Yuriko sighed as she reviewed the carnage. The crimson apes managed to make it into the outpost, and she hadn’t noticed until it was already well underway. She was only here to join her friends, as she’d spent the last couple of weeks patrolling the entire length of the Karcellian mainland.

In fact, this attack was deep into the defensive zone and it occurred to her that this might not have been isolated. She felt for the connection she had with Gwendith and Heron, as those two had the strongest link through her Mien. She pulsed a message, though it was really nothing more than a feeling. The gist of it was, be back later, stay safe.

Then, she leapt right back into the air, though not before killing every crimson ape she had within reach, which, given how far she could stretch her Anima tendrils to control her sunshards, was more than enough to cover the entire outpost and then some.

She spread her Anima as wings of golden flames, activated Enhanced Sight specialized for darkness vision, and scanned the nearby outposts. There was one every league or so, in a line that crossed the isle, and tucked into defensible hills where it could. The neighbouring outposts were clear, but not the one three camps away. She could mainly see the flashes of machine gun fire, but another camp was actually in flames.

She crossed fifteen longstrides in less than a minute. The winds parted from her, and it was only when she stopped did she hear an explosive boom behind her. The first time that had happened, she’d spent the next ten minutes looking for the enemy that caused it, but apparently, it was something naturally produced by moving quickly. Kind of like the shockwave caused when she threw a pebble too hard back in Rumiga. She just didn’t think she could move fast enough for something like that, heh.

The sunshards she dragged behind her came into use now. She dropped close to the ground and attacked the crimson apes that were in the midst of slaughtering the soldiers. She noted several ash piles, but they were already blowing over, and there was no way to count the daemon’s numbers.

It took less than a minute to slaughter the beasts, and she even caught a single six-legged lizard on her way out.

“There’s probably more of them,” she muttered, but she couldn’t waste that much time. Back up in the air she went, and she spotted another two outposts in distress. She flung herself there, slaughtered the beasts, went back up in the air, and repeated it dozens of times. She only managed to track how long it lasted by how many times she had to reforge her sunshards. Here she could keep her shards active by an hour or so, before having to reforge them. In Rumiga the time was roughly fifteen to twenty minutes, which varied depending on what she hit with the things.

So, roughly three reforgings later, the raid was over. However, it took the rest of the night before she returned to that first outpost. Her friends had remained there for the night, instead trying to reach the main camp.

Huh, how long has it been since she last slept? She snatched an hour here and there while in midair, meditating the rest of the time. Those sneaky daemons! They attacked roughly every five hours or so at night and hid during most of the day. They still ventured out of their hidey holes so she couldn't just flip her sleep schedule…

The soldiers were still busy recovering the dead, taking care of the wounded, and sweeping the ashes.

"What the?!" One of them screamed when Yuriko landed with a rather loud thud.

"Pardon me." Yuriko nodded to the sleep-deprived man, who stuttered and reddened even as he groped for his sidearm.

A moment later, the man put his hands back to his sides and muttered, "the Angel of War." He shook himself and bowed, "Thank you."

Angel of War? Yuriko blinked and snorted. She knew where the others were, and could actually feel Gwendith jolt awake. She nodded to the man and walked off.

Gwendith met her outside of the armoured transport, her face a mask of worry.

"Yuri…" She got pulled into a tight hug while her friend murmured in her ear, "It's been weeks…"

Yuriko patted Gwendith's back and laughed awkwardly. "The lizards are hiding the apes," she said.

Gwendith nodded. "The Karcellians managed to hit a few. One got a photograph before it disintegrated."

"Trouble." Yuriko sighed.

"Yeah. They came too close. How many have you killed?"

"Thousands by now."

"Barely a fraction, and they must be getting reinforcements from their rifts."

"I can't find them," Yuriko growled. "At the rate this is going, it's going to take years."

"Do you want to leave?"

"I gave my word."

Gwendith sighed. "Yes, you did. But you never promised to take care of them by yourself."

"No, I guess not." The Karcellian guns weren't very effective against the Animus using daemons…and they did use a version of Animus as opposed to Chaos Lords' aspected Chaos.

Plasma Casters only took three shots or so to knock down an ape. Nine lumens. Whereas the guns took twenty or so shots. Except that were far more guns and bullets compared to the amount of Animus she could provide them.

The Karcellian army had to send more men and materiel to eradicate the apes, but the casualties would be horrendous in exchange. It was a conundrum. To discharge her promise, she had to at least ensure that Karcellia can drive the daemons away. Unfortunately, the only solutions she could think of involved Animus, Shaping, or Sorcery. None of which were really feasible here.

She yawned into her hand and Gwendith dragged her into one of the tents, telling her firmly that she had to rest. Yuriko reluctantly agreed, and no sooner had she crawled into her bedroll was she asleep.

_______________

The Highlands Campaign lasted for far longer than Yuriko expected. Several weeks had passed since the daring night raid, and even as she and the army killed the apes by the hundreds, more and more appeared. They attacked the camps, the caravans, patrol groups, and assault forces, every day and night. Their numbers were few compared to the Karcellians, maybe a third to a fourth of a company. Even so, they sowed death and despair amongst the soldiers.

The general in command of the battle group, a middle-aged man with short-cropped brown hair and eyes, Wulf Rithers, reorganised the defence line. The apes attacked mortals, and since the only people left in the district were soldiers, he had them group up into bigger outposts. Even if a gap was created in the line, the apes didn’t try to bypass it. As for why they didn’t mass into a large army, it was actually her presence.

Almost right after she took a break, scouts reported increased daemon movement. She thought to draw them out by pulling back, but the general asked her to stay. The entire horde in the open meant she’d finally be able to kill them all, but even she would take hours to wipe out hundreds of thousands, and in the meantime, they could kill and maim with abandon. Worse, if they baited her off position, they could try to make for the southern cities.

So she kept her patrol, taking a break every couple of days or so, and in the process, the war became a grinding battle of attrition.

Just before the turn of the Season, from Water to Air, word of a new Karcellian weapon had been given to her and her team, along with a request to protect it while it was tested on the battlefront. The weather was horrifically cold and it rained for most of the day. Sometimes, the rain became hail. Orrin complained bitterly of the cold, and unlike his twin brother, he was bundled up in several layers of woollen coats.

They rendezvoused with the army group close to Burgheron City. The convoy had just come from the railway station, and one of the train cars on the locomotive was a flatbed with something large covered in canvas. The soldiers and mages were fussing over it as Yuriko alighted from the skies.

She had been spotted, of course, since her light was still bright compared to sunlight. She noticed more than a few civilians pointing at her while she flew over the city, but unlike the first time it happened, which had nearly incited a riot, they merely followed her flight path with curious eyes. She also thought that their gazes had more than a hint of admiration and expectation, but the fact that she even felt their emotions was strange. Her Mien was limited here in Irvalla because the low ambient Chaos inhibited its spread…

Huh, when was the last time she checked the dreamscape for threads and chains connected to her Mien?

She withdrew her Anima close and faded it out of the visible spectrum. Douglas mentioned that even if he couldn’t see her light when she had it expanded to perception level, he could still somewhat feel it as some warmth. It was quite obvious in the cold Season of Water weather, apparently.

The canvas had been stripped from the flatbed train car and what Yuriko saw was, well, basically a tank. It was of similar shape and colouration to the ones she fought against in Richmond. Well, the cannon barrel was shorter, stubbier, and wider. There were also two machine gun emplacements at the sides, which looked like they could swivel by about a hundred eighty degrees. Both guns meant that they could cover the tank on all sides, but the gunner would have to sit partially outside.

There were three such tanks that were rolled out of the station, and she also saw several crates that were marked as military munitions. Sheamus handled the coordination with the army, and she simply settled inside a troop transport truck as they made their way north.

The crates had machine guns, apparently. When she examined the tanks and the guns, she found that they had several runescript lines which basically channelled stored Animus into the barrel, infusing the bullet or the cannon shell with it just before it shot out.

How did they expect to use it without Animus technique users though?

Hmmm, those patterns were hidden on the inside parts, but they gave up the secret when she used her perception. Reactive malachite was embedded in the stock, along with runescript syntax that was a mix of Karcellian and Imperial, somehow blending two opposite disciplines into a harmonious whole. Horace Greenfield, the Imperial marine commander strutted up next to her, looking quite smug.

“Congratulations.” Yuriko grinned, and he laughed.

“We’ve secured a copy and we can implement it back home. It will allow a minute trace of Animus to imbue the bullets, just enough to be effective against a Wyldling’s Protective Field. It would take more hits to pierce, but it stretches out a jade cartridge’s load to hundreds rather than six or seven shots.”

“That is amazing,” Yuriko smiled.

“Unfortunately, it does degrade the barrel quickly. But there’s always room for improvement.”

“The tanks’ barrels don’t have runescript,” she observed. “Just the machine guns.”

“Aye, but the cannons aren’t for anti-infantry use anyway.”

It took a few days to bring the weapons up to the front, and the subsequent tests were more than successful. Even an overwhelming number of apes were cut down before they could close, and it only took five or so hits to bring them down rather than the dozens before. It looked like her promise could be discharged soon, and she didn’t need to root out every daemon after all.

But one last thing prevented her from leaving the island. She’d deciphered most of the runescript ritual circle, and the recurring word had finally made sense. It was a layered sobriquet. A title of a being, and the way it was written allowed the word to say all of its names. It was vanity, she thought, especially the way the words were layered to interlock and mutually enforce their meaning. But the surface meaning was more than enough. The Living Monument.

It was a call to that being, by the crimson apes, and probably the six-legged lizards, too. And…she had a feeling that what they were calling for, was going to answer.