“Dee, where are you?” Yuriko muttered, but the connection between them was muffled. The daemon nest… the incarnation trap, somehow hampered mental communication of sorts. She thought to cast the Connection spell, but while she and Scarlett escaped the initial room, her sunblade was still there, slaughtering daemons. More of which were popping out of the black rimmed portal at a rate of one or so every couple of seconds. Mostly Crimson Apes, actually.

The Apes were excellent frontline combatants and were tough enough to absorb a lot of punishment before succumbing. She reviewed her memories of the few seconds that passed after they entered the nest, and in it, she saw Scarlett fight her best, but was easily overcome. Only her nascent Anima armour allowed her to survive the few seconds Yuriko had been incapacitated.

She’d trained Scarlett—Harakin—as much as she could. The minor regeneration she had meant that it fulfilled the same role Recovery did when it came to training the body, but even so, Scar wasn’t as dedicated as Yuriko had been when she was fresh off her Atavism Ritual.

The sunblades finished off all the daemons in that particular nest, but when she expanded her perception, she found three more within fifty paces of her location. Her Anima perception touching them alerted the daemons, the lizard things in particular, and they alerted the Apes. The Crimson Apes were more varied than she expected, with some having two pairs of arms instead of one. Two with four arms had thinner frames and looked to be built on speed rather than brute strength, and they were the ones who shot out to the hallway and beelined to her location.

She called the sunblade to her side, and it arrived just in time to intercept the first wave of Apes. She could have let it fight on its own, the Will and Intent inherent in its construction more than enough to draw on her skills and Truths, but by taking a more direct hand, it slowed the drain and allowed the construct to last longer. It was also good practice.

How long had it been since she fought using Flying Swords? Most of the time, she allowed the blades to act according to the Ennoia of Radiant Flying Swords, but eventually, she realised that doing just that meant she wasn’t really learning or improving. If she actively directed the swords, along the guidelines of that Truth, but not limited to what she could access…

Well, she learned that Truths were deeper than what they first appeared. By innovating, experimenting, and succeeding or failing, she deepened the connection to the Ennoia and allowed more resonance between it and herself. She wondered if the Ennoia had been learned and improved by someone before, or if the knowledge and insight had always been there. Mysteries she wasn’t prepared to delve into simply because she probably wouldn’t find a satisfactory answer, but she couldn’t ignore either—that meant she would never truly know. That knowledge and wisdom were the key to proper progress when it came to that kind of Truth; it was in stark contrast to the Ennoia, and so far, Colligia of Radiance. That one only required passively absorbing Radiant energy and constant reinforcement of the structures around and within her Anima core.

Piloting the sunblade as opposed to wielding it directly had been a dissonant experience the first time it happened. Without a body to get in the way, without the conventional limits of muscles, joints, and bones—even those reinforced and pushed to their limits—swordfighting was just different. The blade caressed the daemon Ape’s arm, and the pierced through its torso to puncture the heart and burn it with Radiance. The sunblade emerged behind the monster and moved to engage the next ape, with similar feats of swordsmanship, and the next, each kill taking no more than a second or two, depending on how stubborn the apes clung to life. The four-armed variety, agile they may be, were still no match for her own sunblade’s agility.

The sunblade pierced the four-armed ape’s head, then swerved to chase after another that tried to bypass the line. That one’s demise meant that another made it past the line and closed in on her position. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. Her favoured tactic when she used the Flying Swords was to pair them up in threes and send a veritable swarm of them, and the limitation of only being able to field a limited amount tripped her up. That and her incarnation body leaned on her true body’s Ennoia when it came to Radiant Flying Swords since this body didn’t have the core to handle it properly. Her decision to split up her bodies’ specialities, while quite advantageous, had turned around in this particular scenario.

She was currently in expanded time, meaning for every second that passed, dozens, if not hundreds, passed Shangria. Thoughts normally flowed between her bodies as if there was no division or distance at all, but the partition and interpreter strands played havoc with that. So, she found herself drawing on abilities and techniques that strictly weren’t really available.

She kicked at the ground in seeming petulance, but that actually sent an Invisible Edge at the approaching ape. It was a small one, to limit her Intent expenditure, but it was more than enough to carve into the creature’s skull to end it.

She had little thought of holding back, even considering the disparity in their strengths, a fact she just noticed now. Her typical behaviour was to extract as much enjoyment as she could from battle, to the point that she actively lowered her skill, but the incarnation interference and the gravity of Scarlett’s wounds cast things in a different light. Besides, this was challenging enough as it was.

She kicked at the Apes a couple of more times to send an Invisible Edge each, then she bypassed their line by wall running. She angled her hold over Scarlett so that she wasn’t tilted over sideways, and moments later, they were out of reach. Now wary of careless scouting, she used her Animakinesis to blunt soundwaves so that her footsteps against the hard stone wouldn’t echo along the tunnels.

Enhanced Sight allowed her to see farther through the obscuring energies prevalent in the daemon nest, but it was still quite limited. She saw more branching tunnels that probably led to more nests in cul-de-sacs. She glanced up towards the skies and towards the lip of the ravine. It was a possible path, alright.

Yuriko wasted little time. She could run along walls by simple dint of speed and balance; it was just as easy to run up them, even without using Animakinesis or simple flight. Most of her Anima was focused on protecting Scarlett, as well as aiding in her recovery. Mostly by keeping wounds closed. That included severed veins and arteries, stitching together fragmented bones, and making sure the regeneration effect didn’t cripple the woman. She wasn’t sure if the Altered power realigned bones, after all, and they didn’t dare experiment with it in the past.

The only reason she could actually aid Scarlett’s regeneration with her Anima was because hers was depleted to the point that the other woman couldn’t push Yuriko’s influence away. That was concerning in its own way, but also a blessing. Straining Anima was one of the best ways to make it grow, and Scarlett’s had been too slow for her liking.

The grey clouds above proved to be fog. It covered the surface of the land above the ravine and pushed against her, preventing their passage. Yuriko got the sense that it was possible to do so, and going through the fog would also bring them out of the nest. At the boundary, she could also feel Desire’s presence. The Chaos Lord was just beyond this layer of Interstitial Space.

The one thing that stopped her from pushing through was the near certainty that Scarlett wouldn’t survive the passage.

“Rotter,” Yuriko swore as she changed course from vertical to almost completely horizontal. She was about fifty paces above the ravine’s ground, and the light mist still obscured anything more than a hundred paces away. Worse, she spotted several of the lizard daemons unfolding wings that looked more insectile than something she would see from a bat or a bird, and launching themselves towards her location.

The sunblade spun up to intercept and managed to cut down half a dozen before the rest came close. Slight twitches with her head sent waves of Invisible Edges that cut down the rest, but that also meant her Intent pool was down to ninety five percent. If she stopped using it now, it would recover in less than a minute, but more lizardlings came through the side tunnels.

Yuriko felt a malevolent regard that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, followed by a feeling of frenzy that came from the daemons. More specifically, the ones that could reach her the fastest. The Crimson Apes she could see slowed down and seemed disoriented. The pentapods came out of the crevices and skittered up the walls. In less than a minute, she could be swarmed by the disgusting, body-jacking, mind-controlling things.

As it was, she had little choice but to vacate her perfectly comfortable cliff wall. She kicked off the surface, extended an Animakinetic limb and forcibly stopped the closest lizardling, stomped on its back and used it as a stepping stone to leap onto another lizard, and another, and another, until her sunblade caught up with them in midair and sliced them to pieces. The pentapods, she could have left behind, but she’d rather pulp them now rather than allow them to amass. She didn’t infuse the Ennoia of the Bladeless Sword with any Intent, hence the blades of wind that resulted from her jumps and kick-offs weren’t technically Invisible Edges. They weren’t sharp enough to cut between particles, nor were they nearly undetectable. They were still considered swords, however, and so, the entire wall covered by pentapods was suddenly painted by their bright blood.

This time, she didn’t care to fight any of the emerging daemons. She left her sunblade trailing behind her, slaughtering any that came close. That drew the daemons towards it instead of where she was going. She kept her kinesis around Scarlett to minimise jostling, and she figured that as long as she ran down the main hallway, she’d eventually emerge somewhere else.

Sure enough, the main tunnel widened, and the cliff sides weren’t quite as tall as the ones near where they emerged from. But the number of daemons increased severalfold. Yuriko skidded to a halt fifty paces behind a company of Crimson Apes. Eighty individuals marched with military discipline, though they weren’t armed or armoured beyond their natural means. She didn’t spot any lizardlings, but she could see clusters of pentapods perched on each ape.

“Are they controlling the Apes?” Yuriko muttered to herself. That type of daemon didn’t usually act like soldiers. They were even marching in lockstep, and the ground trembled with each footfall.

The sunblade was on its last legs after expending most of its Radiant energy. Her reserves had slowly refilled, though it was mostly from the excess produced by her own cells, rather than what she absorbed through the environment. Maybe she should conjure smaller swords rather than full-sized ones, huh?

She shook her head ruefully. Too many unusual things, as well as the shock of seeing her friend grievously hurt…

“Ugh…Lily?” Scarlett groaned.

“Shhh. Quiet, my dear, we’re not safe yet,” Yuriko murmured.

“Oh. Everything hurts.”

“I know, dear. I…” Yuriko broke off. She heard the synchronised stomping of another company behind them. “Quiet for now. Just rest, I’ll keep you safe.”

“Alright…”

The ravine was wide, but the Apes were spread eight abreast. They covered most of the corridor’s width. She could either try to remain unnoticed or she could blitz through their formation.

And she was notoriously bad at stealth.