Chapter 2215: Strategic Choices
Sage Kole Kellin would be lying if she said her nerves didn't tingle.
This was her first true battle in more than a decade.
It was also her first time executing an order by the Emperor to whom she had pledged her undying loyalty.
In other words, it was the first time she had the opportunity to pay back some of the astronomical debt she owed her new home and her new liege.
She needed to perform.
If she didn't, then she would be conceding that she was unworthy of the miracle that Emperor Rael had bestowed upon her.
'Anything but that...' Her expression grew steely as she balled her fists before activating her most powerful technique.
The Divine Inferno Fist technique.
FWHOOOSH!
White hot fires emerged, encompassing the entirety of her fists, crackling as she exerted herself to maintain control over them.
To call them an inferno was a misnomer.
After all, they weren't flames.
No.
They were plasma.
Not just any kind of plasma but a particularly hyper-heated plasma known as quark-gluon plasma that was matter broken down to its most fundamental constituents and forces. At the Sage Realm, fire was a primitive source of energy and a paltry means of attack. Thus, upon entry to the Sage Realm, she had tapped into the greater forces that governed the very universe itself.
Discovering and mastering this exotic form of matter and energy had been the most difficult task in her entire life, but once she had succeeded, her lethality had risen so much that it had been enough to propel her to become a high-grade Martial Sage.
With the power of high principles, her technique and Martial Art had been reborn.
She was the Master of the Inferno Fist.
"HA!" She surged forward to her opponent with a fiery expression as her fists—shining with white-hot plasma—flew towards him.
BOOOM!! BOOOM!! BOOOM!!
"Urgh...!" Her opponent grimaced with a furious expression. "Damn you!"
Sage Senpu leaped back as his hands burned under the temperature of Sage Kole's inferno fist, gritting his teeth. She set him up.
He knew it for a fact.
"What's the matter?" Sage Kole growled, narrowing her eyes. "You wanted a war, didn't you? Well..."
Her bloodlust surged as she shot toward him at a high pace. "You got one."
A smile appeared on his crumpled expression as he ignored her incoming attack, activating a wind attack and pointing it to his side, away from her.
In the direction of the Kandrian Empire.
Sage Kole's expression grew grave as she shifted directions with haste.
WHOOOOOSH!!!
A powerful wind blast surged toward the Kandrian Empire.
One that possessed the power to level the entire nation flat.
Only to be chopped down by the might of her Divine Inferno Fist just in time.
BOOOM!!!
She used the heat of her technique to dispel the wind currents, protecting Kandria from destruction.
For a moment, the two Martial Sages faced each other in silence as their Martial Minds and systems of thought revved into full power.
The bald Martial Sage tucked the sleeves of his Martial attire as he fell into thought, gazing at the white plasma crackling around the fists of Sage Kole.
She was the worst type of opponent for him.
His Martial Path was Kinetic Redirection.
He manipulated the flow of power and momentum of his opponent's attacks after coming into contact with them and used it against them. At the Sage Realm, he had even gone as far as to incorporate space manipulation, one of the highest principles of high principles known in all of Martial Art.
However, it was ineffective against her type.
Specifically, the type of offensive Martial Artist that didn't rely on momentum to inflict damage but through a principle that allowed them to inflict damage just by contact alone. This was the type he was most ill-suited to handle. Redirection required contact, after all.
However, against her, he couldn't afford to make contact with much of her arm.
Thus, many of his techniques were rendered obsolete.
"You..." His eyes narrowed. "You planned for this, didn't you, Sage Kole?"
She wasn't surprised that he recognized her after she activated her technique. Even though he probably had no idea who she was prior due to how infrequently she had made public appearances during her time in the Panamic Martial Federation, only an idiot would not put the pieces together after seeing her unique, flashy technique.
"Perhaps I did," she calmly replied even as her systems of thought furiously processed her circumstances.
As a full-contact, close-range fighter, her greatest strategic challenge in battles tended to be actually getting a hit on her opponents. After all, after seeing the lethality of her technique, her opponents did everything in their power to ensure they didn't get touched by her.
It was because of this that her Martial Mind was filled with strategic and tactical systems of thought that allowed her to get into contact with her opponent. Under normal circumstances, she would have already been aggressively pursuing them already. However, there were variables that changed these circumstances.
Her goal was not victory.
At least, not yet.
She needed to stall and tire her opponent out.
After all, the Kandrian Empire possessed more Martial Sages that had yet to be deployed.
They were waiting for the right moment.
Too soon, the enemy Martial Sages would simply adopt a highly defensive and retreating strategy, and this would allow the Kandrian forces to wipe out the Martial Masters of the Sekigahara Confederate.
However, killing Martial Sages was far more desirable for their strategic long-term victory in this war than just killing Martial Masters. That was why the other Martial Sages of the Martial Union were hidden, waiting for the right moment.
The perfect ambush.
All Sage Kole really needed to do was ensure that the Kandrian Empire did not come to harm in the time being. Killing her opponent was not a priority right now; tiring him out so that his reaction time and reflexes were slower than their peak was the most optimal outcome.
Once his stamina plummeted to such a level, he would be more vulnerable to ambushes than ever before.