Coppelia kept her eyes fixed on the herd of boars, especially the Great Snowboar King, which was as massive as a small truck. She crouched slightly, signaling for the girl behind her to get on her back.
Columbina leaned forward, wrapping her arms over Coppelia's shoulders and clasping them in front. Her hair emitted a soft red glow as power surged from her body, constantly keeping Coppelia at full energy. The excess power made Coppelia's body as light as a feather, easing her burden.
The Great Snowboar King walked into the clearing the herd had left for it and let out a squeal. Dozens more black figures darted out from the depths of the forest, joining the group.
This herd of nearly a hundred boars moved nimbly, like a white tide, emitting a cacophony of squeals. The sound of their hooves was like thunder as they formed a tight encirclement around Coppelia and Columbina.
As soon as the circle closed, the Boar King pawed the ground, exhaled a frosty mist from its mouth, and fixed its now-crimson eyes on the two of them. It launched a reckless charge, crashing towards them like a small mountain.
"Hold on tight." Coppelia, carrying Columbina, made a perilous dodge to the right.
Seeing that it had missed, the Boar King slammed on its four hooves, but its inertia still sent it crashing into the rock wall, shaking loose a layer of the ice and snow covering its body.
To catch bandits, first catch the king. Coppelia's gaze focused on the Boar King, spotting the "armor" formed by the covering of ice and snow on its back.
While the Boar King was still staggered, she gathered Electro energy in her left palm, which flashed with a purple light. She clenched her right hand into a fist and covered it with a thick crystallization of Geo energy.
Leaping forward, she struck the icy "armor" on the Boar King's back with her left palm. The Superconduct reaction kicked up a cloud of ice mist, sending ice shards flying. Then, she smashed down violently with her right fist, which was encased in a rock "gauntlet."
"Crack...!"
The icy "armor" shattered on impact. As the fragments fell away, the Boar King's hide was torn from the armor's collapse.
Also exposed were several other massive claw marks, some so deep the bone was visible. The wounds were blackened, indicating they were old, perhaps inflicted by some giant beast.
The Boar King let out a deafening roar, silencing the clamorous squeals of the surrounding herd for a moment, before they became even more frenzied.
After shattering the "armor," Coppelia quickly retreated. She created a Geo crystal shield to protect the girl on her back and turned to deal with the annoying herd on the periphery.
She converted concentrated elemental orbs in both hands—Hydro in her left, Cryo in her right—and fired them in two different directions toward the herd. Then, she charged into the space between the two groups of boars.
"Alas, the falling leaves!" The phrase inexplicably slipped from Coppelia's lips.
Anemo energy rippled out, forming a whirlwind around her that spread the Hydro and Cryo elements across the two groups of boars.
When the whirlwind dissipated, a dozen boars around Coppelia were frozen solid in ice. She had wanted to follow up with a Pyro element attack to "listen to the sun's roar," but the Boar King had already recovered, and its second charge was nearly upon her!
Coppelia turned without hesitation, taking the heavy blow squarely in her abdomen.
"Bang—!"
The immense impact made her vision go black. Gritting her teeth against the sharp pain in her stomach, she took advantage of being sent flying to gather Anemo energy, providing another burst of propulsion.
The two forces sent them soaring like a broken kite, flying far away in a parabolic arc.
Seeing this, the Boar King used its tusks to continuously fling the boars that had been frozen into ice blocks, hurling them at Coppelia and Columbina in the air.
One frozen boar struck the Geo crystal shield Coppelia had created mid-air, and the impact actually accelerated their flight away.
Coppelia used her remaining Anemo energy to create a soft air cushion around them, buffering the damage from the landing.
They then tumbled like a rubber tire towards a lower-lying area, finally coming to a stop in a depression near the center of the valley.
Coppelia landed face down to avoid crushing Columbina, only then dispelling the Anemo air cushion.
Columbina shakily released her hands and rolled onto the ground beside her, lying on her back. Her entire body ached, and she had no desire to stand up.
"Flying is faster than running... We should have lost them, right?" Coppelia got up, preparing to help Columbina, but a glance at the hillside out of the corner of her eye made her heart sink.
On the hillside, a tide of boars, wreathed in white snow and ice, was sweeping down with immense force.
"Are you kidding me!" Coppelia directly scooped Columbina up from the ground and leaped onto an earthen slope at the edge of the depression. Looking ahead, she saw the cold lake water not far away—there was no retreat.
"Columbina, I need your power again."
"Yummy food..."
"Get through this, and you can have as much as you want!"
Coppelia faced the boar herd, already preparing Pyro and Dendro elements in her hands. The girl behind her stood up, wrapped her arms around her waist from behind, and rested her face on her back. Her ginger-red highlights lit up with a brilliant red glow as power flooded into Coppelia's core.
"This will be a huge burden on you. Let go of me immediately if you can't take it."
"Mmm."
The herd arrived instantly. The Boar King directed its boars to split into two groups, attempting to encircle them again.
Coppelia didn't give it the chance to divide its forces.
With a cry of "I'm counting on you, Collambei!" she threw the emerald-green ball of Dendro in her hand. With another shout of "Baron Bunny, go!" a blazing fireball landed among the herd, and the moment the Burning reaction triggered, a whistling orb of wind appeared in her hand. After another cry of "Type 75 Super Wind Module!" a storm of flames spread out, dyeing a large patch of the snowy ground crimson.
The boars' squeals seemed to pierce the sky. Some of the more timid ones lost their nerve and scattered in all directions.
For a moment, the Boar King stood there stunned, as if it had never witnessed such a scene.
Once the Dendro reaction was complete and the flames were still spreading on the wind, Coppelia shot a dazzling purple electric arc from between her hands.
"Time for a little shock!"
Coppelia thrust her hands forward, and a several-meter-long arc of electricity shot into the flaming herd.
"Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!"
The explosions were continuous, blasting the Boar King back until it fell heavily to the ground, and sending the other boars flying in all directions, unable to maintain their formation any longer.
After taking a beating, the Boar King finally snapped out of it. It let out a sharp howl, trying to regroup its forces, but with little success.
Coppelia controlled the timing of her Electro release. When the Overload reaction had just finished consuming the Pyro element, she immediately retracted the electric arc and instead condensed several icicles packed with concentrated Cryo energy around her.
"A grudge repaid in frost!"
The icicles launched forward, and the Cryo element turned into an icy mist that enveloped the herd.
Suddenly, the hands holding her loosened. She immediately spun around, catching the now-unconscious Columbina with a speed almost invisible to the naked eye, and carefully laid her down.
The struggling Great Snowboar King finally managed to rally its troops—some had fled, some were dead, some were injured. In the end, only twelve trembling boars remained, shivering not from fear of Coppelia or the extreme cold of the Cryo element, but from the pain of their wounds and their accumulated fury.
With no energy supply, Coppelia jumped down from the slope, intending to engage in close-quarters combat.
But the color suddenly seemed to drain from her vision, leaving everything a monochrome gray-white.
She knew this was definitely not the proper color of moonlight on snow, because the shadows in the forest, which should have been black, were also rendered in the same gray-white.
She shook her head, hoping it would restore her vision to normal.
"Don't fail on me now!"
She opened her eyes again. The gray-white world was now dotted with tiny, colorful particles, shimmering and drifting in the soil, in the snow, and in the air.
"This is... Elemental Sight!"
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