The cannon shells fell in a staccato beat as they pummeled the Protective Dome. Yuriko hurried towards the town hall, to the Dome chamber, to check the controllers.

She released her Resistance aura almost as soon as she heard the pounding, covering the distance from her home to the town centre in less than a minute. The square was half full with the curious–mostly children, actually. The past few weeks of fighting had inured them to the circumstances and it looked like their wariness had dropped low.

Nearly all of them stared at her with awed looks, which sort of made the back of her neck itch. She wasn’t quite used to being stared at like that. She waved at a gaggle of nine-year-olds, who giggled and ran after her. They stopped at the entrance of the town hall but didn’t stop squealing and giggling.

The reception area and inner parts of the hall showed little sign of panic, and when she arrived at the cartridge room, there was already a line of people. The room was nearly a dozen paces wide, and the large jade cartridges were at one end. Three lines were formed, with each man or woman touching a spherical ornament. Animus flowed into the orbs, which then funnelled it into the cartridges. The large ones were roughly a pace high, and about half a dozen inches to a side.

These weren’t pure jade, as her inspection had revealed. The interiors were definitely green jade, but the rest of it was bronze, copper, and steel, with a bit of silver and gold. The copper was in plates, and bronze and silver etchings formed runescript lines for Animus storage and denaturing.

“Knight Davar,” an attendant called out to her respectfully, “are you here to contribute your Animus to the storage?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a bow, then he walked towards the head of one line, and clapped a hand on the next person’s shoulder. “Please give way to Knight Davar.”

The person next in line smiled and gave a short nod, then turned to Yuriko and waved.

Yuriko answered with a smile, and the young man’s grin widened. He stepped to the side, while the one currently contributing his Animus grew flustered, hence slowing down his transmission speed. After a minute, he pulled away from the orb and gave a nervous laugh.

The attendant gestured for Yuriko to proceed. She stepped up to the orb and laid her hand on it. She turned her Animus into tendrils and touched them to the contact points set just underneath the surface and funnelled her outer reserves into it, emptying it in a couple of breaths.

“Done.”

“...wow, so quick!”

“...amazing.”

“What do you expect from a Sorceress, heh.”

The others in the room murmured as Yuriko left the chamber. She felt the tips of her ears redden, but thankfully, her hair concealed it.

“Thank you very much, Knight Davar! Your contribution of Animus helps greatly!” the attendant called out while Yuriko responded with a casual wave.

She peeked at the Dome chamber and saw that the situation was pretty stable. There were more than a dozen backup controllers in the chamber, one of them was Gwendith’s cousin, who nodded at her in greeting.

She then headed to the observation tower for her watch. A sort of eager anticipation filled her now. She itched to cross swords with the Federation army, and she wanted to drive them away from Faron’s Crossing.

She also wondered if she should just go ahead and strike out alone, but with what happened to Marron…

Sure, she could just go, but her friends and allies won’t just leave her be. Also, if she got cornered by the enemy’s entire team of Knights…er, Adepts…there was a big chance she would be defeated. She wasn’t invincible, and with Fri’Avgi the way she was now, she wouldn’t be able to rely on the artefact.

After the artefact split into seven parts and helped her create rifts to power Sorcerous spells, Fri’Avgi had depleted her reserves. There was little distilled Chaos left within the greatsword and Yuriko worried that the artefact spirit had harmed its recovery.

Damien had revealed the spirit’s existence long ago but told her that Fri’Avgi had been weakened over the thousands of years she had been left alone. The problem was that he couldn’t remember what to do to awaken the spirit. The artefact's automatic actions had been to absorb the Anima and Corpus of defeated Chaos Lords, as well as harvest ambient Chaos from the Sea.

Yuriko distilled Chaos as part of her meditations every day, and she fed most of it to Fri’Avgi. The sword absorbed most of it, fanning the light behind the red gem from tiny embers to…slightly stronger embers. Maybe she needed to go hunt Chaos Lords again.

In line with that, it was much harder to feed Desire now, or at least, that’s what should've happened. But right after the Refraction, Desire had been acting a bit strangely. She didn’t protest the reduced distilled Chaos and happily drank Yuriko’s Animus instead.

Feeding her by hand was troublesome, so Yuriko actually gave the other girl Animus via jade cartridge now. Desire complained that the Animus, being denatured, was flat and tasted horrible. But since it worked, it meant that Desire didn’t have to be attached to Yuriko’s hip to live.

The morning after the Refraction, Yuriko told Desire, Gwendith, and Rami what happened to her, but all three of them just stared blankly at her. Afterwards, they acted as if she hadn’t said anything. When she spoke to Marron about it, reluctantly owing to his convalescence, he reacted the same way.

Was it the Threads of Fate? Her Ancestor?

Speaking of, she didn’t realise it before, but her Ancestor spoke a familiar name. Ellana. Damien had only sleepily murmured in her mind when she asked, and even now, after five days, he hadn’t stirred. What was wrong with him?  She had come to rely on his wisdom the past couple of years, and to find him oddly silent…

Was it Radiant energy? Did he need more?

But her body practically oozed it from her pores now. There was no lack. Her old Heritage inlays were still active by using her Animus to circulate in its old pattern. Was it that? She hadn’t used her Facet of late, and more and more she found that she had little cause to. She also couldn’t afford to be unconscious for hours at a time, not when the Federation could strike at any moment.

She had barely slept, and even during her meditative trance, the events during the True Refraction haunted her. She fought three battles. Against the blood warriors of the Pure Lands. Against the red beasts on the bridge. Against a strange tentacle abomination on a grey plane.

Then, her Ancestor appeared. A cute kitty that she had to use her entire Will to stop herself from petting.

An admonishment for her not to join the battle unless she had reached that level. Who knew when she’d get there?

Primordial Spawn. Damien’s voice whispered.

Yuriko couldn't help but jump.

“What?” she said out loud and blushed when the militiaman beside her looked confused. Waving him off, Yuriko moved to a corner and sent her thoughts to Damien. ‘What do you mean?’

Delgora’s spawn. Beware, as long as they exist, they will not let you live in peace. Delgora. Primordial of Curiosity. And Vengeance. His words trailed off and Yuriko sighed.

Just more problems to deal with. Was this Delgora another one who Damien offended in the past?

Vengeance, huh. She was still confident, however. Her Radiant Lance was able to harm it, and if it dared face her in Rumiga, she would not be handicapped. Shaking those thoughts away, she prodded at Damien again, but he’d gone back to sleep.

Her thoughts wandered over to her friends, and oddly enough, Finan. She’d given Heron the Body Forging Seed, and he swallowed it in her presence. He didn’t show much reaction but thanked her for the opportunity. His gaze lingered on her face for a few seconds but she didn’t find it particularly bothersome. If he succeeded, he’d be strong enough to accept the Chaos Baptism in a few weeks. The only problem was that she probably wouldn’t have enough distilled Chaos to initiate him by then.

As for Finan, the 29th Pia’Vasi hadn’t been back in Faron’s Crossing since he left on the day of the attack. She knew he was in the Watchtower, and honestly, she preferred it that way. Her emotions were awhirl, and she didn’t quite like it. She felt as if she were being pulled into something she wasn’t quite ready to face…

Anyway, her Mien had settled down, somewhat. A bit easier to control and suppress. It was strange since none of the meditation exercises the Mishala Clan taught her had worked, but shattering the chain between her and Heron did more to give her full control. Just that, sometimes, it was easier to go with the flow. The Mien affected everyone around her, and it was impossible to stop that. Instead, she could direct how it affected them. Less charm and more inspiration. Just that, keeping the right mindset was tiring.

Boom! Twunk! Splat!

The cannons continued shooting shells at the Dome. Now that she knew what to look for, she could actually see plumes of steam, thin and faded, off in the distance. There were more than a dozen puffs, spread across the south.

The rain splashed against the Dome, keeping the town dry. The report from the Dome chamber indicated that as long as the people continued to provide Animus, the Dome could continue to keep them safe. At least at the current rate of bombardment.

The clearing was empty and there was no sign of the army. Huh.

Swirls of ambient Chaos attracted her eye and she activated her Chaos Sight, which sharpened her vision. A shimmer hovered above the plain, and was that…footprints? Appearing out of nowhere. It was only because the clearing was practically a mud pit that it was visible!

The enemy was hidden from sight! Her thoughts immediately pointed to the Kadrac Rangers’ shimmercloth. Did they have that many?

“Enemy attack!” she yelled, prompting the other watchers to raise the alarm. She released her Resistance aura and condensed her Anima, then leapt from the tower to the wall. The gap was nearly thirty paces which was an easy jump.

Even before she landed on the wall, her kinesis drew dozens of ball bearings from her pouch and she launched them towards the shimmering.

The ball bearings, each weighing at an IJin and powered by nearly six paces of Anima reach, flew at more than a longstride per second, shattered the air by its passage, and was in turn, disintegrated to dust before reaching more than a dozen paces from her location. A loud boom and an enormous shockwave rattled the windows around her, and swept across the land.

Whoosh! Skree!

Ambient Chaos shimmered across the area as the shockwave pushed through it, and disrupted whatever it was that kept the forces hidden. But the gleam of protective Animus sheltered the warriors from the shockwave, as it wasn’t enhanced with Yuriko’s Animus. The following shots were easily deflected and absorbed into the swirling ambient Chaos.

They weren’t wearing the shimmercloth cloaks. Nearly a dozen squares of a hundred were on the march, each heavily armed and armoured.

Yuriko’s eyes were drawn to two people in the lead square. The ambient Chaos swirled strongly around them. In fact, there were a pair of such people in each of the squares, and by the strength she felt, they were at least on the Knight level.

No. Chaos barons.

How nice.

She was just wondering where she would stock up on distilled Chaos and here they were. Bloodthirsty thoughts gave rise to the red haze of rage in her Mien, and she could feel it pulse Terror towards the field. The front ranks faltered as the invisible wave swept through them, and she stood on top of the crenellations.

With a wide sweeping gesture, she called Fri’Avgi to hand, and without waiting for her allies, she launched herself into the free meal the Federation had just given her.