Yan put her hands together and closed her eyes, in her mind she started to manipulate the formation. Turtle Shell Myriad Formations was a special move she had been taught, and her ultimate defence manoeuvre.
***
But being ultimate in defence didn't mean she could attack either, Myriad Formations in the name was referring to the fact that the user could activate a myriad of different formations by manipulating the base formations it had. This would increase the speed at which one could make formations which would normally be something set before a fight and not during.
This was a unique property of this formation, in that it could be manipulated and changed without it stopping working. However, this was of course not an easy thing to do and Yan had to train hard to make sure she could sustain it.
The formation would need huge amounts of mental energy to operate with sufficient comprehension of the art of formation making.
Luckily for Yan and unluckily for her opponent, she was excellent at this. She instantly reduced a suitable attack for a fast moving target.
Not from scratch though, she merely took a known attack technique and synthesised a formation using the same basis and adding that onto the Turtle Shell Myriad Formations.
She floated into the centre of the turtle Shell and opened up her Spirit Stone Soul. This was an advanced move which would normally never be used.
By exposing the Spirit Stone Soul directly, it would be weak and susceptible to attack, however one would also gain immense speed at moving of laws with minimal mental energy.
Yan had the turtle Shell to protect her and so in the benefit of using the myriad formations to the best effect she opened her Spirit Stone Soul and started letting out laws. There were shadow laws, hawk animal laws, eye laws, vision laws, heat laws, tracking laws...
Yan had filled her Spirit Stone Soul in a different manner than many cultivators would normally do. A Spirit Stone Soul was limited in the amount of laws it could hold, increasing every time it was hardened. Most cultivators would choose one main law or dao to cultivate.
For example one cultivator would only absorb fire laws, heat laws, solar laws, volcano laws, magma laws...anything with the element of heat. This would give them immense strength but limited flexibility. If that cultivator then needed water, they could not use water laws to create it themselves, even if they had those laws being next to such a huge amount of fire laws would start to change them. Over time the fire laws would influence the water to turn into steam (water with an element of heat).
This meant that cultivators would carefully decide what to cultivate choosing just a few laws which were all compatible. This would limit flexibility but vastly increase strength.
Yan, however, as a formation master, chose a different approach. She had been given guidance by her master and was able to cultivate a huge variety of laws in her Spirit Stone Soul at the downside of having relatively few of those laws.
As the pattern would go, this decreased her overall strength but increased the vast amount of different formations and techniques she could use as she would not be limited by types of laws. This also applied to recovery in that no matter where she was she could absorb the laws nearby and regain her strength easily.
She could even mix laws which were not a part of a technique and use them with extreme caution to supplement the laws needed, therefore regaining back the strength she would lose. However, this needed a huge amount of intelligence and knowledge, of which Yan had in spades. Back to the fight, she had already within a breath of time morphed the formation into a new one.
The defences stayed up but underneath, the 'Tracking Shadows' technique had already been turned into a formation which utilised less shadow laws than the original but instead a bigger variety of different laws.
Some laws were to use the technique while others was to make it stable and so the conflicting natures of some laws would not affect the overall. Back to the fire and water example. Once turned into steam, those laws would still not be fully compatible with other fire laws (as they still have elements of water) and would need other laws to balance it (such as earth to turn the steam into smoke).
***
In this manner, Yan activated the technique within two breaths. The turtle shell spat out a dozen black shades which flew directly down into the assailants shadow.
It then constrained the main body, causing him to become tied up. He bit his mouth and started to bleed, "Don't think such a petty trick could do anything!"
His blood dropped down and mid air it grew tongue size and shape of male form. Then in one second his original body shattered into dust and instead the blood clone transformed into himself. In doing so, the shadow attack Yan had sent into the man's shadows shattered with him. He smiled and bowed lightly, "Twas a fun trick, but ultimately...useless. you'll need more to get rid off me, not that you can, hahaha" then his bared his fangs.
At this point, Yan knew what he was and didn't fully understand the meaning this would have, "A vampire? Why would a vampire be working with Yi Sect, vampires are a noble species which stick to family...but the Sect took in the last vampire family eons ago..."
Before she could think on this longer, the vampire stuck out his hand and using his other hand, he peeled off his skin using his sharp nails. The skin fell off leaving the bloody muscle visible, from which he caused it to bubble.
"Only a little pain haha"
The boiling blood shot up and transformed into he shape of a bat, the vampire then twirled his finger and the shape morphed. It transformed into something more bird like, feathers grew out of the bloody surface. After a moment, the form was revealed.
A huge blood red hawk flapped it's wings in the air and shot down, "Don't you know? Hawks prey of baby turtles!"
The man transformed into a puff of black smoke which shot into the blood red hawk and caused it to have a black inner core. Then it quickly swooped down, as it did, various animals within a hundred mile radius started to twitch. Their blood began to react and become corrupted. The hawk grabbed onto the turtle shell and tried to lift up.
A moment before, Yan saw what was going to happen and wracked her mind to think of a simple solution.
She looked around her Spirit Stone Soul and happened to see a certain law which inspired her to use a technique she had been taught specifically. With a tight fist, she punched up into the air, "Turtle Shell Myriad Formations, 178th formation: Mountain Grasp!"
Following her hand, the ground beneath the turtle shell shook. The turtle shell's formations were shaking at the complex formation Yan had programmed into them. The earth itself turned into a huge hand whose roots were large as a mountain, unshakeable. They grasped into the turtle shell and covered it with a rocky exterior, trapping the hawk's feet into stone.
"Take that!" Yan shouted out but internally she looked towards the direction of Hamar, "Get out already...", she bit onto her finger and tried to recall what she knew about vampires, and any specific racial weaknesses she could exploit.