One of the front-line constructs lunged at Clem. Its arm had become a spear, and it thrust the weapon straight at Clem’s heart. Time slowed to show me the blade’s tip creasing Clem’s robes.
Jinsei exploded out of Clem’s extended foot in an arc of silver power. The sacred energy slammed into the charging constructs with a thunderclap that bowled them all over. The constructs rolled across the clay, their arms and legs tangled together. Their sharp weapons hacked up the ground as they tumbled away from Clem, and clouds of red dust obscured our enemies from view.
“Move!” Eric shouted, and he rolled away just in time to avoid another attack from the rogue goalie who’d come in behind him and Clem. The heavy blade smashed into the arena’s floor and kicked up shards of clay.
Hagar and Abi approached the other constructs, uncertain of how to proceed. Hagar’s quick, nimble strikes were great against flesh and blood opponents. Against crystalline constructs, though, she couldn’t draw blood or put her more powerful techniques into play. Abi, on the other hand, was an awesome defender with little in the way of offense. Neither of them was in any danger of being wounded by the constructs. They also didn’t stand much chance of bringing down any of our enemies.
While my friends had practiced alongside me with Professor Song and Elder Brand, I’d paid very close attention to the techniques they utilized. I’d known all along that I would be the weakest link on the battlefield. I’d planned to be useful in other ways.
Now it was time to put that plan into action.
“Hagar, Arachnid’s Aura!” I shouted. “Abi, Boundary of Serpents!”
I was relieved when they both activated their techniques without question. Hagar’s aura exploded with webs of red blood aspect that snared her opponents’ arms and legs in sticky tangles. While it wasn’t an offensive technique by any stretch of the imagination, it did thoroughly immobilize three of the constructs close to Hagar.
Abi’s serpent technique created an arc of writhing sacred energy that drove three more of our opponents backward. They were instantly snared in Hagar’s aura. In the blink of an eye, my friends had immobilized six of our enemies.
Neither of my allies needed to be told what to do next. Their fusion blades hacked at the crystalline bodies caught in Hagar’s web. Abi’s blows smashed through crystalline limbs and torsos, sending chips of the defenders flying in every direction. Hagar’s precise strikes plunged her narrow blade into armpits, knees, and elbows to pop the constructs’ limbs loose at their joints. Their combined attacks soon had three of the tangled constructs down, and I was confident they’d peel the other three apart just as quickly.
The remaining constructs had swarmed around Eric and Clem. That fight wasn’t going nearly so well for my team.
The wound in Eric’s side sapped his strength and forced him into a defensive stance. His fusion blade wavered in and out of existence, and the fiery striking techniques he favored were of no use against the hardened bodies of our enemies. Clem, though still at full strength, wasn’t a warrior. Her techniques were meant for mobility and deception, not aggressive attacks. The pair of them held their ground, but they needed help.
“Clem, Lightning Serpents!” I shouted. “Inferno Field, Eric!”
Clem’s technique lived up to its namesake. Serpents of electricity burst from her aura and lashed out at the constructs around her. The attacks sprayed sparks into the faces of her enemies and zapped their bodies with blistering jolts of electric power. The serpents didn’t do much damage, but they did make a lot of noise and temporarily confused our foes. Eric followed that up with a wave of flame from his aura that washed over his enemies in a crackling field of fire that drove them back a few more steps. That gave my friends a little breathing room.
It didn’t tilt the battle any further in our favor, though.
“Jace!” Hagar shouted. “This isn’t working.”
The pieces and parts from the constructs that Hagar and Abi had taken apart had reassembled themselves into a bigger, meaner construct. The new threat had neatly absorbed the mass of its fallen brothers and fused them all together with threads of jinsei. The giant towered over us, its footsteps rattling the arena’s floor. Though it was clumsy and slow, the construct was unbelievably strong. It had already plucked one of its allies out of Hagar’s webs and nearly had another free.
Well, that wasn’t very fair.
I had to figure out what other piece I was missing from this challenge before the rest of the constructs combined with it to form an even bigger giant that could crush us like bugs under its feet.
Think, I ordered myself.
“Pull back to me,” I shouted. “We’re stronger together.”
Eric and Clem staggered toward me. She held one of his arms across her shoulders to support him, and he leaned against her so heavily I was afraid his weight would knock Clem over before they reached me. His face was pale, and the left side of his robes were stained with a sticky sheet of his blood. We needed to finish this, soon.
“They’re too strong,” Clem said. “I can barely put a dent in them.”
“I can’t manifest my sword.” Eric winced as he drew a breath and irritated the wound in his side.
“Take this.” I handed Eric one of my jinsei serums. “Get your wounds stitched up and start cycling.”
“We can hold them off, we just can’t finish them,” Hagar growled as she and Abi regrouped with the rest of us.
More of the constructs had added their bodies to the giant. Five had become one, and the others marched along its flanks. The enemy advanced at an even, unhurried pace. They’d be on us very soon. Even if we retreated, we had no more than a few minutes before they’d surround us.
“The challenge was designed for a team of five,” I said. “The four of you won’t be able to beat the constructs.
