"Both of you will spar here right?" Diona asked after their lunch.
Long Ren and Yun Ning nodded, they decided to spar here, rather than in their usual place on the clan's training grounds.
Long Ren had contacted Xing Lao and asked him to come if he was free, only to be declined as he had things to do.
After a bit of time, letting their food be fully digested and all, the trio headed towards Diona's backyard and went further in.
Soon, they reached an underground training ground and got ready.
Long Ren wore his usual clan's t-shirt and jeans while Yun Ning wore something akin to the sportswear gear women usually wear in the gym.
Long Ren is now quite certain that earth-like items are somewhat commercialized to the rich. All of Diona's items have some sort of semblance to earth's counterpart after all.
The outfit felt quite revealing to Yun Ning, hence why she didn't wear it when they spar in a public place, even though it's somewhat private.
It's like wearing only your shirt when you're at home, you'll do it there, but not at your friend's empty home.
Diona's hand moved, erecting a barrier surrounding the arena, and pushed multiple runes into both their bodies. Just some standard protection runes, albeit more high-class. Posh runes if you will.
Yun Ning and Long Ren stood face to face, ready to engage.
Yun Ning opened her ring and as soon as her snow blue katana dropped out, she grabbed it. Her face, now shadowed by something ominous as her gentle disposition is nowhere to be found, her other side had taken over.
Long Ren followed suit and immediately, Fenrir's Howl appeared on his hands, already equipped.
Diona whistled, "You put some space marks to immediately equip it huh? That's useful," she said, nodding her head in approval.
Long Ren nodded. He realized taking his gauntlet out and wearing it would take time, time a battle usually would not graciously provide.
Hence, he marked the insides of the gauntlet with space markers, allowing it to immediately appear near his hands and slide in.
A sword can immediately be equipped, after all, the same as most weapons.
Maybe that's the reason gauntlets aren't seeing any popularity. Either you wear it at all times, or die trying to wear it in a fight.
Luckily, space cultivators are quite a cheaty bunch.
Long Ren pumped his gauntlets together as winds howled around his fists, raring to go.
Yun Ning took the first move and immediately dashed in as her sword emanated a chilling aura. Everywhere she dashed, ice started forming beneath her legs.
She skated through the arena, reached Long Ren, and swung her sword. She swung once, yet multiple slashes are nearing him.
Long Ren saw through her attacks and hallow winds started forming around his fist. He clenched his right hand hard and brought it forward, crashing against the incoming slashes.
*CLANG* *CLANG*
long ren and YN clashed multiple times as they tried to overwhelm each other, they seemed quite equal until long ren forcefully parried at a pivotal point.
Long Ren immediately grasp the chance and held her katana captive without much difficulty.
Yun Ning was quite familiar with this move, as she soon let her sword go, and with both her hands on the ground, acting as leverage, she twisted her body, kicking Long Ren in the stomach.
Long Ren managed to block her kick but the force propelled him backward, he thought he was safe, but Yun Ning soon smiled crazily as she mouthed "don't look back". Her left hand, palms facing the sky, motioned upwards.
*Ka-Cha*
Long Ren paled, he recognized those sounds.
Without looking back, Long Ren quickly let her katana go and fisted to the ground, allowing his leg to step on the ground and thus, space-steps away.
Long Ren, now 10 meters away to Yun Ning's left, looked at his initial position and sucked a cold breath. He saw spikes of ice continuously forming and impaling the ground he used to be at.
He heard Yun Ning chuckled as she slowly walked to her katana and took it back. Her face showed a satisfied smile,
"Isn't this nice, Long Ren," she said, swooshing her katana up and down, dropping snowflakes at every swing.
Long Ren smiled wryly, "It'd be even nicer if you tone the crazy smile down a bit,"
As much as he didn't mind Yun Ning's battle junkie side, he also couldn't keep a straight face while facing it.
It slowly but surely instilled subconscious fear into his mind. It's as if he was fighting a suicidal maniac.
"We both know that's not happening. Fufu~,"
Long Ren smiled wryly and quickly got rid of those useless thoughts readying for the next round.
He took a deep breath and slowly, he raised his fist and punched forward, his body now forming a horse stance as he stomped on the ground, hard.
As his fist fully extended out and hit the air, his gauntlet seamlessly flew away from his hand and dashed towards Yun Ning, followed by the multiple bullets he shot out.
Yun Ning arced her katana forward as sword intent flew out, colliding with the bullets. As they explode upon impact, Long Ren's bullets multiplied and homed in on Yun Ning.
Yun Ning and Diona's eyes widened. They had never seen this before!
Usually, Yun Ning would let the bullet through and freeze upon reaching her, yet when she decided to try something different today, he gave them a surprise.
Though, in the end, those duplicated bullets still froze upon reaching her aura radius, making long ren grimace once more. He can't seem to find a way to counter her ice aura. Those buttlets are somewhat modified yet they froze all the same.
While Yun Ning still felt surprised, Long Ren's gauntlet quickly approached her torso and she dodged flawlessly by tilting her body to the right.
But
*Swoosh*
A punch quickly connected with her body as she flew backwards, coughing out a breath of air.
Long Ren now stood at her position, both fists wearing gauntlets as the gauntlet he threw was already back equipped.
He clenched his fist, feeling proud of finally successfully executing his move. A move he had worked hard on for a month.
Though, his punch barely did any damage as her freezing aura proved to be quite an overpowered ability.
Yun Ning quickly got up as she landed a few meters away, a wicked smile adorning her cute face, "That's new."
"Heh, I knew that would get you." Long Ren said, smiling with her,
"It won't get me twice," she said. Her feet now wore boots made of ice as she stomped and enclosed the arena's whole surface with purple ice.
She held her katana down, grazing the enclosed arena as spikes formed and retract wherever it touches,
*SCREECH*
She swung her katana along with the ice arena, making a noise that hurt Long Ren's ear. It heads in his direction as spikes of ice form, gradually getting bigger and bigger. (A/N: Imagine someone scratching their nails on a blackboard, yeah, that.)
10 cm, 30 cm, 60 cm, until finally when it arrived in front of Long Ren, its height reached 2 meters high!
As Long Ren dodged away, Yun Ning swung her katana once more and the gradually increasing ice spikes appeared once more, blocking his way to escape, entrapping him in a V-shaped purple ice spike.
The surrounding ice slowed his movement down as if Yun Ning was close to him but weaker.
Purple ice is not as see-through as one might imagine, preventing his [Space Step] from being useful. Regardless, he had not tried using it to go through an object anyway, so he is in quite a predicament..
long ren looked at his current situation and thought, 'Ah shit, here we go again,'
…