Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Contrary to what she expected—and really, Yuriko had developed a habit of thinking her foes foolish or ignorant—the power armoured fliers didn’t rush into the rift in pursuit.

Instead, they bombarded her infused sunblade since it was exposed, and since she didn’t wish to waste the Radiance, Intent, and Will she’d already spent to conjure the blade, she pulled it back through the portal.

A few seconds later, the bullets started flying through the rift. These ones were infused with a miniscule amount of Intent, hence, they hurt. They weren’t potent enough to the point they could crack her triple density Anima, and more to the point, that didn’t really help increase her reach…or at least, it didn’t do it directly.

Everything she experienced in her incarnation body was experienced in her true body. What really mattered when she trained her Anima to the point of fracture: the damage itself, or the experiences that came with it?

Nothing in Damien’s memory palace revealed answers, and she suspected that the varied Conclaves would have at least an inkling of how things worked. They did work out how to empower themselves using Anaflexio as a technique. It was a horrifying method, and one that was possibly counterproductive, but she had nothing to base that on other than her guts.

The bullets were then followed by micro-missiles, tiny things about the length and width of her thumb, propelled by a fiery reaction created by Occult Resonance. Yuriko idly wondered if she should study that discipline. It was a weird mix of Arcana Weaving, runescript enchantment, and Spirit Bonding that the Confederates used back home in Rumiga.

As interesting as the thought was, she put it aside to deal with the current troubles. The bullets hadn’t been much of a problem. She wouldn’t even need to block them if they hadn’t curved around to target the nearest person, which happened to be herself. Otherwise, they would have homed in on one of the Altered.

It took a couple of minutes more before the barrage ended. She expected either another bullet or missile swarm, or if the soldiers were feeling foolish, an actual crossing.

Five minutes later and nothing happened. Which was rather annoying, come to think of it. Yuriko yawned while her Anima recovered from the beating she took.

Triple density meant that it was also that much easier to recover, and her Will hadn’t been anywhere near exhausted. The Intent fueled barrage hadn’t even dropped her reserves by a single percent. More like a thousandth of a percent? The trouble with measuring those resources was that she still hadn’t found a way to be precise. They continually grow, and the most she could do was measure by percentiles.

Her initial thought to use Invisible Edge to do the measuring had fallen by the wayside when she realised that her consumption grew more efficient every so often. Too many variables to make it a reliable measurement tool. There was still no insight from Damien’s memories, and the most she got was ‘the more the better’.

At the very least, the memories gave her rough touchstones to measure against when her current amount was enough to advance without problems…

…which she hadn’t checked in a while.

The first thing was that both Intent and Will had to be roughly equal, or close enough that it wouldn’t matter. The fact that she used both to empower her flying swords helped, anyway. Intent to give direction, Will to keep it together. It took longer to infuse into an Invisible Edge if she used both, and that technique really didn’t need Will to function. With the touchstones known, she hadn’t made the mistake of becoming unbalanced. Though she also knew her Will grew when defending against Intent infused attacks. It was nice to have a technique she could train to seek balance.

What she needed to check to learn if her Intent and Will was enough to advance without worry was to infuse both into a construct and have it persist for a couple of hours…or so…though that was for the construct to do nothing but exist. The amount prescribed was a single percentage of the resources.

The soldiers hadn’t crossed the threshold yet, and she suspected that they wouldn’t. Not for a long while, and perhaps not for anyone other than the fliers. The rift was fifty paces off the ground on the other side after all. Anyone on this side had better be able to fly if they wanted to cross. And they also had other rifts to use.

What did they want in Astoria anyway? Irvalla wasn’t big enough for them? Then again, if they wanted conquest, they might have gotten to everyone around them already. Karcellia and the allied nations had been losing when she stumbled into the situation, not that she contributed much to their victories anyway.

She formed a sunblade and infused it with one percent of her Intent and Will, then sunk it under the sands below the portal. It had enough perception range to tell her when someone passed through it. And for now, she needed to help the others.

The explosions, the gunfire, and the dry heat all contributed to the hullabaloo. And it seemed the noise had finally shaken them out of their daze. The Altered were running, and it seemed they finally got control of their power to make their escape. The only problem was that not all of them were headed in the same direction. Oh, they would all eventually hit the road, but for those running at an oblique angle, it would take more than two longstrides to reach the place. And at least half a dozen didn’t have anything in their power sets to increase movement.

Brilliance was flying in circles. She kept heading south towards the road, then back to the rift. She could feel the younger girl’s eyes on her, and it was only when Yuriko started to fly south did Brilliance stop waffling about.

Scarlett was at the back of the group, trying to herd the stragglers onwards. The cracked ground was crumbly and unsteady; she saw a man stumble when the dirt gave way. Scarlett caught him with her Animakinesis, though only enough to stop him from banging his nose on the ground. Another one tripped and fell, and was too far from Scar for the smol woman to catch. They did manage to break their fall with their forearms, but a choked sob drifted out of their mouth.

Dee…where was the Chaos Lord? Yuriko frowned as she traced her connection to the other girl.

Underneath the layer of reality?

‘Need to restore Chaos, master.’

Ah.

Yuriko shook her head and floated towards the rescued prisoners. She thought to flare her Anima and exercise her Mien to gain control, but thought better of exerting mental influence to those who’d been collared. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the chance to tether them to her Mien, so she didn’t have insight into their emotional states beyond what she could see. Well, she should grab those who were running the wrong way, anyway.

Since she was in her Regalia costume, albeit wearing a domino mask instead of her modified motorcycle helmet, she was able to openly use her Anima without trying to be discreet, a frustrating effort that barely paid off. Her Anima was too bright and too powerful to be anything but obvious, and only perception was subtle. It was only because her incarnation body didn’t hold any external Animus reserves was it possible to truly hold her Anima close to her body, but that also meant she couldn’t have an instance of Adamant Guardian Seal ready.

Her true body had been limited in how many instances she could prepare. At the latest count, it was three uses. At this point in time, she took five or so seconds to spool up a new instance, and unfortunately, it wasn’t a matter of skill. Or at least, she didn’t think so. Setting up the Adamant Guardian Seal required building mandalas and allowing Animus to fill it up, and it was the latter that took up time, and she was already pushing the boundaries of her skill at doing that. The Seal was still the best defence she knew how to perform, even after all these years. It was an unmovable shield, and nothing she encountered so far could break it. Though Damien hadn’t commented much on it.

‘I wonder why…surely he must know of it?’ An idle thought with no chance of gaining an answer any time soon. Perhaps at his level, the protection wasn’t all-encompassing?

Either way, her Anima could probably hold a single copy in her incarnation body, but doing so would mean that she’d be glowing faintly all the time. She made do with her true body because the external structures were at her back or other easily concealed places on her body, but her career as an actress and a model in Astoria meant that she exposed far too much skin to make doing that safe.

Though it occurred to her now that she could just hold an Adamant Guardian Seal only while she was in her Regalia persona. She’d have to discharge it once she wanted out of costume, and that would be bright and obvious, so perhaps it was still too much trouble. It wasn’t as if she encountered anything that could actually hurt her, daemons aside. And if she anticipated such a battle, there was nothing stopping her from prepping the seals then.

In the meantime, she managed to corral the others. Nothing else was happening at the rift, and while she was tempted to send another sunblade through, the one she left behind had already dissipated from intercepting dozens of micromissiles and bullets. She’d attempted to have it strike at the fliers, but the attacks came from too many directions. The limited reach of her perception through the manifestations was a weakness she needed to work on… and while she had an idea what to do, she had no idea how.

“Li…! Uh, Regalia!” Scarlett yelled at her.

“Hmmm?”

“What’s the plan?”

“Reach the city?”

“By walking?”

“Perhaps we can hitchhike? The road’s only a longstride away now.”

“Hitchhike?” Scarlett grumbled incredulously. “Why not call for aid?”

“I did. Alexis is arranging things for us in Naradon City.”

“I mean call the emergency hotline? Five oh five?”

“Er, yeah…” Yuriko muttered, then tilted her head, “Can you make the call?”

Scarlett pursed her lips, then brought out her phone. What was left of it, anyway. The smartphone’s touchscreen was a web of cracks, and when she tried to turn it on, nothing happened.

“Your burner phone?” Yuriko prodded.

“I don’t have one.”

“Ah.”

Yuriko didn’t have one either, and she doubted any of the freed prisoners had theirs either. Come to think of it, their phones might contain details of their lives that the invaders could use…though she wasn’t sure if they’d even bother. If she used her smartphone, then her identity as Lilibeth Lawson could be tied to Regalia. She wasn’t sure if the reveal of her being ‘Altered’ would affect her career, and she was loath to give that up now considering how useful it was to collect Quintessence and Ambrosia.

She hadn’t decided what to do by the time they finally reached the road, which wasn’t much at six lanes wide. A car whooshed along the road every minute or so, but that might be because of the heat more than anything else. Perhaps they were lucky, since ten minutes after they reached the roadside, Yuriko saw a commuter bus travelling towards Naradon appear in the distance, one that could probably fit the escapees inside.

She flagged it down, but she saw that the driver didn’t even give them a second look. Before they could drive past her, however, she grabbed the thing with her Anima and forcibly slowed it down to a halt over a hundred paces. Not enough to hurt anyone from the deceleration, but certainly enough to cause a panic.

She opened the doors and grinned and the driver, “Now that I have your attention, I’d like to request passage to Naradon for the poor men and women who’ve just escaped imprisonment from a group of invading soldiers.”

The man nodded mutely at her even as the passengers were at an uproar. She sent a glare their way and silence descended. A couple of minutes later, everyone had squeezed into the bus and they were well on their way to the city.

The sunblade she left behind lay quiet under the sands.