There was some wind lady dancing around Ursel and she was annoyingly hard to catch. Round and round and round she went, staying out of Ursel's reach except for a few moments where she rang her fists against Ursel's helm. It was annoying.

She was supposed to be fighting that ice guy, but Ursel had to work with the rest of the armies. Earth beat air… which was ultimately true but she didn't want to wait for this woman's fists to become bloody or for her to collapse. Ursel couldn't beat her if she couldn't hit her.

Sudden bursts of speed weren't enough. The woman had already figured out many of Ursel's tricks. Ursel wasn't actually slow at all… but neither was she quite fast enough for this. How annoying.

Ursel tried to trap the woman among buildings, but what's-her-name kept outmaneuvering her. Ursel almost thought about letting the woman leave, but she could probably cause a lot more trouble for other people.

How frustrating. Ursel hefted her club, holding it up high and gathering an abundance of earth element. This was going to be more taxing than she would prefer.

Her foe dashed in, unconcerned about her swing. She struck Ursel's left side, kicked her knee, and swerved around to strike her heel in the same time it took for Ursel's club to swing down. Huge amounts of earth element went into the streets around them without touching the woman at all.

Most of Ursel's active energy had gone into that strike, prompting the woman to continue her strikes, trying to slip her energy between the gaps in Ursel's armor. She was moderately successful, in that Ursel thought she would have some bruises on various joints.

Ursel's arm snapped out, one hand still on her club resting on the ground. The air element cultivator dashed backwards a single step… and that was as far as she got. That was when the light from the sun winked out, the earthen dome finishing its formation.

One step forward towards the woman, and the dome shrunk as Ursel's energy tightened. The woman reacted rapidly, striking at the barrier. Then at Ursel. She tried to dive into the ground itself.

Ursel stepped closer. The remaining space shrunk. Two more steps, and there was barely enough room for them to stand. Ursel continued to squeeze her energy around them, finding it an excessive but necessary use of her spiritual energy. She left no weaknesses in the barrier, including directly around her, but it wasn't her body that was going to give out first. She was well armored, and her body was far more durable than… whatever the dead woman's name was.

It should have been obvious Ursel didn't intend to hit her. Ursel thought she'd have to chase her around with her energy underground. It would have been faster than Ursel herself, but it didn't turn out to be that hard.

Now then, the ice guy. Brian or Brawn or… something. Ursel had no real elemental advantage or disadvantage. She was a bit fatigued, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. She'd missed the opportunity to have this fight properly the first time.

"Hey! Ice punk! I'm coming for you!"

At least her allies got the memo, opening up a straight line path for her rush. The enemy cultivators didn't seem to understand, which meant by the end of her barreling charge she had a dozen cultivators being dragged along in a tangle, catching cultivators at about the same rate as they tumbled off to the sides. Just her physical body alone- with the density of her muscle and the weight of her armor- was sufficient for the task.

A few individuals were foolish enough to plant their feet, but that meant they broke instead of simply being pushed along. There was one Consolidated Soul Phase cultivator that might have done something, but he smartly stepped aside as a wedge of continental cultivators came along behind her.

Bran. His name was just Bran, probably. He was prepared to face her as the last of the hindrances rolled out of the way, pick in hand. Not an ice pick, like one might expect from an ice cultivator, just a one handed war pick. Then again, such a thin weapon would have been a liability.

Ursel's club caught him in the chest, sending him sailing backwards as a bubble of water spread out the impact. She chased after him, even as he went flying towards the sea.

Ursel was well aware that she was chasing him towards his dominant terrain while also leaving behind most of her own support. She knew, but she didn't care. If the rest of the continental forces couldn't handle themselves with her father having taken out one Ascending Soul Phase cultivator and Ursel taking out another, then there were huge factors they were missing. She might as well spring any traps early if there were any.

If this could even be called early in the battle. She'd fought all of the way through the port city by now.

Ursel took advantage of the slop to accelerate her own movement. Her opponent didn't fly all the way to the bay from her hit, but he did land on his feet, forming an ice ramp as he continued to move away from her.

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Her heavy feet crashed into the ice behind him, shattering it. When it was outside of his active control, it was just thin ice after all. He hadn't expended nearly enough energy to enhance its durability or slipperiness long term.

When Bran landed on the water, waves rose up around him. Ursel leapt off the edge of a dock whose individual boards barely supported her weight, swinging her club overhand. With such obvious openings, obviously Bran was going to make use of his preferred attacking method.

Waves washed over her, freezing her. This time, he managed to catch her before her club began its descent, catching it without any relative momentum to the rest of her. As she hit the water, he increased the density of the ice around her until it was half a meter thick.

His energy extended beyond the head of his pick as he dove into the water where she was sinking- ice might float, but not with a core of Ursel in armor. His weapon moved through the water effortlessly, a thin extension piercing into the inside of her elbow where her armor's joints were weaker. She shifted her earth element to defend the target point, but her body didn't move.

For the next several seconds, Bran rained down blows at all of her weakest points, his attacks slipping through the ice and causing only minimal disturbances. Ursel found he was quite good at not compromising the structural stability as he held it together. Ursel's energy continued to shift all around her body, in large part to block him.

An attack came for her eye. This time, he extended the point with just his energy, losing a bit of power but keeping it narrow enough to fit through her helm. His attack scraped her eye, filling her vision with blood.

Ursel caught his wrist. For some reason, Bran looked surprised. As if she should have had to break the ice around her, or melt it. But she just reformed it.

What was the difference between ice and other rocks, except that it needed to be colder to be solid? Ursel had worked with molten rock, which was admittedly a bit more viscous than water and of a dominating element. That was difficult. Reshaping a solid structure made by an allied element? Easy. And Bran clearly hadn't been prepared for that sort of manipulation, because his energy barely even resisted.

Ursel gave up her farce of not being able to move, reflowing the layer of ice around Bran. Obviously he dissolved it, but her energy was only meant to distract him from what her body was doing. Her grip on his wrist tightened. She'd crushed the refined bones of powerful beasts with her grip- a human cultivator with only basic levels of body tempering wasn't going to keep up. So he had the choice between a broken wrist and having his movements cut off.

But Ursel had more than one hand, and she was well acquainted with fighting in the water. She'd spent nearly half of her childhood in the Shimmering Islands, after all. Even now, she regularly visited to fight Tirto. And spend time with family and stuff.

As their energies wrestled, Bran was ultimately going to win. Defeating that air cultivator hadn't been free. But the wrestling of their bodies was more important, with Ursel hooking a leg behind the man as he tried to pull away.

But Bran was determined, and he was even willing to further harm his own wrist to get away. Ursel was impressed with how he slipped out, though she did turn many of his bones to dust as he pulled back with all his might.

Unfortunately, he kept running- or swimming- right out towards one of the ships they had prepared. Ursel might have been able to chase after him, but honestly she was pretty much out of spiritual energy. She could have probably at least messed with the rudder or something, but they still needed to take the rest of Urdcliffe. And having an Ascending Soul Phase cultivator run away injured was nearly as good as killing another one.

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The continental fleets harassed the fleeing cultivators, but they were careful to avoid any Ascending Soul Phase cultivators. They didn't want to let people flee for free, but they also didn't want to suffer any more casualties of their own. In the future, however, they planned to have better naval control of the northern seas.

Aside from Urdcliffe, the Sovereign Primacy was pushed back in most other places- with a few stalemates. However, once the different armies began to consolidate those few remaining holdouts would have been fools to remain. The Sovereign Primacy likely couldn't afford to throw away the lives of their cultivators, especially not any Ascending Soul Phase cultivators.

At Urdcliffe, there had been two more deaths. A few more among the various other locations. The continental forces hadn't gotten off completely free, but it was nobody John considered a friend.

Was that a callous response? Perhaps. But it wasn't even close to the limits of how cultivators might feel. He wasn't glad for anyone on the continent to die, even though they would have been rivals not long before… and might still be trouble in the future, if not for the repeated outside dangers. So in some way, the assault was almost good for the continent.

Almost.

Before they could even really begin to celebrate, however, news came from the south that had John in a fury. There had been another attack by the Stormy Sea Sect and others from the southern sea… but they weren't the primary assailants. This time, Abritt had made no attempt to hide her involvement. Previously, Morana had at least attempted subtlety.

John wondered what she was thinking. There was no way the Sky Islands could win a war, even with their extremely advantageous positioning. Even with the support of other sects, what had she hoped to gain?

The timing had not been a coincidence. The actual assault had occurred during the final push against the Sovereign Primacy. And now John had to go kill Abritt. Or maybe destroy the Sky Islands… if the rest of the island masters had been stupid enough to support her. He hoped not, but the incoming news wasn't clear just yet.

John packed powerful cultivators- those not needed to secure the northern shores- onto a few ships. It would still be faster to journey over the seas than march across the continent, and matching the Ascending Soul Phase cultivators was the most important. It would also allow them some time to recover before they got there… though not as much as he would have liked.

At least John would have the opportunity to ask Tirto's opinion on Astrid. Though he was going to do that anyway without immediately going off to another war.

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