The party had set out from their campground hours ago, and Kazue was feeling increasingly tense as nothing continued to happen, when surely something should be happening by now?

It might have been easier if they were traveling through a forest or jungle; at least then they would have had a reason to anticipate an ambush. But instead, the way south had swiftly opened up onto a wide, wind-swept plain. Vegetation was low and sparse enough that it would be a stretch to call it grasslands, and the temperature was rapidly dropping the further in they went.

The environmental change was clearly due to nexus magic; Kazue didn't even need to be able to feel the mana flow to realize that. The equator was to the south of the continent, and south of Dersuta's territory. It should be getting warmer still.

Everyone but Fuyuko and Mordecai had needed to switch to warmer clothing, and Kazue had rolled her eyes at the pair when the two of them shared smug grins. What a thing to have father-daughter bonding over.

It was adorable.

Kazue just didn't want to admit it when she was feeling grumpy from being cold and walking across hard-frozen ground. It was almost like walking across solid stone.

When the attack finally came, only four of them were able to react in time. Kansif and Mordecai took the lead and leapt to intercept the path of charging moose that had teleported next to the party, while Paltira and Orchid moved to flank and attack the now-occupied creatures.

Kansif had blocked with her shield and immediately counter attacked with an axe strike that was deflected by the moose's antlers as it twisted its head to try to attack her around her shield. Meanwhile, Mordecai had crossed his arms to brace for the attack and centered himself so that his arms crossed over its forehead while activating his bracers' shield projection. While this meant he did get hit by part of the antlers when the shield broke, it also meant that he could grab the base of its antler rack, and his crossed arms helped give him the leverage to twist and flip the moose onto its back.

Paltira leapt over the moose that Kansif had blocked and landed a chi-empowered kick that snapped the moose's back leg at the knee, while Orchid darted in to briefly stab Mordecai's moose with the poisoned tip of her short spear before jumping back to begin casting a spell.

By this time, the rest of them had started to react, and the pair of moose went down quickly. Kazue let her battle spirit guide her actions for a moment as she tried to process what had just happened. Those moose were clearly far tougher and stronger than a normal moose, but they had also teleported in, so that was not a great surprise. These were clearly magical beasts.

What she needed to figure out was how the others had reacted in time. Kazue had felt a sense of something dangerous, but had not been able to identify the direction or nature of what she had felt before the moose teleported in.

The next wave consisted of three moose, and Bellona was able to react in tandem with Mordecai and Kansif. She intercepted one of the incoming moose with her shield and then caused the ground underneath it to erupt and encase its feet. This time, Kazue noticed that her battle spirit sensed the incoming danger a moment before her liminal spirit reacted, but her liminal spirit was developing an awareness of the teleport itself.

After that trio of moose were taken down, silence fell. When no other danger immediately presented itself, the teens were directed to field dress the bodies while the rest of them stood guard around them. After that job was completed, they reformed their layered defense, but with the outer ring a little closer to the second ring.

Kazue was able to react a little faster when another wave of moose teleported in, which was a very good thing — there were five moose this time, and two of them had managed to hit Bellona at the same time. Kazue stunned them briefly with a confusing vision of ever shifting terrain and color, which gave Bellona time to recover and for Taeko to provide support. The agile tanuki distracted the two moose by jumping onto the back of one and stabbing it before hopping onto the other. He rapidly flowed between forms as he did so, shifting into smaller forms to avoid antlers and to grab momentum from the bucking moose to assist his jumps, then shifting into heavier forms just as he landed, to lend power to his sword.

His distractions gave ample opportunities for Bellona to find openings, and one of the pair soon fell after her axe slashed its neck open.

Kazue's attention was pulled away before the second of those moose fell. Another wave was incoming, and this time she had a better understanding of what her liminal spirit was sensing. She attempted to create a chain of lightning to catch all five of them, but she only managed to connect three of them in that chain. Still, it was enough to make their muscles briefly seize, creating more time for everyone else to respond.

When she felt the third wave of moose about to teleport in, Kazue tried something new. She tried to disrupt the forming magic with the guidance of her liminal spirit. A teleport temporarily made two locations touch each other briefly, creating the sort of boundary that she hoped to be able to manipulate.

One teleport was completely blocked, disrupting the mana and keeping the moose wherever it had been coming from. Two others were temporarily caught between, their forms flickering and ghost-like. One of those two forced its way free a moment later, but its momentum had been interrupted, which spaced out how fast they could attack, and giving her party a few precious moments to focus on the ones that arrived first.

The last one she contended with, will and power straining directly against each other. The prolonged interaction helped expand her understanding of what she was struggling against, and in a way, it felt much like some aspects of her daydream manifestations. The moose simultaneously existed at its origin, here, at both places, at neither location, and an endless number of even less likely possibilities.

She forced this seemingly impossible state to crash back to the reality she knew without letting the conflict resolve. When she felt her attack succeed, Kazue expected to end up with half a moose at each location. While that could be a technical description of the result, the division was a lot more dispersed and granular than she had expected.

The resulting goo was nauseating, and she wrenched her gaze away. But that momentary distraction had slowed her too much for her to intercept the second teleport attempt by the moose she'd completely blocked previously, and this time it had a sense of where she was specifically.

Kazue reflexively brought up her staff to guard position while forming a warding barrier, but the moose's charge shattered the magic shield and its antlers caught on her staff. It shoved her backwards and tossed its head, sending her flying. That hurt, and her joints had been wrenched by keeping ahold of her staff rather than letting herself be disarmed, but she quickly gained control of her flight by manifesting her wings and darting back in toward the moose that had tossed her away.

Rather than get in close, Kazue chose to hover above the moose and rain down fox fire as it bellowed at her. She didn't manage to do much damage to that thick hide, but it did buy enough time for others who had finished their opponents to join in the attack.

Fuyuko shot it with a thick arrow using her full draw, and the impact was enough to make it misstep. Two smaller arrows struck it from Rika by the time Fuyuko's next heavy arrow hit, and by then the three champions in training had moved in.

Amrydor took center and used the long reach of his war scythe to fend it off and occupy the moose's antlers. That bought enough time for Taeko to come around one side and harry it, forcing it to pay attention to him while blocking the moose's kicks with his shield. Their teamwork created an opening for Yugo to close in from the other side and leap onto the moose. He used his right tekko-kagi claw to hook into its back, curling his hand forward to dig as deep as he could while he raked its side repeatedly with his left one.

The harrying caused the moose to lose track of Amrydor for a moment, which proved fatal as he thrust the tip of his war scythe into its neck, then sliced down, opening its throat.

It slowly collapsed to its knees, and as it bled out, everyone turned their attention outward, tense in anticipation of another possible wave. After long moments of nothing, they slowly relaxed and set about dressing the kills again.

When Kazue landed, Carnelian Flame swooped in and darted about in an excited hover. "That melty one, you guys aren't going to do anything with it, right? That was a neat trick!"

Melty? Oh, right. "Uh, no, why?" She hadn't quite finished answering before Carnelian zipped away with an excited screech, just barely beaten by Thunder and Lightning to the moose mush. Fintan joined them a few seconds later. Eww. Based on her expression, Ruby agreed with Kazue, but Moriko seemed to think it was hilarious.

Those two fights had been exhausting, so once the bodies had been dressed and stored, they continued on just long enough to get away from the battlefield, and made a mini camp with a large fire. They ate and napped in shifts over the course of two hours, which also gave time to check for injuries and see to the maintenance of their equipment.

Kazue wasn't quite certain what the plan was to determine when the day was 'done', if this was going to be their last day, but she was pretty certain that they had not seen a zone boss yet. So it was time to trudge on through the dreary cold... oh.

That was part of the zone and the challenge. They had to tire themselves against the cold and then deal with a teleporting ambush. That seemed almost mean to her. It also meant that she needed to take a second dose of her medicine, because the stress of the day had already made her head start to go gray and cloudy again. It wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been without the medicine, but not being able to think clearly was too dangerous in this environment.

Kazue wasn't certain just how much time had passed since they left camp when the next attack arrived, but she was pretty certain it had been at least an hour. She tried the same trick to block the incoming teleports as she had before, but there were seven moose this time, and these ones were a little stronger. She was still able to lock one into a struggle that ended with more moose mush, but she was only able to very slightly delay another one. Overall strength wasn't the only thing different about these ones. As soon as any moose closed with someone, it bellowed, blasting forth a concussive wave that also carried an elemental breath weapon.

About half of the moose from this point on exhaled icy clouds that exacerbated the cold, while the rest were divided between fire, lightning, corrosion, or poison. No matter the form, the introduction of these new attacks instantly complicated the battlefield, because these clouds all lingered in place if dodged and attempted to cling to any targets they touched.

This broke up their lines, making it harder to keep everyone covered, so Kazue took to the air once more. She wasn't a great flyer compared to Moriko or Mordecai, but right now it was better than staying on the ground, and from here she could throw combinations of both fox fire and dream-conjured shards of crystal while keeping alert for more teleportations.

Mordecai almost immediately shifted into his battle form and attacked a pair, drawing their attention to him. It looked like he'd also done something to send them into a frenzy with the wild way they were attacking him, which was probably a good thing if it kept them from thinking clearly.

Because this lot could also do quick, short teleports. Oh, and they had slightly stubby wings. Kazue found out about both of these things when one teleported above her and kicked at her head. Thankfully, it only clipped her shoulder, which sent her into a spin she could recover from.

That kick hurt, her arm didn't seem to be working great at the moment, and her staff was falling to the ground below, but it could have been worse. While a kick to the head wouldn't have just simply killed her the way it once would have, Kazue was pretty certain that it would have stunned her and she'd have simply fallen onto that ice-hard dirt.

Kazue was at least a better flyer than these guys; they seemed to mostly just awkwardly glide with a bit of control. But they could gain height just by teleporting again, which was a real pain. At least it seemed they needed ten to twenty seconds between each teleport. It was hard to keep track of which one was doing what in the middle of battle.

Moriko slammed into the moose that had attacked Kazue, swiftly followed by the three baby dragons. Fortunately, the little familiars were fast enough to avoid getting kicked or gored, because Kazue wasn't sure they were tough enough to take repeated blows from that beast. She wove her own magic into the attack as well, slowed a bit by being able to only use one hand, and it didn't take much longer for it to go down.

While Fintan flew in circles around his siblings to use his phoenix fire on the few, minor injuries that the other hatchlings picked up, Moriko checked on Kazue's shoulder. "Mm, it doesn't look broken, but this might hurt a bit."

"What might–" Kazue suddenly found herself being princess carried by Moriko, with no idea how that had happened, and now her shoulder ached, but at least seemed to work again.

"First time having your shoulder put back into place?" Moriko asked with a grin. "I think I'd had three or four dislocations by the time I got sent to the monastery. Let Fintan sit on that shoulder for a bit, and it should be good to go."

Kazue nodded at the instruction. She knew Moriko's healer prayers would fix her shoulder faster, but that potency should be saved for more urgent injuries. "Alright, I think I can fly on my own again. Thank you." She pulled herself up with her good arm to give Moriko a quick kiss before rolling out of her wife's arms.