The world around her blurred from the motion. Elder Kanev appeared behind her and slammed his hammer into her back, driving Jie hard into the floor and trapping her in another torrent of ice.

  He grabbed her by the back of her head and pulled her free of the ice again, breaking it apart with her body.

  Elder Kanev held her up to his face, his lips less than an inch from her ear.

  "I'll take as much time as I can with you. That way, I can make a memory stone of your screams as a gift for Lord Chen Liang. I'll present it to him along with your head," he whispered.

  The barrier did nothing to keep his icy breath from touching her ear.

  Jie aimed a twin finger of light attack behind her and unleashed the searing lightning bolts directly into his chest. Elder Kanev slammed her face first into the ice then kicked her in the side, sending her skidding over the frozen floor as Jie scrabbled for purchase.

  Again, she felt no pain but the glow of the barrier was dimmer now. Elder Kanev launched himself toward her with another pillar of rock.

  Just as Jie got to her hands and knees, still sliding backward, Elder Kanev fell out of the air and landed in front of her. He smacked her in the head with his hammer, sending her skidding across the ice at a different angle this time but without the pulsing wave of frost to go with it.

  "And as an added bonus, I'll skin the Pan brat and gift your pet spirit tiger to him too!" Elder Kanev shouted.

  His words sent what little of Jie's qi remained crackling through her dantian to slam into the barrier to her middle dantian. Pain flared through her body as her protective barrier did nothing to stop her internal energies.

  Jie formed a lightning step platform and boosted off it only for a pillar of rock to slam into her at an angle and send her spinning away. Another pillar erupted out of the ground and clipped Jie's shoulder, sending her whirling through the air to collapse awkwardly on the ground as her protective barrier grew fainter by the second.

  Elder Kanev stalked toward her, his boots crunching on the ice.

  "And as for the repulsive little cockroach that slipped away... how long do you think it'll take before she's alone and vulnerable? A day? A week? A month at most?" he asked.

  Jie rose to her feet and he kicked her legs out from under her, sending her falling back to the ground.

  "With you dead, it's not like anyone will care when she goes missing," Elder Kanev continued, "not even her own hive. But don't worry. I won't kill her."

  Jie tried to move away but Elder Kanev slammed his boot into her stomach and pinned her down to the floor.

  "I'll just break her and give her as a slave to the Chen family. Maybe I'll get them to put a memory stone of your final moments in her domination collar. So she can hear how you screamed as I broke your bones and choked you with your own blood. Every. Single. Day," Elder Kanev said.

  Jie drove a dragonfist from both hands into his boot and lightning crackled over him.

  His cruel expression twisted with pain for a moment before turning vindictive. He removed his boot and drove his hammer down hard on her chest. The protective barrier warped from the blow as its energies grew fainter still. The previously shining barrier now showed only a slight shimmering golden outline around Jie.

  "And she'll know that if it weren't for you, nothing would've happened to her. I bet she'll start to hate you. That she'll wish she never met you. Then, she'll start to wish she could've had the pleasure of killing you herself," Elder Kanev said as he hammered Jie again and again and again.

  He didn't use his freezing pulse and his icy gray eyes seemed fixed on the appearance of her barrier as though judging it the way one might judge an eggshell, trying to break it just right.

  No doubt so she wouldn't die too quickly for his taste.

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  Still, despite it all, her mind desperately searched for a way to escape him. To save herself. To save her friends.

  He hammered her again and the protective barrier surrounding Jie finally shattered in a spray of glimmering motes of golden energy. The amulet around her neck crumbled to pieces.

  Elder Kanev smiled.

  He reached down and grabbed Jie by the throat. His icy gray eyes were filled with cruelty. He squeezed and Jie's qi armor shrieked in protest before it shattered into fragments of flickering blue lightning.

  His fingers were like talons of ice upon her skin as he gripped her painfully tight. Cold seeped into Jie's skin so intensely that it burned as she squirmed and struggled but failed to break free of his iron grasp.

  The cold spread deeper into her skin, slithering over her bones and making her teeth ache. Every breath seared her lungs with freezing air.

  "Hey! Elder Moron!" Pan Tian yelled as arcs of resplendent moonlight qi hit Elder Kanev, stirring his robes but otherwise unaffecting him.

  He slowly and deliberately looked toward Pan Tian and Jie followed his gaze as she wriggled in his grip, horrified that Pan Tian had drawn his attention.

  Pan Tian stood behind Chen Ai, holding her by the throat. Her claws of blood glistened in the light of the full moon hanging in the air of the chamber. Xue stood behind Pan Tian, growling softly at the rest of the Chen family as lightning crackled over his fur.

  "If you kill Jie, I'll kill Chen Ai. Good luck explaining that to the Chen family," Pan Tian said.

  Jie fired a finger of light attack into Elder Kanev's face. He snarled as he dropped his hammer and grabbed two of her fingers, twisting them away. She felt the bones in her fingers snap and cried out from the sharp pain.

  "Do you ever stop!?" he spat as he twisted her fingers until they bent so far back that they almost folded over the back of her hand. Jie let out a muffled scream through clenched teeth, her lips pressed into a hard, thin line.

  Elder Kanev turned his gaze back to Pan Tian.

  "Why should I care?" he asked.

  "Because the Chen family will blame you for Chen Ai's death," Pan Tian said.

  "Idiot girl. I have water affinity. I can hide the evidence. They'll never even know," Elder Kanev said with a smile as though he couldn't care less.

  "I bet the family head knows you went with his children. That they were in your care. And how would you hide it? If Chen Ai dies, you'd have to kill the other three. And Ithilix has no doubt already told everyone what she saw. How will your water affinity help you conceal that?" Pan Tian asked.

  Elder Kanev's air of calm unconcern crumbled as he glared at Pan Tian.

  "Do you think the Chen family will allow you to survive if you fail to protect a single one of their younger generation? Let alone all of the four in your care? The Chen family has tortured people to death for less," Pan Tian said.

  Elder Kanev gritted his teeth. "Fine," he growled, "release Chen Ai and I shall release your friend."

  Jie hit his arm with a dragonfist over her free hand and lightning crackled over him.

  He shook Jie like a ragdoll, rattling her brain inside her skull and sending pain shooting through her broken fingers. "Will you stop that!?" he snarled, "I'm trying to have a conversation!"

  "Burn in hell," Jie hissed.

  Elder Kanev twisted her fingers and she screamed.

  "Do you think I'm that stupid?" Pan Tian asked, "You'd just kill her and then me if I did that. No. Let her go and let us leave. Then you can have Chen Ai."

  "If I do that, you'd just kill Chen Ai anyway," he said.

  "Unlike you or the Chen family, the Pan family knows how to honor a deal. Release Jie now. If she dies, Chen Ai dies," Pan Tian said.

  The rest of the Chen family closed in around Pan Tian and Xue snarled at them. He swiped at the air menacingly as his tail flicked angrily.

  "I can sense you, you know," Pan Tian said without looking back at them, "I doubt your father would be happy with you if you let your sister die. Not that I think he cares about any of you all that much but from what I've heard, he's not fond of failure."

  They stopped approaching and Pan Tian walked toward the bridge, keeping Chen Ai firmly in her grip.

  "Let us go and Chen Ai lives. It's the best way to spare yourself the Chen family head's wrath," Pan Tian said calmly, her olive green eyes never leaving Elder Kanev.

  "We both know it's not that simp--" Elder Kanev began before Jie blasted him in the face with a finger of light from her free hand.

  "Argh!" Elder Kanev roared as he slammed Jie down into the ground by her throat.

  The blow rattled through Jie's bones and made the world spin around her. He let go of her broken fingers and snatched up her wrist then tried to grab her other wrist. Jie squirmed and tried to hit him with another finger of light and Elder Kanev slammed her back down into the ground.

  The blow stunned Jie. He used it as a chance to grab her other wrist, gripping both of her wrists in one massive hand before hoisting her back up in the air by her throat.

  "There," he said with a heavy sigh as he held her wrists firmly angled away from him, "heavens you're irritating."

  "Hit her like that again and I'll start slicing off pieces of Chen Ai," Pan Tian said coldly.

  "Tell her to stop squirming like an angry frost viper and I'll consider it," Elder Kanev said.

  Jie tried to kick him, but he formed a small wall of rock in front of her legs and her foot smacked against hard stone instead. The strike sent a jolt of pain shooting up her foot and the wall prevented her from getting at him no matter how she twisted.

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