Meanwhile, the clash of steel and the hiss of ice magic filled the clearing.
Vanessa, her muscles coiling with her unnatural strength, was a tempest of violence, but she was a tempest trapped in a cage of frost.
Lyra, the ice mage, moved with a dancer's grace, her every step leaving a faint shimmer of frost on the grass. She didn't attack with brute force; she controlled the battlefield.
Every time Vanessa lunged, a wall of ice would erupt from the ground, forcing her to veer aside or smash through, wasting precious momentum. This was the power of the defensive, albeit easy to learn, [Ice Wall]
Jagged shards of ice, from the spell [Icicle], shot through the air, not aimed to kill, but to bleed and slow.
They sliced Vanessa's arms and cheeks, drawing thin lines of blood that quickly grew cold and numb. In dozens of seconds, Vanessa failed to hit her enemy just once, and if not for her shield, she would have long since been dead already.
But the injuries were accumulating. Her head was dizzy.
"Fight me directly, you coward!" Vanessa roared, her great sword cleaving through a crystalline pillar, only to find Lyra had already repositioned.
"A knight, reduced to a beast on a leash. Kaedel is a body refinement acolyte too, but he is much stronger" Lyra taunted, her voice as crisp as the air around her.
She flicked her wrist, and a tempest of icicles attacked Vanessa. This was fatal.
Vanessa tried to push herself up, but a layer of ice rapidly formed over her hands, legs and arms, freezing them to her body.
She was trapped, grunting with effort as she tried to break free, failing to block all the blows.
Disfigured, her stomach showing a nasty hole, her eyes were radiating pure rage, yet she was lacking power.
Lyra approached slowly, a long, needle-like icicle forming in her hand, its tip aimed at the back of Vanessa's neck.
The situation shifted as Willem, having finished his own fight, saw his teammate's peril. His giant bat, screeching, dove from the sky, its claws aimed for Lyra's eyes.
The ice mage was forced to abandon her kill, throwing up a defensive dome of ice that the bat scrabbled against.
"Call it off," Lyra commanded, her voice sharp, the point of her icicle now hovering an inch from Vanessa's exposed spine.
"Or I pierce her heart before your beast can break through."
Willem froze, his pale face a mask of conflict. The bat halted its attack, hovering uncertainly. He had known Vanessa for a decade now.
Back from when she was just a teenager from the slums, to the knight figure she now was. To him, she was like a daughter.
Many times, he had proposed her to become a blood slave, though demeaning, would have allowed her to become part of his clan.
It was then that Greem stepped into Lyra's view. He didn't run. He didn't shout. He simply walked forward, his short sword held ready, his expression devoid of the panic she expected to see.
"Stop, or she dies!" Lyra screamed, pressing the icicle down until a bead of blood welled on Vanessa's skin.
Greem's pace didn't change. His eyes were on Lyra, not Vanessa. He was calculating the distance, the angle. He saw a teammate as a liability, not a person to be saved.
Vanessa was a strong teammate, but she had failed to even land a blow against an acolyte of the same level.
Seeing his utter disregard, a flash of fury and desperation crossed Lyra's face. "You leave me no choice!" With a vicious thrust, she drove the icicle into Vanessa's back, just below the shoulder blade.
Vanessa let out a choked cry of pain, her body arching.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH", she screamed. She tried to restrain it, but the pain was too great. Her eyes now radiated shame. She knew the Association's rules. She was the weaker link of the team. This mission had made it clear.
The savagery in her eyes calmed, replaced by shame, sadness.
That made Greem stop.
Not out of concern, but because the variable had changed.
Vanessa was wounded, her combat effectiveness plummeting. His relentless advance had failed to prevent the attack. A new tactic was required.
'Finding new teammates would be troublesome', he analysed
As Lyra yanked the bloody icicle free, ready to deliver a final blow, Greem met her eyes and cast [Dark Illusion].
It wasn't the wave of phantoms he'd used before. This was more focused, more insidious. For Lyra, the world didn't fill with monsters. Instead, she saw Willem's bat suddenly morph into a swarm of blood-sucking locusts heading straight for her face. She saw the ice dome she was hiding behind instantly shatter. She saw Greem vanish from in front of her and reappear directly behind her, his shadow-wreathed sword already swinging for her neck.
It was too much for her senses to process. The diviner was dead, and without her, Lyra's mind was vulnerable. She shrieked, throwing her hands up in a panic, abandoning her defense and her hostage to ward off illusions that weren't there.
It was the opening Willem needed.
A silent command sent his giant bat swooping down.
This time, there was no ice shield to stop it. Its claws dug deep into Lyra's shoulders, and its fangs found her throat, but the pain of its claws woke her up.
She debated her hand, attempted to punch the beast, but a visceral bite on her thigh pounded her to the ground. It was Vanessa.
Crippled, there was still fighting spirit in her despite the life and death experience. Her hands were burning from the cold, but she punched Lyra to death, each strike hurting her just as much as it did her opponent, but she never stopped, not until Lyra's skull was showing.
The fight was over. Greem glanced at the notifications flooding his vision, then at Vanessa, who was struggling to her feet, a hand clamped over the bleeding wound in her back.
Vanessa was moaning, her face disfigured and filled with tears.
Greem shook his head in disappointment, while Willem attended her wounds: "Her injuries are quite severe..."
"Your clan is filled with degenerates who would turn her into a blood slave. Leave her to me. I will treat her at my home", Greem muttered in annoyance
"I am...fine with that", Willem nodded, knowing that Greem's appreciation of the clan was objectively true, "Won't that hurt your covers, though? You are not supposed to know her, and this will raise questions"
Greem nodded: "I have the perfect cover. I have recently become Emma Carlister's training partner. I can just say that I wanted another opponent, and stumbled onto a beast. Remember that magical stone we got from the mutated silver wolf pack? We'll say we got it from there"
Willem smiled: "Good. Thank you, Greem. We can't afford to lose Vanessa"
Greem laughed inwardly, knowing that it was not true. They had killed a group of magical court acolytes in an ambush without casualties. While it would have been a major achievement four years ago, it was now within expectations. This was how fast Greem was growing. He had shot from a Lv. 2 acolyte to a Lv. 7 acolyte in just four years.
Yet, looking at his teammates:
[Willem Pourshield - Lv. 6 Acolyte]
[Vanessa Tyrien - Lv. 5 Acolyte]
Willem and Vanessa only leveled up once in those four years.
'Should I change teams?', Greem wondered
It was not like the Association lacked members.
Anthony, the tailor, was an infamous necromancer. A brief encounter allowed Greem to notice that he was Lv. 7, one whole level higher than Willem. With skeletons and ghouls, the sewers were his domain.
Then there was the Demon Turtle Party, composed of 3 body refinement acolytes who lived as bandits in the outskirts of the city. Their level ranged between 4 and 6, but unlike Vanessa, they put more effort in their magical studies, each one of them knowing at least one spell.
Of course, there was the legendary Black Crow Party, the strongest one within the Association. Led by Angus Steel, an intermediate-rank dwarven acolyte with incredible fire spells, they also had two bloodline path acolytes with mysterious powers.
In total, Greem had encountered dozens of members, and among them, there was at least many potential allying parties that would gladly take a rising star like him.
With Vanessa hurt, it would take at least one month before she could get back in shape, much less fight on a similar level displayed recently.