For a long moment, Yuriko could do nothing but gape at the breaking skies. The Chaos flows that were normally outshone by the Radiant Sun, began to seep through the cracks. Thick, viscous droplets of multihued, liquid Chaos, almost akin to distilled Chaos droplets but a thousandfold higher in volume, slowly dribbled from the crack, until that one droplet broke free from the rest of the seepage and crashed towards the ground.

The droplet struck a portion of the Shillogu Woods, and before her eyes, the trees…changed.

The trees affected twisted and shed their leaves, then their branches wove together until they were long whips that snapped and struck whatever was around them. Eli’Theria’s eyes magnified Yuriko’s view, allowing her to see every gristly detail. The beasts and birds living in that part of the woods were affected, too, with most of them writhing in pain. And there were more than a few of Shillogu’s kin, too, though they resisted the concentrated Chaos and were struggling to exit the area.

Unfortunately, that was only one droplet. Many more were threatening to fall, and directly above Horswick was one such Chaos drop. Yuriko hesitated for only a moment. The Chaos would not affect her or Eli’Theria but would be fatal for everyone else. But how could she defend them against this?

Quickly! Overwhelm its nature with one you impose!

‘Huh?’

Blast it with your Radiance! Damien yelled.

‘Oh!’

She pointed at the droplet above them, too far to reach with a sunblade. But a beam of Radiance was something she learned to do Seasons ago. Radiant energy bubbled from every particle of her body as she drew it all to her fingertip, then from there, channelled it through Eli’Theria’s orichalcum, which somehow amplified the effect while simultaneously stripping excess Animus from it. The beam of solid Radiance shot from her fingertip and crossed several longstrides of sky to hit the Chaos droplet.

For a long moment, Yuriko thought nothing had happened and the attack had been ineffective, but then…

Pop! Booom! Ka-booom!

Sparkles of Radiant energy erupted from the Chaos droplet right where she hit it. Small eruptions spread and contaminated the droplet, turning the greater part of it into Radiance and heat. Seeing success, Yuriko aimed at another droplet and blasted it. Then at another and another, until a wave of heat washed back against her position, scalding hot and more than enough to turn any hint of moisture to steam.

Trees burst into flame, mud baked to clay, and streams boiled. Yuriko gasped in fright as she saw villages huddling together and fending off the apocalyptic heat with Protective Fields that flickered and failed, leaving blistering skin and parched lips. “Oh no…”

She pulled at the heat but failed miserably. Her Ennoia was not of temperature, heat, fire, or control. It was Radiance. And such energy will always burn. The most she could do was set her sunblades across and attempt to pull stray Radiance into them. But at least, the ruinous Chaos drops would not kill her people. She only hoped the results of her intervention was not what would finish them off.

Chaos drops fell in other places, and the scars of their transformation were painfully obvious. A droplet hit the River Caradec downstream from Faron’s Crossing, and it turned the water green. Where it touched the land, the grass withered, and she could see animal carcasses from where they died as they drank.

The foothills of the Zarek weren’t spared, at least not the ones several leagues away from her position. One part grew a forest of red crystal shards that resonated with the wind as it passed. Another part carved a huge bowl in the mountainside which filled up with some kind of white liquid.

She could see Haveena City in the distance fighting off the droplets as they fell. A horde of monsters spawned from a drop that fell on a herd of sheep, altering everything but their coat of wool.

While they were the enemy, Yuriko remembered that the populace lived fearful of the tyranny of their liege. She wondered if the First Councilor’s agreement included something like this. She also hoped that the Foster twins’ friend, Izna Weyr’s family could survive this.

Chaos ships fled towards the Watchtower and Faron’s Crossing, carrying evacuated civilians along with them. Once the last civilian boarded the Chaos ship, Yuriko flew towards the Watchtower and Faron’s Crossing, aiming for the Silver Tiger that was still helping defend the town. She looked up nervously at the skies. The Veil’s cracks were spreading, and she didn’t know how long it would last. The pillar of green light had faded away almost immediately after striking the skies, and in its place a hole that she hoped led directly to the planar core and the Chaos Duke. There was little doubt who caused this.

The sky cracks continued to spread from the Zarek Mountains, and before she could even reach halfway to the town, the cracks already began to widen. Larger droplets fell, only to be intercepted by plasma bolts before they could even fall. Unsurprisingly, the droplets turned to superheated plasma, though the propagation was slow enough that most of the converted energy dissipated in the air and chased away the clouds. Perhaps plasma was better at containing heat since it didn’t look like the ground was too much affected.

Yuriko glanced up and saw some droplets were about to fall in her vicinity. She shot them with Radiant beams, and once struck, the Chaos droplet all converted to Radiant energy, bursting with light and heat in the process.

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“Maybe don’t shoot droplets close together?” She muttered to herself. Give them a chance to dissipate instead of resonating with each other. Yeah.

Her Radiant beams could reach the droplets in the sky above her, and maybe those a couple of longstrides from her position. The range she could blast out the Radiant beams had increased from the last time she tried using them, even exceeding the reach of her sunblades. Unfortunately, the beams weren’t enough to defeat Chaos dwellers whose Protective Fields would bear the brunt of the energy. It would serve nothing more than a warning in that case, allowing her enemies to flee. Also, the beams weren’t able to bend around obstacles so a line of sight was needed to utilize them. The droplets from the skies just so happened to be easy targets, and the Chaos didn’t defend itself from the Radiant light devouring it to fuel the transformation.

A purple plasma bolt shot out from the Watchtower, obviously from Da, and when it hit the Chaos droplet, it didn’t slowly convert to plasma but instead turned into a sphere of swirling winds that almost immediately lost cohesion and scattered.

The Silver Tiger released their tiger cubs, unmanned combat Animatech controlled by warriors within the main ship. These ones flew up to the sky and unleashed ordinary plasma bolts at the droplets. Each hit only altered a tiny bit of the droplet but the number of bolts blasted out by the dozens of cubs working together meant that it still only took a few seconds to alter the droplet.

The town’s Plasma Carronades could not swivel to aim directly upwards so the operators timed their blasts to intercept falling droplets that would hit too close to town. There had been a few times they missed, and the scars of the Chaos transformation spread out amongst the fields.

As for the obsidian titans…not all of them had been destroyed and there were more in the distance, but none of them were in Imperial territory now. She noticed one a few longstrides from Haveena racing towards a Chaos droplet about to hit the ground, and when it caught it…

The obsidian body coloured in multiple hues and the titan stood on the field with its arms pointed straight up. A moment later, it shot the same green light up to the skies and hit the upper Veil. And just like the green light pillar before, it caused the skies to crack even further. Even worse, several light pillars rose up in the distance, north, south, and east. Each lasted only for a few seconds but every pillar widened the cracks, which then caused more Chaos to seep inside the plane, which the titans caught, and so on into a vicious cycle.

“Ancestors!” Yuriko cursed, not knowing what to do. There were dozens of titans, spread out across hundreds of longstrides. She was sure the Federation leadership wouldn’t do anything to stop them…no, the leaders wouldn’t, but not every one of their citizens supported them. But what could she do?

No, no. She had to focus on what was happening right in front of her. The Chaos Duke was already assimilating the plane, and everything else was a distraction. But then again, if they ignored the distractions, it would blossom into destruction instead. Just the cracks across the Veil would be enough to spell the end of Rumiga if nothing was done.

She had to get to Mum and Da. The Green Swan was hovering next to the Watchtower and she could see beads of compressed water shooting at the Chaos droplets, which then turned into localized downpours. But instead of letting the water flood down, Legate Segawa took control of it, compressed the water to small beads, then shot them at different Chaos droplets, repeating the cycle until there were no droplets threatening to fall within longstrides of the tower.

When she was two-thirds of the way to the Watchtower, just a few minutes after all of this started, there was another massive pillar of light that burst out of the Zarek. This one came out south of the Imperial Pass, and the same laughter burst out with it. The pillar slammed into the skies and cracked the Veil even wider, except this time, it wasn’t Chaos droplets that entered.

Winged Wyldlings, squidships, and nameless… Chaos dwellers from the same armada that the Vagaris fleet escaped from.

The Wyldlings alighted on the mountaintops, along with the squidships. They oriented towards the Vagaris fleet but didn’t move from their position around the light pillar. That one faded away after half a minute, and by that time, she arrived next to the Silver Tiger. The docking ramp lowered and Eli’Theria easily alighted.

The ship’s spatial runescript weaving immediately opened into the Colossus hangar, which was then filled with pilots, Runeers, and orderlies. As soon as Yuriko docked Eli’Theria, she commanded the Colossus to revert to her original Vasi form, then she popped the hatch and jumped out.

“Where’s Mum?” Yuriko asked the nearest orderly.

“At the Watchtower, young mistress!” the woman answered quickly.

“Open the hatch.”

“This way!”

The orderly spun to lead Yuriko but her speed was too slow. Yuriko picked up the woman with her Animakinesis and both of them careened towards the gateway. The orderly hurriedly inputed the exit coordinates, opened the door, and led her airlock. Yuriko jumped out as soon as it opened and flew towards the Watchtower.

She glanced towards the southern light pillar but flinched when she saw the place where the original pillar emerged begin to glow. Some of the squidships had already started to move towards the other site but only a couple of minutes had passed from the moment she entered the ship, so they hadn’t moved far.

She sped towards the Watchtower, ignoring the other things happening in the skies. She squelched the impulse to shoot Radiant beams since her lack of control would only hurt others. A bitter pill to swallow.

She alighted on top of the battlements, right next to her Da. Virgil nodded to her without looking as he was aiming his Plasma Caster at one of the obsidian titans near Haveena. “Gemheart chamber, go!”

Sending a brief hug with her Animakinesis, Yuriko jumped down the trapdoor and flew down the ladder, then jumped down the central shaft, pushing herself downwards and only stopping once she was an inch off the ground floor. Then, she hurried to the underground passage and followed the tunnels to the Gemheart chamber. It was heavily guarded, and not just by the militia. She recognized Finan’s Praetorian Guards, though their captain, Cillian Abrigo wasn’t outside.

They gave her a measured look, then opened the door for her, revealing her Mum speaking rapidly with said Praetorian captain, and Finan.

The young man looked up when she entered and gave her a weary grin. “Ah, you’ve arrived. Lady Sorceress, captain, I wish a moment of privacy with Lady Yuriko.” He turned to her, his face eminently serious, “Yuri, may I have a word. Please?”

Puzzled, Yuriko nevertheless nodded. Sadeen grasped her shoulder and said, “Meet me at the rooftop as soon as you’re done.”

Captain Abrigo nodded to her and bowed to Finan before leaving. When the door closed, Finan sighed and slumped. He was holding on to the Gemheart, Yuriko realised, as though it was the only thing holding him up.

He looked up and stared at her, and said, “This is probably the last time you’ll see me.”

Yuriko tilted her head and asked curiously, “Why?”