Pressure

Selia dodged a wave of force sent by the swing of Exiled Shell’s hammer. Her platform moved, guided by her will as she danced around Exiled Shell, keeping her distance. He had limited options to attack her at range, but he was fast. He had abilities that could quickly close the distance. The crack that he made on Scorn was testament to his explosive power. The damage was gone by now, Scorn had reshaped itself and fixed it, but that he could even do that much damage to it was impressive.

Since then, she had kept her distance and continued shaping spears to attack him with. Now, she was getting impatient. She was yet to hear from Ryun or Naha, which meant that they either haven’t found Anatalien yet, or they were unable to get through to her.

They had planned for all eventualities though. There were multiple ways of getting in contact. Her link with Ryun was quiet, diminished. They’ve discovered that that happened when he pulled more of Oblivion to the forefront of his Soul, it cut him off from the powers he had through their True Death perk.

It wasn’t gone, but she couldn’t really feel anything other than his direction for most of their fight. Then, she felt him vanish from her senses completely. The link was still there, but she could no longer even sense his presence. That had happened only a few times before, and it usually meant that he had been cut off somehow.

That worried her, especially as she had noticed when the yeti had joined in the fight. Their encounter had gotten a lot more complicated. Erdania had dismantled a giant made out of wood, and was throwing hill sized boulders at her opponent, while Zacharia was fighting with the leader of the Unchained and the minotaur, who was probably their most dangerous and powerful member.

The yeti’s fight with Eratemus and Nayra was the most worrying. The destruction they wrought was becoming a danger to the other battlefronts.

Selia knew that time for prolonging the fights was over, they’ve run out of time. The yeti and some of the other members of the Unchained were too dangerous to be allowed the time to take control of the fights.

Her foe was powerful, or at least his tools were. A mistake from her would’ve cost her dearly. He had enough power to kill her, that much was certain. A single strike that connected fully could shatter her to pieces. His Soul was infusing every part of his gear, his stats were higher than hers.

Her advantage was in the fact that he wasn’t comfortable with his strength, that he didn’t know how to utilize his equipment to its fullest. She could see just what kind of a problem he would become if he had the time.

Sadly for him, he had chosen to make himself a threat to the things that Selia loved.

She reached down inside and let her Presence of the Eternal Hunters out. It spread out of her as far as she could push it, engulfing the town from where the defenders were trying to take potshots at her and the others.

Her speed increased, her thoughts, her Qi, her cooldowns, everything went into a higher gear and she and the others opponents slowed down. She blurred across the sky, her techniques manifesting nearly instantaneously.

With {Lifeblood Shaping} she created two weapons with long blades and no handles to speak of. Spears were easy for her, because she was so accustomed to making them, it was why she usually defaulted to them. Now she had more time, she was faster, a moment more to think and create wasn’t going to cost her anything.

She layered her boosting perks into the two blades, reinforcing them. She activated Projection Armor sheathing herself in an additional layer of protection.

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With Ethereal Construct she summoned a simple box straight out of her imagination, trapping her foe inside. It was as powerful as her intelligence stat could make it, but she didn’t expect it to survive for long. Instead, it gave her an opportunity by hiding her from sight.

Then, she gave her foe what he had been seeking since the start. She closed the distance. Her platform blasted across the sky, reaching the box in moments. Exiled Shell shattered it from the inside, sending pieces of her construct flying in all directions, she dismissed it as she got close.

She maneuvered her two blades in front of her, and sent them ahead at a speed that few could even perceive.

The two blades stabbed him through the chest, piercing through all of his protections. Selia activated the Path of Unwavering Impact’s fruit technique {Goddess of Lifeblood}.

Before her foe could even react, she moved, creating a simple blade in each hand and dismissed the armor on her forearms as well as pulling Scorn back.

With a quick motion, she opened her veins, and her lifeblood, the Qi that poured through her veins, the Sanguine Flame of Laqruud, spilled out. Guided by her mastery of her Aspect she guided it to the end of her blades, where the constructs had an opening by design. Her lifeblood poured in, then through the blade and the channels that she had made in it, it entered the Exiled Shell’s body, his veins. It mixed with his blood.

His armor started to glow, but Selia’s technique was active, her command over her own blood was absolute. With a thought she finished her {Goddess of Lifeblood} technique, and every individual Essence of her Qi collided with another, causing an impact that caused a powerful reverberation.

Exiled Shell exploded from the inside, pieces of him flying in all directions.

Finished with her foe, Selia turned her attention to another battle and headed that way.

Erdania pulled a large piece of the ground, added it to the already orbiting pieces around her, then sent one flying at her target in the distance.

The woman, Tellisa, was trying to escape. She was flying away, her power reaching out to the mountain side and the plants that grew there. Bolstering them, creating a fores of in instants that was supposed to catch Erdania’s boulders.

She had two techniques active, her {Goddess of Worldstone} which made her hardier, more dense. Enough so that Gravity actually bent around her, it started pushing things towards her instead of the ground, as if she had a greater pull.

It also gave her domain over all Stone related Essence. It Her second technique was her {Goddess of Gravity} which she used to manipulate it further and help with the orbiting boulders. Her Gravity Orb was manifested too, orbiting her body and allowing her to fine tune the trajectories of her attacks. She had dozen boulders the size of houses circling around her, their density increased by her power over Worldstone, and their shape slowly compressed into spheres.

It was a delicate dance, she had to be very focused on all the control, but with her Ascended State—Ascended Titan—her size had increased even more than what her Evolved Form could achieve. And with every percent of the size she had gained, the effectiveness of her powers went up as well by the same amount.

Her attack smashed through the plants her opponent grew in its way, tearing through the trees. But her opponent had taken advantage of the momentary loss of vision to change her position.

Erdania missed.

She grimaced, and sent another three spheres flying in Tellisa’s direction. Her opponent had already grown another forest out of the mountain’s side, the trees were so large that Erdania could see and sense that the stone of the mountain’s side was getting destabilized.

Her opponent was getting desperate. Erdania glanced back, and saw that her battle had moved away from the town and the other people fighting.

She decided that she was far enough. She let her power manifest, and used Center of Existence. She felt the shift in the world around her as everything was suddenly pulled toward her. She jumped forward, getting closer to the forest, and allowed her power to work, aiding it with her techniques.

She sent all of her remaining orbitals flying at her foe, clearing the forest, tearing the trees apart. The last of them she sent flying straight at the mountain.

It struck it and shook the entire side, cracks formed in the stone, and then Erdania’s power pulled on it, it pulled on everything.

Tellissa fought against the pull, her armor glowing as it tried to fight against Erdania’s power, it wasn’t enough.

The entire mountain’s side gave way, and stone rained down on them both. With her technique, Erdania focused it, utilizing both Worldstone and Gravity to gently nudge the great avalanche of stone and earth.

Tellisa saw it coming, but there was nothing that she could do. The avalanche dropped down on her head and crushed her to death, burying her beneath half a mountain’s worth of stone. Erdania’s influence on gravity meant that it hit fast, with much greater weight. There was no escaping it.

Her task done, she turned around and headed back to help the others.