Yuriko watched the fleet from the Silver Tiger’s bridge. The luxury yacht had moved from the centre of the formation to the right edge. The converted merchant vessels hung back, while the proper warships took the lead.

Legate Jiro’s Domain was water, as far as Yuriko knew. She wasn’t certain what the limitations were, but he was able to conjure and manipulate large quantities of it even without the support of the fleet. Now, it was as if the Planar Suppression Formation had turned into a water conjuration formation or something since droplets were materialising all around the warships before they streamed towards the Green Swan.

The water droplets pooled together until they formed giant spheres, only to crunch down on themselves and shrink right back down to the size of pebbles. More and more water condensed, enlarging and crunching down. Yuriko didn’t know why the water remained liquid as she would have thought it would have turned to ice, but the Legate’s Domain was water, which was likely why the water remained liquid.

The Chaos dwellers in the distance continued to attack, but they were rebuffed by the warships in close formation. They shared the efficacy of their Protective Spheres in order to weather the storm of hostile energies. From her angle, she could see the spheres ripple as kinetic force slammed into them. The ripples spread across the line of ships until they weakened and disappeared.

“Why don’t they keep to this kind of tactic?” Yuriko muttered to herself before she worked out the reasons why. “Hmmm, closer together means easier to hit en masse?”

Gwendith, who’d been sitting next to her, met her gaze, before turning back to the bridge’s monitor.

There were now sixty condensed water marbles surrounding the Green Swan. The rate of growth and condensation had tapered off, and the water orbs were steadily growing larger until they were bigger than the Chaos warship.

The battlefield seemed to freeze, as every combatant’s gaze was drawn towards them. She could practically imagine Legate Segawa’s stately form, with his arms upraised while he sat on his command throne. Then, with a flick of his wrists, the orbs crunched down one last time and then shot towards the Chaos dwellers.

Yuriko’s gaze snapped towards the opposing fleet. The days of heavy fighting and reinforcement had only whittled down their forces by a third. But the very first water marble careened into their midst, then violently expanded.

Boom!

An explosive blast shattered the very Chaos surrounding them, leaving nothing but void. The squidships caught in the blast were either annihilated if they were close to the epicentre, or violently thrown away. She counted at least twenty ships and three Behemoths dead or wounded by that single blast alone.

Yet, even Legate Segawa’s prowess wasn’t enough to wipe out an army within their place of power. If those Chaos dwellers had been struck within the plane, then far more than twenty would have perished. Perhaps all of them.

Even with fifty-nine more water marbles, Jiro could only wipe out half the fleet. She didn’t know how long he could keep up the bombardment, though she presumed he would not exhaust himself and leave the fleet unprotected.

It was why the Knight Domini didn’t fight armies alone. If they did and they were attacked by a warrior of the same level, they would be disadvantaged. And as far as Yuriko knew, there were three Marchionesses to two Knights Domini in the fleet.

And they were planning on splitting their forces, too.

Yuriko couldn’t help but think that this might have been a mistake. But then, this attack was only one of the opening gambits. She knew that an elite squad, made up of Knight Captains who each led a thousand-man cohort, would be with Devotee as they snuck their way into the enemy’s rear. A decapitation strike.

In the meantime, she knew that leaving the events in Rumiga alone would lead to disaster. But her heart pulled at her in different directions. Stay here and fight, or go home and fight the battle there. Rumiga did have Legate Iola Brygos, who led Legion Agminis. But even she could not face a Chaos Duke alone.

The bombardment continued, and Jiro subtly focused on the enemy’s left flank. When a quarter of his water marbles were expended, he gathered half of the remaining and flung them straight towards the side. The resulting explosion created a void so wide that it revealed the yawning Abyss within it. A mere reflection, she hoped.

“Move,” Sadeen said, and Captain Larisse Mishala complied.

As the Silver Tiger accelerated, Yuriko felt herself momentarily pressed against her seat’s backrest. The Chaos yacht skirted the edges of the void, and even as she watched the dweller’s ritual complete, and the Chaos Marchionesses appear to resurrect the dead, they were past the blockade.

A simple solution to the blockade. A single ship to push through…

But…

The Chaos Marchioness that came out of the portal was not the first one, She Who Divines Secrets. Instead, it was the last Chaos Marchioness, the one with striated black and white hair, the one called Herald of Madness.

For a moment, Yuriko thought that she met with the creature’s gaze, even though her face was concealed by a mask.

She was struck with a sudden realisation. One was called Mistress of the Past. The second was the Lady of the Everpresent Dark. Though the last was called Herald of Madness, there was a second part to her sobriquet yet unrevealed. Yuriko knew it now. Witness of Endings.

And what was it that the Marchioness saw that made her smile?

___________

The river Caradec remained placid for most of the year. It was only when the storms came during the Season of Air that the currents sped up. Mostly due to the run-off from the Zarek Mountains. For as surely as that mountain range protected Western Rumiga from the ravages of Chaos storms, it also built up ice and snow. And when the ice caps melted, either due to unseasonal heat or perhaps a Chaos storm blew much higher than usual, they collapsed and flooded the headwaters.

Faron’s Crossing was built on both sides of the river as it came across the Imperial Pass. The river walls had been high enough to protect the rest of the town from the floods, but sometimes, the flooding grew worse. Right now, the Caradec was both the town’s source of fresh water and food. The fields lay barren for a year now. The Haveenians and Kadracki made sure that none of those fields would be sown.

Perhaps the Kadracki could have circled beyond the town and poisoned the river, or perhaps they could have blocked it off. Dammed it up or diverted it. But therein lies the problem. If they so much as tried, it would be an affront to the land gods. The very beings that they worshipped. But more than that, the very beings that they feared.

While the river Caradec did not host an Avos, its headwaters were in the territory of a particularly touchy one.

Along the banks of the Caradec, near an oxbow lake, the waters churned to a frothy white. A moment later…

Sploosh!

Thud, thud, th-thud!

“Ow.” Krystal gasped, then coughed the water out of her lungs. Several minutes underwater had not been easy, and she had come quite close to passing out from not breathing. All of her attempts at deploying her Field technique had been stymied by her tumultuous mind, and having a shaky Will was a sure recipe for failure.

She rolled on the muddy riverbank, ignoring how the mud stank and how it stuck to her hair and her clothes. No. She was more concerned with how the spatially expanded bags survived the dunking and whether the supplies they’d carefully packed in them survived the trip. The bag was sealed but under the heavy stress of combat and an underwater trip? Maybe the insides held more water than food by now. Still, she didn’t check even though she very much wanted to. No, she had to address the giant boar who’d saved them all.

“Avos Shillogu…” She managed to gasp before anyone else regained their wits. Honestly, it was only she and Mikel who’d met the august Avos.

The giant boar was taller at the shoulder than even Kale, and his back was covered in greenish tentacles that were slowly retracting. Shillogu turned his huge head to behold her, and his dark pupils widened in recognition.

“Hrmmmm, I know you.”

Krystal got to her feet and offered a polite bow. The others gathered their scattered wits and proceeded to do the same. Team Leader Kinnock looked like he wanted to say something, but words wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

“Avos Shillogu, we thank you,” Krystal coughed.

“Hrmmm, I didn’t do it for you,” Shillogu said bluntly. “Those rotting Chaos Lords and their puppets! I will not let this invasion last much longer! Prepare your people, mine will come.” And with that, the porcine Avos jumped back into the river and vanished into its depths, leaving the ten sodden Imperials looking lost.

“Er, so what now?” Mikel grunted.

“What else?” Krystal snorted, “We continue our original mission.” She glanced at Kale who was still gaping at the river. “Team leader!”

“Huh, what? A talking pig…”

Krystal and Mikel glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. “Haven’t you seen Avos before?” Mikel snickered.

“Huh…sure, but not pigs.”

“Avos Shillogu is a boar,” Krystal said in a snit, “and he saved our lives.”

“Huh. Right.” Kale shook his head, sat back down into the muddy riverbanks and covered his eyes with his palm. He stayed there for a long while, and his shield brother simply sat next to him.

In the meantime, Krystal was delighted to find out that the bags were indeed properly sealed and that she was not carrying a hundred Ren of river water along with rations and other supplies. Still, they shouldn’t stay here too long.

They spent a few more minutes just recovering and relishing the fact that they were alive and free. Kale’s shoulders shuddered a few times, but none of them said a word. Finally, after half an hour, he got up and nodded to the others. “Miss Zoryn, you have the lead.”

“Aye,” Krystal answered easily.

She closed her eyes and activated her Facet and her Ennoia. But unlike the last few times, nothing she saw posed much of a danger. However, there was always that underlying sense of impending doom. One that she’d felt for years, but wasn’t detailed enough to really work on. She shuddered as that sense suddenly spiked, but then, settled to its normal level. Strange.

“Clear path. But we have to hurry now,” Krystal said though the latter wasn’t really that necessary. Still, she thought that a little bit of urgency would get the rest out of their low mood.

The walls of Faron’s Crossing were within sight so it was only a matter of an hour, at most, to get there. The ten of them jogged along the riverbank, while Krystal kept an eye out for Kadracki Rangers. The last thing they needed now was to be intercepted and forced into another pitched battle.

Thankfully, there was no sign of the Federation’s forces.

Krystal hummed to herself, thinking about the last time they actually fought the Haveenians. Was it several weeks ago? She couldn’t quite recall. The outposts and camps still surrounded Faron’s Crossing, and the Kadracki still sent their rangers on patrol and harassment every now and then, but when was the last time they attacked the town?

Perhaps they wised up. They weren’t even shelling the Protective Dome all that often nowadays. Still, the town’s marksmen sniped any Federation warrior whenever they showed themselves, which also meant few attempted to come close.

They were quietly being starved out. Even with the river, it just wasn’t enough to feed the populace, especially since the outlying villagers had taken refuge.

Soon enough, they managed to reach the gates and were welcomed with cheers. Still, there was a quiet, desperate edge to the voices, and Krystal didn’t know what else she could do.