Yuriko looked down at the body at her feet. It was more or less human, if she could consider someone that had thick bark for skin and resinous sap for blood as someone still human anyway.

Riley and Jonir had rushed off the ship towards the opposite side of the small island, where the sailors had reported disturbance of the Waypoint’s barrier. There was a brief glimpse of a spear shaped ship, which was more than enough to warrant an investigation. As for why it didn’t just fly over to this side of the island…

“Oh, the Waypoint disallows flying over the island,” Layla explained when Yuriko asked. “We can travel over the water, or hover less than a pace above the ground, but not higher than that.”

“That’s quite convenient for us,” Yuriko said.

“It’s annoying,” Layla rebutted. “It means we’ll have to either trudge through the island or go around in the Chaos, and you don’t know how much trouble it is trying to find an alternate route there…” She sighed, “Anyway, where are you going?”

“I’m helping them!” Yuriko said even as she started to run after the others.

“Hey, wait!” But the rest of Layla’s words were swallowed up by the forest.

Yuriko didn’t have any trouble following Riley and Jonir’s trail, which was quite odd, now that she thought about it. She wasn’t that good as a tracker. She came upon them just as they engaged the enemy, and she wordlessly joined them.

Her sunblade was still active and she merely needed to channel more Animus into it to prevent it from going out. Making a sunblade from nothing cost both Animus and Radiant energy, but keeping one going just took more Animus. It was a bother keeping an extremely hot blade around though, as she didn’t have a way to sheathe it, or even prevent it from burning anything it touched. After the fight with the crab monster thing, she left it on the sand, near the surf while she cleaned up and got changed. There was now a patch of obsidian on the beach.

The tree hybrid people fought in eerie silence. There were nearly a dozen of them, and they must have managed to surprise the other two, since Riley fought at melee range. Their assailants wielded a variety of blades, most the length of a side-blade, though sharp on both sides. They fought with deft coordination, and it was only because Riley had a higher Anima strength, hence, tougher Protective Field, that he was able to hold his own. As for Jonir, he cut them down with workmanlike ease.

Yuriko darted behind Riley and cut a treeman at the flanks, nearly bisecting it. A moment later, Yuriko frowned, feeling that something was off.

“Ah!” she yelped, “no blood!”

The treeman was bowled over by strike, but nothing came out of its wound. It struggled to its feet, but Yuriko struck again, this time taking a leg and an arm.

“Strike the heart!” Riley said. “They won’t die even if you cut off the head!” He blasted one of them in the middle of the torso, his plasma bolt managed to burn a fist sized hole clear through.

Yuriko nodded and stabbed the treeman’s chest, aiming it slightly left of center. Still, the sunblade sheared through muscle and bone with equal ease, but the burning scent that came up to her nose wasn’t that of flesh, but charcoal.

The three of them made short work of the remnants. These ones didn’t fight with much skill, making use of their preternatural toughness instead. Three warriors at the Knight level were more than a match for them, of course. For that matter, three Knights was enough to take on an army.

The northern barbarians would have folded from their assault if there had been more than a single Knight in the camp, Yuriko was sure. She hadn’t realized the extent of a Knight’s power until she experienced it herself.

“These are just scouts.” Jonir spat on the ground. “Lignoculi. A dozen of these things can sprout from a single Seeding.”

“Are we?” Yuriko hesitated.

“No, we aren’t going to look for the ship. We’d be overwhelmed,” Riley said. “But it’s too late. We engaged in battle with them. Their controller would have felt them wither and would send more in our direction.”

“Repairs should be done soon.” Jonir said as he stabbed his Animus greatsword point first into the ground. “Half an hour.”

“So we have to hold the line here?” Yuriko asked.

“Yes.” Both answered in unison. Riley chuckled while Jonir rubbed his mustache with a finger.

“Just rest, and stay watchful.” Jonir continued, he nodded at her sunblade. “Care to exchange notes?”

“Huh?” Yuriko shrugged, “If you like. I can’t really tell you much since creating this was mostly instinct.”

“Oh, I see.” Jonir nodded then spun on his heels and strode off towards a boulder. He leaned against it and closed his eyes. The Animus construct on his broken blade retracted until it was only an inch long. He didn’t sheathe the weapon but held it loosely in one hand.

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

Riley chuckled into his hand. “I think you hurt his feelings.”

“Eh, but it's true though.”

“That’s even worse.”

They settled to wait, and in a few minutes, more of the plant-human hybrids, the Lignoculi, emerged out of the bushes. There were more of them, thrice as much as earlier, and they were bulkier and taller too.

They still couldn’t stand up to Yuriko’s sunblade. Every cleaving blow left smoldering wood and tendrils of black smoke curled up towards the canopy. It was laughably easy to avoid their blows, and even if she were hit, their blades couldn’t penetrate her Anima flare. She kept her Anima at a discreet half-inch from her skin, and it was dense enough that at one point, she didn’t even notice one of the Lignoculi stabbing her back. The point of its weapon skittered off center, before pushing past her cheek. She only noticed because of the blade that suddenly arrived in her peripheral vision.

The thing was, she had her sword dances active, all three of them. It should have warned her of the attack, but it didn’t react at all. It was either the sword dances felt that the attack didn’t even warrant a parry or dodge. Or her dance couldn’t anticipate the Lignoculi’s movements. But that couldn't be right. She felt her dance react to the creatures right in front of her.

Five minutes worth of slashing and stabbing, and the forest clearing was filled with wooden bodies.

“Let’s pull back a bit,” Jonir said.

“Why?” Riley asked. “We’re at a nice defensible place.” The clearing was right where a couple of ridges funneled the path towards them.

“Chief Runeer Davar should be close to done. We’re a bit far for my liking.”

Riley frowned but the protest died on his lips when the ground trembled from heavy footsteps. Out of the woods came more of the Lignoculi, but this time, they were nearly twice as tall as the previous ones. Three paces high, and nearly just as wide. There were a dozen of them too, and as soon as they spotted the three Imperials, two of them turned around and ran back. The other ten raised club-like arms and charged.

Riley’s initial shot smashed into the lead Lignoculi’s chest, but where his previous bolts punched clean through, this one caused the plasma bolt to shatter. The bark around the impact point smoldered, and the creature staggered, but that was it.

“Chaos!” Riley yelled. His Animus burned bright purple and a huge glob of it moved from his hands and into his weapon. His next shot pierced right through, and blew through the arm of the Lignoculi behind it.

Yuriko barely noticed as she met another’s charge with one of her own. She ducked under its clumsy swing and the wind of its passage made her fringe flutter. She scored a slice under its arm and punched at its chest. Her Anima enforced fist shattered the wooden carapace and knocked the creature off its feet. Its back slammed against the creature behind, taking both of them to the ground.

She would have taken the chance to stab one of them, but another swung its fist at her head. A fourth one barrelled from the left, seeking to tackle her to the ground. Four of them against one of her.

The fourth dance activated briefly and she slipped around the tackler, slapped its side and redirected its angle such that it smashed into the one trying to punch her. Then she stabbed both of them at the core. Her sunblade pierced through their chest cavities as easily as it did anything else. Well, except for the giant crab monster’s carapace.

In less than the blink of an eye, she killed all four of hers while Riley was just about to fire his third shot. His eyes bulged as he could help but stare, and almost got his head smashed in for his distraction. He ducked out of the attack, uttered another curse, then blasted it to death. He looked around for another, but there were none around him.

As for Jonir, he managed to kill two, mainly by cleaving them in half from top to bottom.

Two of the Lignoculi slipped past them and headed straight towards the Ebon Horizon. Yuriko took off at a sprint, with the other two hurrying behind her. But they didn’t catch up to the creatures until they were back at the beach and it was to the sight of two smoldering wrecks.

“Get back on board!” one of the sailors yelled from the deck. “We’re leaving!”

The rope ladder was still down the side of the hull but there was a sailor on deck ready to reel it back in. Yuriko ran up to the hull and jumped up, boosting herself by bouncing off the side halfway up.

Riley scrambled up the ladder while Jonir hung on at the end while the Ebon Horizon started to ascend. Contrary to what she expected, the ship moved back over the sea rather than try to go over the island.

The sailors and Riley pulled the ladder up and a few moments later, Jonir scrambled on deck. Yuriko heaved a sigh of relief.

There was no sign of the pirate ship and they were on their way out.

The Ebon Horizon flew over the sea, slowly accelerating. They didn’t rise up too high, though. Yuriko let her sunblade dissipate while a sailor brought a cup of water to her and the other two.

“Thank you.”

They were about a longstride from shore before the Horizon shifted direction to go around the island. Yuriko could see the Waypoint’s shimmering barrier another longstride away. She couldn’t help but stare, mentally comparing a planar Veil as opposed to a Waypoint’s boundary.

The Waypoint’s boundary was thin, she realised. Less than an inch. She had been below deck when they entered this Waypoint, well, crashed into it, rather. She could catch a glimpse of the Chaos Flows outside, turbulent and green. Ah, what was that shadow?

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped when the shadow came close and revealed itself to be another Chaos ship, the disc. It didn’t attempt to enter, but skirted the edges, keeping pace with the Ebon Horizon. Lightning jumped from the metal hull to the boundary, changing the Chaos’ hue from green to red and blue.

“Enemy off to starboard!”

“There!” Riley yelled and when Yuriko looked at him, he was pointing towards the right, and towards the island. The spearship emerged from the forest, bowling over trees in the process. She could see the Lignoculi crawling over the narrow hull, positioned to make the leap should their ship come close enough to the Horizon.

“All hands to station!”

There was a mad scramble on deck. Riley grabbed Yuriko by the crook of her elbow and tried to drag her below. He jolted to a stop when he couldn’t pull her.

“Come on!” he growled, “We have to go under. We’ll get in the way here!”

“Ah!” Yuriko followed after her cousin who’d let go of her as soon as he saw her move. He ran towards the back, entering via a door rather than descending through the stairs in the middle. As soon as she entered, the door slammed shut and the Ebon Horizon jolted and accelerated.

Then, everything shook and trembled, and she nearly fell to her knees.