Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

If she had any doubts that the daemons were subservient to the Irvallans, then they were firmly put to rest with what she saw.

The other concern she had, of the Crimson Apes being coerced into being cannon fodder, weren’t quite put to rest. The pentapods were small enough that when the apes wore any sort of clothing or armour, they were well and truly hidden. Although the rigid way they moved would have been a giveaway. That was assuming the pentapods controlling them didn’t adapt to a more natural gait.

Of course, she’d never seen mind-controlled daemon lizards before, so she couldn’t say if the pentapods had adapted, or if the lizards that accompanied the patrol squad of Irvallan rangers just moved like that in a unit. She rarely encountered lizard daemons in more than two or three individuals per group, and that species was more than capable of visual concealment. They were also able to feel her Anima perception since the moment they entered her range, the nearest lizard daemon triggered an alarm.

At the very least, Yuriko’s perception sphere didn’t draw a perfect boundary, not anymore. It had been that way at the beginning, and while it wasn’t really on purpose, the broader her reach grew, the less fine control she had at the edges. Hence, the boundary wasn’t a perfect line, but a squiggly barrier that undulated, either because of her mood or because of external influences.

She was somewhat rueful at the lack of control, but the squiggly was better anyway. At the very least, it concealed her position from anyone who could detect her Anima perception. The lizard who detected her looked in a direction she definitely wasn’t at, but they weren’t so amateurish to go haring off without confirmation. By that time, the entire squad of twelve humans and ten daemons, half-lizard, half-ape, had entered her reach. The squad leader perked up when the lizards reacted, then said, “Find.”

The daemons took a pattern, each one facing a different direction based on the alignment of her boundary. They were all looking everywhere else, but their positioning still created a line, and from there, a good guess on where she was.

Fascinated by how they operated, Yuriko hadn’t moved or adjusted her Anima. By the time the thought of subterfuge made its way into her mind, it was too late and they had a heading. They were only sixty or so paces away, but the intervening distance was covered by trees and underbrush, so they didn’t have visual contact.

“Lily? What’s happening?” Scarlett asked before Yuriko could shush her friend. There was only silence from the direction of the patrol, but she felt them suddenly orient towards her position.

The Interstitial Space was under their control and not-quite-so-subtly gave them the advantage. Yuriko heard Scarlett’s voice carry all the way there, without being muffled by the leaves and bushes. The squad leader made a hand signal, and contrary to what she expected, they didn’t charge. Instead, the daemons moved out of the way, and all twelve soldiers levered their firearms and started shooting. The tree trunks and bushes bent out of the way, and a moment later, there was no cover.

The bullets were infused with Intent and they curved towards Scarlett. Yuriko stepped in front of her friend and condensed a hexagonal Anima shield that was immediately struck by the bullets. She winced at the stinging pain, though she was somewhat appreciative of the fact that the bullets were able to crack her aura. Of greater concern was how her reserves of Will were consumed by negating the infused Intent. Each bullet drained a hundredth of a percent, but those magazines could contain more than enough to drain her beyond easy regeneration. As such, she retaliated.

While she could have used Invisible Edges to kill them, she still had to infuse Intent to get them to work properly. Bladeless Sword allowed her to use anything she could imagine as a sword, but they were still limited by their inherent nature. She could use a blade of grass to cut steel, but only if she bolstered it with Animakinesis, though even without that, the grass would act as a sword in the sense that she could fence with it. She’d probably be able to parry a blow or two before the fibres got shredded, and she could stab someone with it and have the tip penetrate skin. But that was probably the limit. An Invisible Edge was basically a puff of wind. Without reinforcement with her Anima, that little puff could only give shallow cuts before dissipating. Bolstered by a bit of Anima, they could slice the pentapods with ease. Infused with Intent, and they could cut anything, even things that weren’t meant to be cut. The limit then, was her understanding and insight.

The gunners were just at the edge of her reach. She took a step forward and dragged Scarlett behind her. She snapped her fingers and sent a dozen windblades at the guns. They struck at an upwards angle, most denting the barrel as they hit, then used her Animakinesis to club the soldiers' temples. The metal of their helmets took the brunt of the blow, which caused the shape to cave in slightly. Unfortunately, Animakinesis possessed a visible component and ten of the soldiers managed to move just enough to make it a glancing blow. The last two must have been too focused on shooting since they weren’t able to react and fell like a sack of potatoes.

At that point, the daemon lizards and apes charged, and at the same time, the spatial distortion receded, hiding the troop from sight. Not that it helped them since they were still within her reach.

She rained down blows at the soldiers while she conjured a sunblade, then split it into three minis. Those she sent to intercept the daemons, and at the same time, dissolved then recreated her hexshields. Her incarnation body didn’t have access to Adamant Guardian Seal, mostly because she didn’t form the mandalas around her Anima, for the same reason she didn’t hold external reserves. The hexshields were more an adaptation of Heron’s old technique, and were quite useful considering they were easy to interlock and stack. The fractured portions of her Anima retreated inside her to heal, and it was a bit frustrating to realise that such fracturing didn’t actually help her reach grow. That was entirely reliant on her true body’s portion.

Swip, swip, swip!

Three blades, three kills.

Swip, swip, swip!

Another set. Four daemons remain.

Swip, swip, swip!

One left, and that one barely five paces away. It was a daemon lizard, its scales shifted into an optical camouflage. She could feel it cross her Anima perception and it barely left a trace of its passage. She pressed down on it with her kinesis and that was enough to disrupt its optical cloak. It writhed and hissed, while Scarlett squeaked in surprise.

A moment later, a sunblade stabbed into its skull and killed it. Another moment afterwards and the attached pentapods crawled out of the corpse…corpses. The critters were small enough that they were hard to distinguish from the leaf-ridden ground and would have snuck past if she hadn’t been paying attention. Windblades ended the threat, and the only ones remaining were the soldiers.

“Hmmm, should I have killed everyone, I wonder?” Yuriko murmured.

“Eh, what do you mean?” Scarlett hissed.

Yuriko gave her friend a sideways glance, then gestured at the suddenly visible lizard. “These daemons aren’t just monsters. They’re sapient, too. Deadly people, but still people.”

“But…they attacked?”

Yuriko hummed, "That's true, but they were also being controlled.”

“But what about those things when we first came in?”

“Ah, those weren’t controlled, I think.”

“Then that doesn’t really change anything.” Scarlett said decisively.

“I guess not,” Yuriko chuckled, “But I’m also thinking of those soldiers that shot at us.”

“What about them?” Scarlett asked coldly, “They went lethal immediately.”

“Die by the sword, huh?” Yuriko murmured.

Scarlett didn’t quite look resolute, but it was clear she was bracing herself. Yuriko hadn’t killed any of the humans yet, though she wondered why she was fine going lethal with the creatures when she was hesitant with humanoids. Well, she thought that leaving humans alive and emotional jarred fed her Mien…well, that was probably it. She certainly hadn’t demonstrated any such reluctance during the war for Rumiga and other battles.

Pragmatism, wasn’t it? She could feel more threads connecting to her dreamscape self. Some eventually fell off, though she wasn’t sure if those were the ones who were initially afraid of her. The question she pondered now was if the daemons could meaningfully feed her with Quintessence, too. Should she try? Hmmm.

Ah, but the problem was that the pentapodded weren’t easy to…liberate. The critters didn’t just stick out in the open, but were hidden in the nooks and crannies of the daemons. Also…were the soldiers also pentapodded? She wouldn’t be able to tell unless she did a full body search and ultimately, it was a pointless act. They were hostile whether or not they were controlled, and it wasn’t as if there was a cure-all for the things. Then again, it was also possible that they weren’t in a subordinate relationship, but in a symbiotic one. It would explain how that soldier from earlier was able to resist her commands for so long.

“Well, let’s relieve them of their weapons then.” Yuriko said while eying up her friend, “You certainly need something more than those batons.”

Scarlett swallowed then nodded. “Yeah.”

The dozen soldiers were down on the forest floor, groaning in pain if not actually unconscious. Yuriko quickly stripped them of their weapons, then forced them unconscious with her Mien. After a moment, she decided to check if they had any easily spotted pentapods on them.

“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked as she fumbled with an assault rifle. The weapon looked similar enough to what was available in Astoria, but only on the surface level, considering the things didn’t actually work with gunpowder. The bullets were identical to what she lifted from the earlier squad.

“Checking if they’re mind controlled.”

“Are they?”

“I can’t tell yet,” Yuriko said patiently as her Anima perception swept over her victim’s…er, target’s…skin. He wore a bodysuit under his uniform and unless she was mistaken, it was made of a rather tough substance and was enchanted with runescript lines too. A cursory check with the other soldiers revealed that this man was the only one attired as such, and his insignia indicated he was at least a couple of ranks above the others. Officer gear, then? She couldn’t quite slip under the bodysuit and she was already feeling a bit icky on doing something like this.

The suit was hermetically sealed and she spotted some runescript lines along the seams. When she pressed, it actively resisted, and started to heat up. Not really wanting to torture the soldier, Yuriko sighed and relented, then did another cursory sweep amongst the others. There were a few odd lumps along their spine, but no pentapods. Not outside, anyway.

Having divested the group of their weapons, but not quite capable of carrying all of it, Yuriko settled on destroying the excess. Scarlett had the assault rifle as well as a pistol that looked much like a revolver with six bullets loaded. The workmanship on those things looked great so she filched another one for herself, then she destroyed the rest simply by crushing them with her kinesis.

Afterwards, she piled up all of them next to a tree and…

‘Master, these people got riled up all of a sudden! Eh, what’s that sound?’

Yuriko paused for a moment, then blinked. ‘Dee…’

Then she felt it. Multiple somethings crossing into her perception range. They reached her vicinity in the blink of an eye, then…

BOOOOOM!