Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

A lot of things could happen in the blink of an eye. An artillery shell could cross more than sixty paces, a bullet could pierce a body, and Yuriko could put up a hex shield in that amount of time. Her Anima moved as quick as thought, and she not only put up a shield, she also enveloped her friend with ablative layers of tiny hex shields. All of her reach and triple dense volume of Anima was dedicated to both protection and evasion.

At the moment the shells struck the ground in front of her, and the shockwave struck, along with shrapnel, she pushed off with her toes and yanked Scarlett with her. She manoeuvred the other girl to remain behind her, then rode the shockwave away from the impact point. She managed to keep a hold on her loot, mostly the food and ammunition. Scarlett almost lost her grip on the stolen rifle, latching on to it by the skin of her teeth.

The soldiers were a lost cause, however, and they were reduced to nothing more than bloody mist.

The two of them found themselves half thrown back, half flying roughly five paces from where they stood when another artillery shell fell, almost at the very same spot. It missed just enough that the impact hit the edge of the crater, and the explosive shockwave and shrapnel still struck her Anima, and their speed practically doubled.

A third shell fell before they could land, and it shredded the outermost layer of hex shields Yuriko used to defend. The runt of the damage was on her, but some of the ablative shields had peeled off from Scarlett. The other girl’s expression had frozen into a rictus of fear, her scream overwhelmed by the explosions. Yuriko’s ears were spared deafness not just by her condensed aura, but also by the natural resilience of her body. Scarlett didn’t have such protection, and she noted twin trails of blood that dribbled down her ear lobes. Minor regeneration should fix it.

A fourth and fifth shell landed, but by then, they were far enough away that the shockwave only rippled against her aura. Yuriko took control of her flight roughly thirty paces away from ground zero, and from there, moved directly away. While she couldn’t feel any more shells from the sky, the fact that five of them managed to hit almost the exact spot where she and the others had been didn’t bode well.

Whoosh! Boom! Whoosh! Boom!

‘Master!’

Desire’s mental call had been pushed aside by the attack and only when Yuriko had some leeway was she able to give a sliver of attention back.

‘Artillery.’

‘I heard some booms.’

‘Can’t see it from where you are?’

‘No, Master. We’re being herded into a train.’

‘Train? A locomotive train?’

‘Looks like it,’ Dee said, ‘the ritual area, I think.’

‘Take Brilliance and Speedrun with you and escape as soon as you can,’ Yuriko said. It was too dangerous to attempt an infiltration while dragging Scarlett along. ‘Meet up with us once you have them.’

‘What about the other prisoners?’

‘If you can rescue them, do so.’

‘Yes, Master.’

The shells continued to fall, marching towards the south, right where she was headed. She changed directions of course, and the shells continued to fall southwards. Only for a couple of minutes though. The bombardment stopped at that point, but they continued to flee at an oblique angle from where she felt Dee was in.

They moved in relative silence for the next half hour, then another rain of artillery shells fell around them. The first shot missed by a hundred paces, but the following ones marched towards her position. She didn’t stay to await destruction, and as she flew, she noted that the shells didn’t follow her succeeding movement, but in less than a dozen shells, they already struck where she’d been at the start. They had a spotter for certain, but where?

The only place that made any kind of sense was from above. The canopy wasn’t perfect cover, and her flight created a golden glow because of her Animakinesis. They must gave glimpsed her passage from the air. But what could she do about it?

She glared towards the sky and she instinctively looked towards the Radiant Sun. As she half expected, there was a flier above. They were too far away to make out, and while the glare of the harsh light would have blinded anyone else, she wasn’t affected. Enhanced Sight confirmed to her that the flier was facing her direction and probably looking right at her, or her golden Anima at the very least.

No, it wasn’t just one flier. There were another two or so, though the numbers might be obscured by their mirror images. Now what could she do about them? Not much, honestly. She could fly all the way up, but was restricted by having to carry Scarlett behind her. She felt a tiny bit of resentment before she snuffed and buried it away. She brought her friend to help her deal with her trauma against the Unfettered, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault that something like this happened. Unfortunately, almost being cut down by daemons might have added to the problem instead. Scarlett grew stronger because of it, but that wasn’t really a good exchange.

Instead of trying to swat the flies, she opted to do something more likely to succeed. Her sunblades had arrived at the vicinity of the armed camp, she thought. The view was limited to ten paces around each blade, and for that reason, she had to fly them underground in order to conceal their presence. Of course, that still left behind a trail of molten, then resolidified dirt, but that was harder to spot than a brightly glowing golden sword flying through the air. They were a couple of paces underground, which left only a thin trail above. The loosely packed soul didn’t limit the perception range by much, only doubling the cost to see through. So ten paces of perception in open air meant five underground. At the current depth, that left six paces of perception from the buried point of origin, more than enough to get a good glimpse of the surroundings.

And three of the seven sunblades crossed under a concrete barrier. Or rather, they crossed through the barricade since the wall’s foundation was more than three paces deep. Once she was inside the camp, she felt multiple heavy vibrations through her swords. It was easy enough to triangulate the source and once they came close, she finally saw what was throwing the shells her way.

She was expecting long guns, specifically those that were built on prepared grounds. Crew-served weapons, obviously. Her assumptions were based on the calibre of the shells and the rate of fire. She expected multiple guns, and she wasn’t disappointed. What surprised her was that the artillery guns weren’t stationary, nor were they the type to be pulled behind vehicles. Instead, the long guns were mounted on train carriages. They were on a set of railways, and she could see another set through a different pair of sunblades some distance away. The ones with the artillery guns were close to the southern part of the camp.

Each gun had legs braced into the ground, and the barrels were aimed towards where she and Scarlett were located. She’d slowed down her flight, and took greater care that her path didn’t cross the gaps in the canopy. It was a bit futile to try to dim the glow considering she dedicated a large part of her reach to carry the two of them as well as set up their protections.

She felt more vibrations from her sunblade as the cannons spoke. The noise wasn’t actually deafening, she realised, and the cannons weren’t using gunpowder to propel the shells. She saw the crew operating the cannon, and each one didn’t look like a typical soldier. They had vestments that were covered in runescript lines. Those glowed as they channeled power into the cannons, which them propelled the shells.

A couple of seconds after the guns spoke, Yuriko felt the impact of the falling shells. They missed by several hundred paces, and the direction the succeeding shells fell wasn’t in the correct direction either. Did changing directions and hiding as much as possible throw off the pursuit?

Either way, it was time to strike back, and possibly help Dee’s rescue and escape.

With a flex of Will, Yuriko sent all three of the nearby sunblades up and out of the ground. They emerged underneath the railway carriages and shot directly up. The cannons were forged from strong steel and enchanted by runescript lines, but most of the working involved strengthening the barrel, increasing the shell propulsion, and probably a stabilising factor to make sure that it would hit where it was intended. There was some enchantment involved in strengthening the frame, specifically to brace for the recoil. That wasn’t enough to stop her Radiant Sunblade.

The lack of a loud sound belied the fact that the sunblade pierced all the way through. The shells didn’t have any explosive power, and she timed the attack right after the cannon shot, so the system was devoid of explosive energy. Once through, she had the sword double back and finish carving up the metal. The crew screamed in panic and anger, and there were a few with reflexes quick enough to shoot the sunblade. It didn’t matter much, though.

The next cannon was a dozen paces next to the first one, though she only detected it after she followed the rails. She destroyed that one, and the next, while two other sunblades did the same along the rail line. She managed to destroy three cannons per sword before the constructs exhausted their Radiant reserves and broke.

Smirking in satisfaction, Yuriko checked the flying spy, then frowned when they didn’t react much. Then she heard the twin booms of an artillery shell flight and impact, though this one was even farther away from where she was. Still, they earned a reprieve, and she wasted little time in putting more distance between the impact points and the fliers.

A couple of minutes later, they arrived at the plains that stretched between the forest’s edge and the army encampment. She could see plumes of smoke where the cannons got slagged, but the spot she struck wasn’t the only one there.

Another rolling barrage sounded out, though it was hundreds of paces away from her. Were they not shooting for her anymore?

“Lily? Talk to me, please…” Scarlett cried.

“It’s alright, now.”

Yuriko brought the smaller girl next to her and patted her arm. “I’ve neutralised some of the cannons, but it looks like there’s another target.”

At the same time she sent a mental call to Desire, ‘Anything happening over there? I hit a bunch of artillery, but they’re shooting at someone else.’

An artillery barrage wasn’t really the best way to blast infantry anyway, or even worse, fliers. They got caught once, and that had been the closest they got to hurting her.

‘Dee?’

‘...bit busy, will respond later…’

Yuriko nodded and didn’t reply. She turned to Scarlett and pointed at the camp. “Dee, Brilliance, and Speedrun are there, along with another bunch of hostages.”

“We’re rescuing them.”

Yuriko leaned back, startled, and Scarlett snorted.

“Why the reaction? I’m not going to hang back when they need help.”

“Alright, but Dee’s got things well in hand.”

Scarlett eyed her strangely, then muttered, “You’ve got way too many secrets, Lily. How do you even know that?”

Yuriko grinned. “We’ve got a connection.”

“Ah, Dee’s power, then?”

“You can say that.”

“Well, what’s the plan?”

“We wait until she gives us the signal, then we either retreat, or we add to the troubles.” Yuriko shrugged, “In the meantime, let me teach you how to use your Anima better.”