The moment Yuriko’s eyes met the large skelly, she felt the wave of revulsion, anger, and hostility. The creature was head and shoulders larger than the common kind, and its armour, even encased in red mud, showed ominous details. Where most of the skelly’s armour was sleekly designed, even if parts were rusted through, that one was somewhat…spikier. The helm alone had a couple of large horns sticking out in a row from the forehead. There were spikes on the pauldrons too, although how it managed not to stick those things into its head when it raised its arms, she didn’t know.

Kneepads and elbow pads, bracers and greaves, had spiky protrusions, too. But those paled in comparison when it raised a hand and conjured a weapon. The spikes on its gauntlet and bracers sprouted and twisted, braiding themselves together until the creature carried an ivory white shaft. Then, from the far end, more spikes grew together and formed an axehead and backspike that was roughly twenty inches in length. Black tendrils squirmed and dripped red liquid all along the haft, and the creature shot out of the stream, leaping several paces up, and would land right within striking distance of her.

The axe seemed to grow bigger the longer it existed, and collected reddish black Animus as it scythed through the air. Yuriko called a dozen sunshards and sent them careening towards the big skelly, and at the same time, adjusted her stance to avoid the strike. Her perception aura indicated that there were few friendlies within five paces of her, but there were a couple of skellies at her back, trying to sneak in a blow. She sent half a dozen sunshards at them, absently noting that they dodged the first two shards, but the third skewered them easily.

With Fri’Avgi on hand, Yuriko swung to meet the axe head-on, but the big skelly twisted just as it was about to strike, and instead of the downward slash, changed it into a stab, using the sharp upper edge of the weapon to strike.

Belatedly, Yuriko danced back, avoiding the attack by a hair’s breadth. Then the spike expanded and thrust towards her chest. It struck her condensed aura, carved through it as though it were a steak knife on a well-done piece of meat, and was finally blocked by her Animus Armour activation. Even that was drained nearly dry of Animus.

The big skelly had a jaunty tilt to its helm, as though mocking her for her weakness. Her eyes narrowed in anger. Lucky shot. And it seemed his weapons and skills were built around penetrating Animus and Anima defences.

The skelly retrieved its axe…though it looked more like a halberd now than a battleaxe. But she wasn’t going to let him have the first strike without paying for it. Radiant energy suffused Fri’Avgi’s blade as she melded her sword dances and moved the third into ascendance. She swung horizontally. Chest high to her, but only waist high to the big skelly.

Ivory spikes burst out of its chest plate and formed a barrier of sorts, but either Fri’Avgi’s weight or the Radiant energy was too much for it since the bones broke in twain and she drove the jagged Animus edge into the metal. Then she put her entire weight into sinking it in.

The big skelly jumped back, directly away from her swing, and in the process, flung bone shards at her face. Radiant sunshards hurried to interpose against the bones, but as with the halberd, they swallowed the Animus, though the Radiant motes consumed the bones in turn. The end result was a loss for her since she saw it was able to produce as many bone arrows as it wanted while her sunshards took quite a bit of Radiant energy and Animus to conjure.

“Rotter!” Yuriko cursed as the big skelly sent even more bone shards her way. This time, she used Fri’Avgi to deflect the shards and sent her sunshards to strike back. The skelly produced even more bone fragments to block the sunshards, and since this happened close to where it was, it had a far easier time hitting Yuriko’s shards than she had of avoiding the counterattack. She lost three more sunshards that way, but at least it wasn’t a lost cause.

When the sunshards were consumed, the Radiant energy exploded outwards, and since the skelly was near, droplets of golden Radiance struck its pauldrons and bracers. Each spot it hit sizzled and smoked, and almost immediately melted through the protection and clung to the bones underneath.

“Shattered Sun!” the skelly swore in the Old Imperial tongue, and Yuriko started and froze.

This was the first time one of those actually said anything. Where the other skellies were nearly mindless, aggressive monsters, this one moved deliberately and harnessed its rage to its purposes.

The big skelly shook off the droplets of Radiant energy, though most had already fizzled out after burning past its armour. Or maybe his armour? The voice was deep and masculine.

His cursing had set both of them aback, but hostilities resumed almost at once. Yuriko pulled Fri’Avgi over her shoulder and charged the blade with Animus and Radiant energy, and with a quick and hard downswing, she sent arclight infused with Radiance at the skelly. The crescent-shaped arclight was taller than she was and was nearly half a pace wide. It careened towards the big skelly and curved towards where he dodged, prompting another round of curses.

The skelly used his halberd’s haft to block. The Animus burned away, but the Radiant shattered the haft, leaving the weapon in two pieces. He threw the lower half at her and she stepped out of the way, only to jump and roll when the shaft struck the ground and sprouted into a spear that hurled towards her back. The original halberd regrew its haft and the skelly swung the blade horizontally, leaving a gleaming darklight afterimage, which turned out to be his version of the arclight as it flew towards where she dodged.

The dance between the two of them continued unabated. Yuriko closed in, eager to let Fri’Avgi crush his bones. Her Radiant energy was powerful against him, against any of the skellies and the Femorants actually, but having to reform the sunshards every time she wanted to use it meant she had limited ways to apply that energy. She could have simply gathered it and thrown it at the bi skelly, and she had, but he was far too slippery to allow a static attack like that to connect. Besides, it took time to gather Radiant energy, whether by converting ambient Chaos to it, or by drawing it from her Essence, it took a modicum of focus that she wasn’t eager to waste when she needed every iota of it to fight.

The big skelly, who still hasn’t said anything but curses, more often directed at himself than at her, continued to spawn bone weaponry. First, it was the shards, then they elongated into arrows that she had to block, otherwise, they would turn around after she dodged and strike at her back. Then, after those arrows, the ones he sent that she blocked, sprouted bone spikes as a secondary attack, although whatever he infused into the things was less than the shards, meaning they weren’t able to bypass her condensed aura as easily.

She had mixed feelings about this fight. The skelly was ferocious but rather unimaginative. After the first few cycles of fighting, he inevitably returned to using the same attacks and patterns, and Yuriko was able to adapt and overcome his tricks. After the sprouting arrows, it was the bone spears that penetrated through whatever it hit. She found out the hard way when she tried to use an outcropping as cover, and the spear simply shot through it as though the rock didn’t exist.

Then, he tried to fight her in melee, but Fri’Avgi simply outclassed his bone weapons. They shattered at the artefact’s touch, and the animating spirit screamed in exultation as she devoured the energy infused in the bones.

‘Decay and entropy!’ Fri’Avgi yelled, ‘Good eatin’!’

Ambient Chaos flowed from Fri’Avgi and infused into Yuriko’s fractured and damaged Anima. Her reach even expanded by an entire inch just from that! At this point, her Anima occupied so much volume that increasing in radius by an inch felt it added more than the first time her Anima broke out from her body.

But, as her Anima grew stronger, Radiant energy was used to help fill in the gaps made by his attacks. And something of that was left.

Radiant Anima Refinement.

She was only supposed to train using that after she completed her Radiant Body Refinement, but there shouldn’t be any detriment to using it now. She hoped. When Damien didn’t say anything, she settled into letting it passively happen and didn’t intend to push it until the proper time. According to what he said, using Radiant Anima Refinement without completing Radiant Body Refinement was like cutting down a tree with a dull axe. Possible, but it would take far too much effort and time. Anyway, the little bit of her Anima that got transformed into Radiant Anima was helpful, even if the entire volume was less than a one-inch cube.

It did make her Anima non-homogenous, but since it was all gold-coloured anyway, it wasn’t that easy to spot. She used the transformed parts to block the big skelly’s bone shards, and unlike regular Radiant energy motes, her Anima defended against his entropic energy easily.

This battle helped her grow stronger, and in any other circumstance, she would have been fine fighting for hours. But she wasn’t alone, and her companions weren’t faring as well against the empowered skeletons. The big sapient one’s presence boosted the others, and the closer he was to the skellies, the stronger they got.

So she pushed her assault to push him away from her allies. The smaller skellies nearby attacked her instead, but she had enough sunshards left to devote to killing them.

‘I’ll handle them!’ Fri’Avgi said enthusiastically, ‘Give me the shards!’

Yuriko fumbled while she attempted just that. Enough that a sudden spear punched through her defences and stabbed into her thigh. A quick strike broke the shards, and Animakinesis removed the bone fragments and kept her arteries from spouting blood. Recovery began to work as the muscle fibres knitted together, but in the meantime, she had to stagger back as her left leg nearly crumpled under her weight.

Fri’Avgi took control of the remaining shards and used it to attack the surrounding skellies, and even harried the big one by striking at his eyes, handily avoiding his counter bone shards.

Once her wound had knitted close, she returned to a more aggressive stance, striking fast and often, while coordinating with Fri’Avgi’s strikes. The big skelly pulled back farther while the smaller, regular skellies charged in. She had two dozen sunshards left under her control and the artefact spirit had control of a dozen. Together, they destroyed the smaller creatures as they came. The big one retreated, hiding behind ruins and walls, but continued to send fusillades of bone shards and arrows over his cover. It was only when she saw the bone arrows going for the Federation explorers that she realised that she had been drawn away from the others. She watched with burgeoning fear and regret as half a dozen explorers went down under the barrage. She hoped they survived, even as her heart of hearts sighed in relief that she wasn’t with her own group.

Guilt pushed that relief aside, however, as this group had also come under her protection. She was in the midst of deciding whether she should chase after the big skelly or return to help protect the others when the huge mound of debris in the middle of the city…shimmered.

Gaping in surprise, she, and the rest of them, including the big skelly who was perched on a rooftop, turned to stare. The mound disappeared into a bunch of sparkly light, revealing a floating spherical monster with dozens of tentacles and a large central eye as well as the Avos Zarek.

The familiar blob was raining beams of putrid-looking energies, and the Avos was just… there. Taking all of the beating, whimpering, and bleeding. For there was a huge gaping wound right across his snout, and it was bleeding a veritable river of blood.