Freezing is not worse than burning

Nathan did not wait for Siena to make another move, so he approached her in a straight line.

The friction of the ground had decreased, and it seemed as if he was walking on ice, which made it difficult for him to move, but nothing impossible.

However, as soon as Nathan approached the lotuses, one suddenly appeared in his path. Ignoring it, he tried to pass through it, but when he was only a few centimeters away from it, he felt the essence of the lotus burst out from inside of it.

Nathan immediately stepped back and then the lotus exploded, releasing frost that stuck to his body.

Covering his face with his arms, Nathan watched the frost cloud as it began to fade.

'Shit... those lotuses are like landmines'

Nathan frowned as he saw how he was now completely surrounded by ice lotuses. It was then that Sienna began to slowly walk towards him.

When she was about to touch a lotus, she raised her hand and moved it to the side gently. The lotus glided in the air as if there was no gravity, then she repeated the same with more lotuses as she approached him.

Nathan stood still watching as the young woman moved closer to him moving more lotuses out of her way.

'How many are there?'

He tried to count how many lotuses there were but gave up when the count reached over twenty.

Sighing, Nathan raised his sword again.

'Never mind... if they're mines, I just have to cut them down'

Again, Nathan began to approach it, then when he came across a lotus he simply raised his sword and cut it in half.

The lotus exploded again but this time its explosion was smaller. Even so, the frost spread sticking to the edge of his sword and his body.

Then Siena was already a couple of meters in front of him, so he did not hesitate and raised his rapier in an attempt to stab him.

Nathan deflected the first rapier attack and then the second. Then he realized that the attacks were not really strong, but they were quite fast.

Siena kept pressing him with thrusts from which Nathan had to defend himself while being careful not to accidentally touch any lotuses.

In addition, with the low friction of the ground, Nathan had to be careful not to slip as he kept deflecting the thrusts.

Without realizing it, Siena had pushed him back, then he felt a surge of essence behind him, but it was too late, and a lotus exploded behind his back, causing him to momentarily lose his balance, which was enough for Siena to lunge at his leg.

Nathan was barely able to react by moving his leg at the same time as he deflected the rapier, so that only a cut was left on his leg.

Nathan stepped back again careful not to crash into any lotuses, then raised his sword and clicked his tongue.

'She's completely overwhelming me... I need to do something'

He looked around and realized that not all of the combat arena was covered in frost, only some of it. Also, it seemed that when Siena moved, the frost moved with her, as if she was the center.

This took away Nathan's ability to move away, so he had no choice but to look for other ways to deal with it.

But the only problem was not the frosty ground or the lotuses, but he could feel his fingers getting slightly numb from the cold and the explosions of the lotuses.

Nathan let out another puff of air through his mouth and flexed his legs slightly.

Siena frowned when she saw Nathan crouching down like this and stopped, then Nathan took advantage of the fact that she had stopped to run back to her.

When he defended himself from her attacks, he realized that Siena, as fast as she was with her attacks and as annoying as her technique was, her blows were not too strong.

He sacrificed strength for speed, one for the other.

Realizing this, Nathan decided to confront her directly with heavy and forceful attacks.

Nathan ignored the lotuses that began to explode around him, filling him with frost, and focused only on attacking Siena.

Seeing him approaching so explosively, Sienna tried to retreat, so Nathan shrank back slightly and let his feet glide across the ice without bothering to walk.

When he got close enough to Siena, he raised his sword and slashed.

Sienna did not stay to block or deflect his katana. The rapier was a light weapon and therefore fragile to strong blows, so she had to dodge.

Nathan had thought of this and by cutting the ground he stopped his slide, then increased his leg muscles with essence and jumped, breaking through the layer of frost that covered the ground and propelling himself towards Siena.

She didn't wait for Nathan to be so wild as to ignore his own body and only seek her out.

Clicking her tongue in annoyance for the first time since the fight began, Sienna swung her rapier horizontally and five ice lotuses appeared right in front of where her rapier passed.

Nathan frowned as he realized that Siena could create lotuses whenever and wherever she wanted, but he knew there was a limit to how many she could create.

With no time to stop or retreat, Nathan swung his sword horizontally, cutting all the lotuses at once.

The explosion of frost covered him completely, but Nathan ignored the pain in his limbs from the hypothermia he was beginning to suffer.

That didn't stop him, and he walked through the frost cloud and met Siena head on.

"Freezing is no worse than burning!"

Nathan continued his attack against Sienna who had to retreat again dodging his attacks with no chance to defend herself.

No matter how many openings Nathan was showing right now, Sienna had no chance to take advantage of them, and he himself was aware of that.

Siena's method of combat consisted of wearing her opponent down and taking advantage of when he was already weak and slowed down by the ice to finish him off. But Nathan seemed to be completely fine.

But that was not true.

Nathan could no longer feel his hands, and now he could only hold the sword because he was using the essence to tense the muscles in his fingers and wrist.

"You're crazy!"

It was the first time in the entire fight that Sienna lost her composure and her expression changed.

Then Nathan smiled behind his mask and attacked her again with a vertical attack.

Siena gritted her teeth as she created more lotuses, but Nathan simply slashed at them again, ignoring the cloud of frost.

Seeing this, Siena simply gave up and put all the essence she could into her sword again.

Nathan felt the surge of essence and knew that Sienna was about to perform an attack like the first one she had done.

"Okay, let's finish this!"

Nathan also gathered as much essence as he could inside his sword and raised it as Sienna pointed the tip of her rapier at him.

The essence of both reached a maximum and they attacked at the same time.

A black aura unconsciously appeared on Nathan's sword while a cold but deadly aura exploded from the tip of Siena's rapier.

Then both attacks came together and exploded, creating a great cloud of frost that covered a large part of the arena.