Page 81 of Elemasters

In an instant, Dustin found himself thrown to the ground, looking up in a combination of awe and horror as Chloe, fully armored in an exoskeleton of silver metal, took the lightning strike head on. The electricity ripped through her armored body, forcing her to slide backwards as she struggled to hold her ground against the overwhelming force and heat… but this wasn’t like fire. She wasn’t immediately overtaken by it in the same way she was the last time she confronted Chris. Her armor was conducting the lightning, seemingly without transferring it to her skin beneath, and as she held her left arm out to act as a lightning rod, she began to maneuver her right arm…

Her plan clicked in Dustin’s head a half second before she actually executed it.

Chloe thrust her right arm out with two fingers extended, guiding the lightning through her own body and sending it right back at Chris’s feet. The resulting explosion sent him flying across the room, with the sword clattering to the ground.

“The sword’s out of play! Everyone move, before he gets up!” she commanded, already hightailing it across the restaurant. Dustin and the others were right behind her, but Chris rebounded far faster than they expected. He was back on his feet in an instant, punching both fists forward and unleashing a truly harrowing gale force wind.

The windows of the restaurant were all blown out, and the group should’ve been blasted through them… but James’s quick thinking prevented that from happening.

His waist down to his feet was covered in bark and leaves, sprawling out into thick roots and vines that burrowed through the floor and wrapped around the others, keeping everyone firmly in place as the wind continued to batter them.

Dustin couldn’t breathe, and he could barely even see, but he still kept his eyes locked on Chris, who refused to let up on his onslaught for even a second. He was clearly trying to suffocate them, but Dustin wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t.

Squinting through the tears the wind was forcing from his eyes, Dustin spotted a gas line dangling over Chris’s head; likely exposed by the sudden indoor hurricane.

With a burst of energy, Dustin fixated on it, superheating the tube until it exploded, rocking the entire room with incredible force and once again knocking Chris aside.

The sprinkler system kicked on as the wind finally ceased; everyone dropped, gasping for breath… everyone except Dustin, who was already forcing himself out of James’s vines and dragging himself towards Chris’s limp body.

Yet, once again, Chris pulled himself back up before Dustin could get there.

“Incredible strategy. I did not expect you to wield the power of two rings at once,” Chris took his fighting stance, “now things are getting interesting,”

Dustin somehow found the energy to scramble to his feet, though the others were still trying to breathe steadily. Chris gave him not a single second to prepare; launching himself at Dustin with wind-powered speed and ferocity, throwing punches and kicks with the accuracy and force to bludgeon him to death in an instant.

But Dustin was prepared for it. The sprinklers raining down on them gave him exactly what he needed to intercept every blow with shields of ice; cracking and shattering instantly as Chris battered them, but protecting Dustin long enough for him to raise another, and another before the next hit came.

Chris smiled like an absolute madman as Dustin continued to evade harm; clearly impressed by his skill and ingenuity. Dustin on the other hand, was only concerned with putting distance between them.

Water circled into an orb between Dustin’s hands, before violently blasting forward like a Kamehameha Wave; pushing Chris back several feet and allowing Dustin to slide on a sheet of ice in the opposite direction. He didn’t take even a second to feel the relief though; immediately tapping into his fire power instead.

After everything in the past couple of days, it came much more naturally to him now, his body surging with heat as he sent two blasts of flame at Chris. Chris instinctively rolled out of the way, the relatively weak fireballs colliding fruitlessly with the wall instead of making contact… but hitting him was never the point.

Positioning him was.

He’d rolled right in front of a small handwashing station, and Dustin seized the opportunity immediately. He reached for the water in the pipes on the other side of the wall, and surged them outward with everything he had. The wall cracked, small streams poking through at first… before the full rush came; a torrent that pinned Chris against the window with enough force to send fractures through the glass.

Dustin breathed deeply and exhaled, turning the water into a casing of ice. He had no delusion that it would immobilize him for long, but it should give them just enough time…

Chloe, James, and Bailey finally got their bearings enough to join Dustin, forming a semi-circle around Chris, who was finally recovering from the near-drowning enough to stir.

“I… must admit, you lot are more resourceful than I had given you credit for,” Chris’s voice slurred, clearly still regaining consciousness after having the wind figuratively and literally knocked out of him. Dustin didn’t give him the dignity of a response. None of them did.

Instead, they laid their hands on him and focused intently on their rings. Dustin reached for the familiar elemental signatures, Chloe’s structure and resilience, James’s vitality and cultivation, Bailey’s self-assurance and compassion, alongside his own depth, fluidity, creativity, and passion.

Their rings lit up, right alongside the qi meridians in their bodies in brilliant bursts of black, red, white, green, and yellow. The energy flowed down from their fingertips into Chris’s body, causing him to scream out in pain that thundered through the sky, shaking the foundation of the building.

Dustin held strong, silently praying that this was working; he knew they would only have seconds before Chris managed to regain his strength enough to fight them off.

Thankfully, in a moment that felt like the skies finally clearing after the storm, Sima Yao’s soft voice filled their heads, accompanied by the sight of his signature fog.

“Well fought Elemasters. But now, the true battle for Master Ying’s soul must begin,”

Chapter 32

Masterpiece Theatre

The Palace of Radiant Clouds was no longer heavy, but it hadn’t returned to its previous floaty, delicate vibe either…