Gwendith whipped her side-blade across what passed for the insectoid creature’s face. Constant training taught her that there was little need for excessive brute force when it came to blades but in the heat of the moment, she forgot.

So, instead of letting the sharpness of the blade work to her favour, her attack smashed into the carapace and created fractures. Unfortunately, it was to both the creature’s skin and her weapon. Albeit they were micro-fractures, perceptible only because she had her Anima spread over the entirety of the weapon.

Ah, and she forgot to create an ice edge along the blade. If she had done that and remembered that she wasn’t using a baton, her weapon wouldn’t have been damaged. Empowered Strike’s Animus flooded the weapon, but that was only enough to neutralise the opposing creature’s Animus Field. Once they cancelled each other out, blade protection came a distant second in priority.

Perhaps she should have materialised an ice dagger instead. The humidity in the air was more than enough for it, notwithstanding her own water supply.

Well, she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

Gwendith stepped back, letting Saki take over the frontline for a moment while she focused on her aura. From the initial three inches, it had grown to five now, and according to Yuri, she would reach Journeyman equivalent once she reaches ten inches.

Having a malleable aura at this stage was unusual. Yuriko said that she hadn’t been able to shift her flared Anima’s shape until she was in the second Growth Stage. Gwendith had figured it out a couple of days after her Chaos Baptism.

She wasn’t able to condense her Anima effectively though, managing only to squish it down by a third, which, for all practical purposes, was useless as a defence. If she relied only on her Anima.

Her control over cold and water had skyrocketed instead. Where before, she needed to touch something in order to draw the heat away, now she merely needed to have her aura touch. Ah, she had channelled her Facet through her weapon back when she was an Apprentice, but the efficiency was low, and it wasn’t quite as effective.

Gwendith pulled at the water within the condenser canteen secured on her belt. Before the baptism, she had only been able to manipulate ice and snow. It actually didn’t take much more than a couple of weeks of introspection to expand that ability to include water, and then steam. Despite knowing that steam, water, and ice were fundamentally the same substance, the difference being the heat contained within, Animus didn’t respond to shallow knowledge. She had to know that ice, water, and steam were fundamentally the same.

She gathered the droplets and coated her blade with a thin layer, then she took all of the heat from it and vented it away, channelling it through pathways she made using her aura. She kept careful control of the water, and formed it into crystal clear, and razor-sharp, ice, with thin channels along the side to cycle her Animus through.

Then, she stepped up next to Saki and sliced at the insectoid’s torso, seeking to slip the narrow ice blade into the gaps and thin parts of the chitin. The sharpness added by the ice, and the Animus she pumped into the weapon cut into the carapace, and with a grunt, she shoved the blade inside. As soon as the blade penetrated, she forced the ice to expand, which forced a wider gap. Icky greenish blood dripped out, which turned into a fountain when she pulled the weapon away, effectively removing the plug that kept the thing’s vital fluids inside.

The creature swiped at her with its claw-tipped hands, but it was lacklustre enough that Gwendith easily avoided it. A second blow to the head and the thing reeled back. She followed up with a stab to the face, and she managed to puncture its multifaceted eye. The creature dropped nervelessly to the ground. Gwendith stepped to the side and did the same to the next creature. She looked around for more enemies but soon realised that there were none left.

“Well done,” Yuriko said to everyone, though Gwendith felt a thrill of pleasure run up her spine. Yuri definitely said that to her, specifically.

Yuriko didn’t fight this time. If she did, Gwendith was sure she could have ended the threat with the snap of her slender fingers.

“Don’t play around,” Marron rebuked, and Yuriko nodded, though she stuck her tongue out a bit when the man’s back was turned. The two of them shared a quiet giggle.

As they continued down the tunnel, Yuriko did snap her fingers. Golden light bled out from her body and formed little vortices spaced evenly around her. The Animus swirls continued for a few seconds then coalesced into tiny swords. Gwendith would have called them daggers, but proportionally they were swords since the handles were too short to grasp with a hand. Maybe with two fingers that would have been possible.

A larger vortex swirled around Yuriko's left hand, while a smaller one appeared on her right. Those turned into a glowing golden side-blade and a smaller knife with a wide cross guard and a broad blade. The tiny swords revolved around her while she kept both weapons in hand.

The spectacle caught the attention of the other warriors, and Gwendith was gratified to see several of them gulp convulsively while their faces paled with fear.

Yuriko hummed an idle tune as she walked, not even stopping when a few more of the twisted ones attacked. The floating blades intercepted the creatures, each one pierced through the carapace as though they didn’t exist, and they burst behind the bodies only to continue slaughtering the rest.

Gwendith clicked her tongue. So much for getting a bit of fighting experience. Yuriko practically mowed down any twisted ones that attacked, all within the blink of an eye. The rest of the walk through the tunnels became a boring two-hour stroll. By the time the floating weapons dissipated, they had finally started to ascend. A few minutes later, they had rejoined the main tunnel.

A few times some of the miner drones could be seen inside a small chamber, ploughing away at the stone. They were ignored by the twisted ones too, which was why the other Warforged Drones didn’t bother to clear them away.

On further thought, Marron had a good point. Gwendith’s new power practically begged to be used, and when she had a foe that was roughly on par with her, it satisfied a strange need within. The Drones were powerful foes and a one-on-one fight would have been enlightening. However, it didn’t look like the things ever fought alone. Not for long, anyway.

She felt it within herself, the need to fight, and the need to improve. It was… strange. While she had been enrolled in Agaza Academy, the curriculum had never been about grandstanding and individual battles. Legionnaires always fought side by side, since together, their varied skills and techniques amplified each other.

Her natural Facet wasn’t that destructive, and her lessons had always been about leveraging the strength of the many. But ever since her Chaos Baptism, ever since Yuriko had imparted that incredible Body Forging technique, she felt that need. To fight, to prove herself. Her Anima practically boiled with that desire.

Oh, she had no wish to fight as Yuriko did. She wasn’t the wall that broke the wave. Instead, she was the one to guide the defenders. The one to point out the weakness and move to exploit it. The gap between her and Yuriko’s strength was so wide that any aid she could give was superfluous though. And that galled more than anything else.

So she needed to grow. She needed to stress her Anima to the point where it expanded and thickened. According to Yuriko, once her reach grew to a pace, she would be ready to become a Knight. The process was called Actualisation, and it involved a strange trial of sorts. Similar to the Knightly Oaths, she wondered.

Ah, all she would need to do was reach ten or more inches and according to her friend, and hopefully her future lover, she would have the strength to contend with Knights.

However, Yuriko wasn’t a suitable guidepost. The two of them had discovered that fairly quickly. Gwendith didn’t have Radiant Essence, which, if she was being honest, had probably more to do with Yuriko’s strength than anything else. Gwendith needed a comparable advantage, otherwise, even reaching the Second Growth phase wouldn’t necessarily give her a Knight’s power.

She was close, though. She could practically taste it. Cold and Heat. They were absence and presence but during her baptism, something told her that they were that, and something else. That something else eluded her so far, but she had a feeling she’d find it as long as she kept honing her skill and fighting battles. Perhaps once they were back in Imperial territory, she could get Yuriko to spar seriously with her. The other girl had the sheer power to force Gwendith’s mind and Anima into crisis.

Since they were on a battlefield, there was no room for playing around. That had been Marron’s point. Even if it meant that Yuriko killed everything effortlessly. That was better, anyway. No risk to the rest of them.

They must have walked through several leagues of tunnels by now, and when they emerged back to the city surface, they were no longer within the Crafter’s District.

“This is the garrison?” Gwendith asked softly while she looked around. Unlike the Crafters’ and the Foreign Quarter, this area wasn’t an open cityscape. If anything, it reminded her of Bellton Hold underneath Rumiga City. All tunnels and adjacent rooms. They had emerged into a big tunnel, and not five paces away were miner drones lugging their cargo.

That muscular rotter and his gang were waiting just before the entrance and for once, they didn’t have the usual sneer on their faces.

The big man clicked his tongue and went back through the tunnel they came from. “Drone patrol. They changed the pattern.”

“You didn't think they’d change it after two years?” Yuriko quipped.

Lucian glared at her. “Warforged don’t change if they don't have to. The ruckus you caused a couple of days ago caused this. Look at them.” He gestured towards the big tunnel.

Yuriko gave him a side eye before she stalked past him. Her Anima flared slightly and pushed him off balance as she passed him.

“Hey!” he yelped.

“Silence,” Yuriko hissed, her voice reverberating with compelling force. Lucian looked like he swallowed his tongue.

Gwendith smirked at the man, who glared back but didn’t comment further. She followed behind Yuriko and peeked around the corner. In the distance, a dozen drone sets, one each of every variant, walked in the middle of the tunnel. They would pass by this branch in a few minutes.

Yuriko shook her head and shooed Gwendith back.

“What’s the use of you being here,” Yuriko said in a hard tone, “if the path you’re guiding us through doesn’t avoid them?”

“There are other paths,” he answered curtly. “Follow.”

They backtracked for several hundred paces and went down a different fork in the tunnels. A few minutes later, they emerged back into the main garrison tunnel.

A quick glance down either side showed no sign of the Warforged Drones. Lucian glanced back with a smirk. “See, there’s always a different route.”

“At the edges, anyway,” Faeril remarked. “These are residential blocks, with small tunnel roads that lead into apartments. There’s only one main tunnel for each block that leads into a hub.”

“We cross several hubs before we come close to the Inner Court,” Lucian cut in.

“Except the hub sections are never unguarded.” Another man chimed in.

“Which is why we’re going through the residences. Most are locked, but we managed to open a path through. Now, follow.” Lucian waved and they rushed across the main tunnel, went past a few side roads with the man staring intently at the markings on the post.

Those were Old Imperial script, Gwendith was sure. She hadn’t quite mastered the ancient tongue, though she recognised a few letters.

“Here.” Lucian finally said, and not a moment too soon. A patrol of Drones went around a corner and almost saw their trailing elements.

“Land gods!” Lucian cursed. “Wrong way.”

“No choice now, go deeper into the street,” Marron hissed.

They could hear the Warforged coming closer and closer.

Gwendith touched one of the metallic doors as they ran past it. There were no door knobs or levers in any of them. How did they open the doors before? Forced them open by digging into the sides?

“Wait.” Yuriko said.

“No, we have to go!” Lucian hissed.

She quelled him with a look then turned towards a door.

“I…” she murmured as she held out her hand and pressed her palm against the metal. “I think I know…” Her Anima flared, golden light expanded more than eight paces across and encompassed the entirety of the street. The light pressed against the metal, and oddly, it looked as if it were something tangible and the flare flattened on the surface. But only for a moment.

The tip of Yuriko’s tongue stuck out the side of her lip as she frowned in concentration, then…

Click. Whoosh!

The door slid open.

Gwendith stared in shock, but no more than anyone else.

“What are all of you waiting for? Get in.”

And so, they did.