Jiao didn’t give them any time to reply, launching herself towards them without delay. The old woman held up her shield and felt her bones rattling from Jiao’s attack. She braced against the hit and then charged forward with her shoulder, pushing Jiao back half a step. Then she stepped to the side and a sword appeared in her free hand. She used the shield like it was a matador’s cape, pushing it into Jiao’s face as she angled herself to attack Jiao from the side.

The incoming saber forced Jiao to step back again, but she didn’t seem fearful at all. Instead, Jiao just circled around the old woman again to open a path towards Xiaoqing. Frustrated, the old woman couldn’t press her attack and had to circle around to keep herself between Xiaoqing and Jiao. This pattern continued a few more times, Jiao and the old woman exchanging blows, but it was very much in favor of the smaller woman. Jiao kept smashing against the huge shield while the old woman couldn’t land a hit with her saber.

Feeling the pressure, the old woman changed up her style. She lowered her shield slightly, holding it just lower than her shoulder rather than higher than it. Her saber arm lifted up into the air and she started to whirl it around. Rather than a single swing, she allowed the blade heavy saber to maintain its momentum. Her hand whipped around in a circle over her head guiding the saber on a continuous circular path. The only time it stopped was when Jiao slapped it aside, at which point the old woman used the redirected momentum to swing it back around in the other direction.

This continuous flurry of saber strikes finally applied a slight bit of pressure to Jiao, forcing her to take a few steps back before she saw the weakness and ducked down before she landed another strike on the shield. With the big shield in the way, the old woman’s sweeping attacks could only attack up high. At least without moving the shield around. Jiao ducked down and delivered another low punch to the shield and then suddenly somersaulted to the side. The old woman had lowered the arc of her spinning saber and attacked around the side of the shield, managing to leave a cut in Jiao’s clothing. This also ended her non-stop attack, but it also made Jiao roll away which gave the old woman plenty of time to channel more Qi into her arm and start swinging again.

Jiao stood up and noticed the rip on her sleeve with a grimace. Then she rushed towards the old woman and rather than putting herself in danger again she just extended one leg and performed a front stomping kick, smashing against the shield while keeping most of her body out of range. The shield creaked, and small fractures appeared along its front. Xiaoqing heard the noise and she pulled out a cylindrical bell. She threw the bell upwards but instead of being tossed away it slowly hovered over her head and started to release a soft white light.

The old woman redoubled her efforts attacking faster and faster while circling around Xiaoqing to continue interposing herself in Jiao’s way. The constant saber strikes ended with another side stab, the old woman rushed forward to disrupt Jiao’s front kick and aimed to stab her in the thigh as she advanced.

Jiao quickly changed her attack from a stomping kick to a pushing kick, repelling herself away from the shield to avoid the incoming saber. As she did, she felt power building up in the cracked shield and she threw herself forcefully to the side, diving away from what turned out to be a bright light. This time, Jiao wasn’t the source of an explosion, but the intended target.

The old woman’s shield exploded, overloaded from some sort of strange energy she pushed into it. Jiao had to dive out of the way, leaving her off-balance to the woman’s follow up saber strikes. She swung rapidly, slashing large channels into the ground while Jiao rolled and somersaulted out of the way, barely avoiding the sharp blade. Then her saber glowed brightly with violet light and she swung it downwards, the light expanded outwards, forming a blade ten times larger than usual. Jiao slapped her hand onto the ground and it shot her up off the ground just enough so she could get back onto her feet and dash out of the way of the huge blade falling down towards her.

The violet blade smashed into the ground, cutting a giant trench into the ground. Then, the old woman lifted it back up and swung it horizontally, trying to catch Jiao with the thirty foot long blade. Jiao leaped into the air, hopping over the energy blade, but then frowned as she realized her mistake. The old woman forcefully stopped her swing from right to left and twisted her arm to angle the blade up and backwards. Jiao was still mid-air as the violet blade swept up towards her.

It looked as if things were over for Jiao, but then a thick set of metal boots and bracers appeared over her hands and feet. Now armored up to her elbows and knees, she looked down at the incoming blade with a sneer. Instead of cutting into her, the violet blade propelled her upward when she stepped onto it. Then she tilted her body to the side and fell into a sideways roll. She even slapped the side of the blade as she fell to make herself return to the ground at a higher speed.

To make things even worse for the old woman, the huge violet blade she was brandishing faded away, leaving her with just her saber in hand. Without even the shield to protect her any longer she raised her weapon up and was barely able to maneuver it to intercept Jiao’s armored fists. With two fists flying towards her, she had to move her saber even faster to stop them both. Even so, she was knocked backwards and had to squint to resist the sparks being thrown from the impact between their weapons. After a few exchanges, the old woman seemed slower and slower and Jiao suddenly grabbed hold of the saber with both hands. Then she suddenly fled rapidly, kicking backwards and crossing her arms in front of her face to resist another bright white light.

The saber shattered into a horizontal rain of dangerous projectiles just like the shield had done earlier. Jiao’s upper body and lower legs were protected by her boots and gauntlets, but her mid-section was exposed and struck by a handful of the small shrapnel. The yukata-like garment she had worn so proudly was now ripped up and the body suit she wore underneath was exposed in many places. The body suit had much smaller tears in it than the clothing over top of it, but each of those small puncture spots had blood dripping from them. Despite being covered in blood, Jiao smiled and knocked her two fists together, “Is that your best? Do you have more weapons to blow up?”

The old woman responded by bringing out another set of shield and saber from her storage treasure, but Jiao could see they were of lower quality than the first set. The two of them dashed towards each other once again, one fist smashing against the shield while the other slapped away the strike of a saber.