Grey Speed 18/Regen 16/Spatium 25

Suddenly his hand thrust out, palm open, and a roaring fire boiled outward. I Burst Stepped straight through the flames, expecting to catch him off guard, but as I took that near-instant step, Chul was engulfed in a flash of golden light, and I passed straight through where he had been. The brightness overwhelmed me, and I stumbled as I came to a stop. Two huge arms wrapped around me, pinning my own arms to my sides and lifting me up. Chul and I were both wreathed in phoenix fire.

“Yield!” he roared as my aetheric barrier struggled to ward me from the roiling heat.

My bones complained loudly, threatening to shatter under his asuran strength, and my skin began to blister and blacken.

A grin as big and wild as Chul’s split my face.

Sensing for the aetheric paths, I moved into them, leaving Chul behind as I appeared on the other side of our combat floor. But I didn’t give him time to recover.

I Burst Stepped once more, aether coursing through my body in short, controlled spurts. It felt like I was being stretched in eight different directions, but I gritted through the pain as I focused every fraction of a millisecond on properly maintaining control.

Chul bent sideways as he was lifted up off the floor, unable to even comprehend what hit him, before a blurring hook snapped his jaw in the opposite direction followed by a straight that sent him barrelling towards the shields like a missle.

Thin wisps of violet-tinted smoke rose from my mending arms as the young phoenix crashed heavily against the protective barrier surrounding us and fell to the ground. The shields fell away and Mordain was at his side in an instant. More casually, Aldir drifted down from the balcony toward me, inspecting me seriously.

I allowed a moment for my wounds to heal as aether seeped from my core into my broken bones and burned flesh.

“I see your physique is no longer a barrier to utilizing Mirage Walk, or at least your version of the technique,” Aldir said, brushing out a flame still lingering on my clothes. “A very illuminating battle.”