The question of where Svend was getting the Metallum to grow these naturally bony blades as faux-cold-iron from the get-go only momentarily crossed Jorfr’s mind before being swept away by the flood of shamanistic invocations which occupied the center of his attention. It was entirely possible that Svend had a Core of Earthly Iron, or he was just that much more advanced than Rikke in control. As for his aura, however… It was greater than Rikke’s in her two-beast form, that much was true, but it didn’t even come close to her three-beast form, or to Von Wickten in either his Entomodragon or Silver Armor forms.

He could see Svend speaking, he could hear the sound of his voice, but none of the words came through. Only the image of a snarling, gibbering animal.

Jorfr let out a long breath of Fog imbued with Gelum. His beard instantly turned to one of glacierglass spikes. Another breath. His chest was clad in plates of purest glacierglass, and with a third breath, so were his arms. With a fourth, plates of glacierglass formed from the bottom of his chest and covered even his thighs. Four breaths; that was all it took to form the armor.

ANCESTOR SIGN

REPRISING THE FEATS OF ONE’S FOREBEARS

SAGABORNE ARTS: HAAKON OF GLACIERSKIN

He wasn’t merely forming his own armor; he was re-enacting Haakon Hulson’s invention of that very technique.

“EK ERILAZ, JORFR HAITE!” he bellowed. I am master of the arcane, Jorfr. A statement uttered, once, by a great man by the name of Muha, and carved upon a legendary irminsul in search of which dozens had vanished. A statement of self-aggrandizement comparable to the denigration of calling someone nidingr. The dishonor of losing after doing that would be such that he might as well become an outlaw.

At the moment he said it, he reached down, and in a grasping gesture beckoned the spirits to come to the surface. With an upward heave of his arm the ground froze beneath his feet, hoarfrost sweeping out across the entirety of the fighting circle in seconds in a rippling wave. It only stopped right in front of Svend. The ground had become rock-solid, for Jorfr had drawn up monads of Gelum and Aqua and impelled them to freeze it without ever taking them into his own body, thus minimizing the act’s impact on his reserves. It hadn’t been hard to convince them in the slightest.

ABSOLUTE ZERO SIGN

RECALLING THE LOST FATHERLAND

SAGABORNE ARTS: TERRA HYPERBOREA

This one… This one was his own.

The time for preparation was more or less up, but it didn’t matter. Jorfr heard the stone gong ring out, and he calmly stepped forward as Svend sprung into action. The Ramdall heir ripped the soft ground where he stood with the force of his takeoff.

“Aegishjalmr.”

A thought was all it took to set off. The Aegishjalmr thrummed with power and a pale-blue projection of it appeared in front of Jorfr’s face; his aura flared, becoming visible in pale blue as its vastness blasted up nearly to the ceiling. At that moment, just before he would’ve pounced on Jorfr, Svend skidded off to the side, as if he had been smashed in the side of the head with a warhammer.

With his ironclad self-control Jorfr pulled his aura inward, his thoughts moulding it into the form of a shimmering bear-pelt, paws draped over his shoulders and the top of the skull draped over the top of a spectral helm upon his brow, the sign of Aegishjalmr a sigil upon its forehead, with the rest of the pelt billowing behind him.

SIGN OF AWE

AEGISHJALMR, THE GREAT HELM OF TERROR

HULSON CLAN ARTS: PRESENCE OF A HUNDRED MEN -SAGABORNE VESTMENT-

Zel noticed one of Jorfr’s relatives whose name she couldn’t recall. He was feverishly writing something down, muttering to himself.

“The Hulson Clan’s prodigal son returned from self-imposed exile, accompanied by mighty allies from a foreign land… Reclaimed the lost strength of the ancestors…”

She also heard quiet sobbing. From just behind. It was Gunnar.

Teeth gritted and a veritable fountain running down his face, he looked on, face overtaken by an expression of absolute, all-consuming pride.

“He’s done it… He’s really done it…” the huge berserker uttered. Yvonne, too, looked on with eyes full of pride. Zel wagered she had probably seen Jorfr’s traits and thus had time to mentally prepare.

Zel recalled Jorfr vaguely mentioning that he would need to commune with his ancestors to perform his own breakthrough, but she hadn’t expected it to be this much of a leap.

Jorfr hadn’t expected it to be this much of a leap, either, but in retrospect, what else should he have expected? That the ancestors would spurn him for breaking the legs of a divine general and freezing him solid? That they would ignore the great honor he had brought upon the name Hulson? That they would do anything less than everything in their power for the only living descendant able and willing to harness their blessings?

Svend recovered from shock, pushing past the supernatural terror Jorfr exuded and unleashed a barrage of swipes right into the Hulson’s stomach. His arm-blades all skidded right off the glacierglass, leaving hair-thin cracks that mended before the next strike could land. A finish to his chain, he spun upon one heel and smashed his tail into Jorfr’s side, its end whipping around his back. The blade struck as intended, but it caught on Jorfr’s spirit pelt and stopped dead on the glacierglass covering his back. The force of impact alone would have been enough to throw Jorfr off his feet thrice over including the force necessary to overcome his anchoring runes, but Svend had failed to correlate the frozen state of the ground with the nature of Ginfaxi and Gapaldur.

ABSOLUTELY

IMMOVABLE

His opponent bounced right off him, deftly spinning across the ring before zigzagging right back in. Svend’s form shimmered in a strange way right when he stopped, the nature of which Jorfr couldn’t quite discern. Nonetheless, he met the Ramdall’s advance straight-on. While he himself wasn’t moving much, he was playing a game of arcane chess right underground, shifting masses of Gelum around, taking in only some of it.