Well, there was no reason to stick to subtlety. No reason to pick a fight either, Yuriko mused. So that left just rushing past the Crimson Ape company and hoping that she’d find an exit beyond. If they were heading in that direction, then they were probably heading somewhere. Whether it was an exit to a staging ground, another nest, or possibly an actual battlefield was largely immaterial. She needed to bring Scarlett to some modicum of safety, preferably within reach of Desire’s healing techniques, but she could make do with transmitting Recovery, even if it would only provide a minor boost.

So with that, Yuriko jumped to wall running and sped down the corridor. A notable difference with the pentapoded apes was that their military precision, or more likely the parade-like march they were using, meant that each individual rigidly stared straight ahead. None of them saw her until she was dozens of paces ahead of the company, and only then did they react.

Not with the typical roar, however, but in an immediate pursuit.

Thrud, thrud, thrud.

Their thundering footsteps were somewhat muffled by the prevailing mists, but remained impressive otherwise. Yuriko looked back and peered beyond the current company and noted that the group behind this one had not reacted to her presence, not immediately anyway. Or if they did, she moved too quickly to notice their delayed reaction.

The pursuing soldier apes noticed the futility of their run, but they didn’t easily give up. Instead, the front ranks raised their arms and conjured blood orbs from their palms. They launched the projectiles at her, but they were nothing more than that. No Ennoia, greater Truth, or even much esoteric energy other than some daemonic resonance that kept the liquid in shape. They weren’t even that accurate, and most of the munitions would miss her even if she didn’t dodge. She sped up and all of the blood orbs pounded the wall behind her.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Crack!

The orbs were strong enough to leave little craters and spiderwebbed cracks on the stone, however. Stronger than Astorian firearms, probably, though bullets were several fold faster. The distinction wouldn’t help a stationary target and she supposed that was the point. She didn’t retaliate and continued to speed away. She passed by three more companies of pentapodded apes, each one reacted exactly the same, before something changed.

The cliff walls abruptly lowered to the point she couldn’t continue wall running. Thankfully, she was in between company apes, so she didn’t have to fight immediately. Scarlett groaned in her hands when she jumped down and Yuriko made soothing noises that might have helped. Her friend groaned but didn’t open her eyes.

As the walls lowered, the next bend along the ravine turned into a cul-de-sac. There was a cave entrance at the far end, and the place wasn’t empty. A company of apes was manoeuvring to enter the passage and basically blocked up the way.

They would be trapped between two forces if she hesitated, so Yuriko opened the floodgates. Intent and Will flooded into her body and she shaped an Invisible Edge to ride at the boundary of her condensed Anima. She shaped that one into a wedge, then kicked off.

An Invisible Edge didn’t last more than a single cut before dissipating, but that was mostly because she limited the amount of Intent she put into it. If she increased it, and if she added a strand of Swordlight, the Edge would persist for a proportion of time depending on the amount invested. The Swordlight anchored the Ennoia, actually, and doing something like this wouldn’t be possible without expending one—that also meant she set back her Swordlight weaving process by a couple of days or so.

Thankfully, she was in the process of creating the strand rather than weaving it into her core, which meant it wasn’t that much of a loss.

There wasn’t a visible effect, merely a shimmer from the light that came from her Anima.

She cleaved through the Crimson Apes as if they were nothing but paper. The infinitely sharp edge of her Anima cut through fur, muscle, organs, bone, and daemonic energy with equal ease. The seconds passed with increasing slowness and her true body observed what passed by in a blur for her incarnation self.

She could see with vivid detail how the attached pentapods clung to the apes’ fur, how tiny tendrils drilled into muscles, wrapped around organs, and intertwined with nerves. How the apes’ brains were untouched, but the tendrils practically cut it off from the spine. The apes were conscious of being puppeted, and they could do nothing about it.

She didn’t quite realise it until then. The pentapods actually contained only a minuscule amount of daemonic energy, even relative to their size. What that meant, she didn’t know, and she didn’t have the leeway to really consider it.

However, she did recall that the Crimson Apes she encountered in Karcellia were essentially refugees. And it looked like they were being coerced again.

She huffed with a little bit of annoyance mixed in with pity. Was it because of their origins? It had barely been a couple of years since she brokered that peace, but here they were again.

Although this group was probably not the same: it wasn’t as if all Crimson Apes entered Karcellia.

Either way, they opposed her, and she didn’t bother staying her hand. Not when her friend was heavily injured.

Splat.

Given that she wasn’t all that concerned about staying out of sight and beneath notice, Yuriko expanded her Anima perception to get a read on what lay beyond the cavern entrance. She wasn’t all that surprised to find out that she couldn’t.

Her perception ran into a dimensional barrier. What lay beyond that hole wasn’t a continuation of the nest, which meant an end to the temporal flux. How long has it been?

Rotter.

Three days, Astoria and Shangria time.

Lilibeth had obligations and a schedule, and it was only fortuitous that her part in the movie was mostly done. Still, she had classes, and her agency, Pixel Fairy, would know that she had been out of contact. She didn’t know what was happening back home, but it couldn’t be good. She was also absent from classes, but since that happened often enough, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. But she should have been in contact with Brilliance and Speedrun. Who knew what they thought, and what they reported to the authorities?

She cleaved through the jumble of bodies and blood, then stepped through the threshold.

They came into a hallway, and of course, the earlier elements of the Crimson Ape company were ahead of them. Well, the Invisible Edge reinforcement was still there. She cleaved right through them and ran down the hallway, which was unexpectedly short. Her perception expanded further, and then, she couldn’t help but freeze for a long moment. Well, she found the Unfettered now.

Or rather, she found the remains of some of the bird women while the living versions fought the apes. Her entrance to the situation hadn’t gone unnoticed, but neither side of the conflict turned to address her. That was more than fine, considering the strand of Swordlight had already been used up.

The chamber was about fifty paces to a side, completely square, and about five paces high, which did prove detrimental to the bird women serving as cannon fodder. She noticed the lionesses in the melee as they used the fodder to conceal their movement and attack patterns. She also noticed Mauler holding the tunnel opposite to where she entered, against several detached elements of the Crimson Ape companies. She also noticed hundreds of pentapods attempting to attach to the monstrous regenerator, but their intrusion tendrils were handily resisted.

There were a couple of passages to her left and right, though they weren’t held by any defenders. Neither were the daemons attempting to go there. A hasty scouting of her Anima perception revealed empty corridors as far as she could feel out. The entire place looked like a war-torn hospital, complete with blood stains and broken-down, rusty equipment. Ah, she could also feel Desire off towards the left-hand corridor, which really made her choice.

They headed towards the corridor, which was when she drew more attention, though the slaughtered remnants of the ape company she cut through clearly turned the tide towards the Unfettered. A lioness bounded towards her, but stopped short by a dozen paces at her hard stare. The creature, a composite between a large cat and a human, met her stare, then backed down.

Mauler, on the other hand, reacted quite violently.

“You!”

He roared as he abandoned his post. Only, he was quickly swarmed by the soldier apes, punished for his distraction by heavy blows and raking claws. The attached pentapods quickly sought out the wounded areas, but were rebuffed when the regenerating flesh crushed the tiny menaces.

Yuriko barely spared him a glance as her mind raced. Temporal distortion hadn’t quite disappeared, but she could now judge it more accurately. Her true body’s partitions lowered, not quite completely, or rather, the walls went down, but the dedicated interpreter strands of consciousness remained focused on the connection between her bodies. The time differential was close to parity, but fluctuated by small percentages. Ten percent faster there, twenty percent slower, but never more than fifty percent. And the fluctuation intervals were wider. A matter of multiple seconds at least, instead of the fractions she had to deal with in the nest.

No, she’d deal with all of that once she’d done here. For her troubles and for Scarlett’s injuries, she wouldn’t stop until she either wrecked the Unfettered or whoever was toying with the daemons. The Irvallans? Karcellian, perhaps, but she wasn’t sure. Desire’s report when she came back to Yuriko’s side included an invading army, and her own encounter several weeks ago supported that.

The actual position of her beloved Chaos Lord was somewhere between one to two leagues away, but given the rather labyrinthine confines of her current position, she suspected she’d need to travel at least twice that distance.

‘Dee.’

‘Master.’

‘Scarlett’s hurt.’

‘I’m not in a position to leave so easily, Master.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Well,’ Desire’s voice was drawn out, ‘when you were trapped in the temporal distortion, it caused distortions in our link. I was insensate for a while, then found myself in a compromising position.’

‘You were captured?’

‘... yes.’

‘Can’t escape?’

‘Well, I could. But I can’t bring the others with me.’

Yuriko blinked, ‘others?’

‘Brilliance and Speedrun.’

‘Eh? What are they doing here?’

‘They were captured a few days ago. I couldn’t get too many details since contact was short, and I was insensate when I was brought past their cell.’

Yuriko frowned, ‘You’re a Chaos Viscount.’

‘My reserves almost ran dry.’

‘Ah,’ Yuriko grumbled. ‘Who captured you?’

‘The invaders. Irvallan.’

‘Karcellian?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Alright. A lot must have happened over the past couple of years.’

‘I guess so, Master. What do you wish me to do?’

‘If you can slip out and meet us…?’

‘I can do that. But what about the other two?’

Yuriko chewed on her bottom lip, then sent, ‘Can you find them and break them out?’

‘That will take more Chaos. More than what’s left.’

‘Can you recover first?’

‘Two hours at least.’

‘Then just wait until you can recover in full.’ Yuriko sighed. ‘I’ll focus on Scarlett’s Recovery. Do you know why they’re fighting with the Unfettered?’

‘Unknown. It’s likely they just ran into each other and started fighting.’

‘For three days? The Unfettered could have just as easily run.’

‘Perhaps there are other extenuating circumstances?’

‘I guess so. Focus on recovering your reserves. I will contact you once we’re ready.’

‘Yes, Master.’

With her perception, Yuriko found a relatively secure side chamber. It had a couple of doors, but it was easy enough to use bedframes and cabinets to barricade them. Once she was satisfied with it, she set Scarlett on one of the gurneys and held her hands over her chest wound.

“Well, let’s get you up and running.”