A heavy feeling of foreboding overcame Yuriko’s senses just as she flew closer to her target. She could see a small country manor through the light of the Half Moon and the twinkling of the foreign stars. The manor itself was about a third the size of the Abad family’s main house, and it had a hedged garden at the back. A gravelled road led from the main door towards the public road, which, up here in the north, was barely more than a hard-packed dirt road. The main road was wide enough so that two wagons could share it, and it was higher than the surrounding farmland by a good pace and was secured by stones at the side so it wouldn’t erode quickly.

The house had two storeys and shuttered windows. The door was closed, and what light shone from inside was obscured by heavy curtains. For all that, it was clear it wasn’t deserted, though it was not obvious to the idle eye, especially not in the dark. The windows jutting out from the sloped roof were ajar; if she wasn’t mistaken, there were marksmen stationed within. Yuriko didn’t see or feel any Golems, but they could as easily be stationed underground as out in the open.

While she guessed that the Golems were not Bresian, she finally recognised the sigil carefully etched on the bodies. It was a subtle shape, but she recognised a…er candle? Within an arch. Oh, there was a circle underneath the candle, so was it a bell? She’d seen the same sigil on Ambassador Cooper’s robes when she met him back in the city, so there was little doubt that they were from the Ishodir Empire.

She half regretted not reading up extensively on the local powers. She vaguely remembered that the empire was expansionist but that they had already taken more territory than they could easily manage. Their military structure was similar to Bresia’s, and they made extensive use of Arcana Weaving and spell-casting implements. Their artifice was on par with Bresia’s but evidently focused more on golem suits rather than constructs. Oh, and they paid more for elemental cores than here and were quite welcoming of the Adventurers’ Guild.

Her inspection only took a second, then she moved in. Her Anima glowed with golden light, and she heard yells of alarm, as well as the thunder of guns. She had already dispersed her defensive Anima style from hard armour to a mixture of hard and soft. She had a hardened shell just around her skin, then extended another ten paces around her with a mix of hard and soft. When the bullets entered her space, they deflected off the hardened parts and followed the softened areas away from her body. The yielding nature of the defence meant that the bullets wouldn’t fissure her Anima, which meant she couldn’t use the damage to expand her reach faster. But since there was a dearth of distilled Chaos anyway, it wasn’t much of a loss. Fri’Avgi held a prodigious amount within her, but the amount of distilled Chaos Yuriko needed to expand her Anima by a single pace instantly was far in excess of what her artefact could hold. Perhaps if she used Fri’Avgi to kill and drain another Chaos Duke, or even a Chaos Marquis, then the distilled Chaos drawn from them could allow her to expand dozens of paces alas, other than her bound Chaos Lords, there weren’t any in Bresia.

The rest of her Anima was spread in her usual perception aura, and tendrils controlled her sunblades. The maximum sunblades she could control without depleting her Intent and Will was still in the range of the six hundred, give or take one or two, but controlling so many at once was still wearying. Perhaps once she could divide her consciousness to match the amount then she could reconsider. Otherwise, unless she faced an army, a hundred blades was more than enough.

She sent a sunblade with the Echolocation spell, as well as another with the Tremorsense spell ahead to scout. The feedback, along with her dreamscape threads to Juliette and Sofia, ascertained where they were. She found them in the parlour, of all places, they were sitting in a small group and drinking tea. The emotions coming through the threads were still dismayed and guarded, so Yuriko had little intention of pulling back, though she did temper her decision to kill. It was just as easy for her to capture and knock out anyway, as long as she didn’t face foes on her level

She sent a dozen sunblades to root out the marksmen. She destroyed their long-ranged rifles and stabbed them on the shoulder if they went for their sidearms. Most of them did, and the simultaneous cacophony of their screams spooked the rest of the defenders.

She flew closer to the manor, and warriors boiled out of the place. She spotted several carriages, as well as the horses that pulled them. The Virtalla region stood out against Nirlith since they didn’t use Steelds for transport, but some of those carriages had Steeld legs for autonomous propulsion. She sometimes wondered why the Bresians didn’t use landcraft as the Eternal Empire did, but she supposed the differences between Arcana Weaving and Animatech meant different styles of development.

The soldiers aimed their blunt-nosed rifles that shot out a spray of bullets rather than a single solid slug. Her Anima defences simply slid them off without coming close to her, and she retaliated by destroying the weapons. After a moment’s thought, she disarmed them instead, sometimes literally, but mostly by twacking their arms and hands with the flat side of the sunblades. That the hit left an inch-wide burn across whatever it struck meant that they often writhed in pain afterwards, but at least they had their lives. Besides, healing spells, potions, and tools meant that the wounds might not even scar if they received treatment. Not that she would care either way. They were the aggressors here.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Fifty paces from the manor’s entrance, half a dozen obsidian arrowheads flew towards her. Yuriko ignored them, trusting her Anima defences to protect her, but what happened afterwards made her jaw drop in surprise. Inexplicably, the obsidian arrowheads were deflected once they made it into the soft defence. As expected. What she didn’t expect was that they converged towards each other from the initial deflection, then bounced off each other and went closer to her body without losing much speed. By the time she reacted, the arrowheads were just a pace away from the hardened Anima shell, and when they hit, they all struck within a three-inch circle over her hastily raised arm. It would have hit her bosom otherwise.

She glared towards the attack, but couldn’t find them. More arrowheads shot towards her, this time from behind. Her perception aura thickened and she pressed it down on everything within a hundred and sixty paces of her, but other than the entire manor, and the soldiers and abducted within, there was nobody else. There weren’t even any of the Golems around. So where did…?

Another set attacked her, from another direction. Then another, and another. Yuriko’s Anima shell was struck at the same point every time, no matter how much she twisted and turned. She growled and layered a stronger field over the affected area, and the arrowheads bounced off the heightened defence, but the next volley targetted somewhere else.

Fine cracks formed in her Anima since the force and sharpness of the arrowheads weren’t something she could easily bear. That meant that her foe was reasonably strong! Yuriko’s desires and her goal conflicted, but she wasn’t foolish enough to abandon her students in favour of tangling with someone who could entertain her. Not when they were still in distress.

But since they were within her perception range, they were also reachable by her Animakinesis. She hesitated to take them now, however; she didn’t want to give her enemy another target. Or enemies…

Huh? But she had a hunch that it was just one person, not when the attacks were so well coordinated.

But the arrowheads came from opposite directions, even from above and below. When she landed on the ground to limit the trajectories, they emerged from the earth too. She flew back up, then, in a fit of anger, spread her sunblades as far as they could go, casting Echolocation all the while. She caught a glimpse of her foe three hundred paces to the north, and he was already repositioning to the northeast. There was little doubt of the enemy’s masculinity considering he had a beard that touched his chest, though the long, voluminous robes somewhat concealed the rest of his features…

The enemy’s movement spell was incredible. Somehow, it created multiple images of the magus, cast its attack spell, then faded away. The attacks would come from different directions, but only one set actually materialised to strike her Anima, and always where the previously hit spot was.

There were always three other images, and Yuriko spread her sunblades to groups of twenty-five and sent them towards the mirror images. One of them must be real.

But when the sunblades came close, all four images disappeared, and another one appeared towards the rear.

She repeated the probing attacks and kept a close eye on the enemy. He always tried to keep beyond her Anima reach, somehow discerning where the edge was. The one time she actually caught him within, her Animakinesis crushed him, though it turned out to be an image too.

Time drew on while she tangled with her foe. It was an exercise in futility on her part, as he was just too slippery. She moved towards the manor, intending to just take her students and the other abductees, five others to be precise, but the moment she moved away from the attacker, she was suddenly bombarded with an ill premonition. She rushed back towards the elusive foe, and found him casting a powerful spell, which built up a veritable storm of Elemental energy. But as soon as she moved towards him, he cancelled his spell, and used the gathered energies to fuel a different Arcana Weaving, and Yuriko froze.

Time held still, and she could feel the layer of reality around her push down on her Anima, her body, and her mind.

Stop.

Stop.

Sleep.

Freeze.

The sanctity of Yuriko’s Anima could not be broken. Her Mien roared within, and her Radiant Essence boiled out.

The spell circles holding her down cracked and shattered. Radiant energy spilt out of her body, filled her Anima, and scorched the surrounding countryside.

“I am Sovereign within!” Yuriko roared, as a part of her that held Damien’s memories roared at the violation.

The hundred sunblades she controlled multiplied to six hundred and she used them to flay the surroundings, seeking to end the foe who sought to contain her!

She saw the man click his tongue in irritation and his body faded away and split into its mirror images. Yuriko growled as even six hundred couldn’t strike him down. What would it take?

If the number of blades wasn’t enough to catch him, then all she had to do was to create more. More sunblades!

Twenty-four hundred sunblades took a while to conjure, but she persisted. The man simply continued to attack and avoid her, striking from out of reach, and every movement she took always seemed to play into his hand. So she stopped moving. She thickened her Anima to protect her equally from all directions and simply directed her sunblades, now already a thousand blades strong, to cover the entirety of her reach. That was physically impossible, but she would do her best to get close.

Finally, before she reached the limit of her control, the man suddenly turned tail and vanished. More than two thousand sunblades were around her now, and she was just that close to letting all the Radiant energy loose just so it would fill every space and fry the rotter.

He ran just a few seconds before she decided to do it, and that only annoyed her more than anything else.