Amaranth Castellanos
Fate: Amaranth was engaged in combat with Rashni Voidheart in a space between Seas, a Trial set merely to slaughter the Clan's most promising seeds.
Rashni Voidheart was the most powerful of Aasmi's five companions, embracing the Dao of annihilation. She can remove things from the world itself with her Dao-sorcery, tearing small holes in reality and opposing almost any sort of attack on her or defence against her. Rashni can obliterate almost anything given sufficient Qi and a wind-up time.
A terrible fight between the two began, as the fifth sea cultivator was able to simply obliterate any attack thrown against her. While Amaranth was no slouch himself, the fight was rather not in his favor.
While at any given moment Amaranth seemed like he was losing the fight, it was all a great elaborate trap. his desire to consume was somewhat anathema to Rashni use's of the Void that was obliterating all things - so he had nothing to consume.
While he aimed to set the trap, his very being was torn into shreds, Rashni dissecting him piece by piece and removing one powerful piece of him after another, weakening him steadily as she slowly and methodically aimed to disassemble him and score a finishing blow (-10 Impact due to Impact burn)
Amaranth spent the fight contemplating the nature of the void and it's very end managed to consume a part of her annihilation-nature, enabling him to annihilate things with the flame that was a part of him (+2 Impact). While a dangerous technique, this was sufficient for him to meet her blow for blow, and her inability to work around her own techniques led her to a loss. While she could easily stop and counter any other attack used against her, she had never fought her own techniques and was so barely overwhelmed and defeated in the Trial space, ejected and giving a win to the Clan.
Impact: 5 (+-8)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 3 (Earth Below)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 428 (+28)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Antonius Emmanuel Eleanora
Fate: Antonius was to face Nalini Tideservant. One of Aasmi's Five Elemental Lords, Nalini follows the Dao of balance and harmony. He controls water, and with that water can bring the flow of battle into harmony with himself. Water naturally follows a given path, and so does fate within the area he controls. His Dao-sorcery is difficult to execute, but engaging him on his terms is a sure path to defeat.
This was to Antonius's own defeat - he could not force Nalini to face him on his own terms, and was saved by the use of a powerful treasure (Death --> Badly Wounded (LST)), and yet was wounded and savaged time and time again, unable to properly destroy or prevent the use of Nalini's own Dao-sorcery against him. It was not until Gaius's victory that a possible moment appeared, and Antonius struck, managing to shatter Nalini's escape-token despite his many wounds. Collapsing to the ground he barely managed to make it up and out, barely the victor.
Impact: 15 (+-10)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 3 (Earth Below)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 406 (+1)
Health: Healthy --> Dead --> Badly Wounded (LST) --> Wounded (End of Turn)
Aretaphila Myia
Fate: Aretaphila Myia was made to fight Nihiria Kutsa. The heir of a Heavenly Star, Nihiria wields the Starfire Cord. The cord itself is not overly powerful as a weapon, its true strength lies in the effects of her Star. Where Aasmi manipulates luck and uses Heavenfire as a weapon, Nihiria manipulates time and prefers more ordinary weapons - using a short-sword in her left hand.
She can selectively reset regions of time around her, negating hits on herself and forcing her opponents into prior stances she has already deciphered. Her power is extensive allowing her to reset time minutes or even hours into the past, provided she remains in the same space.
While she retains memories of what has happened, those affected do not, often leaving them disoriented and confused as she carefully reworks the same strike time and time again to finally get the kill.
This proved to be nearly too much for Aretaphila. Time was reversed on her time and time again, and each time she did not remember the fight she had almost won. Nihiria fought her a hundred times winning many times at lesser and lesser costs, and on the hundredth demolished her, barely scratched. She had explained herself on occasion and mocked her opponent,
Having felt like she had properly comprehended her opponent, she rewound time once more, aiming for a perfect win. After all, anyone who understood her could more easily kill her.
On the hundredth time, however, Aretaphila managed to just beat Nihiria, forcing the young woman to use a life-saving function of the Trial Space. Invoking the Lighthouse Curse (-10 Impact due to Impact Burn) on Aretaphila, she became visible to all for hundreds of li around, giving them a sense of uncanny wrongness and defilement. It was not sufficient for Nihiria to turn the fight around. Attempting to rewind time again, she found she could not - the Curse was the wrath of Heaven itself, forming a point in time too strongly fixed for her to work around. Locked in to a failing fight, she flees from the Trial space, giving Aretaphila the win. Despite the horror of the Curse, Aretaphila was able to absorb some of the raw Qi to push her own advancement nonetheless (+40 CY)
Impact: 6 (+-10)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 4 (Human Between)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 572 (+76)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Demetrius Ceres
Fate: Diomedes was to face Sumati of the Bhrigu Sage Clan. Sumati was a tremendous forgemistress. She operates a suit of armour forged from Spiritual Iron, strong enough that even Core Formation enemies cannot dent it with their fists. She fought simply, aiming to overwhelm Diomedes with immense power before they he could find a weakness in her near-impenetrable defense.
And Diomedes was pummeled, but this battle went on for the longest of all the battles, even after the most potent of the foes had been slain or sent back to the Fifth Sea. Her impenetrable armour meant he could not harm her, and it ended up being a slow battle of attrition. Gaius's moment of foolishness imposed upon her allowed Diomedes to damage the armour slightly and made it lose more Qi over time, but while the other battles went for hours or days, Diomedes was trapped within the space between seas for two and a half weeks while the two cultivators fought. Eventually her armour began to degrade, Diomedes slowly chipping pieces off bit of the outer layers over time, and the Qi drain was sufficient that she was forced to shatter her own token and retreat. Sensibly, Diomedes gathered the expensive Spiritual Iron he had removed from the armour and sold it for an abundance of cultivation resources (+20 CY).
Impact: 5 (+-10)
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment 7-Pillar (Pillar Alignment)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 340 (+63)
Health: Wounded --> Barely Wounded
Diomedes Cestus
Fate: Demetrius faced Kavi Windrider, oneof Aasmi's Five Elemental Lords. Kavi follows the Dao of untouchability, allowing him to control the wind to create powerful gusts, but can also use it to untether his enemies' body from their mind, each gust of wind sending his opponents further and further into madness. His Dao-sorcery prevents him from being hit in all but the most dire of cases.
The fight began with Demetrius nearly winning outright, Kavi forced to use a lifesaving item he had preserved for the Trials. It invoked the power of Heaven against Demetrius, a Curse of Earth being applied to him. While touching earth, Demetrius is drained of Qi and suffers, forced to constantly buffer himself with wood/water/fire/metal. He became intrinsically vulnerable to the element of Earth from the outside world and when used against him is a powerful weapon allowing one who might otherwise be his inferior to drive him back or even defeat him.
Demetrius however used Kavi's own wind to lean into the madness, allowing himself to become more and more taken over by Kavi's own attacks and Qi as he sought his own peculiar strategy. As Gaius won his battle, Demetrius used the moment of weakness to shatter Kavi's token and take one of his arms, an arm festooned with protective amulets and powerful runic inscriptions. So valuable was one of the amulets he managed to sell it for a fine price once he returned to the lands of the Clan (+60 CY).
Impact: 9 (+-10)
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment 5-Pillar (Late)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 270 (+61)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Gaius Antonius
Fate: Gaius was to face Varun, Hammer of the Sage.
Varun was a fearsome warrior who wielded the newly-forged Mindbreaker Hammer, a colossal maul capable of shattering armour and wills alike. With each strike, Varun channeled Qi that ate away at the rationality of his enemies. He wore forged armour of Bronze, made from the corpse of a former Spirit-Severing Golden Devil. He is the second-strongest of the Vasistha Sage Clan Weapon-Lords, one of the three who accompanied Aasmi to the space between Seas.
Where other battles were clever tactical dances or battles of predicting a thousand futures, Gaius and Varun fought with raw strength. Blow against blow. While Gaius had a short time in which he danced around Varun, after a few blows of the Hammer, his thoughts stilled and understanding was taken from him. What was left was the raw song of battle as the two men fought in the most primal fashion possible.
It never truly looked as though Gaius would lose, and indeed, the fight was the first of the many fights to finish. Gaius and Varun fought in a space above the others made out of fractured mirrors, each mirror showing the fights of the others. And indeed, many of the others were suffering and losing.
It was here Gaius undertook his final blow. Through the use of his Dao he managed something otherwise impossible. Blow on blow against the hammer itself, weapon to weapon, slowly but surely weakening it through raw strength and expenditure of effort. Until the final moment when a mind tortured by rage somehow still understood how to destroy the hammer, striking a single perfect blow and shattering it, infusing the blast of energy that emanated from the hammer with his own will and Dao. The sheer energy allowed him to comprehend more and go further (+20 CY)
The powerful weapon's destruction swept through the mirrors around them, bringing a wave of foolishness and bewilderment that only struck the foes of the Golden Devils in the wake of its destruction and Gaius's own Dao emanations.. In that moment many victories were brought about, pivotal moments that arose only because their enemies made one small poor choice.
The destruction left Varun completely ignorant to the world, drooling and unable to even comprehend how to move his own body. The man stood like a puppet, simply breathing until Gaius unceremoniously finished him off.
Impact: 30 (+-5)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 4 (Human Between)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 583 (+58)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Lipita Delphi
Fate: Lipita was to face Sanjay the Starshard Servant. Sanjay was a peerless archer who wields the peculiar Starshard Longbow, an enchanted weapon that looses arrows infused with the energy of a Heavenly Star converted to piercing physical light. He went into battle wearing mere cloth, but was incredibly fast and difficult to hit. The power of his bow meant that a single hit could end any battle in practical terms. He is by far the strongest of the Sage Clan Weapon-Lords.
Lipita found herself in a battle she could not easily win - Sanjay was simply her superior in speed and range, and he avoided her with careless ease, seeking to slowly wear her down for a single immense strike. Lipita's own ranged options were comparatively fewer - her only possible counterattack was her Spatial Cannon Ring she had filched from the siege of the Jingshen Clan. Immensely powerful but requiring Qi to charge, she let off several blasts but found Sanjay dodged them with ease.
She simply waited for the right time to strike, being worn down hour after hour.
The moment arrived when Gaius's victory did - a moment of foolishness is enough to decide many fights, and with all the power she could muster, she slew Sanjay with her ring. However, he had also unleashed a powerful attack, crippling the ring and making it a mere useful tool that could still be charged, but leaked Qi over time, making it a useful tool for preparing for a fight a day ahead or so with a peer opponent, but a useless one for fighting above her own level.
The blast was so effective that it removed Sanjay's head entirely, leaving his corpse for looting. As befitted the greatest of the Weapon-Lords, his longbow alone was worth immense amounts of wealth, and his storage rings contained the sorts of wealth that would normally be the province of powerful and well-established Core Formation Elders. With it, Lipita was able to advance her cultivation immensely (+100 CY).
Impact: 12 (+-10)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 3 (Earth Below)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 437 (+137)
Health: Wounded -> Healthy (Threadmarks) --> Healthy
Magnus Centenius
Fate: Magnus found himself facing Miryaa Earthchild, one of Aasmi's Five Elemental Lords. Mirya Dao was based on immutability. She could manipulate the earth, but could more importantly simply shrug off blows and serve as an impossible barrier to bypass when using her Dao-sorcery. Magnus found poison-based attacks nearly impossible to deliver, but as with so many others found the slightest window of opportunity when Gaius's wave of foolishness swept over Miryaa, leaving her weakened and dying from a poison of his own concoction. Unlike the others, shattering her token was no guarantee of survival so Magnus did the obvious thing in this scenario: blackmail. By forcing her to hand over her token as a guarantee, he then negotiated a price in cultivation materials from her storage ring for which he would provide a cure. A few hours of dickering later he walked away with a fortune in materials, and once Miryaa took the antidote he simply shattered her token to achieve victory. (+60 CY).
Impact: 3 (+-10)
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment 9th Pillar (320 years to Core)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 626 (+87)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
Matthaias Outi
Fate: Matthaias Outi was set to face Praanvi of the Bhrigu Sage Clan, a clever and terrifying woman. While the Bhrigu Sage Clan has fallen from its lofty moral heights, it is still an immense power to be reckoned with. Ordinary in strength, Praavni is a poison mistress without compare. Simply being close enough to her is debilitating, and despite her lacking speed and strength, she has slain Core Formation enemies aplenty and come out none the worse off. Matthias was ruined from the start, a singular poison debilitating and slowing him. He tried to close in, yet she kept her distance, poison after poison striking him, one nearly crippling him had he not used a treasure to prevent the worst of the effects (Crippled → Wounded (LST)). It was in the end Gaius's victory that gave him the chance to strike, and even then it was only her token he shattered. With such a victory intact, he sat and attempted to cycle the poisons out of him before the space between Seas closed.
Impact: 2 (+-10)
Cultivation: Foundation Establishment 1-Pillar (Early)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 107 (+7)
Health: Healthy --> Crippled --> Wounded (LST) --> Lightly Wounded (end of turn)
Rina Callista
Fate: Rina Callista faced Aasmi again. The Heavenly Star wielder against the Single Pillar cultivator. And indeed, it seemed as if Aasmi would win. Having stepped into Core Formation she was nearly the equal of a Nascent Soul, and Rina's trick of stealing the Qi of the Star seemed to fail against Aasmi's new power. Burnt and immiserated, Rina found herself close to death and weak before Aasmi, the other woman using her time to gloat a little, though also stringently careful with her use of her Heavenly Star, slowly but surely weakening Rina bit by bit. Gaius's wave of foolishness barely impacted her in combat, but she made a threat to Rina, and this was the key to something not seen in the Third Sea in ten thousand years.
In the moments before her death as a Single Pillar cultivator, Rina felt something nebulous reach out to her, offering her power, methods to consume that even the Heavens could not stand against, if only she would do as she must and consume everything. She refused this, andaccepted her death with one hand as she rejected it with another. In that moment she rose as a Dao Seeker, her strength was no longer constrained by Qi by the strength of her beliefs and her Dao. Suddenly seemingly invincible under Heaven as she faced Aasmi, the other woman beaten back and unable to harm her, almost dying herself before Aasmi shattered her own token to escape.
Impact: 7 (+-10)
Cultivation: Dao Seeker
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 800 (+0)
Health: Wounded - > Healthy (TMs) --> Healthy
Savvas Nicolidis
Fate: Died in his fight, yet accomplished much.
Impact: 0 (+-10)
Cultivation: Retired
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 172 (+0)
Health: Healthy --> Dead --> Badly Wounded (LST) --> Wounded (End of Turn) --> Retired
yan
Fate: Yan was set to face Ishaan, Halberd-Lord. Ishaan wields the ancient Stormcleaver Halberd. Channeling the raw fury of a storm into a single point on his halberd, Ishaan can cause immense harm in a single strike. Blocking nearly all blows and inflicting constant pain on his enemies, he is a difficult opponent to defeat. One of the three of the Weapon-Lords hailing from the Vasistha Sage Clan, Yan found him a relatively easy opponent.
While others struggled in their battles, Yan had an excellent matchup, and sought to kill Ishaan, circling around him, slowly weakening him bit by bit in preparation for that perfect moment. That moment came earlier than expected when Gaius's victory made Ishaan foolish for a few heartbeats, and Yan slew Ishan in a mighty stroke. The baubles and such from his body were cultivation resources beyond compare in the Third Sea (+40 CY).
Impact: 2 (+-7)
Cultivation: Single Pillar 2 (Heaven Above)
Cultivation Year-Equivalent: 391 (+58)
Health: Healthy --> Healthy
