The tunnel was at least twice as wide as before. Yuriko and Virgil examined the results of her Trinity test, and it was much stronger than she expected. Aside from the widened tunnel, the impact point had turned into a large cavern. The reaction had eaten through the ambient Chaos as well as the earth, stone, and metal. The resulting dust had ignited, and subsequently exploded, from Radiant energy.

She had not been able to observe every reaction within the Trinity runescript and the Radiant energy-infused Animus construct, so she wasn’t sure how this happened. Regardless, she couldn’t recklessly close the loop between the Trinity runescript or something worse than this might happen.

“I was meditating…” Virgil said. “Er, how did you form this new…weapon? Technique?”

“Oh, I merged some runescript lines I learned while travelling through the portal tunnel into my sun shards,” Yuriko explained.

“I see. Do you mind showing me?” Virgil asked, curious.

“I don’t mind.” Yuriko smiled.

Aside from the fact that they were family, Imperial practice regarding technique knowledge was pretty open, especially since most techniques had been refined through combined effort over the millennia. It was only regarding outsiders and foreigners that there was a prohibition and that only ran to techniques taught by the Empire itself. Most of Yuriko’s techniques were learned through Damien, the Golden Silhouette, or simply self-taught. The only things she learned from the Academy were Empowered Strike, which was so basic that every other discipline had something similar to it, and Field, which was useless to her.

Well, the early runescript patterns came from books too, but those were published across the Empires and were hardly a secret.

She raised a palm and demonstrated the Destroy runescript pattern, enlarging it over a hundred times. The pattern, unlike the normal runescript lines found in everyday items and relics, was written over three dimensions, with a minor adjustment of the fourth. The lines were complex, taking up a ten by ten by ten inches cube. Parts of the pattern shifted every few seconds, cycling only after a minute. She held up her other palm and made the Harvest runescript pattern which wasn’t as complex, built only on three dimensions rather than four. The Channel runescript pattern manifested in between the two, and was the simplest, being mostly in two dimensions with only a fraction of it in the third.

When she looked at Da after completing the patterns, he had a blank expression and glazed eyes. “Da?”

He blinked, shook his head, looked at the patterns, then blanked out again. She waited for over a minute, but with no movement…actually, was he breathing? With a start, she dispersed the runescript patterns and Da gasped, inhaling furiously.

“That was rather unpleasant…” he said after he recovered his breath. “Those are…advanced? No, more than that. I can look at advanced runescript without going into a daze…master runescript?” He shook his head, then sighed heavily. “My baby, your Mum’s right. Your talent for runescript and Sorcery is far greater than your other talents. Nobody taught you this, right? You picked this up on your own? You were only in Sharom for a semester…”

“Er, yeah.” Yuriko rubbed the tip of her nose and frowned. It was that old argument again. Whatever. She huffed and snorted. “Anyway, you asked for it, there it is.” She paused, then decided to show him the Adamant Guardian Seal, but almost as soon as she completed the demonstration, Virgil’s eyes glazed over again.

“I won’t look at your runescript again,” he muttered. “Anyway, how long did it take you to form the weapon?”

“Er…a couple of minutes,” Yuriko admitted. Way too slow to use in battle.

“Practice a bit more, I guess.” Virgil said, “But maybe look for a workaround instead of working on your creation speed.”

“Alright.” Yuriko knew that of course, but Da’s nagging was rather nostalgic, hehe.

They settled deeper into the tunnels. The strange thing was that when they returned to the destroyed site, a group of Femorants appeared not long after. They were wiped out easily. But when they retreated, there were no Femorant battle groups coming after them. Only when Virgil advanced down the tunnel for fifty paces did a group come out. When they settled to rest and meditate, they were unmolested.

Yuriko quickly found one of her errors. The trigger pattern she set up had been applied incorrectly. It counted down as soon as the sunshard had been created and disabled the loop cycle five seconds after. It had been sheer coincidence that she had launched the Trinity sunshard almost as soon as she finished conjuring it. But then, that meant that the destruction wrought was worse than she expected. Probably less than half the time she set…

Cold sweat ran down her back. As expected, the Trinity was dangerous.

She set the trigger to unlatch the loop for one second, and then set up another trigger to that trigger, with the condition set to the Trinity activating after hitting something. She also realised that it was possible to activate the, er, Master Runescript patterns, by proximity, but she wasn’t sure how effective it would be if it didn’t hit its target. Either way, she’d have to conjure the Trinity sunshards before she fought otherwise it would take too long.

If the manifested flying ant pattern held, after fighting off three ants, four would appear. She wasn’t sure how many she’d end up fighting, but Da can’t handle more than forty in quick succession. The ants didn’t let up as long as they were in the chamber, but she also wondered if the pattern would reset after they fled. It’s become quite clear that this was a trial space made by Siderious rather than the real Chaos lake near Synkrasia. A pity. But then, if she succeeded here, there was no reason not to do the same when she returned home.

It took a while to get the Trinity sunshard patterns into a workable form. She set the burn time to a second, with the trigger waiting for contact. When she tried it against another wall, it only had enough time to gouge a head-sized hole in the wall before disabling, though it took the sunshard with it too. She could easily control two dozen sunshards individually, but she could definitely make more than that and keep them idle. The only reason she didn’t was that the things only lasted ten to fifteen minutes at a time. So what she should do was keep half a dozen ready and build them on the fly as they get depleted. While it did take her a minute to make one, practice and a fixed pattern meant she could actually build several at the same time, though each took a strand of focus.

Maybe it would be easier later. Perhaps the Queen would continue where she left off rather than restart. In that case, they could retreat and recover at their leisure without losing progress.

Battle plans set, she started building the Trinities as they walked back towards the multi-chambered cavern, already looking forward to the challenge.

They were attacked by several Femorants on the way, but the warrior caste bugs weren’t a challenge at all.

By the time they reached the chamber, Yuriko’s heart was pounding in anticipation. Virgil stopped her just before they crossed the threshold.

“Breathe. Slowly,” he said softly. “Calm yourself. Going in nervous, angry, anxious…any of those emotions can make you lose sight of your surroundings.”

“My Anima perception allows me to be aware of everything within thirty paces,” Yuriko said cheekily.

“And you’ve never encountered anything that can blind that perception?” He said with a raised eyebrow.

“I have,” Yuriko admitted, but she was mostly teasing anyway, rather than boasting. Well, she was boasting slightly. “I know…” She added hastily before Virgil could continue to lecture her.

“Alright.” He sighed. “But relax.”

“I…I usually am. It’s just that the first time I fought a Manifestation Stage…a Knight-Commander level enemy, we had to run.”

“Who were you with?”

“I rescued Orrin and Asami. They got captured.”

“Ah. But you’re not with people who aren’t at the Knight level now.” He smiled. “I’ll be alright. Focus on what you have to do.”

“Got it,” Yuriko answered, but she was still nervous. The moment they stepped into the cavern, the attacks began. Worse luck, the attacks began from the start.

Yuriko struck the first flying ant with a Trinity sunshard. She didn’t know what to expect as she hadn’t actually used the thing against anything other than that metal elemental in the dreamscape.

Puchi!

Fwomp!

As soon as the shard hit, both were disintegrated to dust.

Yuriko blinked. That was it?

“Watch out!” Virgil yelled as two more of them flew in. Yuriko snapped to attention and used her normal shards for defence. A moment later, Virgil’s homing plasma bolts killed…well, destroyed the two. Ah, she should have made a new one!

When the three flying ants came, she used three Trinity sunshards to destroy them and simultaneously began conjuring four more.

Four flying ants came half a minute later, and Virgil destroyed two while Yuriko held off the rest. A few seconds later, Da’s plasma bolts struck the ants and annihilated them. Just in time for Yuriko’s conjuration to finish.

Five ants came. She killed them one by one, attempting to draw out how long it would take for the Queen to send more. But it made little difference

Half a minute after the last wave was sent, a new set came over. That meant she had to conjure enough Trinity shards for two waves at a time! In increasing numbers. Even while she defended against the wave Da was supposed to kill!

Gritting her teeth, Yuriko did just that. She kept the flying ants at a distance, not daring to let them close in on her or her Da. A single strike could break through her defences and probably the armour too. The other sunshards were barely a hindrance to the ants, so she summoned Fri’Avgi to hand and used the artefact to control more sunshards.

‘I’ll handle the defence!’ Fri’Avgi yelled, and Yuriko let go of the other shards.

At one point, she was building nearly two dozen Trinity shards at once, and they were fighting against fifteen flying ants. They pushed closer and closer to her body. Fri’Avgi was a sword, not a shield, and she didn’t have use of the Ender’s Waltz. It took nearly seven or eight shards to defend against a single flying ant, compared to the three that Yuriko needed, but if she controlled the defence, conjuring the Trinity would take too long.

“I’m nearly out,” Da said through gritted teeth.

“Meditate!” Yuriko said. “We’ll hold them off.”

The desperate defence pushed them back towards the tunnel. Virgil had already retreated decisively, but he still looked at Yuriko with grave concern. “Don’t take risks. If you feel you can’t, don’t push.”

Yuriko grunted. She had little intention to obey. Not unless it was completely clear that she couldn’t hold on. Still, twenty ants and counting, while she spun two dozen Trinity shards at the same time. Her mind felt hot. Steaming. She felt a sharp pain building up between her eyes, but she persevered. If they couldn’t finish this here, how long would they stay here?

Oh no.

She hit the limit to the number of Trinity shards she could conjure at the same time. The pain behind her eyes was nearly blinding, and the flying ants were nearly thirty. How could she turn this around? She was already building twenty at the same time!

Already, the next wave came before she could clear the previous one. There were five left over. Now six. Added to the rest, the pressure she was fighting against was slowly overwhelming them. What was the answer?

Sorcery? Her Radiant Lance? Perhaps if she added the Trinity to the Lance and struck the group of flying ants they would be wiped out? It was worth a try, but it might also bring the weight of the earth down on them.

With little choice, she began to power her Implement. There was more than enough ambient Chaos in the surroundings, and it moved to her call far more easily than she expected.

Radiant light burst into a blinding flash as the Lance took form. She wove a cap to the spearpoint, containing the Trinity, then began the process of merging them. In the meantime, the flying ants accumulated.

Fri’Avgi was floating in front of her, filled with Animus and Radiant energy.

But then, just before she could unleash the Lance, dozens of plasma bolts flew from behind her. And unlike the ones Da used before, these ones shattered several manifested flying ants each instead of going one for one.

When the dust settled, the Femorant Queen had stopped sending her manifestations, and Yuriko was left holding a nearly completed Trinity Radiant Lance.

Virgil walked up next to her, a smug expression on his face. He looked at the lance and said, “Think you can dissipate that before you blow us up?”

“How?” Yuriko couldn’t help but gasp.

Da smirked and said, “Well, it occurred to me that matching strength for strength was a losing proposition when we’re the weaker party. Those things, even though they’re made out of Animus, anchored and sustained by Will.” He paused dramatically. “So all we had to do was sever the connection.” He grinned at her, “You’ve got to fight smarter, young lady.”

Yuriko rolled her eyes, then sighed. He was right, of course, but it was so much easier to just fight head-on, especially when she was much stronger than those on her own level. But then again, there was no way she would reach the Chaos Duke’s level in such a short time.

“You’re right.”

“Of course, I am. Now let’s finish this trial and go home.”