Ebony swung Dusk like a bat, crashing directly onto Xin's hasty cross block. Without a training field that could exert them in an accelerated fashion, they could only go back to sparring for their conditioning.

The cold environment with thick gravity mana was helping a lot. The only issue was that his Domain was not having an easy time staying present because the climate was constantly freezing the external edges of the Domain he summoned with Will.

But through sheer volume, a small 100-metre diameter Domain could be maintained stably with all his enhancements at peak capacity.

Two hundred swords with Icicle in the lead barraged towards the zipping fire bird in the sky. Every evaded sword that slipped through their gravity tunnel smashed deep into the ground and kicked snow up.

The swords never stopped spawning and rained after the zapping light.

Ebony wasn't conjuring them fast enough, even with Will.

Predicting her flight path to get his conjurations ahead of her leads to futility with her Intuition. Even the uncommon instance when he nicked her would merely have the targeted areas transmute into black flames before he did any damage or had any ice mana dig into her.

It was a training session where he was meant to conserve mana to strengthen their base tree, so he didn't cast a storm of projectiles to hit the entire area.

The thing that affected her the most was the sound of constant impact of anything physical coming into contact within the Domain made her extremely uncomfortable.

Blossoms aren't even touching her. They were sliced apart before they reached her.

'Not exactly a Domain, but the Intent swirling around her has gotten too thick for my Will to affect.' His opponent was using Intuition to adjust the range and density of her magic body, enough for her to prevent foreign mana from spawning too close to her body but not far enough to decrease the intensity of her Intent.

At the right distance for different opponents, she would have just enough time to react to any magic projectiles spawning around her within another mage's Domain so that they'll never hit her.

'Ting' 'You've been inflicted with [Inherited Stamp - Infernal Blood]'

[Inherited Stamp - Infernal Blood] of the Sword Witch grants a base

15264 points in Strength

27534 points in Vitality

8516 points in Constitution

10985 points in Agility

Consumes 49500 Health per second

Ebony had to simulate a few exercises to get those numbers because there was no information on what the 'infliction' did. At least his wife knew that her brand of Stamp gave a direct boost to stats, and it was adjusted according to the target's base traits, so these numbers were specifically for him.

If she placed her Inherited Stamp on someone else, the numbers would change according to their baseline traits.

Because Infernal Blood also gave him a base increase in Vitality, his maximum health was vastly increased, but 49500 Health per second was still diabolical. His original maximum pool was no greater than 20,000 after the effect on Conditioning on his Vitality.

Someone with his stats would last less than a second, and the Inherited Stamp would merely be a deadly curse, not an enhancement skill.

Although health or life force wasn't like mana and was always being regenerated, whether or not you were taking damage, unlike mana with magic casting. Which meant his life force regenerated at a pace of 10% of his maximum health pool per hour plus the fact that his mana chassis held life force, which increased its pace greatly thanks to his mana regeneration rate.

A quarter mana-being was nice to be. He wouldn't die even if he didn't get a Vitality boost from the Stamp itself, thanks to his mana regeneration rate also boosting his health regeneration to similarly ridiculous rates.

Ebony had learned that his body normally adjusts its health regeneration rates to a degree as low as possible. Because unlike mana regeneration, health regeneration consumes vastly more energy. Meaning the consumption of his nutrients, body muscle, bone strength and whatnot.

The Stamp would still drain him out by starving him out faster than he ever experienced.

Without Fortifications or Skills to change that, vastly sped-up regenerated limbs would be weak even if he regenerated their form from his mana chassis.

But, with his base Vitality stat at 1300. The increment of 27534 was ridiculous.

More importantly, the base Constitution did wonders. This was unaffected by his compressed mana, pure Constitution increment made his body able to take massive amounts more mana compared to his original stat of 1500.

Meaning his body wasn't as easily destroyed by his Arsenal of Will Domain, Fabrication of Frostblaze Embodiment can be blasted at higher densities of mana from his Coagulated Mana Repository without him turning himself into ice dust.

Currently, Xin has [Inherited Stamp - Altarbound] stamped on her mask. She also knew his Physique rather well, but it was not so easy to copy and make it into a vitality based blood magic spell but she did have a work in progress of [Inherited Stamp - Martial Grace] already stamped on her.

He did not quite approve when she marred her delicate, fair skin with this stamp, but since it was her spell, her body. He wasn't in the place to control what she did.

Infernal Blood was stamped on his neck, running from under his collar and almost to his chin. She didn't control where it appeared; the spell simply adjusts itself based on its purpose.

It was in the shape of a bird. A Phoenix, with its tail reaching his chest, curling around where his heart was, and its beak cracking open under his jaw towards his mouth.

The work in progress [Inherited Stamp - Martial Grace] was a swirling mess that hadn't taken proper form, but it was under her belly button and was spreading around her torso. Wrapping her waist and attempting to hug her back. It was around where a person's muscular core strength comes from, which made sense for balance and control.

The more of his blood she drank, the faster she could form and develop a proper Inherited Stamp.

Other side effects besides the loss of health were the burning feeling in his blood, high body temperature and even aggression creeping in. The mental effect melted away from his mind, not even giving Adamant Mental Tolerance a chance to warm up.

She seemed to agree to give the Toddiums some respect, but he was genuinely taking it slow to recover for a better, nicer fight, knowing that he could have given more power.

However, training was training. They couldn't slow down their progress.

Miss Wiggles wanted to continue treasure or food hunting, but fell right to sleep after becoming a huggable doll for his wife. Her energy consumption might even be higher than Xin's.

"As much as I'd like to continue…hmm, guess we don't have much time." Waves of heat broiled over his face as her blood wings flapped over, and the instincts took over her head.

Inherited Stamp – Infernal Blood boiled within him.

"Hmm?" Ebony's superior eyesight managed to form the figures swimming in the sky.

They were physically familiar, but their mana's were blaring out with more aggression than his wife herself.

"Vent's Orcas…." Looking at his wife, 'looks like it's on me to calm both parties down.'

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The question of why these 3 Chilblain Orcas were here was not important now. Their presence made him think that Vent was somewhere on the planet.

Why would he be Sectors away from Elcra on a planet that shouldn't be in normal space also wasn't a priority question.

A splatter was seen in his eyes and transmitted to his mind, but his body couldn't even react fast enough before it was his turn. A tail whip uppercut shattered his chin and strained his neck.

He would spit a tooth out if he could, but another Orca rammed into his chest from the side.

'Mana chassis got shocked and numbed…frostbite? The factory around my chin and chest crumbled. Creatures attuned to magic might just be my bane.' Ebony realized that he couldn't even magically take control of his body when portions that were hit had his mana chassis damaged in a single hit.

The Orcas smirked.

They were having fun slapping him into the air and back down, they were using him as a play ball. While Xin was constantly forced to scatter as flames.

His arm reflexively spun Dusk around for no reason.

And a glow of light cyan overtook his eyes.

"Vent's pets…fun is fun. But Xin doesn't look like she's having a lot of fun, so how about focusing on me for a minute?" Dusk held a Mantle of Reservation in a sphere and reversed it to trap them in.

Taking the chance when Xin was scattered out of this sphere's range to keep her out.

Dusk spread Ebony's arms out wide, using their body as the core of a gravity vortex. It was strong enough to make the Orcas pick him over the lady who jumped into his reverse Mantle of Reservation sphere not a second later.

Dusk used Ebony's arm and tossed its new body at Xin, stabbing her robe to the ground and his Will keeping her stuck there in physical form by getting ahold of her mask and sealing it.

They were hoping her Intuition stopped or slowed her down from breaking free while she built her Sword Art up against the Numbers and their Phantom Shades. When Dusk felt her understanding their intention, they flew back to Ebony.

Dusk's attention was dragged back to the Orcas when huge chunks of ice dropped from their bodies.

'They froze the Mantle of Reservation used as a seal by freezing the lump of mana after using arcane mana to mentally contact and grab hold of the gravity mana.' The huge chunks of gravity infused ice were unable to be mentally lifted by both Ebony and the Orcas.'

Hail started to form around them as the Orcas' breath attack solidified gravity around them.

They gave him a playful smirk and paused a large chunk of ice around to each other by their tail slapping, still playing with each other.

Although the Orcas had Will potent enough for him to sense, they weren't pushing it or actively manipulating it to support their mana. So their ball tossing stopped when Dusk ripped the gravity-infused ice away from them and halted the hail from falling at the expense of some Will.

Dusk 'thought' through its body, but instead of 1 plum, 3 were conjured.

The frozen gravity was broken apart and fed into the plums. The leaking flames and frozen blood they stole from Xin was wrapped in mana before also being fed into the plums.

Each of the Orcas faced a couple of Apparitions and their Phantom Shades, chomping and slapping ice mana or the after-images with thin physical manifestation. Dusk and the Orcas played with all the hail left over to refract light into the Orcas' eyes to make them see various things.

It didn't matter if their mana perception was high; creatures with sight still relied on and were affected by sight. In any case, their Apparitions can hop from mana construct to mana construct to make their perception think that each illusion that had life within.

The mini plum bombs were ready, but they were impossible to hide with the mixture of mana they were made of. Invisible, they found themselves in the hands of the Apparitions, but the Orcas had enough and released another breath of cold air from their mouths.

The Orcas' Breath wasn't suppressed by their Will immediately and forcefully spread, encasing the mini plum bombs. To which their breath latched on and forced a hole open to disrupt and unleash the mana within.

Three explosions blasted out where they were, but a forceful inward press from all directions of the breath contained the explosion to a 12 metre diameter explosion that wasn't even close to the Orcas' bodies.

Dusk raised Ebony's arms and lunged his right leg forward, stabbing his rod-body at the closest Orca's eyeball. Piercing through a centimetre or so before it was stuck hard.

The tip that held their core burst a few million points of mana into flames, but that too wasn't able to dig further before the Orca had its magic body or a spell to stop any foreign mana intrusion.

The charge had Ebony's left leg chomped to his thigh and upper left shoulder with most of his upper torso inside another mouth. The other two of them didn't let the opportunity go.

"Did you think I got in the air to make myself a bigger target?"

Their eyes went bloodshot, and their jaws tightened with a crack.

The gluttonous Orcas fell and kicked up snow while they spasmed and caused tremors with their tail whips against the ground.

'Covering my bones like our tree trunk worked, but it needs to painfully displace some muscles.' Watching them spasm after drinking his blood, Dusk forced a smirk back.

Not just anyone could drink his blood without getting mana poisoning. His new robe might be tough, but they were still not heavy armour. Choosing not to scale Ebony up in armour paid off.

Dusk moved its body to guard Ebony against the tail swipe. They were a little too fast for both Dusk and Imprinted Ebony and were still knocked out like a light.

The Orca they stabbed didn't appear blinded, and the two spasming Orcas already got back into the air after mere moments.

'Didn't even take them 0.04 seconds to flush out all that mana?' Dusk quickly ducked out of the way when an incinerating heatwave spread across Ebony's back.

"Mine!" Some semblance of recognition was given despite her breaking free from the Numbers.

Stealing all the attention with her Intent blaring pure hostility, the personification of power and speed challenged all three Orcas at the same time, no longer getting slapped around and even adding cuts to their playful smacking tails and hammering heads.

Now Dusk simply had to empower all her movements while doing the opposite for their opponents. Gravity magic wasn't quite working offensively due to their magic body, so he was glad to find out that his partner's magic body seemed open to his mana, perhaps by Intuition she was able to put the natural magic defenses down for him to support her with Resonant Battle Hymn too.

It was a bit of a shame that Dusk didn't have enough Will or potent enough Will to prevent the Orcas from casting a storm of hail, mentally having a tug of war with the ice mana present in this small sphere of reversed Mantle of Reservation he trapped themselves in. But that was enough to keep them distracted while his partner aimed to chop them up.

"Combined spell coming, I can't break it down faster than they're rebuilding it. Similar to Jetfin's combined spell formation of 3. A breath explosion or an area of effect beam coming." Dusk reported with sound magic.

They were familiar enough with mana and the ice element to tell what kind of spell a certain motion or gathering of mana would cast.

The spell was forming outside his Mantle of Reservation and their small range Domain. They didn't exactly have spare Will for a large Domain after getting absorbed by their new staff body.

'I can't tell if it can go through the Mantle of Reservation shell.' Dusk warned since preparing for the worst was a basic instinct at this point.

'My Will should include not letting any energy or stuff like foreign Will escape out of my Domain to cast spells from outside my range.' Dusk informed Ebony, who was fully awake, just sitting back in his mind while relinquishing his body's control.

Dusk caught the mask that was tossed towards their staff body and instinctively understood what their origin's partner wanted. Blood started to fill an ice branch that grew a single plum.

There was never any leeway for complaints about how underprepared he was and only room for improvement. At least with a refreshed Dusk, implementing new changes would not take as long as years.

Ebony did not send himself to be a ball, but he unhesitatingly took his body control back now that the Orcas were busy both body and mind, he took the opportunity to join in. Icicle scraped against skin while his kick pushed him back more than it did his target, but his figure was untouched while he landed hits everywhere out of their opponent's line of sight or ability to shift while they were parrying more lethal strikes from his wife.

He knew where their mental focus was, he knew their line of sight and blind spots. Every part of that was a target for him to push his ice deep while burning them within, even skin deep freezing was useful.

The fact that they were burning up from his wife's attacks only steamed the creature's internals because his ice doesn't melt easily.

Their large bodies deflated like a balloon when they figured his flames were stacking and beginning to overwhelm their ability to keep foreign mana out while they were busy casting a spell outside the shell.

He got his ice mana muscle deep within his targets the next minute of Crystalline Avalanches and Quaking Impact with him and his Shades.

All of his Numbers had already been sent out to continue their attempts in dispelling the Orcas' spell. They did well in slowing it down, but their limited Will and their current numbers were insufficient against the 3 King-ranked Orcas' mental ability and mana manipulation.

Over a dozen purple tendrils floated around them from the Orcas' bodies. To think they could even resist her extraction of blood and vitality. Wounds around the Orca's weak spots were beginning to close faster than the blood mage and sword witch could exacerbate them.

A particularly thick stream zipped into Ebony's sight as his wife back-stepped right in front of him.

"Hey, they are still friendlies." Ebony communicated with his Will, hoping his words got through to the sword witch with an oddly shaped and large heart stuck on her sword.

The chest of one of the Orcas had a thin red incision, it was hard to believe she managed to slip out a heart larger than their heads out of a sword-thin puncture wound.

"No one else is supposed to take a bite out of you but me. Understood?" She snapped her head back to glare at him despite the danger of looking away from their opponents.

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