Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Mira readied her scythe and quickly weaved together a set of Paragon Wings while activating her icy-blue tail, increasing the power of her ice by 400%. Although doing this would put a drain on her Qi, it was also her best bet at winning against these shadows.

She might have her Chaos Body Martial Art, but it's far from perfect. Hell, even if it were perfect, she'd still have a hard time winning against 10 people with similar power to her, all moving in perfect sync.

If she had unlimited time in this Round, Mira wouldn't mind playing a battle of attrition, slowly whittling down the shadow's numbers while also trading injuries for chances to kill them. However, she only has 33 minutes, which in her opinion, is nothing.

That's barely over 3 minutes per shadow!

So, Mira decided to go all out from the start. If she wins, she wins. If she loses, then… well, hopefully, she doesn't lose despite putting in so much effort.

The shadows weren't just going to stand there and watch Mira use one of her best abilities, so they immediately worked together to take her down.

Mira expected them to do this because in every battle so far, the shadows try and take the initiative.

Right now, she was up against 4 ranged and 6 melee attackers, a perfect combination, in Mira's opinion. The ranged attackers shot her with Fire, Lightning, Wind, and Darkness abilities. Meanwhile, the melee attackers used a sword, shield, spear, fan, twin daggers, and warhammer.

Mira found this lineup particularly annoying because of how well-balanced and destructive their teamwork is. They have Long, Mid, and short-range covered with a shield user always jumping in the front to tank the hits.

They also have a high destructive power from the Lightning, Fire, and warhammer users, making Mira constantly have to watch out for them.

For a similar reason, Mira figured her Paragon Wings would be an amazing counter to these shadows. This, combined with her Chaos Body Martial Art, Martial and Scythe Intents, and tails…

She's basically a one-woman army!

However, Mira's not actually sure whether her Paragon Wings will be useful. She hasn't gotten the chance to use them against the shadows as they simply cost too much Qi for her current self, even after she's improved her Qi Control by leaps and bounds.

Taking the initiative, Mira knew the best way to end this quickly was to restrict the shield user, take out the ranged attackers, then slowly take out the melee attackers. So, she used about 20% of her Paragon Wing's feathers to try and restrict the shield user as she ignored the other melee shadows and charged at the ranged ones.

However, the shadows aren't going to just let her do whatever she wants. So, the 5 other melee attackers surrounded her and attacked in perfect unison. Sometimes multiple would attack at the same time, while other times, they'd attack one after another in different positions to try and catch her off guard.

She was able to avoid, deflect, or counter most attacks thanks to her Chaos Body Martial Art, scythe, and tails. In fact, since her tails were just about as strong as her arms and legs, besides her golden tail, which is significantly denser and more powerful, she could theoretically pull off over 10 attacks all in one move.

Well, that only works in theory. Being able to flood her body with Qi to strengthen it, control her Paragon Wings, use all her tails, and control her Martial and Scythe Intent while constantly analyzing 10 near-perfect enemies so she can determine her next moves with her Chaos Body Martial Art…

Doing all that is extremely taxing on her mind and body. Even if her willpower is abnormally strong, doing something like that without adequate training is just not practical.

So, Mira spent most of her time using her Chaos Body Martial Art combined with her Martial Intent to dodge the attacks from the shadows while using her golden tail, legs, and scythe to counter-attack.

Of course, there are exceptions, and if the shadows are constantly attacking her from behind, she'll switch things up and begin using her tails more frequently.

Her Paragon Wings, however, acted more like a guardian angel. They hovered above her, helping Mira distract the shadows around her so she could take out the ranged attackers.

If she saw an opportunity to take out any of the melee attackers, she'd use it on them, but from the over 200+ shadows she's fought, it's the melee ones who are the hardest to take out. Their movement and weapon skills allow them to seamlessly dodge or block most of her attacks, making them useless.

Fortunately, her Chaos Body Martial Art has taken great strides, and Mira was able to catch up to the ranged attackers while only suffering a few injuries.

Since she might not get such an opportunity again, Mira bombarded all four ranged attackers with 80% of her Paragon Wing's feathers!

*Boom!**Boom!**Boom!**Boom!**Boom!**Boom!**Boom!**Boom!*

The shield, fan, warhammer, and spear shadows, but that's when Mira took this opportunity to bombard the shield user with the remaining feathers! Not only that, but Mira took this opportunity to charge at the shield user and reign down attacks with her Scythe, Hell Scythe Intent, Martial Intent, and golden tail.

The sword and twin daggers shadows weren't going to sit by and just watch, so they attacked Mira when they saw an opening.

This opening left by Mira was there on purpose, or more accurately, it was inevitable with what she had planned.

She wanted to take out the ranged and shield users all at the same time, as she knew these shadows would be a huge pain in the ass later on. Especially the shield user. If it's not taken out soon, all it literally has to do is sit in front of her with its massive shield, and most of her viable options are reduced.

So, in order to take it out along with the ranged attackers in one fell swoop, she knew she had to sacrifice something. She needed to put all her attention into removing these threats, and for that, she couldn't use her Chaos Body Martial Art. She needs POWER! And while she's still powerful with her Chaos Body Martial Art, it's more meant for flexibility and confusing her opponents.

It's not a Martial Art focused on overwhelming power.

Therefore, if all she has to do is trade a few injuries for this to take out these 5 shadows, she'll gladly do it.

*Stab* *Stab*

The sword and twin dagger shadows stabbed Mira's body, but fortunately, Mira didn't leave herself completely open and still moved her body just enough so her vitals weren't hit.

In fact, Mira can very slightly move a few of her vitals, thanks to her Martial Intent. So, although her body was filled with holes, she kept slamming her scythe, legs, and golden tail down on the shield shadow until it eventually disappeared.

Immediately after, she filled her arms and body with Martial Intent and the rest of her Qi and slashed her scythe at the two shadows who had their weapons stuck in her body.

She contracted the muscles in her body to prevent their weapons from leaving and beheaded them right as they let go of their weapons to dodge.

Now, with nobody nearby, she inspected the arena.

The Fire, Wind, and Darkness ranged shadows died, but unfortunately, the Lightning one was able to get away. However, it wasn't unscathed.

Unfortunately, these shadows aren't human and don't feel pain. Even if it was injured, it would still be able to fight at full capacity unless its limbs were directly removed.

It was a shame that the lightning shadow was still alive, but Mira had achieved her goal, so she wasn't too disappointed.

After all, fighting 4 shadows is countless times better than fighting 10. In fact, in Round 4 of the 5th Stage, she was able to kill all 4 shadows in the hour she was given. It was difficult, but now that she's a bit more experienced with fighting against the Stage 5 shadows, it should be a bit easier.

However, right now, she's bloody and broken and has virtually no Qi left in her Core. Her body is working on recovering, but her wounds were too bad and would most likely take days to heal.

Luckily, she saved a few trump cards that can almost give her a guaranteed win as long as she plays it right. Those trump cards are her tails! Her tails have their own Qi storage, separate from her core, so even though she's running on empty, she can still use her tails' abilities.

Without hesitation, Mira ran toward the remaining shadows, activating her white and silver-white tails. A blizzard domain quickly appeared around her, along with a bunch of thin needle-like hairs.

Mira charged at them like a maniac! The shadows were already preparing their techniques to take her down once and for all, but Mira paid no mind to that.

Her injuries were really bad, and she needed to end this quickly, or she might really die of blood loss!

A split second later, Mira was only a few meters away from the four shadows, but by then, they'd already finished their techniques and launched them at her!

*WOOSH!*

*ROAR!*

A bladed tornado, a lightning dragon, a massive illusory hammer, and the image of a massive spear all came crashing down on Mira!

However, Mira's attention never left the four shadows.

Right as the techniques were about to hit Mira, she activated her sapphire tail, and a thin blue shield appeared around Mira, completely blocking all the techniques.

The shadows reacted immediately to this, but by then, it was already too late. Even if they could have predicted this, it didn't matter. They were already inside Mira's blizzard domain!

At almost the exact same time, Mira teleported 4 times inside her blizzard domain, and in one fell swoop, 4 shadow heads fell on the floor.

However, Mira wasn't exempt from this either, as she, too, fell on the floor.

[Congratulations to Successor Mira XXXX for-]

"Shut up and bring me out! While you're at it, use some of my points to buy a pill that can heal me!" Mira interrupted, using most of her remaining energy.

The F.LD.I.L did exactly as she said and transported her out of the Abyssal Battle Ladder, along with placing a pill in her hands, which she promptly took.

"I fucking… did it," Mira muttered while lying on the ground, waiting for her injuries to heal.