Chapter 0174

Fenix’s sacrifice pushed Tempest into an enraged state. She didn’t completely succumb to her anger since she didn’t know her group members very well. The few days she spent with them was memorable but not as deep as the bond she had with her sisters. She didn’t even like them that much and thought they felt the same towards her.

It seems they felt a greater sense of affection towards her than Tempest realized, enough affection to attempt to fight off a deranged cultivator to buy her enough time to escape.

The entire situation reminded Tempest too much of the time Kaia sacrifice herself for Tempest.

Tempest silently cried as she increases her speed. It seems like all she could do was run.

Even with the extra talisman, Fenix slapped on her, Tempest knew she could not outrun the madman. Teleportation is much faster than any movement techniques, skills or spells, no matter how many layers Tempest slapped on herself. The madman easily kept up with Tempest’s combined Levitation, As Swift as the Wind, Flash Step and the added bonus provided by Fenix’s talisman.

Tempest knew once the power of the talisman runs out, she’d be a sitting duck. She might as well do something while she has an advantage. With the thought in mind, Tempest turned around and shot out Ice Bolt, Wind Blade and Lightning Strike in rapid succession then continued escaping.

Tempest knew her spells wouldn’t do much damage to the madman. She shot those spells to probe him.

Wind Blade slowed the madman by 0.2 seconds, Ice Bolt 0.4 seconds and Lightning Strike did nothing. The spells should have slowed the madman by more than two seconds if he chose to dodge the spells. He didn’t. Instead, the madman chose to save time by taking on the spell head on, either that, Tempest’s spells were so weak the madman never saw them as a threat in the first place.

Furthermore, Tempest is literally out of her elements. The heat from the lava reduces the effectiveness of her Ice Bolt by 30% while the earth negates the power of her lightning attacks by 25%.

Wind seems to be the most effective against the madman but that isn’t saying much. Wind doesn’t have any advantages while fighting in a lava chasm although it doesn’t suffer any adverse effect.

Tempest thought she might be able to challenge him in melee combat for a nanosecond. Cardis tried to teach her how to fight with her swords, Cloud Sword and Lightning Twist. The operative word was tried.

Tempest is at the age (10 physically) where she is quite awkward with her growing body. Her assessment abilities such as judging speed, power, angles, and distance are less than spectacular. Trying to parry a sword, because Cardis was going easy on her so he decided to use a sword instead of his specialty saber, was trying on both of them. Tempest has scrawny arms and nonexistence muscles. Don’t even mention grip! Tempest could parry Cardis one out of every three strikes but she’d lose her grip on her sword and it ends up flying somewhere.

Cardis gave up melee fighting for now. He decided to train her dodging and escaping abilities. Tempest could dodge obstacles while moving at high speeds was thanks to his training though they both acknowledged she needs more training.

Right now her only chance to survive against the madman is her combination spell, Chaotic Storm.

Tempest knew Chaotic Storm might hold him off for a minute at most. The madman was able to get rid of Li Ming, Starm and Graden despite Li Ming casting her combination spell, Rain of Sunlight.

A combination spell by itself won’t do the trick. Tempest needed to cast Chaotic Storm and strengthen it with an Aspect of the Storm: Touch of the Storm.

Preparing and casting Chaotic Storm while strengthening the spell with an Aspect of the Storm: Touch of Storm takes time.

Trying to slow him down with 1-circle or 2-circles spells won’t work. He’d just smash through the spell with his formidable body and come out angrier than before.

Hatred burns deep in Tempest’s miserly heart as the only viable option came to mind. “It’s the only way,” Tempest told herself. “I’ll make him pay ten times what I will spend today.”

After the pep talked, Tempest turned around to face the madman and started throwing out every worthless junk she had stored in her mage robe.

Unlike her spells which the madman bulldozed his way through without a pause, the physical items Tempest threw out can damage him. Junks like pens, charm papers, ores, Graden’s beauty seeds, and magical beast corpses can’t harm him but the various knick-knacks did give him pause. The items were too eclectic and weird for anyone not to pause.

Cultivators running away for their lives throw out defensives talismans, charms or other life saving trump cards they were saving for the occasion. They don’t throw out cheap junk as Tempest did.

The ‘cheap junk’ was another ploy on Tempest to lower the madman’s guard. Once he realized the items thrown out were literally garbage he’d lower his guard and then Tempest would attack.

“Attack!” Tempest yelled while she unsealed the five level 10 to 13 weapons with weapon spirits. The sword, guided by the weapon spirits started to attack the madman on his own.

Even a cultivator powered up by fighting his inner demon would pause when level 10 to 13 weapons with weapon spirits were thrown his way. Of course, he’d only pause. Cultivators fighting their inners demons have a dangerous reputation for a reason. Not only were their cultivations pushed to the extreme from their fight with their inner demons, but the cultivation was also further bolstered by said inner demons, allowing them to kill cultivators two realms higher than they are.

The madman was never someone of Tempest’s group could handle. Only a mage capable of casting at least a blue 3-circle or 4-circle spell. Tempest and her group could cast red or orange 1-circle or 2-circle spells.

Tempest knew the swords she’d thrown couldn’t kill him. They did what she intended for them to do. They bought her time.

“Chaotic Storm!” Tempest cackled like an evil villain who got the jump on the hero.

Chaotic Storm was able to harm the madman but it was only superficial wounds. Tempest grinned evilly as she weaved in Aspect of the Storm: Touch of Storm into her combination spell.

“Taste my Chaotic Storm fueled by my Aspect of the Storm: Touch of Storm.” It sounded stupid but Tempest was happy she finally got the upper hand against the bastard.

Wind lashed out against the madman, cutting him over and over again. Ice shards come out of nowhere and pierce the madman while lightning strikes mercilessly. Normally, the madman can shrug off spells cast by most mages due to his strong, robust body, even combination spells. Combination spells fueled by an Aspect has another dimension to the spell. In this case, Chaotic Storm superficially damages the madman but the chaotic elements fueled by Aspect of the Storm: Touch of Storm enters his body and causes the Qi in his body to run amok, destroying him from the inside out.

Seeing her efforts were working, Tempest pumped more mana into her spell. She was determined to kill the bastard.

Just as her spell was ramping up the destruction, Tempest heard a maniacal voice filled with hatred and torment yell out, “Space and Time Distortion.”

Before Tempest could make out what was going on with her spell, a sword flew straight at her. Tempest tried to dodge but the sword had a mind of its own and followed Tempest.

Tempest was quick at running, the training Cardis gave her wasn’t a joke, but the sword was much faster. The closer it got to her, the more she panicked. This was the first time since she transmigrated that she was going to die. The fight with Iron Clawed Wolf Pack didn’t count as she was confident she could at least escape the Iron Claw Wolf Pack, worse comes to worst and she did lose her senses towards the end when there was a chance she could die.

Tempest chose to release her spell, Chaotic Storm in favor of taking care of the current threat.

This was a mistake. The moment between releasing Chaotic Storm and casting Spiraling Ice Bolt the madman was able to attack. He teleported to his sword, grabbed and handle and charge towards Tempest in fury.

“Ahh,” Tempest screamed as “I’m going to die,” repeated in a loop in her head. The madman was too strong and she was too overconfident in her fighting abilities that she completely misjudged the situation.

As the sword was about to pierce her neck, a powerful gust of wind came towards them, sending both Tempest and the madman crashing towards the wall of the chasm. Tempest land flat on her back on a ledge with the sword two inches from her neck.

Even though the gust of wind caught the madman by surprised, he recovered very quickly. He teleported to his sword before he was about to hit the wall.

Looking at the madman holding his sword two inches near her neck, Tempest feared Cardis wasn’t going to be quick enough in saving her this time.

Tempest didn’t know Cardis was watching over her during her foray into the Emblemic Mountains, but when she truly thought about it, it all makes sense. If she was a teacher or trainer, she’d sneakily followed her students on their first journey as well. The gust of wind that separated her and the madman was Cardis’ doing. She ran from Cardis’ spell enough to recognize his spell anywhere.

Fear gripped Tempest’s body as she stared into the madman’s bloodthirsty eyes. Tempest regret she didn’t train harder, didn’t prepare for this excursion better, didn’t bring any trump cards with her and most of all, Tempest regrets choosing to fight the madman instead of running away.

Tempest ran away when Kaia sacrifices her life for hers. Tempest ran away, recouped her strength and slowly hunted those bastards down one by one. It might have gall her to do the same this time but Tempest regrets not running away.

Cardis trained her to run away, not to fight.

She could have run away and bided her time. 100 years isn’t too late to get her revenge.

Now, she was going to pay for misjudgment.

Tempest cried silently as she stared death in the face.

Except those murderous eyes soften he continued to stare at Tempest in sadness and wonder. The crazed blood-thirsty aura surrounding the madman slowly faded as reason fought to control the body. Pain, regret and distress laced his voice as he said, “Asa-”

Bang.

A gust of wind knocked the madman backward as a pillar of lava sprang up to engulf madman before hardening and sealing him.

Tempest got up, made sure the lava cage would hold the madman before grabbing all the loot that came out of the strange rift the madman created to get out of her Chaotic Storm before running away.