“Do you really think my backers will just let you walk away even if you somehow kill your way out of here? You, a demonic cultivator with a cursed sword?!” Idda spat, seeming to wholly believe her own words. Jorfr knew better, both about Lydia’s cultivation and her sword, but he kept his mouth shut. Another arrow from the treeline. This time he was ready, and a Wide-wuth leapt ahead to intercept it before leaping back to its original position.

He quietly sent out an aetherwave message to Victor’s tablet.

“Whatever or whomever you are occupied with, come to my location. I need your eyes. Focus on the treeline, there is an archer and possibly other hostiles.”

There was a delay of a few seconds, but Jorfr received an affirmative ping.

The Raider Leader dropped into a particular stance, her blade’s edge gleaming with power. Alarmed, Lydia raised Vysaga in defense and leapt out of the way, and a moment later, the Raider Leader performed a wide slash that formed a crescent moon-shaped blade of white aura. It remained around her as she prepared for another slash, doubtlessly to send the auratic blade forward.

In that moment, Lydia herself stabbed Vysaga into the ground, activating its main function with a hand sign. It suddenly exploded in a mess of flame-like, pink and white lightning, far beyond what someone of Lydia’s level should be capable of. Jorfr at least knew enough of the sword to recognize that this power came from the weapon’s flame-wreathing functionality, and that the presence of Lydia’s Blazing Thundergod within the blade was transmuting its fire into this form… At least that was his guess. For all he knew Zel’s use of the sword might have permanently warped its arcane circuitry so that it simply produced lightning instead of fire, and Lydia’s Thundergod was just amplifying and slightly adjusting it.

Lydia seemed to stop, holding a grip-like hand-sign towards Vysaga’s handle with her right hand outstretched forwards. Meanwhile, with her left hand’s thumb touching the point of her index finger and the other fingers straightened, she held her left arm horizontally such that it formed a cross with both Vysaga’s upright shape and her own right arm. Jorfr didn’t have the sharpest sense for these things, but even he could see the wild lightning of her blade calm down and sharpen around it; it was still wreathed in a seething, cherry petal coloured maelstrom, but at least that lightning was no longer actively tearing holes into the surrounding undergrowth.

The Raider Leader, visibly straining, performed another wide, powerful spring, a flash of light from her blade carrying the light-crescent forward. She bellowed out an invocation, but her voice didn’t carry far enough to be heard. Jorfr still read her lips, catching the words "Crescent Cutter".

LUNAR SIGN

EXPRESSION OF PURE KILLING INTENT

MOONLIT SLAUGHTER SWORD: CRESCENT CUTTER

Lydia waited, biding her time, only to raise her right hand skyward while performing a horizontal slashing gesture with her left. Vysaga tore itself out of the ground in an upward arc, pointing silently to the sky as all its lightning suddenly went tearing through the ground and air alike. It took the form of flattened ovoids, swirling and zipping about as they flowed forwards in the vaguest possible approximation of an auratic blade… But it still was one. There was no way Lydia could’ve clashed against Idda’s technique just with her armament aura alone, so using Vysaga’s own power generation as a counterbalance was a good move.

From a distance, it vaguely resembled a blade-shaped flood of cherry petals. Very vaguely… But it was there. A technique that had yet to reach its true form.

STORMBLOOM SIGN

ART OF KILLING BLOSSOMS: PETALS OF SPRING -NASCENT BREEZE-

The collision of their techniques could’t truly be described as a clash, because Lydia’s technique simply flowed around and through Idda’s Crescent Cutter, tearing it apart in the process of making its way to its actual intended target. The much-weakened Crescent Cutter still had some effect, putting a shallow horizontal cut into Lydia’s stomach… While the Petals of Spring put numerous small cuts all over Idda’s body. The force of it sent her stumbling backwards as her tattered clothing quickly soaked with blood, and with animal fury in her eyes, she redoubled her assault.

The battle went on, and Jorfr noticed a clear trend; the Raider Leader leading the fight closer to the treeline, and the occasional arrows had slowed down significantly before they stopped altogether. It was obvious what she was doing, but he couldn’t just leave all these bandits here, and they wouldn’t die from the pressure of his aura if they didn’t struggle against it. He could slaughter them to the man, but that, too, would take more time than it would for the two women to move their duel into the woods.

Fortunately, Victor arrived well before that could take place, riding atop Dawnwolf, still trying to buckle up his shorts. His hair was a mess and his skin glistened with sweat.

“First-circles throwing swordlight left and right, I can only imagine the face Mistress Zelsys would be making if she were here to see this,” the redhead said in an amused tone. Jorfr didn’t disagree. For all the effort she had gone to, she could never produce armament aura of any sort. He thought she was better for it, and he was certain she knew that, but he also wagered that it was a matter of ego for her to be able to match the abilities of other cultivators.

Despite his remark on the fight, Jorfr was confident that Victor was also doing as he had asked him to. Thanks to his strange spiritual circumstance, he could not only think ten times faster, he also effectively had the ability to fully focus on two trains of thought at a time. That trust was confirmed with a clandestine aetherwave message a moment later: “No archer, but I see the tracks of at least three or four people. Both physical and astral. Looks like… Maybe one strong-ish cultivator or two lesser ones? It’s hard to tell, the monads are already swarming back in.”