Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

‘Where are you?’ Yuriko demanded.

‘Within the base, Master. The prisoners aren't in a good state. We're holed up in one of the rail cars. I'm healing them as quickly as I can.’ Desire answered. ‘The enemy is using a collar that suppresses outward energy expression to contain the prisoners. It also dampens their thoughts.’

Yuriko hissed in anger but quickly settled down. She supposed a tool to control was better than trying to break a prisoner’s spirit.

Still, the idea of something close to a slave collar…

A memory packet unfolded from her Anima and both of her bodies froze. The suppression collar annoyed her because it was a downgrade from an actual Control Collar, or more colloquially known as a slave collar back when Damien was alive. Once she parsed through the data, she sighed. It wasn't meant for the latter purpose but was a training tool to hone control. Just that it was easy to switch things up for the worse. The good thing was that a control collar wouldn't do anything against Ancients of at least Actualisation level since their Anima would be too potent for the tool. Perhaps they could eventually be upgraded , or perhaps the Conclave of Authority had something like that already…

She shook her head and focused on Dee’s report.

‘Master, it may be better to rendezvous within the camp.’

‘Why?’

‘Can you not sense it?’

Sense what? Yuriko frowned and looked towards the camp and paid more attention to her perception aura. She didn't feel anything that was out of place, though the wind was a bit more gusty than before.

‘The wind? The camp is downwind. But I didn't notice the change.’ Yuriko guessed.

‘I suppose the effects didn't spread out that far.’ Dee said. ‘The ritual opened rifts, Master.’

‘To where?’ Yuriko asked while simultaneously checking the Unfettered. She'd lost sight of them a while back since they continued the attack and she used her infused sunblade to scout around them. She'd spotted a line where the cannon fodder came from, and she suspected it led back to the abandoned hospital.

‘To the prime material plane, Astoria.’ She felt Dee’s emotional turbulence, ‘There are multiple holes in space.’

‘They don't all lead to the same place?’

‘No, Master.’

‘In that case, take the closest one you can and organise their transportation afterwards.’

‘What do you plan to do, Master?’

‘I’ll make sure they don't follow you.’

‘As you say.’ there was a brief pause, then Dee asked, ‘What about Scarlett?’

‘What about her?’

‘I think you'll be freer to act without having to babysit someone.’

Yuriko pursed her lips, then reluctantly nodded. ‘I guess you're right. Change plans then. We'll head to your location and exit the Interstitial Space together.’

‘Yes, Master. I'll remove the collars first. It'll take ten minutes at most. Please provide a distraction.’

‘Alright.’

Yuriko turned to Scarlett, who had been fidgeting by her side. “They poked a hole.. we holes, into Astoria. We'll join Dee and the rescued, then escape.”

At the same time, she sent the command to her remaining sunblades. Only one was outside the camp and it abandoned watching the Unfettered. They weren't a concern at the moment and really, they were part of the distraction. The other three surfaces from underneath the camp.

They were noticed immediately and while there was no one foolish enough to fire, it did raise an alarm.

She didn't give the soldiers the chance to act first. She sent each blade towards a building, a vehicle, or even a group of men. The building, which looked like a warehouse, she cut through the walls, then heated to the point that the concrete melted. There wasn't anything outside that could catch aflame, and she wasn't enlightened to a Truth that would force combustion on something that inherently wasn't flammable. Still, the waves of heat from the molten cement drove back anyone who stood close. It was a pity that the munitions inside didn't explode.

The vehicle was an armoured transport. The plating resisted the sunblades as if it was paper, and she carved the engine block and turned that into molten steel. The things weren't powered by petrol, however, which was a shame. She remembered Irvallans used that in their automobiles before.

Her sunblade had wound up in a parking space, a motor pool, or something like that, as there were other armoured vehicles next to it. Her range was only ten paces from the blade and she detected just one more car. This new one had a gun emplacement at the back, but it was unmanned. She perforated the engine block, then sliced the gun from barrel to stock. As she did so, her blade came within range of another armed and armoured vehicle, and this one had operators scrambling to get in.

As the sunblade spun to attack the third armoured car, one of the soldiers threw themselves at her sword. Her eyebrows rose when she detected a spell activation, not quite the same as a Magus’ arcane weaving, but then, the discipline was different in Irvalla and Astoria.

There was a flash of esoteric energy, then the man was sheathed in a skin tight force field, and he was inches from. The Radiant blade. Contact would probably eat up the reserves and kill the man, so she simply swished the sword around his trajectory, slipped past him, then straight into the vehicle. The blade carved into the machine emplacement, slid into the interior, then shot it towards the front, where it wound up embedded into the engine block just as the Radiant reserves dried up. That still took the thing out, but her spying had come to an end.

The third sword happened upon a company of soldiers, eighty strong. They were marching northwards, where Dee and the others were. She wasted no time in striking, and this time, she didn't hold back. She didn't seek to annihilate every member, but only enough to cause a rout.

The sunblade struck, and a golden line was carved across the lead platoon. A moment later, the upper bodies of eight men toppled off. The edges of the wound were cauterised shut, and if they were rushed to the medics, coupled with whatever healing Occult Resonance tools they had, the fallen might survive. But only if they immediately retreated. The sunblade danced menacingly in front of the survivors, and she waited for their decision. Would they have more courage than sense, she wondered.

It turned out that half were sensible while the rest were either fools or too brave to think—she wasn't quite sure what the difference was. Sixteen soldiers behind the wounded seized the bisected bodies while the rest opened fire with their assault rifles. Since the sunblade was the size of a side blade, most of the bullets should have missed, but the Irvallans were more competent than she expected. The sunblade evaded most of the shots but a couple of bullets unexpectedly curved to follow the dodge. The Intent infused lead pinged off the blade and drained a bit of Animus and Radiance. Each bullet evaporated with a tiny puff of golden light.

She was about to retaliate, but when her blade paused for too long, the soldiers began to retreat. She let them go and moved the sunblade elsewhere, but for the next ten minutes, she didn't find any other targets of opportunity. That wasn't to say that the blade hadn't been fired upon though.

While her distraction happened, she picked up Scarlett and flew towards the base. She kept low to stay out of easy sight, and twisted around to check the skies every now and then. She spotted a couple of fliers in powered armour near the clouds, roughly five longstrides away, and strove to keep out of line of sight. Unfortunately, the golden glow of her Anima stood out against the forest. The fliers took up the chase.

“We'll have to take those down before they keep harrying us all the way to the others,” Yuriko grumbled.

“What do we do?” Scarlett asked, while biting her lip.

Yuriko frowned, then sighed. No choice other than to use the flying swords again. Invisible Edge didn't have that kind of range…

Huh. Why not?

She'd only targeted foes up close whenever she used that technique, but nothing's really stopping her from using it at long ranges. Using snapping fingers to launch the Edge would be making things more complicated though.

She held out a hand and materialised a sunblade. Then she focused on the far away flier and swung the blade. An Invisible Edge a couple of paces long emerged from the slash, infused by two percent of her Will and Intent. That was honestly too much, she thought, but better to overcompensate that to go the other way.

The Edge crossed the distance in a blink of an eye.

Ptang!

The shrill squeal of the impact against metal echoed all the way to her position. A moment later, the flier fell, spiralling towards the ground. They managed to pull up after a hundred pace fall, but then, transitioned into a dive for cover.

Yuriko’s Enhanced Sight revealed some damage to the powered armour, mostly across the torso where she aimed.

Huh, that thing didn't have much steel?

Or rather, the runescript enchantment resisted more than she expected. To cut through, she would need to tune the Edge against the specific armour, or simply infuse more Intent. She could spend Swordlight too, but that was a limited resource that took days to recover.

Her attack must have spooked the other fliers since they skirted away from her path. A minute later, they emerged from the forest and onto the troublesome plain. Nothing to it but to hurry.

She pushed her flight as hard as she could, but propelling herself using her Anima meant that every Jin of weight affected her maximum speed. In her true body, it wouldn't be an issue considering how wide her reach was, but since her incarnation body was limited to a tenth of her real reach, carrying Scarlett slowed her by half.

Thankfully, the Unfettered’s attack drew most of the wall turrets’ attention and only the crew ahead aimed at them. The bullets from there weren't infused with Intent, but they were heavier on the Elemental energy. She formed hex shields to cover their approach and angled them so that the bullets deflected rather than delivering their entire kinetic force into her Anima.

They crossed the distance to the wall by the time the sunblades she used as a distraction faded, but the camp was really too expanding for that to catch everyone's attention. Two more turrets fired at them from either side of the wall so she abandoned her hex shields and simply thickened her spherical barrier. By the time they went over the wall, her Anima had several micro fractures.

She shot towards where she felt Dee was, and estimated she needed half a minute. While the wall guards were vigilant, the interior guards were more easily distracted. She fired off dozens of Arclight Crescents using the sunblade she held on to, mostly as suppressive fire.

She ignored the soldiers as she hurried, speed more important than discretion. She could see the holes in the canvas of reality now that the wall wasn't in the way, and the sight of hundreds of the things sent a shiver down her spine. How would the Astorians prevent an invasion now?

She almost overshot Desire's position and only the abrupt reversal of her direction sense told her of her blunder. By the time she turned around, Dee had dropped the illusion that hid her and her charges from hostile sight, but by doing so, she also caught the attention of nearby soldiers.

Not that they were looking anyway, since the troops cong

regated around the holes that weren't too high up in the air.

Huh. Now they would have to fight to get through.