With her Animakinesis, Yuriko reached for the once-captive sailors. Those that perished from exposure, she could do nothing about. But the ones who were starting to change, and the ones who were resisting with all their might, those she could still help. She brought them towards one of the merchant ships that still had an intact Protective Sphere, bypassed it, and deposited the sailors on deck.

“Bring them to the healers,” she commanded. The sailors on deck, still a bit shocked from the vicious assault, nodded.

As she swept her gaze across the battlefront, Yuriko stretched her Anima reach. With Eli’Theria, her thirty paces was boosted all the way to three hundred. Her Anima felt thin though, farther out than thirty, as though the excess wasn’t truly hers but a pale imitation converted out of ambient Chaos.

With a start, she realised that was what it was. Ambient Chaos altered to the same…hmmm, frequency, as her Anima. She could reach through it, control it, and even condense it. But only by a tiny bit. She wasn’t onboard Eli’Theria long enough to begin weaving runescript into her extended Anima, but she thought it was possible. Too bad she couldn’t devote hours to building up her runescript weavings.

Absently, her perception examined the Colossus as well as the surroundings. Eli’Theria’s Chaos Converters were arrayed at the back of her waist, with the intake valves hidden and protected by several flaps. Ambient Chaos went in and was moved towards the Converters, where they were attuned and changed to Animus, quite similar to how she and the others breathed in ambient Chaos and turned it into Animus within their cores. From there, the Animus was funneled to Engines which circulated them around the Colossus’ body.

‘Stop that!’ Eli’Theria squeaked. ‘Don’t peek into my body!’

‘Ehehehe. Sorry.’ Yuriko stuck out her tongue.

Another strand of consciousness considered how she would fight while onboard. Fri’Avgi was materialised and in Ignition mode, but her sword shards were slotted into several points within Eli’Theria too. The artefact greatsword’s ability to draw Chaos towards her bearer was a moot point here in the Chaos Sea. There was more than enough here to Shape.

She started building sunshards, making them just a tiny bit larger than usual to match Eli’Theria’s size. A few moments later, Yuriko realised that when she built sixty shards, the feeling that she couldn’t control more wasn’t present. Boosted by both artefact and Colossus, she continued to materialise more and more shards until she managed to make and control three hundred sunshards.

Radiant energy blazed as it took in the ambient Chaos. The sunshards would strike harder, she knew, but would also burn out faster.

Her place on the battlefield was mostly clear of squidships after Mum’s attack, so she propelled Eli’Theria towards the right, heading towards another group of converted merchant ships beleaguered by five times as many squidships. She pushed the sunshards towards the Chaos dwellers, and the same ratio between her Anima reach and how far she could control her sunshards existed. Nine hundred paces.

But battles in the Chaos Sea distorted the distance and time between each group. Temporal distortion was ameliorated by the linked Animus Engines of each Chaos ship, but the squidships seemed to enhance the distortions. What felt like five hundred paces was actually closer to a thousand five hundred. She had to fly a lot closer before she could affect the battle, but as soon as they came within reach, she rained fiery death upon them.

Sunshards struck as a wave, hitting the closest squidship before flowing back to regain momentum. Sparkles of Radiant energy burst from the impact points, leaving gaping holes at the living ship’s side. The creature cried out which sent a wave of cacophonous disruption all over it. The merchant ship it was attacking had its Protective trembling, with wide cracks forming across its surface. The next squidship wasn’t able to capitalise on that gap, as Yuriko’s sunshards swept over it too. And the next and the next.

The Radiant energy within the shards was quickly depleted, but in exchange, she was able to deal far more damage. The shards penetrated into their bodies and cooked them from the inside, but it took hundreds of sunshards to kill one squidship, and aside from the first one, which was struck with successive waves, the rest limped back.

The Chaos dwellers riding it shot bursts of incandescent light at the sunshards, and upon interception, the Radiant energy burnt away their attack, but only at the cost of the sunshard’s integrity. After three or four interceptions, a sunshard would unravel from lack of energy.

That was fine. Yuriko spun more into existence even as she drove Eli’Theria closer. The sunshards took too long to bring down a squidship, she thought. It took several waves before one could be brought down, and more often than not, the ships retreated rather than face catastrophic death. The Chaos dwellers’ forces could afford to allow retreat, as they outnumbered the Imperial navy nearly tenfold. So, she had to strike decisively. Preferably, she’d down them in one stroke.

She was far from the centre line, but she could see how the formal navy fought. The battleships, carriers, and cruisers focused plasma fire on each squidship, seeking to destroy them before they could retreat, but they weren’t always successful. She saw that other squidships would put their own bodies on the line to shield their stricken fellow and bring them to the back to recuperate. Even so, it wasn’t as if the Plasma Carronades held that much of a decisive edge. The squidships were like Wyldlings when they invaded a plane. They had a Protective Field too, only instead of keeping their Chaos away from the plane’s siphoning, it was focused more on defense.

In fact, she realised that it was the Imperial ships that were in the same situation as Wyldlings in a plane. Their Protective Spheres kept their sailors and marines from succumbing to the Chaos Sea, and even a small crack could eventually prove deadly. Still, focus firing had brought down the squidship numbers, just not quickly enough.

Then the Green Swan and her sister ships, along with the Silver Tiger entered the fray. A lance of incandescent light blasted from the Tiger’s prow and carved up a couple of squidships at once. A fusillade of plasma fire blasted out from the sides, but they were aimed more to drive the attacking ships away than to destroy.

The Legion Vagaris rallied the Imperial navy. The temporary legion must not have a Knight Dominus, Yuriko thought, otherwise, they wouldn’t have fallen under Legate Segawa’s command so easily.

The battleships and cruisers moved around the Green Swan, giving the Vagaris flagship room at the front.

In the meantime, Yuriko finally decided that she wanted to use a greatsword to fight. She was all set to manifest one out of Radiant energy and Animus when Eli’Theria said, ‘Engage armaments.’

From the Colossus’ left gauntlet, strands of golden metal shot out over the wrist. They twisted into an approximation of a sideblade in proportion to Eli’Theria, while the right gauntlet shot out a similar length of golden alloy. The blades weren’t that sharp though, at least compared to a human-sized creation. But that was what Empowered Strike was for.

Yuriko’s sword dances recognised the weapons for what they were, and when she circulated the dances’ pattern within herself, then within the Colossus’ body, golden Animus covered the weapons and gave them a Radiant edge.

It wasn’t a greatsword but Yuriko had trained and used dual swords longer anyway. The Chaos beneath Eli’Theria’s boot solidified to give them traction and they lunged towards a squidship. Not one that was currently being harried by her sunshards, but at another that was trying to give aid.

The Colossus was dwarfed by the Chaos dwellers’ vessel, but by sheer force of Will and magnitude of Intent, it was they who cowered. Eli’Theria bounced off momentary footholds, and once she came close, Yuriko’s third dance cleaved through the squidship’s Protective Field as though it was butter. The blade edged with Radiant Animus parted thick hide and flesh with ease, and the squidship was cut in half.

Bluish blood spurted from the mortal wound, along with a cloud of inky darkness that corrosively clung to Yuriko’s Anima. She flinched at the burning sensation but bore through the pain.

‘Pull your Anima back!’ Eli’Theria yelled, and Yuriko obeyed, leaving only the converted Chaos that served to boost her Anima outside. She could feel cracks within her Anima reach, but even as she watched, they were already starting to heal.

She felt a prodding from within her mind, though oddly, Damien didn’t actually speak. Ah. Radiant Anima Refinement. She was technically already doing some form of it back then, but the proper Refinement required her to create runescript mandalas threaded with Radiant energy. Those packets should take the place of distilled Chaos that was used to fill in the cracks in her Anima, and the process should continue until her Anima changed from being neutrally aspected to one which leant towards her Ennoia.

She hastily formed one of the mandalas and sent it towards the wounds. She watched it melt into her Anima and somehow ‘stain’ the already golden light into a deeper golden colour. It wasn’t really all that noticeable, but there was a difference. However, the change was minute compared to the rest of her reach.

‘Are you alright?’ Eli’Theria asked worriedly, ‘Ancients and their pseudo Domains.’ The animating spirit snorted. ‘You take such a risky path. What if your Anima breaks down instead of strengthening when it encounters something too strong for your Ennoia to overcome…oh what am I saying? Your Ennoia is Radiant light. The All-consuming Sun.’ Yuriko felt the spirit shake her head. ‘Take care not to burn to ashes on your journey, young Ancient.’

Yuriko answered, ‘I will be careful.’ Though it was an absentminded reply. There was no turning back from the Ancient’s Way and she would walk it to Exaltation.

While parts of her consciousness were preoccupied with Radiant Anima Refinement, the rest of her mind remained focused on the battle. Eli’Theria darted towards the next squidship and cut it in twain. Its acidic blood and the inky corruption spread throughout the nearby Chaos flows, turning though Yuriko was sure they wouldn’t last long. The sheer corrosiveness of raw Chaos would quickly denature whatever this was, especially once it was devoid of Intent and Will. Still, she expanded some of her Anima and allowed it to touch the caustic stew, then she pulled it back to heal over with the mandalas.

The process was so reminiscent of how she first trained her Anima reach that she couldn’t help but smile. What was pain anyway but a byproduct of her strengthening process? If this was how she grew in power, then she would bear as much pain as she could.

By the time the third squidship was dead, the rest of the shoal had fled. Their sides flashed with different colours, and as one squidship flashed a pattern, another took it up, until the entire battlefront was awash with scintillating reds, blues, and greens.

A glance back at the middle showed her that Green Swan and the rest had formed a large circular formation, with destroyers floating above the Equilibrium line, while the larger battleships had descended to a few hundred paces beneath. The Green Swan, the Silent Jade Falcon, and the Fortuitous Stone were in a triangular formation, with the Swan forming the point.

Then, almost as one, each ship shot out a beam of light, that connected it to the next Imperial navy ship. Each one touched sent out several beams that formed a complex mandala that Yuriko could barely make out the meaning of.

Less than a minute later, even as the ships’ formation weathered the squidships bombardment, the mandala completed. A ripple of force originating from the Swan spread out across the battlefield. The Chaos rippled and trembled, and Yuriko sensed that the raw Chaos was struggling and resisting.

Then, a bright light encompassed everything, and by the time she could see, the squidships were floundering back.

But a closer look revealed that they hadn’t been damaged in any way. Their Protective Fields were still whole, and they still floated on the Chaos Sea at Equilibrium…

But then, a plasma bolt from one of the converted merchant ships splashed against a squidship’s Field. And instead of being able to resist several bolts at once, this one particular bolt, that wasn’t all that much different from any of the bolts that came from the Carronades, pierced a hole into the Field.

Then, it was as if the squidship’s Chaos was siphoned away. She could actually see the creature being wrung dry.

‘Planar Suppression.’ Mum’s voice sounded quite satisfied. And very much restored. ‘Good job, my dear.’

Yuriko felt her Mum seeking control over Eli’Theria’s Domain augmenters and she reluctantly let go. Well, most of the squidships nearby had already retreated, so there was only the rest of the enemy fleet in the distance. They were all that stood against her return to Rumiga.