Chương 161: Permafrost

Lilia sucked in a breath and waited for a window of attack to present itself to her. The mage sighed, "Still silent, eh? Well, if you aren't going to kindly cooperate, we're going to have to do this the… fun way." The soft steps of the third Aspirant's thousand-layer shoes pattered first — not toward her, but circling wide through the murk with paced sidesteps. The swordsman lowered their stance, but besides that, he didn't move at all.

He simply waited, hand still resting on his undrawn blade, as though given a moment's notice he would cleave through Lilia on the first chance he got.

'They're not coming to me,' Lilia realized, her stomach turning cold.

'They're trying to herd us in, sister!' She scrambled back through gaps in the hedge maze walls, keeping low, praying that a dead-end wouldn't force a confrontation, but no matter where she went, the mage's sweet voice followed her without strain, carrying easily over the ambient chaos.

"Ring's still pinging for you, sweetheart. You can crawl all you like…. Actually! — please do. It's adorable." Lilia gritted her teeth and flourished her hand, conjuring three separate bolts in rapid succession, fanning them wide and shooting them down a narrow pathway of hedges — not aimed to kill, but to force a reaction, or at least gauge a distance. The last thing she wanted to do now was use larger-scale magics and draw more attention.

Before she realized it, the swordsman had finally moved, walking unhurriedly into the first bolt's path and letting it shatter uselessly against the sheath of their blade wreathed in pale light. The second bolt sailed past him, grazing his cheek, and into an empty hedge. The third— The hanfu-wearing man popped over the hedge maze's walls and gracefully stepped on the flying bolt of ice, before instantly leaping off of it, redirecting it onto the ground.

'Well, I guess we know where they are now… right, sister!?' Lilia tried to force out a laugh, but her mouth had clamped shut. Before her alter could make things more uncomfortable than they already were, Lilia interjected.

'That man is likely using Qi — I don't recall many other sources that let someone jump off moving projectiles like that.' Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The posse of survivors weren't too far from where she stood. Every second she spent hesitating — being toyed with— was a second closer to the mage detecting them with her ring. Outmaneuvering a ring designed to detect living beings was not in her expertise; her entire schtick was ice magic.

She could easily overpower them — no, she could easily kill them if she stopped considering the group of survivors in her protection. Ice magic had increasing lingering effects at higher levels; the residual cold could cause more harm than good, and the last thing she would want to do at the moment was to have another complication.

'Cons of being a mage…' The swordsman stood down the long corridor of hedges; he waited, hand still resting on an undrawn blade, as though confident enough in his teammates that drawing it early would be a waste of effort. Unfortunately for them, she was a Dreamer, and while a group of coordinated Aspirants stood a chance against a Dreamer, there was a clear reason for their divide. The mage was nowhere in sight, but straight down the corridor was the force-wielding swordsman and a Qi-user.

'Gods, how convenient it would be if we could use Will like June… though, I don't think many could even imitate how he uses it.' She pointed her finger forward, swaying it back and forth between the swordsman and cultivator.

'Moderation… remember we need to do this in moderation.' Lilia locked eyes with the cultivator standing slightly behind the swordsman; frost began to once again creep across her fingertips, then up her hand, then up her wrist further — an inch, maybe two, colder than intended, exuding a mist of frost and humming faintly with a ghostly glow against her skin like it wanted release. She considered reeling it back in the moment, but the cultivator twitched… and she shot out a crystalline blast of permafrost.

'I guess we're doing this the hard way.'