After Jayde broke through to Bishop of the 1st class, she left her small cultivation room. For the past thirty days besides eating and sleeping, she had spent the whole time cultivating.
It was getting more difficult to increase in rank each time, even with the abundance of Qi in the artifact, Jayde had still had to drain all the Qi from all her magical stones to break through.
Reiko was overjoyed when he saw Jayde walking out of her cultivation room, the past month had been boring. Yinxin had been busy with Green every day, and with Jayde behind closed doors, he had only had the three wyrmlings to play with.
[Jayde, you finally out,] he cried joyfully seeing her.
[Yeah, how have you been? Any problems?] Jayde asked as she walked over to Reiko. Stroking his head, Jayde critically looked him over. The past month had done him good. Reiko looked as though he had grown a couple of inches, and his muscles were more developed.
[Everything is fine. Yinxin has been practicing every day with Green and Isha been busy with his house and the farm.]
[Hmm that's good to hear, wanna go hunting?] Jayde asked.
She had no more meat left in her spatial ring, and she wanted to spoil Reiko a bit, the poor guy had been left on his own for a while.
[Yes!] Reiko shouted as he started to bounce around Jayde excitedly.
[Okay let's go then,] Jayde said as she walked to her front door.
Jayde opened the front door. After she and Reiko left the cottage they strolled in the direction of the forest. Bypassing the farm plots, Jayde could see that Isha had been hard at work as each of the plots now had neat rows of beds with small green seedlings evenly spaced.
In the distance, she could make out a small wooden lodge, hidden discreetly behind some trees.
Jayde and Reiko spent the morning hunting, bring down a large mamoose, which looked similar to prehistoric mammoths, just not as large. When Jayde had been buying the upgrade, Reiko had begged for Jayde get some, accordingly to him mamoose had the best tasting meat.
The mamoose was too big for Jayde and Reiko to cart back, so Jayde had to place it in her spatial ring, after storing the mamoose, the two then returned home. Jayde entered the small butcher hut that she had purchased, and for the next couple of hours she skinned and butchered the meat of the mamoose.
In the evening Jinxin, Isha and the wyrmlings came to visit, drawn by the delicious smell of barbecuing meat. After tasting the delectable barbecue Isha could understand why Yinxin and Reiko were crazy about it. Isha begged Jayde for the recipe, which she was more than willing to share, she also gave Isha some of her spices.
Much to the delight of Yinxin and Reiko Isha conjured four fruit tarts after dinner for dessert. The tarts were scrumptious. Seeing the two scoff down the tarts, Jayde felt a bit sorry for Isha, he had no idea just what he was in for now.
After everyone had full bellies, the conversation turned to the Demonic Nematomorpha.
"When you do want to tackle the worms?" Isha asked.
"I still have just over five days until the assessment, Reiko going to need two days to travel to Aeris, so that gives us only three days to sort this problem out. I would like to use one day to at least practice those spells you have gave me [1]."
Isha was confused about the number of days Jayde was talking about until he realized that she was referring to the time outside of the artifact.
"Will ten days be enough?[2]" Isha asked.
"Hmm, I should only need seven to eight days, which leaves me two days to practice the mind merge with Yinxin," Jayde answered confidently.
Isha was worried that Jayde was cutting it too fine, but seeing how confident she look, he decided to trust her judgment.
***
For the next seven days, Jayde practiced the three spells given to her diligently. Initially, she used Reiko to test her {Earth Dragon Ward}, and once he couldn't break through it — she asked Yinxin to test the ward. By the seventh day, even Yinxin couldn't break the ward.
The other two spells, Jayde could only practice the chanting and writing of the runes, there were no earth spirits in the artifact to infuse Jayde with strength, and as for {Earth Dragon Strike} Jayde refused to cast that spell on Reiko or Jinxin.
On the tenth day, Jayde and Yinxin were ready to face the Demonic Nematomorpha. Leaving the three wyrmlings with Isha to babysit. Jayde, Reiko, and Yinxin teleported directly to the glade.
Looking around the peaceful glade, it was hard to imagine that a huge battle was about to take place.
Jayde places her ward stones around the area, then infusing her magic into the stones, she set up her strongest ward. Reiko would patrol outside of this ward to ensure that no one disturbed Jayde and Yinxin.
Shaking out her hands to release her nervousness, Jayde took a deep calming breath, turning to Yinxin she asked: [Ready?]
Yinxin jerked her head in response, like Jayde she was really nervous.
Calming her mind, Jayde focused on weaving the {Earth Dragon Ward} spell, summoning her earth magic, she called the magic to her fingers, while chanting she wrote the runes for the spell in the air, once the runes darken to a deep earthy brown, Jayde infused the runes with her magic.
Earth magic burst from Jayde body, as a sphere of pure earth magic shimmered around Jayde and Yinxin. The sphere glowed with beautiful earthy tones. Checking the magical sphere with her magical senses, Jayde was satisfied that there were no weak spots.
Planting her feet in a wide stance, Jayde then nodded to Yinxin.
[Go!] she said her voice filled with determination.
While Yinxin started to weave her spell, Jayde drew the runes for {Essence of the Earth}, infusing the runes with her magic she summoned numerous earth spirits. The small earth spirits hidden in the earth heard Jayde call, rushing to her they infused their power into her body.
Jayde could feel her magic and strength rising rapidly.
Merging her mind with Yinxin, Jayde opened up her fire ability, imbuing Yinxin with her fire magic.
Yinxin could feel Jayde fire magic enhancing her earth magic, increasing the potency of her spell by three fold. With the increase of her magic, Yinxin silver scales began to shine taking on a luminous silver hue.
Jayde could feel that Yinxin spell was nearly complete, quickly she inscribed the runes for {Earth Dragon Strike}. She and Yinxin had agreed that she would invoke {Earth Dragon Strike} just before Yinxin first weave, weakening the worms — maximizing the damage of Yinxin spell.
A couple of seconds before Yinxin released her spell, Jayde invoked {Earth Dragon Strike} sending it directly into the sprawling black mass, as her spell hit the Demonic Nematomorpha, some of the vitality that they had robbed Doha of leaked from their bodies, soaking back into Doha.
Confused the worms were slow to react to the attack, just then a blinding burst of silver light smashed into the mass, obliterating thousands of the worms. Realizing they were under an attack the worms immediately launched a counter-attack against Jayde and Yinxin.
Their psionic attack slammed into Jayde's Earth Dragon Ward. When they realized that they couldn't reach their attackers, the worms screamed out in hatred and frustration. Their screams pierced Jayde mind, pure agony lanced her brain.
Gritting her teeth Jayde sent more of her magic into the ward. The worms kept on slamming against the ward and each time the psionic attack landed against the ward, agony knifed through Jayde.
Feeling that Yinxin was about to launch a second attack, Jayde again invoked her runes for {Earth Dragon Strike}, unfortunately, this time the worms were ready and had raised a psionic shield. With their psionic shield, they were able to reduce the effectiveness of Jayde attack by half.
Jayde attack did weaken the worms shield, so Yinxin attack was only reduced by a third, even though Yinxin attack killed thousands — there were still tens of thousands of worms left.
Jayde and Yinxin fought for nearly an hour. Jayde magic was draining at an alarming rate, even though she was gulping down Qi replenishing tables and potions.
Spider web cracks covered the Earth Dragon Ward. The ward was not going to hold for much longer, blood had started to leak from Jayde's ears from the continuous onslaught from the worms against her ward.
Yinxin had just launched her twelfth attack when there was a loud cracking sound.
The Earth Dragon Ward was down. Jayde and Yinxin were now defenseless against the Demonic Nematomorpha.
--
Notes
[1] Jayde is talking out time outside the artifact.
[2] Isha is talking about time inside the artifact.
Quote of the day
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. -- Denis Waitley