Kat was a little shocked to hear that last part, and froze up more than she was proud to admit. She was still ready enough for any attacks Xiao launched, but it would have been delayed. *I… I never even considered that something like that could actually be a bad thing. Killing you seems rather extreme… but I suppose if they are so good there had to be some catch. Hell, even as a demon there are some catches like that anger thing with my tail. Still… is the difference that I'm a full demon? And how does that work anyway. I was human before, and the system admitted as much… but apparently I'm now 100% demon…*
"That seems a bit extreme. Me, I don't have a fancy bloodline like that, and I'm not sure what your first guess would be, but I'm actually a demon" said Kat
Kat could hear the instant Xiao's muscles tensed. It was like hearing a rabbit band snapping back into place. Every single one of Xiao's muscles contracted when he heard her speak the words.
Xiao's eyes narrowed and he said "Oh? The young lad seems rather dealt with… do I need to go back and wipe out his whole clan? Demon summoning was outlawed for a reason… it seems I might be unable to defeat you…"
Kat shrugged "Well, don't worry about genocide or whatever, the kid" Kat pointed to Xiang's 'corpse' and pretended to be unconcerned "found an old storage warehouse of some long dead clan. They thought it was this important site of their ancestors though. The summoning circle was busted enough that I ended up here instead of someone actually fit for the job, and it's well and truly broken now that it has been used and I may or may not have destroyed the defences around it as well"
Xiao's eyes narrowed further upon hearing the conflicting information Kat was giving out. To him, she seemed to be arguing for her weakness… yet she had casually managed destroying ancient demon sealing techniques. Those two things did not go together well in his mind, eventually he said "I see… well I suppose it is slightly good to hear that. What was the brat after anyway? Surely it doesn't matter now he's dead"
*Welp. Try to embrace my inner succubus and hope it's good enough excuse.* "Well, you know how it is… I'm not a girl to kiss and tell, so I won't be able to share that with you" *Because I've never kissed or told anyone. Unless you count Sylvie's cheeks… and Gramps' knee when I was really little… Eh, I'm going to say it doesn't count.*
"Well, I suppose that's understandable, if disappointing. And I also know how you demons love your contracts… so I suppose there isn't much getting out of this fight is there?" asked Xiao
*Now that is a good question.* Kat checked her reserves and found them… well they weren't full but she was willing to call 85% good enough. *I'd love to say we can all just walk away from this… but you guys are basically magic bandits… and that's pretty bad… even then. If Xiang wasn't somehow alive, I'd probably accept. I really don't want to be attacking people I don't really have a proper grudge against. It's just Xiang's word against theirs… Aw well.*
"I mean, you could always walk away yourself?" suggested Kat
Xiao laughed slightly, in a barking, disingenuous way. "No"
And that was the signal to start. Xiao's aura flared around him like a billowing flame. Unlike the others who had their own white light cling to their body, hovering only a few millimetres from the skin or clothes it was projecting over, Xiao's flowed around him, giving even more credence to his firey tendency.
When he started moving, he jumped straight towards Kat. He had seen the failure of multiple high level techniques and was slightly regretting his fire specialty. His many fights it had won him, even against other fire users made him confident in it… and yet one demon with a complete resistance to even the strongest fires made him question it.
Nonetheless, he was an experienced combatant with a sword. And he subscribed to the theory that if your attack failed, you just needed a stronger attack. Sure, he was choosing to use a different one now, favouring his sword, but if the fire did no damage was it really stronger?
Kat for her part, while not particularly adept in combat, realised that Xiao was rushing her for a reason. She didn't know anything at all about technique in real battles, or sword fighting. But she did know that she wasn't confident enough with her fans to even attempt blocking the sword. And it would be hell on her reserves to use her skin and bones to make up the slack.
So Kat decided to double down. Pumping demonic energy throughout her entire body, Kat shot towards him in response. She moved as fast as possible and brought her hands down towards him clenched together in fists. Kat wasn't trying for anything fancy, she just wanted to hit Xiao with her full strength and speed.
So when he dug his feet in and met her charge, Kat was slightly concerned, but she couldn't stop now. Her fists met a loud clang ran out and the qi around Xiao flared. His feet were pressed into the ground, which cracked and gave way… but he did not fall. He held strong and started to push Kat back.
Now Kat, was already more than shocked that he could block her. For him to also start pushing her backwards was something she never considered possible. So, what she did next was acting purely on instinct. Luckily for her, it worked well.
Kat's tail snaked around from behind her and speared straight towards Xiao's exposed side. He managed to bring his arm down into the way while keeping her fists in place. A strange cracking sound, like glass that was being bent rang out, before he managed to recover and push Kat back a step.
That was enough for Xiao to make his own retreat. He jumped back and out of Kat's range. His leap kept him close to the ground, but the distance he covered was nothing to laugh at. It covered a full ten metres with his single leap.
Kat decided, it would be best to keep him on the defensive still. She charged right after him and… well… it was basically just flailing her arms towards the man and hoping for the best, or hoping her nails could scratch a large enough gash on his arm to start a bit of bleeding.
It did not go well. It was clear that Kat was much faster than Xiao, easily reaching double his speed, perhaps more. Each of her blows were redirected with a large thud and an accompanying flash of red light as his qi coating him dimmed just a little bit more. But it wasn't enough Kat was losing her own energy much faster in this purely physical match up. Xiao's eyes were just barely good enough to follow her movements, and his technique made up for what he lacked in speed against his untrained opponent.
Kat grimaced when her energy reached fifty percent again. She had wasted so much just slamming into Xiao, and hated to waste even more by bringing out her own, very lethal flames… but it was looking like she didn't have a choice. She could hear people in the inner compound moving around, and there were a few she had yet to lay eyes on, that, Kat was sure. If a second expert was around, Kat needed to be ready.
Kat let her purple flame leak out of her hands. Now every blow she landed let out a sharp hissing and popping sound, like boiling water squeezed into a tight space and desperately trying to escape. Xiao's qi reacted poorly to this. It flared and spluttered and pulled in on him rapidly, slowly losing its billowing flame like quality as Kat's own flames beat their superiority into his qi.
Xiao was growing desperate. He could see he was losing, but Kat hadn't slowed down at all. Her hits were untrained yes, but no less deadly for that fact. If an attack hit his body proper, he would burn through so much qi it might just be the end of him with that one strike. That however, lead to his tunnel vision. As his gazed narrowed and focused on Kat's burning fists coming one after another… he forgot Kat's other weapon.
Kat pulled back just a little bit longer on her next punch, breaking the nice rhythm she had settled into and threw all she had at Xiao. He was ready of course, and met her high strike towards his head with a cold steel blade.. Of course… that now left his legs open to a blazing strike from her tail.