Minor took off, in the opposite direction Kat had pointed. Kat shrugged and followed behind, but for every step they took, the sound of a whirring club and repeated impacts started to get louder and louder.
Kat gave an unamused glare at the back of Minor's head, but the wry grin on her face told the real story. *Show off.* Minor for her part, glanced back and saw Kat's look, then giggled in response knowing that she had managed to bring a little levity to their situation.
As the tunnel continued, Kat could feel it shrinking as it started to scrape against her horns. She pulled in her wings as well to prevent them from catching the wall. After a few more steps she could feel her horns starting to scrape away snow that was dropping down on her.
"Hey Minor, it doesn't bother me, but it might be a problem for however you are making this tunnel. My horns seem to be taking chunks off the ceiling" said Kat
Minor whipped around in panic and looked at Kat with wide eyes. Minor's eyes focused on the ceiling where the pointed part of her horns that poked up above her forehead were clearly imbedded in the roof.
"Oh" said Minor "That's my bad. I didn't notice I was doing that. No wonder things were getting so much harder"
Kat tilted her head "Why is it harder this way? I mean I suspected, but I'd still like to know"
Minor turned around and continued walking as she spoke. "See, with the tricks I'm using, I'm abusing a few things, like the fact tunnels just keep going, as well as the fact that ice is easy to walk through
"Those factors combine to make it easy to keep walking forward down a tunnel. My mind must have drifted a little and that's what caused the tunnel to shrink. The issue with that is, you're breaking the uniformity of the tunnel
"So, my mind tries to correct for that, and your body is more than capable of forcing itself out of the abstract so we were clashing in a battle of wills you didn't even notice"
Kat frowned as she followed behind. The ceiling had already returned to its previous height where she could feel it only at the height of her step where it lightly touched the tunnel. It was still much narrower than before but Kat didn't mind. "Were we really clashing wills? I find it hard to believe mine is that much stronger than yours" said Kat
"Um… it's a little more complicated than that. You might not be, but you were preventing your core self from changing while I was just trying to keep a bit of snow in place. Think um… ah, ok I got it.
"So, say that our core self is an ice cube, and the changes we make to the environment is the water that falls off. Even with a tonne of water, you can only take small chips out of a large compact piece of ice, but if you drop that same cube of ice into the water the impact is massive" said Minor
Kat nodded along behind Minor "Ok that actually does make sense. My 'ice cube' is more than solid enough to ignore a few droplets of water but the wall… what is it in this analogy?"
Minor shrugged "I guess it's sand on the side of the river or something? The water can easily carry it away, but trying to smash into it with an ice cube won't really work. It's why we can only make little changes, and have to make use of currents, I.E, mental ideas and shortcuts"
Kat nodded more vigorously now "That makes a tonne of sense. I think I get how your abilities in here work"
"Well I'm glad" said Minor "Also, we're here. Are you ready"
Kat tilted her head, and listened for the sound of grinding from the battle presumably above them. She could hear it somewhat clearly, but the snow was a much better insulator that it should have been.
Still Kat took in a deep breath and steeled herself. "Just go for the leg, or at most the knee" said Minor "You can do more damage later if need be"
Kat finished her breath and nodded. As she bent her knees and prepared for the jump Minor moved off to the side and placed her hand on the ceiling… which was actually a lot lower around her.
Kat's eyes met Minor and they nodded slightly at each other. Minor threw the door open and Kat launched herself out without hesitation. As the door opened Kat saw herself hurtling straight for the thing's leg. She was only a few metres away and approaching fast.
The sound hit Kat the moment she passed the layer of snow, but she didn't let that distract her. Flaring her wings to quickly stop in place she set her hands on fire and plunged them into the monster's leg.
Unlike how previous Nightmare's reacted and required sufficient effort, this one was set ablaze. A huge area twice as tall as Kat blazed into light with only a moderate amount of demonic energy. The leg started to freeze before her eyes.
Kat wound up for a second strike, only for her ears to ring when the background noise suddenly stopped. Kat's eyes went wide as she dived straight back for where Minor was hiding, taking no time to check the surroundings.
As she shot down Minor's eyes went wide seeing the golem lifting up its undamaged leg to take a stomp at Kat. Minor dug her hands into the snow door and got ready. The instant Kat was even partially through the door Minor pulled on it as hard as she could.
The door slammed shut and ended up pushing Kat the last of the way as it slammed shut. Minor then started pulling Kat forward but she got the message, unwrapping her tail from her ears and grabbing Minor, Kat shot off back down the tunnel they'd left.
As soon as Kat's feet left the ground, a boom echoed from everywhere. The world shook and Kat slammed into the wall as it vibrated. As Kat started to recover the tunnel shrunk to half its size in a single breath.
It didn't collapse, and while a bit of snow fell down, it simply flattened the tunnel until there was no room for Kat to so much as crouch. Sandwiched between the ceiling and the floor Kat grunted as she tried to turn over and make space.
Only for a second quake to occur. Kat braced herself as her space was reduced to solely the area around herself and Minor. Holding her breath, Kat tried to move but found herself bound. Waiting with bated breath, Kat feared the third and final stomp… but none came.
*Ok… ok.* Thought Kat as she tried to calm herself down. *Is this considered a success or failure? It seems like the golem is much weaker to my fire than I ever would have thought. Previously it was a struggle to freeze them, taking basically my entire reserve to freeze one about my height…*
*But honestly, based on the results from before, I might only need twice as much energy to take on this big one as I would for a standard Nightmare. Now granted, that's still more than I have… but we just need to weaken it and then have Ki take it out…*
*On the other hand. I can't move and neither can Minor. We seem to be trapped, which now that I really think about it, my strength should be more than enough to break through some snow. Is it a leverage thing?*
"Minor can you move?" asked Kat with what little room she had to open her mouth.
"No" said Minor, or well, that was Kat's guess at what she said anyway. It sounded a lot closer to "nnnn" but that at least wasn't a yes. *Ok, plans… well when in doubt use my tail.*
Setting her tail on fire Kat tried to flex it a bit and free it from around Minor. Kat found that it was tightly pressed against Minor, and if she was to move it too much, she might hurt the kitsune.
*Hmm, ok… horns maybe?* Kat moved her demonic energy up to her horns and tilted her head. The moment she did she heard a cracking sound. Taking it as a good sign Kat kept applying pressure to the ceiling and the creaking sound continued.
With a wrench to the side, Kat pushed away a bunch of snow freeing her head. *Ok progress.* Kat then pulled her arm in close. Trying to make what pathways she could. It was slow going but with her skin it didn't catch on the ice in the slightest.
Kat slammed her head to the left cracking the ice around her arm. Once that was done, she managed to wrench her hand free and into the growing space around her head and left side. That was enough to pull her body forward freeing the rest of her.
*Yesss leverage..* With one last wrench Kat cracked the remaining ice, freeing herself and Minor from the confined space.