Kate vs Shui (2)

As she gained the arms of a tiger, Kate lowered her posture and growled. For Shui, it would be better if her intelligence was reduced due to this transformation, but he knew her mind was still sharp from the look in her eye.

Instead of Shui who was the caster, Kate pounced at the yellow flaming birds. Her attempts to punch them should have been futile, but she was somehow landing hits and destroying them.

'She figured it out already, that's a genius for you.'

Just like how he could do it, by wrapping her fist with condensed nature energy, Kate could interfere with his spell without making it explode. Shui could rely on his strong soul to do this delicate energy control in the midst of a fight, but for Kate to be able to do it as well was simply astonishing. Still, even if the birds didn't explode on contact, the flame would still eat the energy wrapping her fist. Shui waited for her energy to deplete through destroying all of the fiery birds, and then released the spell at the tip of his finger.

"Lightning Bolt."

Unlike the other lightning attacks that he used, this one moved faster than her instincts could get Kate to dodge, but thanks to the barrier that she already had around her, the streak of lightning didn't reach. However, it still destroyed her barrier.

'It's much stronger if I use it as a spell, but considering the energy to damage ratio it's probably still better to use talismans for now.'

Since his new spell had gotten rid of her barrier, he was about to shoot with 'Lightning', but suddenly the image of Kate that he focused on, vanished.

"Huh?"

Shui quickly scoured the area with his spiritual sense, but he couldn't tell anything besides the fact that she was definitely still here. And the only reason he could even tell that she was still here was because he had trained his sixth sense with the Perception Chapter of the Tome of Shadows. By the time he considered using the Sage Eyes, Shui felt a disturbance on his left and quickly raised a strong barrier in response.

Luckily, he made it just in time to block Kate whose body was coated by a silver aura reminiscent of an ancient beast. He thought he would be fine and could counterattack soon after defending, but her palm heel strike caused cracks to appear on the barrier.

"What?!"

Furthermore, Shui could also feel an upward current trying to lift him into the air. He tried to rapidly increase his weight through Mutation Control, but it was no use as he got flung into the sky at the same time as his barrier shattered. Shui was still unscathed, but he had a bad feeling about floating around in the air with Kate as his opponent. He quickly gathered wind to use propel him back to the ground, but then he noticed that there was no air around for him to control.

'No way?!'

Once she knocked him into the sky, Kate focused her mind on feeling the air around them and pulling it towards her. And then, when she was sure she had everything under control, with Shui's chest as the target, she ripped away any air still remaining in that area.

"Vacuum Point."

She was a little worried since this was an intermediate spell which she was using for the first time, but luckily the spell worked as planned and tore open three wounds on Shui's upper body. She felt a sharp pain in her chest from making him bleed, but that faded as his wounds quickly closed up and he casually did two flips mid-air before touching the ground.

"Well done. You win."

Though he felt frustrated from losing, Shui admitted Kate's victory with a smile. Kate also showed a bright smile and walked towards him, but she froze when they felt a sudden tremor. After the brief moment that the tremor went on for, both of them looked in the same direction.

"There must be something going on there. Should we check it out?" Kate asked.

"Mhmm, that sounds fine."

Shui walked up beside her before heading in the direction of the tremor's source, but then he remembered something and looked back at her.

"Oh yeah, was there any special reason why you wanted us to fight?"

"Huh? Oh."

The sight of Kate turning from confused to embarrassed in little over a second made Shui chuckle, and that made her even more embarrassed but she didn't back away. Kate stood in front of Shui and leaned in for a brief kiss before saying, while still red like a lobster,

"I don't know if this is really that type of love or not, but, when you do this sort of stuff with other girls, I want you to do with me too. O,kay?"

'This is too deadly.'

More than her last attack, it was the expression she gave him that dealt Shui more damage. As he slowly reached for her face, Kate froze in place, but she closed her eyes and puckered up her lips. With such an obvious invitation, Shui had no choice but to follow through. He didn't stop at a simple peck on the lips, no, he also played with her tongue for so long that she was gasping for air by the end of it.

The misty gaze she gave him tempted Shui to take it a step further but he quickly suppressed that desire and instead stuck to brushing his hand across her cheek.

"Sorry but, you'll have to wait for us to do the rest."

Kate hurriedly turned away as she realised what he meant, but that reaction was enough to make Shui feel satisfied.

"Well, I guess we should get going."

Though the two of them went at a decent speed, the moon came out before they could reach the source of the tremor. It wouldn't be too difficult to continue through the night, but both of them thought it would be better if they were in top shape when they got there.

After Shui set up a couple arrays around their campsite, they roasted the meat of a horned boar and ate it for dinner before retiring to their respective tents.

"Good night."

"Night."

But as Kate was entering her tent, she froze and slowly turned back to him.

"Um, I understand that it might be hard to control those urges but, could you wait until we leave the Spirit Nest?"

With the blush on her face, Shui found it easy to guess what she meant by 'those urges'.

'If I didn't know better I would think that she was trying to tempt me or something.'

"It's fine, I'm not that pent-up."

"Oh..., okay then."

'Please tell me I didn't just see a hint of disappointment.'

More than his own lust, it was Kate's actions that provoked him. If it wasn't for his firm heart he might have already transformed into a carnal beast.

'This is harder than I thought it would be.'

Once Shui entered his tent, he checked on Miss Spirit, but she was still in deep sleep. Otherwise, she would likely be teasing him by now. However, she had earned this rest so Shui tried not to disturb her as he started reviewing his fight against Kate.

'She's gotten better than I thought she would. If it's her then she might be able to use it properly.'