The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 545 - Silver Clad Retribution Toward Those Whose Darkness Sits Gilt
The gate had been a point of pride for the Yecine estate since well before most of the current family elders were born. Dark-stained, ligneous fibers joined into a solid slab by a Wood cultivator. Gilt at the edges my a Metal artisan and holding a long blade motif down the center. Backed on the other side by a mild steel banding that had been given the reinforcing sigilscript by the best member of the Coiled Serpent Guild at the time.
Designed to withstand the kind of assault that a small group of agitated cultivators above the Primalist level might produce, its surface bore only a few imperceptible markings from those who looked to anger the family - or just test the rumors of its strength. Occasionally, both at once... as it had withstood Yatrel er Goltbred’s Earth-coated flesh on many occasions.
Yet, the heavy doors themselves remained functional, due to what Elua might call a small bit of genius for the era. The fortresses on the continent did have a sort of Kinetic Dispersal subset of sigils within their workings, but the way they were carved and routed throughout the bulk of stone were not elegant. To the ancient siglist, they got the job done against the Voidlings *only* because they also worked in quite a few other things that disrupted attacks - such as an Anti-Slash mimicking script.
However, the ones carved into the metal on the other side of the door were a step up. Not enough that she really needed to memorize it to copy later, though she did - in case a certain someone reprimanded her to replace it. But the fact that it actually took the force and sent it down the frame, into the ground, and pushed a conduit of water to act as hydraulic dampening while directing the work of the energy toward a mysterious trap at the bottom was interesting!
’A shame I won’t get to see what it does.’
The bell clanged - a gaudy, resonant thing of high tin content bronze - and for a long moment she did nothing at all. She could have enclosed the space around it and silenced it, but she felt it would be better for her moving forward if there were *witnesses* on the other side... and unfortunate if any poor servants were still wandering around, as she felt was the case under the cloud of her spiritual sense.
Her field expanded under a similar guidance of spiritual energy, enveloping the gate and taking control of all the trapped gases in the wood. The next phase of her plan consolidated a swath of the abundant Nitrogen gas in the air all around. A jet of superheated steam bled up into the air while a frosty fog billowed all around, wind collecting to fill the void like a stormcloud had just taken a breath above her.
Without much of a sound next to the rest, that rapidly chilled nitrogen penetrated through the wood fibers deeply while targeting every speck of moisture. Creating thousands of frozen pockets that wanted to contract and, more importantly, glassify the wood itself... and the gate screamed like it never had before from any past assault, as fibers snapped in the rapid-fire frost crack throughout the core of the monolith of wood.
"Sorry, mom. I don’t play fair."
It had been designed quite well against most continental cultivators. Those who thought to use their Element control *bluntly* and not as meticulously as the reborn cultivator knew was possible. It was Fire resistant, generally Water repellant, and trying to coat the outside in Frost would never have gotten anywhere near this result. Acid might have slowly broken down the lignin, but there was still some resistance written in there for that too.
’Of course, I’m sure I can think of a hundred ways to have allowed Rezzue to bypass that.’
The hand still flat against the center of the gate spread its five fingers. The Ogre Physique’s first trigger action was nothing as obviously violent and wound up as a punch. It was simply a grip. One that had required her to maintain barriers between her skin and every surface she touched with intent until she learned the right physical suppression technique.
Capable of the same terrible compression that had crumpled stone when she first broke through. A movement that could grip onto highly pressurized air itself and turn it into a cannon. When used against the surface that had lost all of its flexibility, it was a force that could jumpstart a phenomena... quite like a whole frozen sheet of ice over a pond cracking all at once into shrapnel. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
Tiny sticks and splinters cascaded away as the violent force affected the pressure on the gases inside. A localized boiling turned into a vapor explosion that she shielded away from herself while littering the walkway through the Yecine compound with dark wood and gold fragments. The reinforcing steel on the back had sheared from the attached gate frame, mostly falling not too far from where they’d stood despite the eruption of everything else.
"I’ll have to tell her I cheated. It’s the only honorable way to gloat."
The gate was not opened or battered down by raw force. It was disassembled through its own inability to remain cohesive under the physical laws of the cosmos. The difference mattered to the ’young’ woman who strolled through the space it had occupied. Destruction through overwhelming force was her mother’s dueling language. Elimination through deep understanding of all nature was hers.
One fragment still spun wildly along the stone, the crumpled golden sword finding itself to be a fair spinning top after its deformation. She looked at the unintentional circumstance, a bit outside of her direct calculation, and smirked slightly while raising her hand. Blowing it aside with a hammer of a dense orb of Gas... and out of the way of her incoming dance partners.
The entry courtyard was built for martial drilling by the Yecine guards - most of them Enchanters of the family that failed to amount to much during their time within a particular cohort of their peers. Training dummies and equipment racks at the far end were aligned in the same orderly arrangement she remembered from her first visit to this estate. More black and gold facades on heavy doors in the distance were opened - or had long been opened - for the show she was about to perform...
’Whether they understand the farce or not.’
The first guard in black uniform approached at a run, heavy steel blade already drawn. A younger man by the look of his face and feel of his spirit, El thought he was probably a newer active patrol member sourced from the ’drop outs’ for the heirship. One who was not shown the extra attention that might have benefited his cultivation - just given a job and the elder council washed their hands of it.
Of course, to him, a small woman in Silver almost skipping ahead with a smirk through the wreckage of their main gate could only be an enemy. One that was part of his duties to throw himself against to save others. Who she was or whether she had a weapon or not didn’t matter at all to his shouted challenge to hold where she was. As if anyone would stop where they were while being run at with a large two-handed sword!
She watched the second guard from her periphery, joining from a different direction - almost to her flank. This one was older and therefore marginally ’wiser’ in her immediate estimation. After all, he did hesitate instead of charging immediately when she tilted her head his way... trying to be careful not to ruin the experience for any of them by actually slamming her spiritual pressure down. Even when the edge arcing toward her chest showed the younger one’s resolve.
"WHAT?!"
Youthful vigor shouted out after a dull thump met his weapon’s clang. The hand she held *just so* was revealed to be holding her beryllium copper blade in the perfect spot to deflect his slash. It materialized gradually, incredibly ’intentionally’ as the Illusion peeled away in a ripple from where the metals met. Green and blue stone along its fuller made the entire thing all at once seem ceremonial and ’artifact’, raising the tension of all either watching things play out or rushing to help defend their estate.
’Well, they aren’t wrong to be afraid of it. It certainly easily outclasses anything their smith has made.’
The thing that struck the hardest for many was that it was a weapon sized for the Yecine tradition. Which left as many as ’uneasy’ as it did raise the level of ’greed’ in the low level Primalists taking their time moving forward. The fact that the relatively petite brunette held it in one-hand led them to believe it might even have special effects like the famed swords of their founder once did... which was hard to blame them for.
Even if Enchanters were strong - and capable of lifting lots more weight than a mortal, there were still the essential physics of a fulcrum at play. If the balance of the blade was set with a two-handed hold as the intention, as their giant-length spatha always were, it was quite unwieldy to use it differently. Especially in the far too casual grip she blocked the first attack with.
Thinking she was open after their first meet, the younger guard committed to a different strike. His *poor* footwork led him to come in again with a driving overhead cut. Focused on power, on offense, and meant to overwhelm like any good and proud Yecine. The same approach she had watched Kaland and Ajoreal default to under pressure, before she’d spent months breaking them of it.
She added her second hand to the hilt and caught the descending edge on her crossguard’s lunette shaped block, all without shifting her feet. The impact again made a sound that was entirely wrong for blade meeting blade. Steel rang sharp and high, while her alloyed copper gave back a dense, muffled tone that swallowed the force. His hands went numb from the jarring transmission up his metal.
Elua er Goltbred, master of many things in her five thousand years of a last life, used that half-second of weakened grip to rotate her crossguard and trapping his blade while driving towards him just as outwardly aggressively. She didn’t break it like she could have, she’d learned better after what she’d done to her half-sibling-in-law’s practice blades.
The little Ogre instead used the bind to peel his grip from the weapon entirely, stripping it to go off clattering across the courtyard - into a heap with the crumpled gold gate motif. Then the flat of her sword tapped into his sternum once. With exactly enough force and angle to... sit him down on his rear without tumbling legs over head. A neat skill she developed after almost crippling a disciple in the past, who rolled on his neck wrong.
Part of her wanted to start things here - to begin a verbal critique of their culture like she thought to deliver to the council of elders. But she held back for now, for there was a lot more to be said through silence. And another step forward towards the next approaching challengers. While acting like she wasn’t *aware* that older guard was coming from behind with a thrust aimed at the lower center of her back.
Crippling, if not *deadly*, even for a cultivator.
