The fight continued furiously. As Watanabe hacked and slashed his way through the unending horde, his chest heaved, his breath growing heavier and more ragged with every single strike he delivered.
'Hufff... hufff... this is getting me absolutely nowhere,' his mind raced, the adrenaline barely keeping his exhaustion at bay. 'At this pace, I am going to completely collapse from fatigue before I can even reach her side. There has to be a way for me to clear them all out in a single blow.'
Tilting his head back sharply, he narrowly dodged a burning swipe from a flaming tree beast, the heat singeing the tips of his hair. Taking a deep, ragged breath, he forced his perception to pierce through the chaotic veil of the battlefield.
'Ah... that's it...' A fierce, determined smile broke through the blood on his face. Spreading his aura forward, he slowly closed his eyes. 'If I don't possess the massive reserves needed to continuously spread my Reiryoku over such a large distance... then why don't I just refine it? Why not condense absolutely everything I have into a single point?'
The moment the thought solidified in his mind, the massive, sprawling landscape of ice surrounding him began to rapidly crack and melt. The elegant frozen trees and crystalline spheres shattered, and the purifying ice petals stopped drifting through the Kekkai.
"Ha? Is the little brat giving up?" Ayumi muttered, her eyes narrowing as she watched his defences vanish.
She took a half-step forward, but her foot paused. "No... that isn't it. He is doing something absurd again."
Instead of dissipating into steam, every single ounce of ice that Watanabe had spread across the courtyard violently reversed its direction. It rushed backwards like a roaring, frozen tidal wave, collapsing inward and completely covering Watanabe's body in a dense, blinding cocoon of frost.
With the absolute freezing pressure suddenly yanked back to its core, Ayumi's fire ran completely rampant. The flames exploded outward without restriction, instantly turning the entire field into a roaring, suffocating sea of absolute inferno, all of it encircling the lone, silent sphere of ice at its centre.
"He is losing ground now. Hurry up and get into your positions!" Mai ordered, his voice cutting sharply through the roar of the inferno.
At his command, four sorcerers, each carrying a massive array pole forged from cold steel, leapt forward into the four cardinal directions. Planting their poles firmly into the scorched earth, each warrior channelled a distinct elemental nature: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind, holding their stances as they waited for the final command to execute.
"The exact second Watanabe falls, we strike," Mai commanded coldly, his eyes locked onto the burning centre.
Inside the raging sea of fire, the cocoon of ice completely dissolved into Watanabe's skin. His body went deathly pale, his dark hair instantly bleaching into a stark, snowy white, and his muscles tensed as he re-gripped his hilt.
"This is the strike... that carries my absolute all!" Watanabe roared, driving the tip of his blade straight toward the darkened sky.
Da-dam... da-dam... da-dam...
Suddenly, the entire world around Watanabe fell dead silent. The roaring of the inferno ceased. The chaotic, discordant cries and mocking laughter of the thousands of tormented spirits died down to a complete hush, leaving nothing but the steady, rhythmic thumping of his own heart echoing in his chest.
"Frozen Bliss."
He whispered the words, swinging his blade in a silent, flawless arc.
For a single, breathless fraction of a second, all the colour was entirely sucked out of the world, turning the vibrant battlefield into a stark, monochrome portrait.
Thud.
Thud
Thud…..
Instantly, every single flaming beast charging through the courtyard collapsed into ash as the fire was ruthlessly ripped out of existence. The colossal, fanged shikigami surrounding Ayumi shrieked silently before crumbling to the dirt, thick plumes of peaceful white mist fizzling out of their dissolving bodies as the trapped souls were forcibly liberated all at once.
Watanabe took a heavy, trembling step forward through the clearing fog. His glowing blue eyes locked onto Ayumi. 'I am not done yet...' He tilted his wrist, forcing his broken body to prepare a definitive follow-up technique, but—
Da-dam!
"PUhhhhhh!"
A massive torrent of dark crimson shot out from his mouth. His knees buckled violently, and he ploughed face-first into the dirt. The absolute, suffocating pressure of the compressed energy had completely shredded his internal network; beneath his pale skin, his veins twisted and bulged like erratic black wires.
With a hollow, fragile ring, his blade slipped from his bleeding fingers, shattering upon impact with the stone and dissolving entirely into a fading silver mist.
"Ahhh... what a tragic shame. He was truly so close," Ayumi murmured, looking down at her left side.
Her entire arm had been cleanly sliced away. What remained was a jagged, frozen stump of crystalline ice where her shoulder and limb used to be.
"That strike of his was truly magnificent," she noted, her dual-toned voice trembling slightly. "Had his trajectory been even a hair better, you would have actually managed to kill me... especially seeing how my regeneration cannot overcome this cold."
"Uhu..."
A soft, heavy sigh escaped her lips as she raised her remaining hand to wipe away the silent tears falling down her porcelain cheeks. 'It was simply too soon for him. He lacks the necessary experience. And if he isn't taken care of immediately... he too will suffer a horrific death from Reiryoku poisoning.'
Turning her head slowly, her eyes fizzled with a volatile, deep purple flame as she locked onto the figures waiting at the threshold. "Might as well slaughter the rest of them, too," she whispered coldly. "What does it matter anyway? It is just adding the Karma of a few more lives to the ocean."
The suppressing ice that had clamped over her severed shoulder violently shattered, melting away to give path to a roaring, unstable limb composed entirely of concentrated spiritual fire.
Right then, four distinct, perfectly synchronised voices rang out across the courtyard.
"Four Poles Array Execute!!!"
The moment those words were declared, the entire atmospheric flow of Reiryoku in the area snapped. The Kekkai that Ayumi had deployed shattered like brittle glass. The crackling, fiery silk of her robes dissolved, her hair receded, and her mismatched eyes reverted to their normal state as her blazing artificial hand fizzled out into nothingness.
From his elevated vantage point atop the stone walls, Mai blurred into motion. He plummeted from the sky, his unsheathed blade driven downward in a lethal, descending execution strike.
CLANG!!!!
Brilliant sparks exploded into the dim twilight as Ayumi raised her single, steel-reinforced weapon, flawlessly catching and absorbing the absolute weight of Mai's descending sword.
As their blades ground against one another, a strange, ethereal flame erupted from Mai's steel, licking at her weapon.
"Ha?! Fox Fire...?" Ayumi acknowledged, her eyes narrowing as she read the distinct, spectral essence of his spiritual signature. "Are you... a descendant of Minakaze?"