Thunder boomed, and time slowed to a crawl.
Standing atop a tangled root network, she saw Sun Liling's left hand clench, her sharpened, green painted nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm. Wetly gleaming strands of crimson bloomed, stretching out into a spiralling helix, all in the space between eye blinks. Crimson liquid became dark metal and thorny barbs.
Ling Qi was already moving, the shadow of the canopy deepening and swallowing her up as her fingers and toes trailed off into dark mist, joining with the shadows themselves. Zhengui's spirit streamed from her dantian, heavy qi beginning to solidify into his sturdy body, even as she reached into her ring with a thought, bringing life to a score and more of empty eye sockets.
Yet she was too slow. The spear had already flown from her hands, a streak of sanguine light screaming through the air toward her chest. As it's barbed tip reached to impale her, Ling Qi flickered, her form scattering into mist and shadow as she appeared half a meter to the right. Yet it wasn't enough.
Though she was expecting it, it still hurt her eyes as the air itself seemed to scream, warping under the weighty of bloodthirsty qi, and the spear tore across her lower ribs, shredding silk and flesh alike, even as she twisted away from its new path, and blunted the majority of the tearing barbs with layer upon layer of vital qi.
It was only a minor wound though, Ling Qi thought distantly, through the fugue of battle, it was only the beginning. Zhengui's weight cracked the roots beneath his feet as he solidified, and an echoing ghostly shriek erupted from her storage ring as her Ossuary Horror burst forth. It was an ugly thing, an eagle sized construct in the shape of a bird, crackling black energy forming pinions over its skeletal wings.
Sun Liling merely regarded her with a raised eyebrow from her perch though, her spear having returned to her hands, and the beginnings of her armor crawling up her arms. Ling Qi's focus though, remained on the brief flickering pulse of qi she had felt emerging from the girl as the battle began, slithering down into the roots under their feet to blend with the ambient qi.
To her right, Zhengui stamped his feet, and let out a twin mouthed cry, unleashing a billowing fountain of ash that washed over the nearby area, and to her left, the horror circled upwards, letting out another echoing shriek as the cloak of qi granting it a facsimile of feathers rippled green and vital qi sank into all three of them, strengthening bones and flesh with dense wooden qi. Around Ling Qi, Ten rings of defense rippled, and joined one hundred rings of armament, hiding Ling QI's slender figure from sight beneath a coruscating armor of qi.
For an instant, she met the crimson haired girls green eyes, and saw curiosity and excitement, tempered by anger and wariness. Then, as the bloody armor crept up over her shoulders and began to spread across her chest, she exploded into motion, wood shattering beneath her feet as she rocketed toward Ling Qi, barbed spear outstretched.
Ling Qi ghosted soundlessly backward, into Zhengui's ash, light footed even under armor that would make a grown man stagger if it were solid and real, but the princess was too fast to be avoided so easily. In only a moment, the girl was on top of her, barbed spear blurring and spinning through the air in a complex dance that bit and jabbed again and again, it's haft flexing to slip past her defenses, and growing rigid when the butt slammed home in brutal, bludgeoning blows.
Their battle, Ling Qi thought, desperately pushing her reflexes to their limit, sounded like a thousand axes being taken to an old oak at high speed. Yet, under the storm of blows, her armor held, it cracked, energy wavering as entire chunks shattered, and she was faintly aware of a ragged stretch of cloth from her gown floated away on the wind of their movements, exposing part of her legs. Yet she did not bleed, even a bit.
Her Ossuary Horror was not so lucky, she became aware of its plight only as the sound of shattering bone reached her ears, at the same time that she felt the connection to the armor she had extended over it snap, the half second glance she could afford to spare it caused her eyes to widen. Through the falling ruin of bones and qi, a gleaming emerald disc flew, spinning through the air, already on a returning arc that would carry it to her.
The wailing song of her own domain weapon joined the din only a moment later, it's song sending the jade chakram off its course by a few crucial centimeters. She could feel it's acidic, hungry qi from here though, eager to dissolve and break armor and defense. She grimaced as Sun Liling's darting spear carved a furrow through the regenerating armor on her forearm, coming a hair's breadth from piercing flesh. She had to hope that her own weapon could last at least a handful of passes with it. At least her friends would know what sort of domain weapon the Princess was using.
She took some satisfaction in the tiny signs of frustration in her opponents expression though, as the spread of her armor had slowed to a crawl. The ornate breastplate was fully formed, and her arms wholly armored, but the tassets and leg guards were only half formed and her helm incomplete. The girls eyes narrowed as they met hers though, and Ling Qi's stomach dropped as she felt a flare of dark, sickly bloodlust. The only visual sign of change was a blood vessel bursting in the girls right eye and the grimace that hardened her expression. Her crimson armor exploded forward in growth an instant later, completing itself even as skeletal limbs began to sprout from her shoulder blades.
Ling Qi fell back before the storm of blows that followed, reforming her armor, dissolving into shadow, and using every other trick she could think of as Zhengui diligently spread his ash far and wide, just like she had instructed him too. All the while, she did her best to keep track of that slithering trail of qi, sneaking beneath the earth.
In the instant that she felt that presence spike, she screamed a silent warning to Zhengui through their connection, and leaped backward with all of her might, rocketing away from Sun Liling as a thousand reveling phantoms burst from every shadow and surface, filling the jungle floor with a riot of psychedelic light. The very moment her feet came in contact with one of the pillar like trunks of the jungle trees, she pushed off again, rocketing away into the the growing revel as the trunk cratered beneath the force of Sun Liling's barbed spear.
Beneath her Zhengui, despite her warning was retreating from his position, his shell aglow with heat and qi within his ash. The ground beneath his feet roiled, stabbing rootlets scrabbling at his feet and grasping hungrily at his shell. As Ling Qi closed the distance, Zhengui let out a cry of pain as wooden claws dug into his stony underbelly, and shoved him up and back. Zhengui landed with a crash aq second later, legs kicking in the air as the roots and underbrush withered and burned under the heat of his shell.
Dharitri rose from where he had been, elegant and graceful as ever, save for the oversized, jagged wooden talons which replaced her hands. The spirit looked up a moment later, and met Ling Qi's determined gaze with a beatific smile as hungry roots rose to dig into her little brother.
That expression didn;t change as the temperature plummeted and plants died, withering under the unrelenting cold of deepest winter, but the spirit did dance back, out of range , smoothly falling back with nothing more than a bit of glistening moisture on her caramel flesh to show for the assault.
It gave time for Zhengui to recover though, Zhen's muscular coils flexing and rocking the stranded tortoise back into a mobile position, even as the young serpent grumbled complaints about Gui's weight through their connection. Ling Qi could not afford to give him any further attention though, as she spun to face the crimson warrior once again bearing down on her. The image of a thousand petaled lotus blazed like a banner behind Sun Liling, and a light like a star blazed from the brows of the three demonic faces of her helm, parting the revel around her like a fading morning mist.
Once again, Ling Qi retreated under a rain of blows, grimacing as she felt her layered armor shuddering under the vicious blows. Gashes opened in her gown, baring flesh, and she could feel the protective enhancements of her gown fraying and thinning, even as she felt a throb of pain from her connection to her domain weapon as green jade clashed with black metal, and metal gave way, creaking under the strain.
She needed to hurry.
A Silent command sent to Zhengui caused one of the ashfields to flare hotly and scatter in a phantom wind, and the so far minor wounds Ling Qi had suffered faded, blood fading into shadowy dust and flesh knitting back together in an instant. In that moment, she once again locked gazes with Sun Liling, whose eyes gazed at her from the back of a demonic maw.
Emerald light blazed around both her and Zhengui as she activated the Thousand Rings Unbreaking for the time in real combat. Vitality flooded her limbs, and even as she fell back before the girls next attack, she found herself less easily pushed onto the back foot of their exchange.
Yet, she couldn't forget about the other enemy here, as a wave of shimmering multihued dust washed over her and Zhengui both, mingling with the ash floating in the air and the light of the fading revel to create patterns of dazzling light. The very instant that her thoughts began to grow fuzzy though, wild, moon scented qi flooded through her meridians, cleansing the clinging pollen.
Zhengui was not so lucky though, she felt his thoughts going sluggish and confused, even as she saw both of his gazes fall upon the smiling Dharitri and light up with childish delight and adoration. Scowling, she activated her Deepwood Vitality technique herself, replacing broken armor and cleansing the effect with a pulse of wood qi.
Zhen's eyes narrowed immediately, and Dharitri spun to the size to avoid the sizzling glob of white hot venom that shot through the space where her face had been a moment ago. Once again, Ling Qi disengaged from Sun Liling. This time, fading into a shadowy wraith, shooting into the shadow of a great tree that had fallen over Dharitri. The card Cai Renxiang had gifted her flashed into existence in her hand, and flared white as she brought it to activation. A blazing radiance washed over the smiling spirit, and the air around her burned, something filmy and immaterial that Ling Qi had not even noticed before wavered and faded, and Dharitri's form wavered, reappearing half a meter to the left of where she had been before.
In that moment though, Ling Qi was too slow to dodge the howling spear that slammed into her shoulder a moment later, it's passage sending the hair of the spirit she had just attacked fluttering as it paced mere centimeters from her head. Rapidly spinning barbs ripped into her layers of defense, tearing through one after another, shredding qi and silk alike, and though they slowed it, and deflected it's path, Ling Qi cried out as a line of heat and pain was drawn across her upper arm from the deflected spear.
Ling Qi grit her teeth even as a second throb of pain hit her from the spinning, wailing weapons darting about overhead. She was almost out of time, and her qi was growing depleted, drained from keeping so many blows away from flesh. Yet she still had her best opening, even if Sun Liling's damned spirit was still smiling at her, even with its defenses stripped, though there was was a glimmer of something else in its eyes.
In a flash, Ling Qi raised her flute, and before the card she had dropped even touched the now frozen ground, she played the notes of the Frozen Soul Serenade. Bark shattered, plants withered, and the wind howled at the sudden onset of cold, and Dharitri staggered back, raising her talons as if to ward off the song even as lovely skin blackened and wrinkled. The staggering spirit let out a an inhuman howl of pain as its body jerked from a second assault, Zhen's fangs digging into her thigh and filling her veins with molten venom.
Ling Qi had only a moment to feel elation before the haft of a spear slammed into her gut, and nearly folded her in half. Only the power of the Thousand Rings Unbreaking prevented the monstrous blow from smashing her bodily through the tower-tree behind her, and allowed Ling Qi the luxury of scrambling back, desperately parrying the biting edges of the twin curved blades now seeking her blood.
Even as she sought an opening to escape, Ling Qi felt the formations woven throughout her gown flare and sputter as a jagged blade laid her stomach bare, a flap of silk waving uselessly in the whirlwind generated by her enemies attacks. They faded and went dormant a moment later, and barely a second later, Ling Qi heard the shrieking sound of metal being rent asunder, and the remains of her domain weapon rained down onto the jungle floor.
Behind the relentless Sun Liling She saw Zhengui struggling as Dharitri retaliated. The spirits beautiful face had warped, cheeks splitting open all the way to its ears to reveal a maw full of jagged fangs, and frostbitten flesh was flaking away to reveal the barbed skeleton beneath as she fell upon Zhengui in a rain of frenzied blows. Only the protection of Thousand Rings Unbreaking giving him any chance at all as rootlets and grasping talons alike failed to find purchase on his shell.
It looked like she wasn't going to get to use the second part of her plan, Ling Qi mused to herself as two more limbs formed, powerful and hulking above Sun Liling's shoulders. However, that didn't mean she needed to give up on the first part. Darting the right, Ling Qi wove through the storm of blows rained down on her shoulders, coming away bloodied but unbroken, and in the moment that she became free, she played her song once again.
Dharitri made a sound for the first time in the battle as the cold slammed into her unprotected back. The bloodthirsty spirit let out a shriek that cracked bark and sent Ling Qi's ears ringing as she crumpled to one knee, barely warding off Zhen's snapping fangs with her increasingly thorny talons.
Then a missile struck her back with the force of a giant's fist, and Thousand Rings Unbreaking shattered like glass, sending her sprawling forward at the sudden lack of support. She had but a moment to see the emerald disc spinning away as she scrambled back to her feet before a black axe blade slammed into her chest, making her ribs creak even as the majority of the blow was absorbed by her flagging qi. The darting twin blades came next, slashing across her throat in a shower of green sparks and leaving behind thin lines of blood.
The spear came last, shattering the last of her qi defenses to punch into her recently healed abdomen, and out of her back in a spray of blood.
As her vision faded, Ling Qi took satisfaction in the fact that Liling's expression was not happy at all.
Under the soft grey light in the medicine hall, Ling Qi dreamed…
[] Of a wisp of moonshadow which could never be captured
[] Of a winter storm, whose bite cut through even the warmest coat
[] Of a young sapling, who survived no matter how harsh the storm
