Chapter 853 - 852: White Bloom

"Sonya!"

Akaza lunged before the echo of his roar faded.

Elara did not turn to face them though.

With Sonya hanging from her left hand, she swept the other toward him as though brushing something aside. Dozens of icicles formed between them and shot forward.

Akaza crossed his arms over his face and chest. A distorted grey layer gathered inches from his body, and the icicles dipped as they entered it.

However, they were too fast and too strong. And his defenses were not enough.

Ice pierced his forearms, shoulder, and thigh. The impacts lifted him off his feet and hurled him across the clearing. He struck the ground on his back, bounced, then carved a bloody trail through the frost.

"Gah!"

Blood spilled from his mouth. He tried to roll onto one knee, but his right arm folded beneath him.

Elara watched the grey distortion fade around his body.

"You increased gravity just before they touched you," she observed with faint interest. "Then you dragged the tip of my icicles downward. Otherwise, several would have reached your heart."

Akaza coughed instead of answering.

"Talented," she added, her tone turning dismissive. "But still weak. Still trash before me."

A stone-covered heel snapped toward her temple.

Elara tilted her head and caught the kick against a small shield of ice. Sonya’s foot struck it with a sharp crack, but the hand around her throat never loosened.

"Careful," Sonya rasped.

Frost spread beneath her jaw. Even so, a crooked grin appeared on her face.

"Only little kitty and this Honourable get to trash talk him."

Elara looked at her indifferently.

"He’s worth more than your damned bird."

The woman’s fingers tightened. Sonya’s next breath stopped halfway into her chest.

"Be patient. Your turn is coming," Elara said softly. "I will make your death as ugly and humiliating as that mouth of yours."

Her gaze returned to Akaza.

A narrow ice spear formed beside her floating staff. Its surface was perfectly smooth, and a golden point gleamed within the white tip.

Sonya heard Akaza struggling against the ice farther away. Then she felt the air tighten in his direction.

Her grin vanished.

"Wait-"

Elara flicked one finger.

"AKAZA!"

Sonya wrenched at the hand around her throat and drove a knee toward the woman’s ribs, but another layer of ice caught the blow. She twisted harder, but Elara’s wrist did not shift.

With the phoenix behind her, Elara was much stronger than her physically.

Akaza saw the spear coming.

He forced his good leg beneath him and tried to throw himself aside. However, the ice under his palm climbed his wrist and bound him. Another chain of ice closed around his ankle, fastening both limbs to the frozen ground.

"Where do you think you’re going?" Elara asked coldly.

His pupils contracted.

Gravity gathered unevenly around his chest. But he knew that it was too little and too late.

A root suddenly whipped around his waist.

At the same instant, a wall of earth burst between him and the spear.

BOOM!

The spear pierced through it without slowing down by much. Shattered stone sprayed across Akaza’s face, but the root had already torn him sideways, ripping his trapped limbs from the ice.

The golden tip passed through the space his Demon Heart had occupied, and it buried itself in the ridge behind him.

The root dragged Akaza into a shallow hollow beside Virella. The movement tore at his fresh wounds, and he doubled over, coughing blood between desperate breaths.

Ammor remained crouched beside the broken wall with one palm pressed against the ground. What little demonic energy he had recovered was gone again.

"Virella... Ammor..." Akaza forced the words out. "Thanks."

"Don’t move," Virella replied shakily.

She severed the root before the frost following it could reach her. Her hands trembled as she reached for Akaza’s shoulder.

Sonya heard his voice, and her tense shoulders relaxed.

Elara noticed this, then she scoffed. Her golden eyes shifted toward the group behind the ruined cover.

"Oh. You guys were still there."

Rellis stepped closer to Virella. Water gathered around his hands, although cloudy ice had already begun forming within it.

"Move him back," he said quietly. "I’ll cover you."

Beyond the blizzard, fire crashed against dark emerald wind with a roar that shook the ridge. The remaining currents around the wounded fluttered, then steadied.

Rathen raised his crescent axe. Beside him, the two other surviving combatants tightened their formation around Ammor’s four Runemasters. The cases knocked against their carriers’ armour as they crowded closer.

Elara regarded them for a moment.

"I guess you demons have lived long enough... Die."

The phoenix opened its lower wings.

There was no spear made out of ice and no wall of ice rushed toward them.

White feathers crumbled beneath the wings, becoming ash, then snow. The blizzard carried it across the clearing. Wind swept much of it away from the shelter.

But snow already covered their boots, their armour, the broken roots, and the ground between the cases.

Golden pinpricks appeared inside it.

Rellis looked down.

A snowflake hanging beside his wrist unfolded.

Its six branches lengthened into transparent sheets, spreading outward in different directions. Other flakes opened around the group, beneath their arms, above their heads, between bodies and their defenses..

They did not fly at the demons.

They opened where the demons were standing.

"DOWN!" Rellis shouted.

The clearing blossomed into intersecting planes of ice.

Ammor threw himself down beside Akaza. Virella lost her footing when the root beneath her split, falling into the shallow depression in the ground.

A transparent ice edge passed where her neck had been.

There was no time to understand the pattern. No opening lasted long enough to choose it. Survival came down to where each body happened to be when the frost unfolded.

Rathen swung.

His axe struck one spreading sheet and broke it. Another opened beneath his raised arm.

The edge passed through his armour and chest. He stumbled, still trying to bring the weapon around, and a second cut ended the movement.

The demon on his right tried to duck. Crossing edges of ice caught him before his knees bent.

Puchi!

A few steps away, the demon Simon had been suspecting was a rebel spy grabbed the limping Runemaster. A sheet of ice unfolded between them, cutting through both before either reached the ground. The hands that had secretly marked a human formation fell open in the snow.

Puchi!

Puchi!

The other three Runemasters raised their protections.

Brief flashes of demonic energy lit the shelter. Ice struck from several directions at once. One barrier buckled, another survived the first collision only for a frozen branch to open inside it.

All four fell among the cases.

The spell had lasted less than a breath.

Then the vast crystal shapes broke apart, filling the clearing with falling fragments.

Ammor lifted his head.

Rathen lay beside his broken axe. The two other members of Ammor’s core were motionless, and blood darkened the snow beneath every Runemaster.

None of the seven was breathing.

A few inches had spared Ammor. Virella’s fall had carried her beneath two intersecting edges. Akaza lay below both of them, unable even to turn.

Rellis had remained standing.

The water around him was frozen into a broken curve. He had caught one expanding sheet before it reached Virella.

However... he had not caught the one behind it.

A diagonal line crossed his armour, deep enough that the clothing beneath had opened with it. Blood ran down his chest, then stopped as frost spread through the wound over his Demon Heart.

Virella stared at him.

"Rellis?"

His eyes moved toward her. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

The last strip of frozen water slipped from his fingers.

Rellis fell beside her, and he did not breathe again.