“It’s a distraction,” Devotee of Radiant Fire said

“What is?” Yuriko asked, slightly confused.

“The Forge.” When Yuriko didn’t say anything else, Devotee continued. “The Waypoints and the Court. They’re just distractions. The…duke’s assets are important, both as a personal thing and as strategic points, but his stratagem has proceeded to the point wherein they are disposable.”

“You mean there’s no point in the siege?” Yuriko blurted out.

“Yes master. Whether your Empire destroys it or not has little bearing to his plans. His goal is the planar core, and it is defended weakly now.”

“So it’s a waste of time…” Yuriko mused, then shook her head. “Legate Segawa will not be willing to abandon this fight.”

Devotee snorted. “He would be foolish to allow the duke to reach his goals, but I understand.” Her expression turned sly. “Master, I know of the secret paths only my kind uses. I can bring you to the Court through a hidden path, and you can destroy it by yourself.”

For a long moment, Yuriko was tempted. Destroying the Court would allow her to return to Rumiga quickly and bring all of these forces to bear. But she shook her head. If she did that, she’d get a tonguelashing from her parents and her friends, not to mention it was incredibly reckless.

But only if she went alone.

“I can also bring you to Rumiga past the blockade,” Devotee continued, “and avoid all of these distractions. I… I think the duke is already there.”

Yuriko shuddered at that, but then, she saw him kill Zarek back then. So that news was hardly a surprise. “How many can you bring through the hidden paths?”

“Not many. Four or five, at most.”

“Tsk.” Yuriko clicked her tongue. A strike at the Court would need powerful warriors, and without Eli’Theria, heading to Rumiga would be counterproductive. Still, the intelligence about the Chaos dwellers’ stratagem was important. “Can you bring me back to the fleet?”

“Of course, please, follow me.”

Devotee got up from her knees and led her away from where she first entered the Fysalli. Yuriko took the chance to observe everything she could. Fri’Avgi was sheathed into her Anima, and her perception took in the sights as well as her second bound Chaos Lord.

Aside from how the colour of her flames changed, Devotee’s form and figure had also shifted in subtler ways. For one thing, her bosom had shrunk, her hips weren’t as voluptuous, and her muscles weren’t as prominent. Yuriko sensed that the viscount’s physique hadn’t weakened much, though it still shifted from her earlier brute force focus to a more agile bent. The woman glanced back at her and smiled enticingly.

As a Chaos Lord, Devotee’s features were always perfectly symmetrical. It was one of the things that made them unsettlingly beautiful. Unmarred, perfect forms. Unnaturally perfect. No scars save those they kept to enhance their identity. Not an excess inch of flab, though the variation of their physiques also depended on their identities.

She was slimmer than Desire, a bit less beautiful, but then, part of what made Desire attractive to Yuriko’s eye was that she still bore the face of a friend. And she was cute as a button.

Yuriko tapped her lips. The woman’s figure had taken a drastic change. Even her personal weapon was no longer a giant maul, but a blade. An arming sword, from what Yuriko could tell, and paired with heavy bracers on either forearm. From that alone Yuriko figured the woman’s battle style shifted from a focus on heavy blows to swordsmanship akin to Flowing Water Style. She wondered if Devotee still controlled flames. Though from how her hair was still a wild campfire, that was rather likely.

The Fysalli around her was a grassland with fronds as tall as her waist now. They were headed towards a grove…or perhaps it was a singular tree from how the trunks and branches seemed twisted together. The ground around it was almost barren of shrubs and grass.

Devotee walked up to the trunk and caressed one of the knots, which made the thing shudder and twist, slowly forming into a narrow opening that was barely tall enough to crawl into.

Devotee claimed up to the hole and crawled on her hands and knees. As soon as she was completely inside, Yuriko followed suit, though she didn’t crawl. Instead, she used her Animakinesis to levitate and float while horizontal. She could feel the other woman’s amusement when she glanced back.

The woodsy tunnel stretched out farther than what the outside indicated, and soon enough, they emerged into a larger chamber. From how the path twisted, it should have actually brought them towards the canopy, but the place they emerged from was a darkened cavern. They could stand here, and Devotee followed a narrow path that was illuminated by a soft light.

“Take care not to touch the darkness,” Devotee said, all while shedding enough illumination from her hair to cast a wide pool of golden light. It also revealed what was beneath their feet, which was odd since Yuriko didn’t even notice that she couldn’t perceive it a moment ago.

A narrow slice of earth, barely three inches across, spanned across a chasm. The bottom was darkness. Above was black, and even the sides were shadowed. Devotee walked across the narrow path with ease and Yuriko followed, instinctively knowing that her feet must always touch the path.

It twisted and turned, sometimes seeming to turn back on itself. But even if Yuriko looked back, she couldn’t see anything behind. It was as if the road disappeared as soon as her toes left it.

They went on for maybe an hour, before the path and the surroundings changed. Now, they were walking along a mountain ridge. One side was a sheer cliff, while the other was a gentler slope covered with fresh fallen snow. The winds whipped Yuriko’s hair to and fro and made Devotee’s flame dance.

They went downwards now, until they found themselves in a ravine, with the walls high enough to cover the ground with shadows. Yellow eyes appeared in the darkness, watching. Hostile, hungry, yearning. Yuriko glared back at them, and they flinched and disappeared while she sniffed in satisfaction.

Out of the ravine she found herself walking on ice floes drifting on a cold sea. The waves bobbed them up and down, and the path ahead were small chunks of ice barely wide enough to get a foothold. The gap between each floe was enough that it needed a good jump to cross, but thankfully, there was no prohibition to fly here. She only had to avoid falling into the water.

Devotee tossed a pebble to the waves, which turned it into a chunk of ice. She looked back to Yuriko meaningfully, and received a nod in turn.

The floes eventually led them to an icy shore, and into a forest with trees barren of leaves. Instead, purple and blue flames danced where leaves should have been, and they radiated an even more intense cold. Yuriko didn’t mind it. She barely felt it, actually, though perhaps there was just an edge of danger there. Her breath turned to steam, then to droplets of ice. And for once, her Radiant Anima did not melt the snow when it touched. She could feel the edges of it start to turn brittle, and when she brushed against one of the blue flames, parts of it shattered, sending a spike of pain that made her grunt.

Devotee whirled towards her, jaw gaping in shock.

“Ah! Don’t touch the leaves! You’ll…” Her mouth snapped shut when Yuriko retracted her Anima and cycled Radiant Anima Refinement, allowing it to recover and regenerate.

“Hmmm?” Yuriko looked at the Chaos Lord in askance, and the other woman just shook her head. This could actually be a good place to train, huh?

She did so as they followed the winding path, though Yuriko didn’t overdo it. She could feel her entire Anima come close to the breaking point after the edges of it shattered the fiftieth time, so she retracted it completely, leaving only her condensed Anima out. There was a dull ache at the back of her mind, but she felt her Radiant Anima Refinement had progressed greatly. From 50% it actually reached 75%, and her Anima had expanded by a good ten inches!

Still, she needed to rest now, otherwise her progress could regress.

As they exited the frozen forest, Yuriko vaguely realised that more time than she expected had passed. Maybe half a day? But then, it would have taken her at least a day to cross the Waypoint and return to the fleet.

The forest soon gave way to the Veil, and both of them pressed their hands against it. Yuriko took a step and found herself back into the raw Chaos Sea. Devotee exited next to her, then positioned herself half a step behind and to the left.

The battle had cooled down a bit, with fewer warriors of either side blasting away. The number of squidships was down to a thousand, and it was time for the Marchionesses to pull their trick. Yuriko was too far away to affect anything, and frankly, she wasn’t confident her strength was enough. The ritual completed, which turned the remnant squidships and the nameless to beams of darklight that shot towards the fleet. But like before, none of them actually struck anything. The beams didn’t curve, but somehow, they were just angled a bit farther to the right or left to miss.

Well, that meant it was still Mum’s turn to keep the Planar Suppression Formation running.

Yuriko covered Devotee with her Anima as they walked towards the fleet. The second part of the Marchionesses’ ritual was enacted and the squidships and nameless, as well as the fallen Behemoths, revived.

As before, they came back to life not where they had fallen, but around the ritual circle. Which meant that the battlefield had become empty for a moment. Well, except for Yuriko and Devotee, who were closing in. She felt the gazes of her allies fall to her, then towards Devotee.

Hostility and anger.

She reached back and clasped Devotee’s shoulder and the woman bowed her head. This seemed enough and the warriors as well as the cute tiger cubs, returned to their carriers.The pause in battle didn’t last too long, and by the time Yuriko reached the boundary of the formation, plasma bolts and Chaos blasts had been exchanged.

Someone flew towards her, on a small disc of silvery metal and clad in Light Infantry Armour. With the helmet’s visor down, she couldn’t tell who it was, but the man stopped a few paces away and Heron’s voice came out of the faceplate.

“Where’ve you been? And who’s this?”

Yuriko smirked. “A long story, and you can come along to hear it when I tell it to Mum and Da.”

“Alright. Need a lift?”

“I don’t mind.”

Yuriko took his hand, and grabbed Devotee’s. The backpack that was part of the personal flight system glowed with Animus as it pushed them towards the Silver Tiger. While this was the Planar Suppression Zone, Yuriko still had trouble using her Anima to float. Anyway, hitching a ride with Heron saved the two of them a lengthy walk.

By the time they arrived in the Silver Tiger’s hangar, they were met with a delegation. Aunt Kiyo was there, as was a rather frazzled looking Miya. And Desire, of course, who was now staring at her with recrimination. Her eyes darted from Yuriko to Devotee, and her eyes narrowed.

Yuriko shrugged uncomfortably and faced her aunt, who asked, “Another bound Chaos Lord?”

“Er, yes. She has critical intelligence about the Chaos Court…”

“Alright, I’ll bring you to Sadeen.”

“Let’s go, Devotee.” Yuriko said and the woman bowed humbly.

Kiyo walked next to her, glanced meaningfully at the Chaos Lord who sensibly fell back a couple of steps. Her aunt whispered, “Do not bind so many of them. The Mishala Mien is a wonderful tool, but the connection always goes both ways.”

“Alright,” Yuriko said.

Both ways, huh? Did that mean that she was as affected by all the threads connecting her to everyone her Mien touched? She didn’t feel any different, but then again, would she even notice?

And with that little bit of worry, they arrived at Mum’s chamber.