The elemental beast that rose from the hillside resembled a bear more than anything else. Yuriko watched it with keen interest, felt her heart begin to race and her Anima flare as she was more than ready to fight. There was no way that thing was weak enough for the students to fight, so it was up to her and the other professors.

“Fluffington! Stay here!” she yelled at her familiar, who whined in response.

Yuriko compressed her Anima, pulled all of the sunblades she had scattered across the Conflux closer to her, hovered just above the wheat stalks and propelled herself as fast as she could. She shaped her aura aerodynamically and she could see and feel the winds split around her. She felt the wind push her upwards since she changed the shape of her aura when she was flying, allowing her to focus on propelling herself forward instead of pushing against the ground.

She learned the shape in the Irvalla Region but also encountered the Mechanics of Flight Spells in Niria’s library. Well, in Irvalla, she shaped wings with her Anima, but what she learned in Niria made her change the shape of her aura into what basically amounted to a singular wing. Her flying posture shifted, too, though only if she was in a hurry. When she flew to Cillian’s rescue she had not been strained for speed since she was limited to Monica Coinoch’s speed.

The gigantic elemental bear was visible through the occluding mists even though it was probably a few leagues away. The edges of its outline were blurred and she couldn’t make out most of the details, but from what she could feel, and the way its roar resonated with the ambient energy, it would be a powerful foe. She guessed it was as strong as the Femorant Queen, at the very least. She was confident she could face it, and if not alone, the Dean was back in base camp and shouldn’t take long to back her up.

Roaar!

Whaaarrgggh!

Awoooo!

Yuriko almost pulled up short. Her Anima noticed Fluffington was chasing after her, such a disobedient puppy! He’ll need to be disciplined later. But no, the more urgent matter was that the other roar came from the east. On the opposite side of the valley, another gigantic beast ripped itself from the hillside. Trees and shrubs still clung to the massive bull’s hide, and a bellow created a rippling wave of compressed air to spread across the field.

The shockwave from both beasts met in the middle of the field and slammed against each other to ruinous effect. The earth split and caved, while the golden wheat was shredded to bits, sending metallic shrapnel across the fissure. Dozens of students were struck, and this time, their uniform armour couldn’t absorb all of the damage.

“Ancestors!” Yuriko muttered.

Where should she go? There were students close to either monster and they were several leagues apart. She foolishly stopped in midair, glancing to and fro for a couple of moments.

“Can’t hesitate!” she growled. The bear was closer so she should go there first!

A message spell spoke close to her ear as she resumed her flight. Department Head Eduardo Farron’ir said, “I’m engaging the Elemental Bull. All professors nearby, evacuate the students.”

Yuriko clicked her tongue and ignored the order. She was more than capable of facing the bear. She did send a multi-receiver message spell, “I’ll hold the elemental bear back.”

A glance back at the bull revealed the Sha’ledras Battle Magus in midair, while dozens of Force Bolts slammed at the bull’s head. The creature bellowed in rage as its face cratered while stone fragments flew off.

Yuriko reached the Earthen Bear’s vicinity a few seconds later. She noted some student groups fleeing from the bear as well as ironscale wolves. She sent several sunblades to intercept the wolves and cut them down before they could reach the vulnerable students.

As soon as she was half a longstride away, Yuriko sent a single sunblade towards the Earthen Bear. It careened straight into the monster’s torso, but it was so massive that it looked nothing more than a needle against the side of a barn and with just as much impact. Yuriko frowned as she felt her connection with the sunblade snap. The Radiant energy splashed against the rocky hide, and a spot turned red and even began to melt. The problem was that it probably didn’t even do more than surface damage. Something with the hide unravelled her Animus construct.

Well, if one didn’t work, then perhaps hundreds will. Yuriko landed on the ground, flattening a bunch of golden wheat in the process, and she condensed her Anima as close to her body as she could, before spinning threads out to connect to her sunblades. She had a hundred ready underneath her coat, shrunken to needle size for storage. She began conjuring more while she sent what she had towards the bear.

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This time, the beast noticed. The hundred sunblades struck its snout. This time, Yuriko made sure not to strike directly, but to slash. She directed the flying swords to attack the same spot, and the beast roared in pain as the gash went deeper than the outer earthen shell.

Somehow, it spotted her from that far away, and Yuriko was startled to see that it had more than two eyes. Along the crown of its head were dozens of black spots that opened up to tiny, human-sized eyes. They swivelled to orient towards her, and a moment later, they locked in on her body.

A pressure wave slammed down on her head.

Boom! Crack!

For a dozen paces around her, the ground shattered as her Anima took the brunt of the attack and spread it outwards. Her knees bent to absorb the impact instinctively, but she felt that it was her Anima more than her physique that endured. She felt tiny cracks spread across her aura, but they immediately healed as Radiant energy suffused her surroundings.

A hundred more sunblades spun into existence and she sent them flying at the beast. It tried to swat them away, but the flying swords were far more agile than a humongous arm. The next set of a hundred sunblades she etched the Radiant Bolt pattern along its blade. These hovered behind the creature’s head and began to channel the spell. Radiant energy accumulated and spun into elemental bolts, though each one was nothing more than a raindrop to the bear. But enough drops would eventually wear away a stone.

The next couple of hundred sunblades contained the same spell, and in the meantime, Yuriko fought against the crushing pressure. The bear’s eyes continued to focus on her position, and she couldn’t even take a step to the side. When she lifted her foot off the ground, the pressure intensified to the extent that it slammed right back down. Her foot pierced the ground and got buried half a pace deep. She was flexible enough to keep her balance despite the uneven footing, and she directed the next hundred sunblades to strike at the eyes.

A curved elemental earth shield appeared over each ocular organ, and even though her sunblades were able to shatter them, the Animus contained with each one was consumed. Her Animus and Radiant energy reserves were still quite healthy, and Yuriko realised that her current bottleneck was not her resources, but how fast she could bring them to bear. She had a hundred strands of consciousness, but she could probably create a thousand blades at once with her current regeneration.

Gritting her teeth, Yuriko tried to increase her sword creation, but she couldn’t do it. Each sunblade was too intricate, especially if she had to engrave a runescript spell in each one.

Oh, she could just make the basic blade, huh?

Yeah, that should work! She used each strand of consciousness to spin a couple of blades into existence at once, and two hundred sunblades shot towards the beast. She let her Ennoia of Radiant Flying Swords control the weapons and directed them to strike at the bear’s face and eyes. A barrage of sunblades shot out towards the bear, slammed into its face, and left shallow craters in their wake. The bear roared and roared in pain. Yuriko’s grin widened.

“Think you can defeat me in a battle of attrition?” she scoffed.

Either the bear heard her and took offense or it decided that what it was doing wasn’t working. It landed on four legs and stomped towards her position even as its eyes maintained the pressure bearing down on her. A single step crossed a hundred paces, and a few moments later, it stepped on her!

“You rotter!” Yuriko roared as her Anima preserved her body. The ground was much weaker than her or the bear’s foot, and caved in hundred their combined weight. She found herself nailed deep into the ground, while the rotting bear chuffed in amusement.

Awoooo!

Fluffington’s howl sent a chill down Yuriko’s spine. Her perception aura caught a Fluffington-shaped arrow slamming into the bear’s forearm, and somehow, it managed to shift the massive leg. It also distracted the bear such that the pressure keeping her down shifted ever so slightly off centre.

“Fluffy!” Yuriko screamed as she shot out from under the paw. It was to the sight of her familiar getting swatted away with a conjured mud whip. The reflexive strike slammed into the tawny fur and propelled the wolf puppy into the air, then he slammed down into the wheat field and rag-dolled across several paces.

Aaaaw…

“You swarmfodder!” Yuriko’s hand caught Fri’Avgi as the artefact greatsword materialised. The blade erupted with nearly a million motes of Radiant energy which shaped into a gigantic blade. The artefact had been siphoning off Yuriko’s excess for nearly a year now, and she was absolutely bloated.

The Radiant energy blade swished and chopped off the bear’s leg, who then reared back in shock. The cross-section of its limb revealed that the earthen shell over its flesh was nearly ten paces thick.

Fri’Avgi’s Radiant energy blade sputtered out as the million motes were consumed. Yuriko darted to Fluffington, her perception roamed over his battered body. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his chest rise and fall. He was bleeding through several wounds and had more than a few broken bones, but he was still alive.

The thousands of sunblades she had conjured swarmed around the broken limb and pierced into the flesh. Without the earthen shell, it was far more vulnerable than before. Still, the blades entered into opened blood vessels and boiled the blood into steam. The bear’s flesh was tough enough that the vaporized blood didn’t cause it to burst, but the steam headed out towards the weakest opening, which was right where the blades entered. The bear thrashed in pain and tried to gnaw at the stump, but that only opened more vulnerabilities.

Sunblades went down its mouth, while others slammed into its bigger eyes. Those proved far weaker than its earthen shell, and soon enough, the sclera was red and burning.

Yuriko wrapped Fluffington carefully with her Animakinesis and moved away from the beast. Her sunblades continued to trace the bear’s blood vessels and some of them had already reached its heart. Well, one heart. The muscle was too tough, however, and the blades would take several minutes to slice the thing to pieces. However, she discovered another point of vulnerability.

The beast core was right next to the heart. The organs were the size of her house in Niria, and the sunblades were tiny by comparison. But unlike the heart, the beast core proved far more vulnerable to the invading Radiant energy. The sunblades slammed into the core, and dispersed their potent energies into it. The Radiant seeped into the core, and began to devour the energies contained within, to create more and more Radiant.

The bear staggered and fell, gasping in pain. The core turned into a golden sphere as Radiant energy completely suffused it. The creature was of Elemental Earth, and now that most of its potent reserves had been converted, it could not hope to control or even contain it.

“Oh.” Yuriko gasped.

The beast core lost cohesion, and the elemental beast was consumed by a wave of deadly Radiant Light.