The Knight of the Abyss winced when he heard his master’s invocation. He could feel his connection to him grow tenuous as more threads than Lord Qatir was capable of holding bound to his Anima. At the same time, the Knight’s vision recognised the wisps that materialised all over the place.

Anima fragments. Bits and pieces of self worn away by time and Chaos. These were the fragments that never made it into the cycle of reincarnation, who were trapped in the Pure Lands or were consumed by the blood warriors. It was knowledge shared by his master, as he knew that his past life had no way of knowing all of this. And the name of the invocation surfaced in his mind, glowing in darklight and green. Restless Underworld.

The fragments, mostly too wispy to be easily seen, merged with the ambient Chaos, and each other. Each of the fragments used to be a mind, a person, or beast, but when the remnants melded together, their varied consciousness fought each other for dominance. But regardless of whether a single consciousness overpowered the rest, or a multitude still fighting each other, their bodies formed.

The Knight drew breath, pulling several hundred wisps into his body. His core consumed and burned the wisps, and released their potential upon his Anima. The little selves remaining in the wisps clawed their way into his Anima and tried to reach him at his core. They scratched, they burned, they grasped, and soon, there were more of them than his mind could bear.

He tried to expel them, but they clung to his core. His body didn’t need breath, but he found that even if he stopped, the wisps now dove into his body, through his armour and clung to his crystalline core.

He was drowning. Again.

The wisps went into his bone weapons. Into his armour. Even into the fragments he created to fight with. They were entering his Anima, and they were overcoming his consciousness. Everything was covered in a grey haze tinged with green. Everything seemed distant, as though he were looking at the surface from the bottom of the ocean. He could feel his master’s rage. And fear.

The Radiant Ancient.

She was much tougher and more powerful than either of them expected. He knew that she was the target of the master’s wrath, and Lord Qatir had shared memories of their previous battle. The Radiant projectile, the spell that had been thrown at the master was stronger and more contained than the one she launched at Lord Qatir before. It may only look as though it had been a glancing hit, but the Knight could feel the master’s side burning. He could feel the motes of Radiant energy that penetrated his side, and he could feel them slowly propagating as they consumed the master’s body, blood, and Anima in order to continue burning.

Radiant energy…it was one of the most insidious forces in the World. Entropic energy could similarly consume anything, but the product of that produced dust. Radiant energy would take even that dust to create even more Radiant. Chaos itself was preyed upon by the Radiant, and the Luminous was just as bad. Perhaps he should be thankful she didn’t contain an ounce of Luminous energy otherwise that battle would have been over before it could even start.

Radiant power, Luminous control.

There was no energy that the master, and the Chaos dwellers, hated more than those two forces.

An idle thought crossed his mind just before he completely sank into the frenzy. Radiant burned even him, but he was sure that the Luminous was more forgiving and could be master, given the right price…

Alas, there was little else to consider, and no time to think of anything else. He felt his mind buried under an avalanche of rage and the last thing he knew before the darkness was his body and armour swelling up to twice his size, and his Animus musculature was replaced by flesh and blood.

_____________

Heron skidded to a stop as he heard the voice that shook the world. His ears rang with tinnitus and he couldn’t actually make out what the voice was saying, but he also instinctively knew that if he did hear what was said, his mind would burst. Nevertheless, his body was frozen in shock, and his Anima quivered.

The expanded Anima that he gained after walking the Ancient’s Way had been his pride and joy, but now, the exposed portions burned as though they had been dipped in boiling hot water. The heat transferred to his body, and he broke out in sweats, which in turn, boiled off his feverishly hot skin into steam. He felt weak as if all the strength within him was draining away. He could feel his Anima boiling and…steaming away.

“Aaaaaah!”

He heard Gwendith screaming in pain, and when he managed to look at her through the pain and the obscuring mist, she was on her knees. Her pinkish Anima was writhing. The ice crystals she used to fight fell on the ground and shattered.

The others with them, they all stopped, too. They were clutching at their ears, but they didn’t look that much worse for wear. Only he and Gwendith…

And the common denominator was their expanded Anima! He struggled to bring it back within the protection of his body, and for a long moment, he thought he had made a mistake as the act brought all the dangerous heat within. He felt wrung out, as though all the fluids in his body had escaped…

But less than a minute later, he found himself recovering. He turned to tell Gwendith, hoping that the prolonged exposure wasn’t lethal, but he realised that as soon as he retracted his Anima, she’d done the same. In fact…she’d actually recovered even quicker than he had and she’d been standing just next to him, with her hands held out and cold air flowing out of her fingers… cooling his overheated body.

“Drink,” she said as soon as she saw him return to his senses. “It’ll help.”

Nodding, Heron grabbed his condenser canteen and gulped down the entire Ren of water inside. If he had any left, he would have poured the contents over his head. But…weren’t they in the middle of escaping from the Revenants?

Curiously, the creatures weren’t in the vicinity, even if a moment ago they were hot on their heels. But…what were those strange grey wisps floating in the air?

Heron gasped as the wisps clumped together and formed…a monstrosity of bone and sinew!

“Watch out!” he yelled as he pushed Gwendith out of the way and interposed his hardened air shield between the thing and himself.

Bang!

The kinetic force transferred fully into his body and only the fact that he’d gone through Body Forging allowed him to keep his insides…inside. Even so, he felt his bones rattle and blood poured out of his nose. He felt an unsettling crack near his feet, and sharp spikes inside his knees.

The thing reared up paces above the ground and showed off its intimidating visage. It looked like a humanoid torso, legless. Several dozen humanoid torsos where their abdominal cavities were emptied and instead of their pelvises, the head of the next body had been grafted, flesh blood, and skull, into the base of the spine. It had little skin too, and the muscles were a dull red, and dripping with viscera.

Oddly enough, the blood, as soon as it dribbled out of the thing’s vicinity, turned into a reddish mist that then coated the humanoid body chain. The thing that hit his shield had struck him so hard that its arms, head, and torso were practically pulverized. That body was just about to disintegrate, but then, the body grafted to its tailbone reached up with its grimy hands, and tore it off, leaving a fresh ‘head’ of the thing.

‘Shaaaaah!’

The thing hissed. Heron couldn’t tell how long the thing was, and even as he looked, he saw more wisps clump together at the bottom.

The thing charged at him again before he could more than take note of what was happening, and this time, when it hit his shield, the technique shattered and he was flung several dozen paces back. He landed on his shoulder, felt something crack, and a lightning strike of pain nearly paralyzed him. It left him insensate as his body rolled over several times, and a dizzying view of the ground, the ceiling, and the walls, along with the myriad skeletal and corpse-like monsters nearly had him vacate his bowels on either end. He rolled to a stop, and bile rose up his throat, which took most of his Will to keep it from spewing out of his mouth.

But he had little time to wallow! He struggled to his feet and instinctively expanded his Anima and condensed it back into armour. He was relieved to realise that the burning sensation was gone and he could use his most potent arsenal again. And none too soon.

A different creature approached and struck at him. Where before, the Revenants were the size of humans, albeit a large one, this one was nearly three times the size. Heron barely managed to get out of the way as it slammed a huge club at him. The weapon struck the ground, shattered the stones and sent fragments flying at him, which bounced off his condensed Anima. He rolled to his feet, pulled out his collapsible spear and deployed it, covering it in Anima as well.

Years of constant fighting, as well as the recent spars against Yuriko, had honed his instincts and skill. He sidestepped another smash, ducked under a horizontal swing, backstepped away from a diagonal upwards swipe, and then he stepped in and jabbed the spearpoint to the throat…or to its middle since it was too big and his attack couldn’t reach that high from the current distance. The point sunk into its core, and by the reverberation, he knew he’d struck flesh. The only problem was that even though the thing bled, he wasn’t sure if he was really hurting the thing.

And by the way it kept on attacking him without ceasing, he knew that he hadn’t hurt the thing at all.

He had little leisure to look back at his allies, but from the sounds, and screams, he knew that they were fighting furiously. And the pained moans, death rattles, and despairing gasps, he knew that they were losing people too.

He retreated slowly, then nearly tripped when he backed into a body. He stepped over, glanced down, and nearly froze. Leo Antos, the civilian first awakened by Yuriko… or rather, his decapitated head and body, was what he had stepped over. The light may have gone from his eyes, but Heron still saw the mask of determination on his face.

His distraction cost him and the creature’s club slammed into his midsection and knocked him back several paces. He barely managed to tighten his core and take the blow, but his torso felt like a mass of bruises now. He couldn’t breathe. But that was still alright. For the next few minutes, he would still be fine… but then, he’d suffocate. His Body Forging allowed him better use of his resources and toughened his body, but he could still drown. He could still asphyxiate.

Desperation gave him strength, but it wouldn’t last. He jabbed at the beast furiously, scoring several hits to the body and legs. He even cut the wrists and stabbed into the forearms, but the thing felt no pain. He even saw its flesh beginning to mend.

And then…he was running out of air. He desperately tried to inhale, but the pain in his abdomen…and more than that, the damage to his body, wouldn’t let him. Not like this…

He gazed numbly at the creature as it reared back. Every time it swung, he could see the visible displacement of air. He could feel and hear the crack of thunder with every swing and miss when the weapon struck the ground. Air…winds…

His barely lucid mind grasped at it. What were his shields made of? Air. His family’s Heritage was control of wind. Of forming wind into solid shapes and weapons. Winds. Air. It was his to command. And for the first time, he reached beyond the boundaries of his Facet technique and grasped at that elusive thing that had always been at his beck and call.

Blessed air filled his lungs, pulled there not by his diaphragm but by his very Will. Then, he gathered MiJins of it and threw it at his foe. The creature’s momentum stalled and it stopped cold.

And Heron felt his Anima expand and take control of the very air around him. He instinctively tried to copy his father’s technique of wind knives, but then, he stopped. Why would he limit himself so? Instead, he allowed himself to move without boundaries, and to paint the air around him as he wished.

He glared at the creature that almost killed him, and at the monsters that were killing his beloved’s people. The winds formed sharp edges around his spear. It expanded the tip into a fine blade several paces long.

And then he cut the creature in twain.