comprehension, even the most unusual and specific part of the world could be studied. When their comprehension advanced to higher stages they could then broaden their area of interest to more core concepts. Or at least, that’s what the information Sage got from Guan Zhenyan said. He had of course shared this knowledge with the Tiankong children, so they were following the paths that came most naturally to them. Trying to study the true nature of ‘cold’ was far more difficult than ‘snow’. From what they’d experienced so far, it also seemed that Wu Chang didn’t just study wind, he was specialized in some sort of compressing or cutting wind.

It was just too bad for Wu Chang that snow was somewhat boosted by the effects of wind. Different laws and elements had natural affinities and opposing elements, and wind was something of an assisting element for snow. Worse yet, Juzui had been using his seasonal sword moves to boost the power of Winter and enhancing the snow she used. Wu Chang realized he was being played with, the fight until now had only served to give him false hope and expend his energy. At least that was the enemy's intention. He’d actually just been moving around the battlefield and making sure his attacks always spilled over to strike the barrier. He’d been testing the outer shell and also the inner one locking them off from Lionheart Town.

Wu Chang held his fan out to his side and started to spin. He flew through the air while spinning with a corkscrew motion, the fan building up the air around him so that he became the center of a column of swirling air. The air column kept getting denser as he flew through the sky, the violent wind now becoming visible to the naked eye like a tornado, having picked up enough dust, debris, and even snow to catch the light. The column of wind threaded through the sky and surprised Ruanfu when her snow was unable to disperse it. Instead the swirling winds merely collected the snow and carried it along. Ruanfu’s elegant body spun and arched in the sky, avoiding the giant wind snake. In fact, she dodged it a little too easily.

The swirling wind flew towards the outer barrier and then shifted, angling itself so it could collide against the barrier and then skid off. Wu Chang wasn’t dumb enough to smash into it head on. The strength of the wind was its everflowing nature, moving faster and faster, free and unfettered. It was no good at a full force frontal collision, the wind wanted to sweep past and affect things with its unending currents. The swirling wind snake bumped against the barrier and then turned away, only to come back and do it again. It also swerved down and dug a few furrows into the ground. Wu Chang was really pulling out all the stops, and he focused on constantly attacking the barrier. It wasn’t going as fast as he liked so he also tried to attack the ground, but the wind was a truly slow weapon against the hard ground.

Ruanfu was worried that the strain he was putting upon the barrier might actually break it, so she couldn’t let him keep messing around. She let out a loud screech and darted towards the wind column. The large feathery drake used Cosmic Traction in the way her father had trained her, not to make steps, but to cut through air friction. Her speed multiplied and she darted in front of the chaotic vortex, tucking her wings in and diving into the front of it. The powerful cutting head of it smashed against her, but she was already cutting through space to avoid the wind so she only suffered a small portion of the damage. Punching through the main force shielding Wu Chang, she unfurled her wings and flapped them towards the man who was still spinning like a top.

A dozen of her large primary feathers were launched out of her wings like darts, speeding towards Wu Chang, their hollow shafts sharpened like giant quills.