There were two types of battles that Yuriko had experienced over the last couple of years. One was the brutally quick kind wherein she demolished her foe with a well-placed blow or sheer overwhelming power, and the other kind was the drawn-out dance that more often than not, ended with her enemy running away. There were a few times where she was the one who ran, but those were the outliers, she thought.

The first kind was nice, easy, and quick, but dreadfully boring after a while of only fighting that kind of battle. The second was frustrating as her foe would eventually reappear and annoy her again. However, she couldn’t deny that fighting the second was far more exciting and fulfilling.

She…well, she was slightly embarrassed to admit this, even to herself, but she liked a challenge. A proper fight with lives at stake, against a foe of equal or similar skill, got her heart pumping and her blood running hot. Well, the less said about battles against overwhelmingly strong foes, the better. Only, she vowed to herself that she would reach and surpass that level in the future.

Which brought up a point that she hadn’t been aware of until just recently when Damien pointed it out. In the middle of battle no less, but facing off against the Federation Adept…she didn’t feel even a little bit of danger from them.

Playing with your food again, I see. Damien sighed. It’s a bad habit we both share. Just be careful not to overdo it. His tone turned melancholic at the end and he trailed off.

Yuriko noted his words with half an ear. She was still in the midst of battle, after all. The newcomers, the archer and the big mauler, kept their wary eyes at her. The first dagger guy had retreated next to the commander, his serpentine style was rather annoying, though his ability to move quickly was quite troublesome too. If she hadn’t learned the trick to thin her perceptive aura, she probably would have taken enough hits to shatter her protections.

As it were, sneaky attacks were now easier for her to avoid as long as they came within her range. Her Anima’s reach was now just a bit past five paces, and anything that moved within it was well within her purview.

She grinned in anticipation. The man with the maul was taller and wider than she was, and even though his metal armour concealed most of his physique, it wasn’t tough to imagine how well he moved. The archer was a couple hundred paces away and already had an arrow nocked and aimed at her.

She gestured tauntingly at the man, “Come.”

With a roar, the mauler rushed at her, stomping hard on the muddy ground. Wherever his boots landed, the mud solidified and pushed, leaving raised footprints in his wake. The maul was sheathed in yellow light, held over his left shoulder.

At nearly the same time, the archer loosed an arrow, and then another, and a third. Each projectile headed towards her at a different angle and differing speeds, but it felt as if all three would arrive where she was at the same time the mauler would come within reach. The serpentine man swayed to his left while his footwork actually moved him the opposite way. A moment later, he blurred and disappeared.

The next instant, he arrived behind Yuriko, the mauler smashed at her overhead, and the arrows arrived on either side and from above.

“Hah!” Yuriko yelled and expanded her Anima, creating fist-sized discs that intercepted the arrows, angled so that they would ricochet towards the serpent. As for the mauler’s attack, she took a firm step forward, fast enough that she was within his reach before he could react. Then she stabbed into his centre.

The man ignored her attack, and yanked his weapon, shifting his grip so that the maul’s wide head would strike her shoulder. Through the gaps in his helm, she could see him grit his teeth. The sundagger slammed into the metal breastplate, while her sunblade rose to parry the downward smash. The Radiant energy within her weapon burned into the metal, but the man’s protective Animus blocked it from driving in farther. However, the force of her blow stopped his momentum cold.

Yuriko’s knees bent slightly to neutralise the impact absorbed by her parry. She could see the maul’s haft had slightly distorted when it absorbed the heat of her Radiant weapon, but the damage had repaired itself by the time the man stepped back.

She deflected the serpentine man’s dual dagger stab using her sunshards, but he spun his weapon and reangled his strike. The dagger points stabbed into the small of her back. It broke through the protection of her condensed Anima but was stopped cold by the Animus Armour. She felt the relic’s reserves drop by a quarter in response. As for the arrows, the overhead one was deflected, but it careened into the left side arrow, and just as that one was blocked, the upper arrow knocked it back in place. The fiery explosion caused ripples across her Anima.

Yuriko spun around and slashed at the stabber. He ducked under her cut even as he retreated. She whirled back and did a sliding step to the left of the mauler and delivered a brutal slam into his side with her dagger. The breastplate crumpled slightly, and the tip penetrated a fraction of an inch. A scent of sizzling meat rose up to her nose and the mauler roared in pain even as he punched towards her shoulder. She ducked under the blow and used her sunshards to stab at the dagger man. While her practice with the Four Phases had advanced, she wasn’t able to use it with her sunshards yet, however, she could apply the sword dances with it. She let the third dance rise in ascendance with the shards while she used the same with her main weapons. The sunblade and sundagger’s body turned jagged with the excess Radiant energy and used both to stab the mauler’s thighs.

Another scream, this one of pure pain. Before she could finish him off, several arrows, only a fraction from the Archer Adept, while the rest were from the commander’s squad, pushed her back. The dagger man had continued his harrying attacks, but this time, he put his full power into his strikes instead of the exploratory ones earlier.

Yuriko dodged back and pulled several ball bearings from her pouch, then flung them towards the squad. The remaining four vanguard shielders tried to block the dozen or so missiles, and with several deep thuds, they reeled back. Unfortunately, none of them was injured, though they need to have the dents hammered out.

She exchanged a few more blows with the dagger man, while the mauler tried to keep up with her speed. He was strong but much slower than she was. And the dagger wielder was much more annoying. The archer continued to snipe at her, and somehow, the three’s synergy was such that she was never able to follow up on any of her hits, and the constant harassment was more than annoying.

Her sword dances and the Four Phases helped her immensely, but unless she used the fourth dance, she wouldn’t gain a decisive advantage. Her Animus reserves were still topped off. She hadn’t overcharged her sword dances yet. And a few minutes later, her itchy hands had been satisfied. It was now time to be serious.

Yuriko chuckled. The mauler and the dagger man recoiled. She blinked in confusion and not a little bit of annoyance. What was wrong with her laughing? Hmph!

Now, she channelled more Animus into her sword dances. She activated the fourth dance for an instant and used it to close with the dagger man. Her sunblade cut into his shoulder and dragged across his torso. A spray of sparks and blood emerged from the grievous wound, but Yuriko knew something had stopped her weapons from cutting too deep.

The glint of silvery metal underneath his coat provided the answer, as well as a glimmer of Animus.

“Tsk.” Yuriko clicked her tongue. She should have used Fri’Avgi after all.

Well, there was a good reason not to. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t that keen on revealing to the enemy that she had an Anima Telum, by making the fight more even and challenging, it allowed her Anima to grow better.

According to Damien, pressure from ambient Chaos was the quickest way to strain and grow her Anima, but that method had its own disadvantages. Her second incarnation was a result of biased growth after all.

Also, most of Rumiga was only at one iarvesh. The pressure here wouldn’t strain her Anima at all. Allowing Fri’Avgi to devour Chaos Lord Anima and feed it to her was the other way, but that was actually worse. Well, as long as not too much was devoured, and not within a close amount of time, then it was still safe.

And finally, another way to increase her Anima growth was to experience new things. Things that got her excited, happy, or even sad, and angry. Any strong emotion could spur Anima growth, but also contemplation, meditation, and enlightenment. She honestly wasn’t sure what the boundaries of the last one were, but she understood that she shouldn’t remain unmoving and content with life. A life of excitement and adventure…

Even though she hadn’t devoured any Chaos Lords within the bounds of Rumiga, her growth had exceeded what she experienced back in Kogasi and Bella. Granted, she was already at Actualisation and the threshold to the next level was even higher. Perhaps that meant quicker growth too. Then again, her Anima growing by an inch when it was only five inches wide was a major thing while the same inch growth when it was already at a hundred and eighty had different meanings.

Idle thoughts in the midst of battle would have resulted in death or injury, but Yuriko had long been able to divide her attention severalfold. She could already focus and control each of the sunshards, keep her sword dances running, and pay attention to the movements of the Four Phases as well as her perceptive aura. Ruminating about random thoughts hardly affected her combat skill. As it were, the four of them had paused to take stock.

She could see the encampment half a longstride away and it looked like a kicked-over ant hill. Any minute now and the other enemy Knights would join the battle. As for her side, Marron hadn’t made a move, but she knew he was more than ready to cover her.

She had a few choices now. She could keep playing and possibly find herself in a battle that embroiled their entire army or all of their Knight level warriors. She could retreat back to Faron’s Crossing. Or, she could run towards Cierra Road and begin to demolish it. All the while dodging the enemy attacks and pursuit.

While she was confident in her strength, she knew that if she persisted, her brother would join the battle and then things would get more complicated. She could easily extract herself from the situation even if the entire army chased after her. But with her brother, her friends, or the militia along?

Having a pitched battle when they were outnumbered and within sight of the town’s fortifications would be the height of folly.

She sighed heavily.

Marron shot out a crescent bolt that homed in on the mauler. The man hunched in on himself and deflected the bolt with his weapon, and Yuriko could have taken the chance to strike. Except, the archer shot half a dozen arrows while the dagger man appeared behind her again.

She didn’t engage this time and pulled back. Looks like the fun’s over for the morning. Several platoons had exited their encampment and she knew that the units would contain other Knights. She leapt back and gave a taunting wave.

“Thanks for the exercise,” she yelled in Wojan, and she could practically hear the dagger man, the mauler, and the commander grinding their teeth in annoyance. And with that, she made her way back to the town. She would destroy the road at night when it would be easier to avoid the patrols.