Chapter 122

Severed

Alexander split his attention across his arsenal. The turrets rotated above him, tracking the cultivator’s movements. Barriers arranged themselves in a loose defensive shell. Droney and the drones held formation around him, adding a second defensive layer.

The dragon closed the remaining distance in seconds. Maximilian’s scales reflected the dying light as he and the dragon dove for the aerial melee.

The cultivator noticed their arrival. His eyes flicked toward them, then back to Hjordis as she pressed another attack. He deflected her blade with an open palm, qi rippling across his hand as he redirected the strike. Then created space by casually leaning back, his flying sword carrying him backward through the air.

Julia launched a volley of ice spears.

Alexander raised his right hand. Hjordis’s aura washed over him, a wave of heat that sank into his muscles and bones. The turrets opened fire simultaneously, energy blasts blazing with faint traces of flame as they converged from three different angles.

The cultivator twisted between the converging attacks. Ice spears forced him to dodge left. Energy blasts cut off his escape right. He batted aside what he could, but the coordination was working. One spear grazed his ribs, ice crackling against qi-reinforced skin. A blast singed his shoulder, burning through fabric. Then his movements accelerated sharply, speed nearly doubling in an instant. He flowed between the remaining attacks with renewed grace, deflecting and evading in perfect sequence.

The shift was immediate and obvious.

Then Maximilian’s chains erupted from manifested barriers, striking from multiple vectors. Fire wreathed the metal links in thin ribbons. The cultivator batted most of them aside, each impact sending the chains spinning away. One wrapped around his forearm, flames searing into his qi-reinforced skin before he tore it free with a sharp twist.

Fire blazed as Hjordis dove from above, her massive blade carving downward. He sidestepped on his flying sword, the flames passing close enough to stir his robes.

Julia came in low, ice forming along her arms. The cultivator parried her strike with his forearm and sent her spinning away with a palm strike to her shoulder.

All four of them together. All four of them being handled.

Alexander repositioned his barriers, trying to limit the cultivator’s movement options. The man simply shifted his flying sword around them, maintaining perfect positioning against all four opponents simultaneously.

The aerial battle flowed through three-dimensional space. Alexander tracked trajectories, calculated firing angles, adjusted the turrets to avoid hitting his allies. Every shot required verification that Julia or Hjordis weren’t about to cross into the line of fire.

The cultivator defended with economical grace, never wasting movement. Never overcommitting. His strikes were clean, each deflection doing exactly what was needed and nothing more.

Alexander’s eyes narrowed as the cultivator deflected another of Julia’s strikes and forced Maximilian’s dragon to bank away with a qi blast that erupted from his palm and splashed against its scales.

The fight created distance. The four of them spread across the air, the cultivator maintaining the central position on his flying blade.

Alexander called out. “You were holding back while we fought the others. Why?”

Droney translated.

The cultivator’s hands lowered. His stance remained ready, weight balanced on the flying sword beneath his feet. He studied Alexander for a moment, those calm eyes assessing.

“The disciples who fell were inner students of rival elders,” he said. His voice carried easily despite the wind and distance. “Sent to watch whether I succeeded or failed when I crossed through the gateway.”

Hjordis’s expression darkened. Her grip tightened on her sword.

“I allowed them their fate,” the cultivator continued. “The sect’s politics are not my concern. My path is my own.”

Alexander processed that. Ruthless, but casually honest. The man had sacrificed his supposed allies because of sect rivalry.

“The survivors will return,” the cultivator added. “Other elders will arrive once they report back. We have perhaps an incense stick’s worth of time before that occurs.”

Alexander frowned. He glanced at Maximilian, who looked equally confused. Julia and Hjordis exchanged uncertain glances.

“What the hell does that mean?” Alexander asked.

The cultivator didn’t answer. His attention had already shifted inward, focusing on something beyond their conversation.

He extended his hand. Light gathered in his palm, condensing and solidifying. A sword materialized. The blade was fine and elegant, the edge gleaming with perfect sharpness. Different from the broad flying sword beneath his feet. This was a weapon meant to be wielded.

His fingers closed around the hilt.

“The four of you should be enough,” he said quietly. The words held certainty. “Enough to push me to the edge. To allow me to achieve my breakthrough.”

He lifted the blade.

Power gathered around him. Wind qi swirled visibly as faint distortions in the air. The pressure increased, pressing against Alexander’s senses.

The cultivator moved.

His sword flashed four times in rapid succession. Wind blades shot outward, one toward each of them.

Alexander dragged a barrier in the way. The wind slash struck with a sharp crack, the impact jarring through his Metallokinesis. The barrier held.

To his left, the red dragon banked hard. Maximilian’s golden scales flashed as chains materialized to intercept the attack. The wind blade carved through one chain and deflected off a hastily raised barrier.

Julia encased herself in ice. The wind slash shattered the outer layer and sent her tumbling backward.

Hjordis caught her attack on her sword. Fire blazed along the blade as she absorbed the impact.

The cultivator stood ready, weapon in hand, still balanced on his flying blade. His expression held calm focus.

The real fight had begun.

The cultivator’s flying sword angled slightly. He raced toward where Julia and Hjordis had recovered from the wind slashes, his real sword held ready in a relaxed grip.

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Alexander tracked him with the turrets but held fire. The range was closing fast, and Julia was directly in the potential line of fire.

Hjordis launched herself to meet him, flames trailing from her wings. Her massive blade came around in a two-handed swing. The cultivator leaned back on his flying sword, the weapon tilting beneath him as her strike passed inches from his chest. His free hand snapped out, palm catching the flat of her blade and redirecting it further off course.

Julia closed the distance, ice forming spikes along her forearms. She thrust outward. The cultivator’s flying sword dipped, carrying him beneath her attack. His other sword came around in a precise arc that forced her to twist away.

Hjordis and Julia had been fighting him for minutes already. He knew their patterns, anticipated their strikes.

The aerial battle drifted higher. Alexander followed, the dragon climbing alongside him. Maximilian stood on its back, golden eyes tracking the exchange.

Alexander adjusted the turrets, trying to find an angle. Every time one locked on, someone moved into the firing line. Julia dove past the cultivator. Hjordis’s wings spread wide as she repositioned. The three of them wove together in a complex dance, and Alexander couldn’t risk the shot.

His jaw tightened. This was harder than he’d expected. The mental calculation required to fire without hitting allies was eating into his ability to focus on anything else.

The cultivator parried another of Hjordis’s strikes with his palm pressed against her blade, then kicked off his flying sword. The sword chased as he flipped backward, creating distance.

Julia pursued immediately, ice gathering around her fists.

Maximilian leaned forward. The dragon responded, wings beating harder as it accelerated toward the fight. Chains materialized from small square barriers that appeared around the cultivator, erupting from multiple angles at once.

Perfect timing. The cultivator was mid-flip, focused on Julia’s approach.

The cultivator’s arm moved in a blur, sword whistling through the air. He batted the first chain aside with the flat of his blade, then the second, then the third. Each strike was minimal, just enough force to deflect without overcommitting. In the same flowing motion, his sword came around and he sent a wind blade spinning straight down the center of the chain formation.

Maximilian raised his hand. A barrier materialized in front of him.

The wind blade accelerated.

Alexander saw it happen. The technique shifted mid-flight, speed doubling in an instant. The wind slash hit Maximilian’s barrier and shattered through it like glass, carving through the faint flames that had reinforced the construct.

Blood sprayed across the dragon’s scales.

Maximilian stumbled backward a step, hand going to his chest. The wound opened from his left shoulder down across his sternum, deep enough that Alexander could see bone through the spray of red. Maximilian’s eyes went wide, shock replacing the focused intensity that had been there a moment before.

The dragon roared. The sound echoed across the mountainside, raw and furious. It twisted mid-flight, massive body rotating to put itself between Maximilian and any follow-up attack. Another wind blade struck its side, carving through scales. The dragon pulled away hard, wings beating frantically as it carried its wounded rider to safety.

Hjordis charged in immediately, fire blazing brighter along her blade. Her face was set in furious determination behind her helmet.

Julia accelerated from the other side, ice crystallizing in jagged patterns up her arms.

Alexander cut the turret targeting. They were too close now. Any shot risked hitting them instead.

The cultivator landed on his flying sword just in time to face Hjordis. She was already swinging, her massive blade blazing with fire. He caught the weapon with his free hand, the impact driving him down on his flying sword. The burning edge cut into his palm. Qi flared around his fingers, barely holding it at bay. Then he converted the defensive catch into motion, using her momentum as he spun.

A spinning kick, faster than Alexander had seen him move yet. His foot caught Hjordis in the side of her helmet. Fire flared across the metal surface, trying to absorb the impact, but the metal crumpled with a sharp crack that carried across the distance. Her head snapped to the side and her body followed, spinning away. Her wings flickered, flames sputtering as she struggled to maintain control.

In the same motion, before his foot even touched back down on his flying sword, the cultivator rotated. Julia was already there, closing fast. His sword thrust out. She got her palm up, trying to catch the blade.

The sword punched straight through her hand.

Julia screamed. Her other hand snapped up to grab the blade, trying to stop its momentum. Ice ran up the metal but the cultivator kept pushing forward, his flying sword carrying him after her. Blood ran down the blade from both her hands where it cut into her palms. She flew backward, trying to create distance, but he matched her speed exactly.

The sword tip inched toward her face. Toward her eye.

Alexander acted without thinking. Two barriers shot forward, spinning like disks toward the pair. He aimed them to cut down on either side of the man, to force separation or catch the cultivator if he tried to dodge.

The cultivator spun. His grip shifted on his weapon and he wrenched it sideways, using Julia’s impaled hand as a pivot point. He hurled her directly into the path of the incoming barriers.

Alexander’s Metallokinesis flared. He yanked both barriers aside desperately, metal tearing at the air as he redirected their momentum. Julia tumbled between them, gasping and bleeding, clutching her wounded hand.

The cultivator dove through the gap Alexander had just created.

He abandoned his flying sword mid-dive. Just stepped off it into empty air. Wind qi caught him, held him, carried him forward in smooth strides across nothing. The flying sword continued on its previous trajectory, still under his control but no longer carrying him.

Alexander’s turrets tracked and fired. Energy blasts converged on the cultivator’s position. He twisted mid-stride, each movement taking him to a new position in three-dimensional space. The blasts passed through where he’d been moments before.

Hjordis recovered from her dazed spin, shaking her head to clear it. She saw the cultivator bearing down on Alexander and changed direction, wings blazing as she accelerated to intercept.

The flying sword cut across her path.

She brought her blade up just in time. Metal rang against metal as the weaponless sword struck like a living thing. It pressed the attack, forcing her into a defensive pattern, blade work flowing to parry and deflect the autonomous weapon.

Alexander was alone with the cultivator.

He threw barriers forward. The cultivator cut through the first one, the blade carving clean through the reinforced composite. He air-stepped around the second barrier and burst toward Alexander at high speed.

Alexander threw himself backward. Metallokinesis carried him in a sharp reverse, creating distance. The drones launched from their orbit around him, streaking forward in sequence.

The cultivator’s sword moved liked a flowing stream. The blade barely grazed the first drone, just a tap to its side that sent it spinning off course. The second drone came in from a different angle. Another minimal touch, blade meeting edge with perfect timing, and it careened away. The third, fourth, fifth. Each one deflected with beautiful movements.

The cultivator continued his pursuit without breaking stride. The air-stepping carried him forward in smooth acceleration, each step launching him closer.

Alexander adjusted his trajectory, still flying backward. His eyes tracked the approach, calculated angles and timing. The drones had bought him seconds. He needed to use them.

The warmth of Hjordis’s aura faded as the distance between them grew. The enhanced strength bled away, leaving him feeling suddenly lighter. More vulnerable.

The cultivator closed to twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.

He lunged, weapon-sword extending in a straight thrust. Alexander read the attack, recognized the commitment. His Metallokinesis flared as he threw himself to the side in a sharp diagonal evasion.

The thrust passed through where he’d been.

Then water qi lashed out from the sword tip. A stream of it, thick as rope, whipping through the air with the blade’s motion. It wrapped around Alexander’s upper arm just below his shoulder, coiling tight against the leather of his black duster.

Alexander frowned. A grappling technique. Trying to pull him in for close combat where the cultivator would have the advantage.

He whipped a barrier down between them with Metallokinesis. It sliced through and severed the water qi thread cleanly.

The immediate threat was gone. Things were still under control.

Pain erupted in his arm.

The severed thread of water qi tightened and constricted in an instant, completing their purpose.

The technique hadn’t been meant to pull him closer.

It had been a noose.

It carved through leather. Fabric. Flesh. Muscle. Then bone.

His arm separated just below the shoulder.

Alexander’s mind went blank. Searing, blinding pain whited out everything else. Pure shock overriding thought. He watched his own arm fall, still encased in its gauntlet, lightning flickering along dead metal. Blood streamed from the stump where his limb had been, painting a trail through the sky.

The pain crashed over him. His vision tunneled.

The world reduced to the image of his arm tumbling away, spinning end over end toward the forest far below.

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