There was little cause to hesitate.

Fri’Avgi dropped into Yuriko’s hands and she channelled Animus and Radiant energy into it. Five dozen sunshards spun out of the red gem and spun around her. Sixty shards, nearly three times as much as she was able to create and control before–a product of the Radiant Ennoia.

She could feel every sunshard, and could even perceive through them. The fragmented vision in her mind would have overwhelmed her if she had remained the same as she was the first time she conjured the shards, but now, at Actualisation and having touched the Radiant Ennoia, it was no more difficult than using her eyes to see. She had long been able to divide her focus a dozen times, but this? It was a wondrous feeling, of everything around her underneath her control.

The volley of arrows was cut down from the air using the shards. She had not created a wall or swept randomly. Rather, each arrow was struck on point. The metal arrowheads melted and the wooden shafts burned.

At the same time, she sent a dozen shards towards the archers, while she lunged towards the strongest-looking warrior in the bunch, the heavy-set woman with the spear and shield.

Being able to perceive from the point of view of the shards allowed her to thread through the gaps in the enemy’s shields easily. She stabbed them into their armours. The tapered points easily penetrated past the chain links of their mail, and the heat began to melt the metal, exacerbating the wounds further. Pain caused the warriors to scream and clutch at their guts, and it also effectively kept them from being active participants in the battle.

Fri’Avgi slammed into the woman’s hastily raised shield. Golden Animus clashed against the spearwoman’s red and scattered it to bits. The round shield bent as Fri’Avgi’s weight, along with Yuriko’s strength, pushed. A moment later, with a loud crack, the shield broke, along with the woman’s arm.

Yuriko saw the other’s face pale, but she gritted her teeth and thrust her spear at Yuriko’s face. With a casual tilt of her head, she avoided the desperate attack.

“Huh. Not a Knight after all,” Yuriko muttered as she sent the sunshards at the other. The spearwoman tried to block and dodge, but she wasn’t fast or strong enough. The shards pierced through her protective Animus as if it wasn’t even there, and then turned her torso into a sieve.

It took only a few moments, and the entire field was cleared. Groans and curses, cries of mercy and pain, were all that was left of the Federation guard.

And then, another arrow came from above. Yuriko caught it with her left hand. A biting cold tried to invade her fingers through the arrow shaft, and Yuriko used her aura to suppress and cast it away, turning it into a puff of mist.

More arrows came, but she slapped them away or used the broad side of Fri’Avgi’s blade as an impromptu shield. Or she used her sunshards. She leapt on top of the bunker. The other muzzle was still there, but the one she blasted was nothing more than molten slag. She sent sunshards down the other barrel and commanded them to spin and cut.

The contact resulted in high-pitched sounds loud enough to make the Federation warriors’ ears bleed, and even Saki crouched and stopped up her senses. While that happened, Yuriko’s gaze swept the hillside. The arrows didn’t all come from one direction, but arced from left, right, and above. However, the Animus that came with all of them were identical.

She slapped another arrow away, but as soon as her hand made contact, it erupted into crystalline shards.

“Tsk.” She clicked her tongue in annoyance. All of her sunshards were now devoted to destroying the cannon, and it was taking longer than she anticipated. From her perception, the barrel was streaked with grooves and melted portions, but she was sure those were easily repaired. Some of the shards went deep enough into the barrel that they emerged into some kind of chamber. This one was filled with water, under pressure apparently, because as soon as her shards breached, the water burst out with nearly a third of it immediately turning to steam.

Yuriko shook her hands to fling away the clinging icicles.

“There you are,” she muttered after finally seeing where the arrows came from. Nearly a longstride away, she saw the woman. It was the archer from a few days ago.

More importantly, there was also that mauler rushing towards her position. Huh. How did they know she’d be here?

“Young mistress! We have to go!” Saki hissed up at her.

Fri’Avgi spun in Yuriko’s hand as she used the artefact to block another arrow. She used her hand to catch another one coming from the opposite direction.

“We can’t leave yet. The cannon is still intact,” Yuriko muttered.

“No, young mistress. The goal has been accomplished! They can’t use either one, not in the near future. We don’t want to be surrounded!”

“Tsk. Fine,” Yuriko muttered. The mauler was still several dozen paces away. Hmmm. She had her sunshards return from the cannon. The bunker still had a few people inside, but nearly all of them were cowering behind barricades. She waited for the mauler to come closer, all the while countering and blocking the arrows.

“Young mistress!”

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“Give me a minute,” Yuriko muttered.

The mauler was roaring at her while running with his weapon raised overhead. That dagger man wasn’t around either, but given how he was able to appear within inches of her, she was wary that he would appear and attack her while she wasn’t ready.

Er…in that case then she really should retreat…. But that mauler…his pinched face really made her want to beat him up.

She absently swatted another arrow away, and then she noticed the archer’s incredibly annoyed expression. Yuriko smirked at the woman and the other turned redder than a tomato and stomped her foot.

She sent a wave of sunshards at the mauler when he came within fifty paces of her. The man swung his maul but the shards zigzagged around his weapon and struck his armour. Sparks flew from the contact point, but his protective Animus prevented them from piercing.

With another hiss from Saki, Yuriko reluctantly jumped down from the bunker’s roof and ran towards the river. Arrows followed, but since she was retreating, most of them fell short. Finally, when she was just a dozen paces from the riverbank, she turned back to look at her handiwork. Smoke rose from the bunker, and the scent of blood was thick in the air.

Wheeee! Twoom!

Yuriko’s eyes widened in shock her instincts screamed at her.

“Adamant Seal!” she yelled as she raised a hand and fed the pattern Animus.

Bang!

A cannon shell slammed into the Adamant Seal and crumpled into itself. In the process, it released its fiery payload and the air in front of her ignited into an inferno!

“Young mistress!” Saki screamed.

Wheee! Twoom! Bang!

Her second Adamant Guardian Seal stopped the second shell. She lashed her aura to wrap around Saki’s waist, and together, they jumped into the river.

Boom!

Another shell, but this one landed in the river. Yuriko propelled the two of them upstream while enveloping Saki with her Anima. Her attendant’s frantic expression eased as they shot through the water. The shape of her Anima ensured that the water parted easily in front of her. In the blink of an eye, they were dozens of paces away from their entry point.

“We’re safe, for now,” Yuriko muttered, her words brought to Saki’s ears through her Anima. The cannon shells that struck the water exploded within inches of entering and the burning oil rose to the surface.

“They can track your light, young mistress,” Saki said quickly. “Best we hurry.”

“Right,” Yuriko muttered. It didn’t take much longer before they emerged back in the middle of town.

_____________

Sadeen Kierra Mishala had been plodding…no, strolling down the tunnel for several hours now. After the first hour, she attempted to cast a spell, Cirrus Skiff Dancing on the Breeze, which would have conjured a small cloud she could ride.

Unfortunately, as soon as she started shaping the ambient Chaos, the walls glowed and siphoned the Animus she used as a seed, and the ambient Chaos she controlled, thereby aborting the spell. So, she had little choice but to walk. Well, at least it wasn't an upslope.

The walls and ceiling decorations were quite interesting at first, but after hours of the same, she’d lost all interest. Her link with Virgil pointed towards the wall, though it changed angles as she walked, and grew stronger, too. So she was on the right track, at least.

The tunnel made a turn, and as soon as she followed, she paused. It opened up into a large chamber, and her entrance wasn’t at the bottom. She was at least three storeys above the ground level, on a walkway that extended to either side of her. There were metal railings atop a half wall to prevent someone from accidentally falling too, but that wasn’t what caught her attention.

Wyldlings. This was where one of those tunnels led to. A bunch of swarmlings wandered at the bottom of the chamber, which looked more like a bigger tunnel now that she’d had a better look. The Wyldlings were all going in one direction, to Sadeen’s left, and she wondered what prodded them to do so. Ah.

The concentration of ambient Chaos was higher down the tunnel.

Curious, she followed the Wyldlings while staying on the ledge. She could extend her battlewings here, but there was no reason to draw their attention. The railings were secured with runescript lines that obscured the ledge and whoever walked on it, which was why they hadn’t spotted her yet or attacked. With the density of Sadeen’s Animus, the Wyldlings would have been on her the instant they sensed her.

Swarmlings, Wanderers, and hunters. She could see the latter species even though they had their camouflage active simply by the activity of the ambient Chaos around them. This place’s ambient Chaos was at least at two iarvesh. Quite thick, and dangerous for most humans.

Hmmm, wasn’t this plane floating at Equilibrium? She was sure it was when she and the Silver Tiger arrived.

The large tunnel slowly curved. And then, she heard the telltale sounds of battle. Cautious but quite curious, Sadeen hurried along.

At the bottom of the tunnel, the swarmlings and Wanderers suddenly rushed forward.

Crunch! Ptoom! Twack!

Across the twenty-pace wide tunnel, a skirmish line of…things, held against the Wyldlings and slaughtered them.

“What are those?” Sadeen said under her breath.

Metallic bodies, four spindly legs, and weapons for arms. Boxy bodies, and heads with empty faces. The metal creatures carved into the swarmlings, spilling blue blood and flinging severed limbs all over the floor. The blue blood had formed into puddles and streams, which all flowed towards the side and down grated drains.

Behind the first line of metal things, was another set. But these ones had Plasma Casters for arms instead of axes. Those ones shot at the Wyldlings at an even rhythm, though it was soon clear that they weren’t using plasma as projectiles.

The dead Wyldlings’ bodies began to pile up until it was a veritable wall. Only when there were none of them in immediate reach did the metal creatures stop attacking. As one, they swivelled to the rear and skittered off.

The remaining Wyldlings pushed past the corpses and chased after the metal creatures, leaving the site of battle clear. The flow of Wyldlings soon stopped when all of them were out of sight. Sadeen stayed where she was, bewildered and even more curious. She could see the Chaos dust seeping out of the swarmling bodies, and the glinting Chaos shards sticking out from the broken torsos of the Wanderers and Hunters.

Thok, thok, thok.

Footsteps. Sadeen’s focus shifted to the tunnel entrance a few paces away. Muffled voices drifted from it, but more importantly, she could feel it.

“Looks like the Warforged just finished! Lucky!” an exuberant and feminine voice yelled. Sadeen’s eyes narrowed. She recognised it, of course, but there was an odd echoing quality to it.

The group emerged from the tunnel, and Sadeen couldn’t help but draw a surprised gasp. Five people. Each of them was encased in metal armour that practically oozed Animus. The group froze as they came out of the tunnel and onto the ledge, each of their eyes inevitably drawn to Sadeen’s body.

She grinned at the tallest one in the middle, who pressed a finger at the base of the helm. It caused it to retract and reveal the face of the man she loved and sorely missed.

“Sa…Sadeen?” Virgil’s gasp and look of disbelief, then joy made her smile even wider.

“Well, my love,” she giggled. “It’s about time you stopped hiding from me.”